Month: October 2018

About 50,000 NATO personnel from 31 NATO and partner countries are springing to action Thursday at the start of the alliance’s Trident Juncture exercise, its largest drills since the end of the Cold War.

The massive exercise takes place in and around Norway and involves about 65 ships, 250 aircraft and 10,000 vehicles.

‘We are ready’

NATO’s Command Senior Enlisted Leader for Allied Command Operations, Command Sgt. Maj. Davor Petek, told VOA in an exclusive interview that the large-scaled defensive games send a “very simple message.”

“We are ready, and we are capable to meet any possible security threat coming to our NATO borders,” he said. “Nobody’s willing to mess with an alliance that has so much potential, so much capability.”

WATCH: Sgt. Maj. Davor Petek

Russia invited

NATO said the drills are not an act of aggression, and the exercise’s commander said the alliance has invited Russia to observe.

“I’m happy that we have observers because they’re going to see that we’re very good at what we do. And that will have a deterrent effect on anybody who wants to cross those borders, but one nation in particular,” U.S. Navy Adm. James Foggo, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Naples, told reporters at the Pentagon earlier this month.

The exercise comes with Russia and the West still bitterly divided over Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, with some NATO countries worried Moscow may try to encroach on their sovereign land.

NATO funding

It also comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has slammed NATO for benefiting Europe more than the United States.

NATO members have committed to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024, but just nine of the military alliance’s 29 members are expected to reach or surpass that amount this year.

Petek told VOA Trident Juncture helps display NATO’s readiness and its commitment to stick together.

“It’s just an alliance that’s been there for a long, long time — over 70 years — but I’d say it was never probably as active and determined as it is right now in this point of time,” he said.

Trident Juncture is expected to run through Nov. 7.
…

Russian State Duma lawmakers on Tuesday passed new legislation that would expand the federal government’s ability to ban foreign nongovernmental organizations accused of meddling in Russian elections. 

The legislation builds on a series of Russian laws that in 2012 began targeting “undesirable” activities, mainly by foreign advocacy groups, nonprofit organizations and news media outlets. The “undesirable” designation bans them from operating inside Russia, with any violation punishable by fines and jail time. 

In 2017, Russia warned nine U.S. government-funded news operations — including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and seven separate regional outlets — that they would probably be designated “foreign agents” under legislation drafted in retaliation against a U.S. demand that Kremlin-supported television station RT register as such in the United States.  

Under Russian law, being declared a foreign agent requires designees to regularly disclose their objectives, full details of finances, funding sources and staffing. 

According to Riga-based online news portal Meduza, Tuesday’s expanded legislation, authored by deputies of all legislative parties, defines election meddling as any activities that “create obstacles to nominating or electing candidates or voting in referenda.” 

“Russian citizens who continue working for these banned groups risk criminal penalties,” Meduza reported. “Currently, Russia has designated 15 undesirable organizations, including the National Endowment for Democracy, the Open Society Foundation, the Open Russia Civic Movement and the German Marshall Fund.” 

Stephen Nix, Eurasia director for the Washington-headquartered International Republican Institute, said the latest legislation further restricted civil society space and open dialogue in Russia. 

“IRI closed our office in Moscow a few years prior to receiving the ‘undesirable’ designation in 2016, so it did not directly affect our work, since we had already left the country,” Nix told VOA’s Russian service in a prepared statement Wednesday.  

“In recent years, the Kremlin’s practice of issuing these designations has severely undermined the already limited civil society space in Russia,” he added. “This most recent bill is a clear attempt to deflect attention away from the Kremlin’s brazen and malignant interference in elections abroad as part of its campaign to undermine democracies around the world. Now more than ever, it is crucial that democracies speak out against these practices, the chief victims of which are the Russian people.” 

This story originated in VOA’s Russian service.  
…

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ban single-use plastic products such as straws, eating utensils and coffee sticks across the European Union.

The measure passed 571 to 53, with 34 abstentions.

If approved by the European Commission — the EU executive — and individual states, the ban would become law in 2021.

Supporters say plastics are a major source of pollution that chokes oceans, litters cities, and can take decades to disintegrate.

Some U.S. cities have moved to ban plastic straws in restaurants after a heartbreaking video of a wildlife rescuer pulling a straw out of a turtle’s bloody nose was posted on the internet earlier this year.

A consortium of European plastics manufacturers called the EU bill “disproportionate” and said banning single-use plastics discourages investment into new ways to recycle.

The EU plastics bill also includes deadlines for reducing or recycling other plastics such as bottles, fishing lines, food wrappers, and cigarette filters.

 
…

Dozens of migrants clashed with Bosnian police Wednesday while trying to cross from Bosnia into Croatia and enter the European Union.

Shouting “Open borders!” the migrants surged through one Bosnian police cordon before being stopped by another outside a border crossing in northwestern Bosnia.

Several people appeared to have been hurt amid the skirmishes as the migrants refused to leave and blocked traffic.

“We are refugees,” one man from Iran said. “We want to leave this country.”

Croatian police said they put up a fence on their side of the border to block the migrants from entering. They said two officers were slightly injured by rocks thrown by migrants.

Bosnian police earlier stopped some 100 migrants from getting off a train that arrived in the area early Wednesday. Officers organized their transfer to a migrant center in the capital of Sarajevo.

Police also turned back buses with migrants Wednesday to curb any new arrivals.

“Any increase in the numbers of migrants without adequate housing presents a potential security threat,” said regional police commissioner Mujo Koricic.

Thousands of migrants have been staying in northwestern Bosnia — many camping out in the open — while trying to cross into Croatia and journey onward to other EU countries. War-ravaged Bosnia has struggled with the influx, and some citizens have staged protests to demand a better humanitarian response from officials.

Migrants have walked to the Croatian border to draw attention to the borders remaining closed for people fleeing war and poverty. Dozens, including children, have spent the past two nights out in the open.
…

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that allies blame Russia for violating an important Cold War-era missile treaty but he does not expect them to deploy more nuclear warheads in Europe in response.

U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, saying Russia is violating it.

The European Union says the pact is a cornerstone of European security and is urging Russia and the United States to uphold it, but Stoltenberg did not encourage the U.S., the biggest and most influential member of NATO, to stay in the treaty.

“I don’t foresee that allies will deploy more nuclear weapons in Europe as a response to the new Russian missile,” Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels. But he noted that the 29 allies are assessing “the implications of the new Russian missile for our security.”

As tensions mount over Russia’s missile development, the country’s defense minister warned that Moscow could be forced to respond to increased NATO military activities near its western border.

NATO on Thursday officially launches its Trident Juncture war games in Norway, its biggest maneuvers since the Cold War. Russia, which shares a border with Norway, has been briefed by NATO on the exercises and invited to monitor them, but the move has still angered Moscow.

“NATO’s military activities near our borders have reached the highest level since the Cold War times,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday, noting that the war games will be “simulating offensive military action.”

The NATO maneuvers in Norway will involve around 50,000 personnel, 65 ships, 250 aircraft and 10,000 vehicles in hypothetical scenario that involves restoring Norway’s sovereignty after an attack by a “fictitious aggressor.”

The exercises come just weeks after Russia held its biggest post-Cold War military exercises in cooperation with China.

While concerned about Russia’s new missile system, Stoltenberg pointed out that he does not expect a repeat of the so-called “Euromissiles crisis” in the 1980s when the United States deployed cruise missiles in Europe to counterbalance a perceived threat from Russia’s SS-20 nuclear warheads.

The United States insists that the new Russian system — known as the 9M729 — contravenes the 1987 INF treaty and NATO allies agree that is probably the case. The pact between Moscow and Washington bans an entire class of weapons — all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range from 500-5,500 kilometers (310-3,410 miles).

Experts say the Russian system would operate at lower altitudes, making it tough to detect and bring down. It could also reach targets across Europe and even the U.S. west coast if stationed in Siberia.

“The INF is a landmark treaty, but the problem is that no treaty can be effective, can work, if it’s only respected by one” side, Stoltenberg said, noting that the “U.S. is in full compliance.”

He said, based on U.S. intelligence and Russia’s reluctance to discuss the missile system with NATO, “the most plausible explanation is that Russia is in violation of the treaty.”

Asked whether he thought the United States should stick with it, Stoltenberg said: “The challenge, the problem, is the Russian behavior which we have seen over many years.”

In Berlin, Germany’s foreign minister urged his Russian counterpart to do everything possible to preserve the treaty. The foreign ministry said Heiko Maas told Russia’s Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday that this includes clearing up the allegations that Moscow has violated the pact.

The ministry said Maas reminded Lavrov of the significance of the INF for “the European security architecture” — echoing a point that he made a day earlier in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Maas called on Pompeo to coordinate further steps closely with Washington’s European partners.

Speaking on a trip to Belarus, Russia’s neighbor and ally, Russian defense minister Shoigu warned that Poland’s plan to permanently host a U.S. army division would affect regional stability and trigger a Russian response. He warned that Moscow will have to “take retaliatory measures to neutralize possible military threats.”

Russia-West relations have sunk to new lows since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

In Norway on Tuesday, four U.S. soldiers were hurt, none of them seriously, in a vehicle accident while their convoy was delivering cargo for the military exercise.

 
…

The figures tell one story; gay activists fear another.

But nobody disputes that Paris has suffered a string of homophobic attacks in recent months, with gay men set upon in a chic inner-city neighborhood and a trans prostitute shot dead in a popular cruising spot in the French capital.

Yet police say their data show a strong drop in homophobic attacks, so the mood among activists has turned angry, fear of the what-next jostling with frustration at perceived inaction by authorities in a city with a reputation for tolerance.

Sitting in the lounge of Paris’s LGBT Centre, 68-year-old activist Arnaud Rault told Reuters he felt “on edge” following the rise in anti-gay violence.

“We saw August as a signal,” Rault said, referring to the murder of Vanesa Campos, a Peruvian transgender prostitute who was shot dead in Paris’ Bois du Boulogne.

Earlier this month, two men were harassed and beaten by a Paris taxi driver for kissing in his cab in the “city of love.”

The couple immediately pressed charges.

Police have logged a 37 percent drop in reports of LGBT+ related attacks during the first nine months of this year, with 74 incidents reported against 118 in the same period of 2017.

However, activists say the numbers do not tell the whole story as many assaults go unreported.

“[The police figures] are not representative, since not all victims of LGBT violence file an official complaint,” said Joel Deumier, president of SOS Homophobie.

The organization, which runs a free hotline service so LGBT+ victims of assault can report the attacks anonymously, said it had received a 15 percent increase in calls over the past year.

In response, the Paris Prefecture told Reuters that its job was to “collect statistics based on reported assaults.” As for providing any additional numbers, the police said “that’s where the work of NGOs comes in.”

According to SOS Homophobie’s 2018 report on homophobia in France, one LGBT+ person is assaulted every three days.

​Take to the streets

More than 3,000 people — including members of French President Emmanuel Macron’s government — gathered Sunday in Paris to denounce the violence and demand action.

“The government must take concrete measures to contain this wave of homophobia,” said Deumier, who demanded the government increase its annual 500,000 euros ($570,000) budget allocated toward fighting anti-LGBT+ hate.

Addressing the crowd, Guillaume Melanie, president of Urgence Homophobie, an organization that helps LGBT+ people to seek asylum in France, recounted how he had been assaulted just days earlier in an attack that had left his nose broken.

“I didn’t steal anything, I didn’t insult anyone, I didn’t attack anyone. I’m just homosexual,” Melanie told Reuters at the demonstration.

Melanie says he was punched in the face and verbally harassed while leaving a restaurant in the Marais, an elegant Paris district with a strong gay culture.

Shortly after posting about his assault on social media, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the recent series of homophobic attacks “calls for a collective action.”

The deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire, who attended Sunday’s rally, said he and Hidalgo would meet a number of LGBT+ associations, police representatives and other government organizations over the coming weeks to work out next steps.

They would seek to establish a response to what he called the “resurgence of homophobic violence.”

Possible extension of gay rights

The attacks come as France considers legalizing assisted reproduction for gay women — a campaign promise by the centrist president. The move would mark a significant extension of gay rights in France, where violent protests preceded the legalization of same-sex marriage and adoption by homosexual couples in 2013.

France’s gender equality minister Marlene Schiappa insisted the Macron government was working to suppress the current spate of violence.

“The state is with them,” she told a television reporter.

“Homophobia is not an opinion, you do not have the right in France to threat, aggress, insult or discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation.”
…

A prominent nuclear weapons expert says White House threats to pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty are diplomatically shortsighted, potentially dangerous and politically risky for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections.

Calling the landmark 1987 missile treaty a key part of European and international security for over 30 years, Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said while there have been concerns about Russia’s compliance with the agreement, U.S. withdrawal would shift blame for the collapse of the treaty from Moscow, “where it belongs,” to Washington.

His comments came shortly after U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Kremlin officials in Moscow.

“The other reason why this is problematic is that the United States and Russia have not exhausted the diplomatic options to resolve this conflict,” Kimball said, pointing out that Bolton’s Moscow visit is only the third U.S.-Russia meeting under the current administration.

“One of the available options that should be tried is mutual transparency visits by Russian experts to U.S. missile interceptor sites in Romania, and U.S. technical expert inspections of the 9M729 missiles that the U.S. is concerned about in Russia,” Kimball said.

U.S. officials, including Trump, accuse Russia of ground-launching an 9M729 cruise missile in violation of the treaty in 2014, a charge long denied by Russia, which says U.S. missile defense systems in Europe violate the agreement.

“Both sides are going to have to try harder to work out a diplomatic solution,” Kimball added. “I think if the two sides have the necessary political will, it’s possible, and the INF treaties can be preserved.”

Bolton, who said he was in Moscow as part of Trump’s commitment to improve security cooperation with Russia, had earlier hinted the arms control pact with Russia is outdated. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF accord in 1987, which bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range from 500 to 5,000 kilometers (310-3,100 miles).

“Because intermediate-range missiles have a very short flight time to their targets, they’re especially destabilizing,” Kimball told VOA’s Russian Service. “Because there’s very little warning time, it can lead to instability in a crisis, which is why Reagan and Gorbachev eliminated them in the 1980s.”

Addressing reporters in Moscow, Bolton said he believes Cold War-era bilateral treaties are no longer relevant because now other countries are also building missiles. 

At recent political campaign rally in Nevada, Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China, which is not part of the INF treaty, do. He then proposed having China join the treaty, an idea that Kimball calls highly unlikely.

The U.S. and Russia, said Kimball, “would love to have China in this INF agreement.”

“Why? Because about two-thirds of China’s nuclear arsenal is deployed on short, medium, or intermediate-range missiles,” Kimball said. “That’s because of geography, because of the way China deploys its relatively small nuclear arsenal. So, that would be a win for the U.S. and Russia, and a loss for China.”

Asked if he expects the administration to withdraw formally, Kimball was skeptical.

“The past few weeks, the United States government has been discussing what to do with respect to the treaty. I think that Bolton, if he’s smart, he would have gone to Moscow to say, ‘Look, we’re not going to let this problem linger for too much longer. We may withdraw from this treaty if you, Russia, don’t take the following steps,'” Kimball said. “But I think Donald Trump — with his penchant for tough rhetoric — may have jumped the gun a little bit when he said on Saturday that we will terminate the INF treaty.”

In Russia, state media such as RIA Novosti cited anonymous sources offering similar interpretations of Trump’s rhetoric, which they dismissed as midterm election rally grandstanding, where politicians can score political points for appearing tough on Russia.

Although European leaders have supported U.S. efforts to bring Russia into compliance with the treaty and called on the Russian government for greater technical transparency with its arsenal, they have largely resisted U.S. withdrawal.

“The INF contributed to the end of the Cold War and constitutes a pillar of European security architecture since it entered into force 30 years ago,” said a spokesperson for the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, in a prepared statement issued Monday.

“Thanks to the INF treaty, almost 3,000 missiles with nuclear and conventional warheads have been removed and verifiably destroyed,” the statement said. “The world doesn’t need a new arms race that would benefit no one and on the contrary would bring even more instability.”

French President Emmanuel Macron raised the issue with Trump by phone the morning after the Nevada rally to “underline the importance of this treaty, especially with regards to European security,” according to a statement by the French ministry that called “on all the parties to avoid any hasty unilateral decisions, which would be regrettable.”

Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, hailed Trump’s proposed withdrawal as “the right move.”

“Russia has been cheating on this treaty for years, and there was no hope of getting Moscow to return to compliance,” he said in an Atlantic Council blog post. “It doesn’t make sense for the United States to be unilaterally constrained by limits that don’t affect any other country.”

A Putin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and that Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

Addressing reporters in Moscow, Bolton said he discussed Russian meddling in U.S. elections with Putin, calling it counterproductive for Russia. He also said Trump looked forward to meeting Putin in Paris on Nov. 11.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. 
…

The Trump administration appears determined to pull out of a key 1987 arms control agreement with Russia, in the wake of talks Tuesday between national security adviser John Bolton and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by deploying missiles in Europe.

Bolton called Russian violations “long and deep.”

“The threat is is not America’s INF withdrawal from the treaty. The threat is Russian missiles already deployed,” Bolton said. “The American position is that Russia is in violation. Russia’s position is that they are not in violation. So, one has to ask how to ask the Russians to come back into compliance with something that don’t think they are violating.”

Bolton told reporters after the talks that formal notice of a withdrawal would be filed “in due course.”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in 1987. It bans the United States and Russia from building, testing and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

U.S. officials going back to the Obama administration have accused Russia of deliberately deploying a land-based cruise missile to pose a threat to NATO.

Trump said the United States would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China — which is not part of the INF Treaty — did.

Bilateral treaties outdated?

Bolton hinted the INF deal with Russia might have run its course and that bilateral Cold War treaties might not apply to the current global security environment when other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, have also developed missiles.

Russia denies violating the INF pact and says it is U.S. missile defense systems in Europe and other unprovoked steps that are in violation.

“On the coat of arms of the United States, there’s an eagle holding 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other,” Putin reminded Bolton. “My question is whether your eagle has gobbled up all the olives, leaving only the arrows.”

Bolton replied by saying he did not bring any more olives.

In more serious remarks, a Kremlin spokesman said a U.S. pullout from the INF Treaty would make the world a more dangerous place, and Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.”

But both sides said Tuesday there was a need for dialogue and work on areas of mutual concern.

Bolton also said Tuesday that plans were being made for Trump and Putin to meet in Paris next month. Both leaders will be in France to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

Previous summit

The last meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki in July turned out to be a bit of a domestic disaster for Trump. At a post-summit joint news conference, he appeared to accept Putin’s denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, contrary to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bolton said he also talked about Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He said such efforts do not affect the outcome of the vote and only create distrust between the U.S. and Russia. 

Bolton also laid three separate bouquets of flowers during his visit to Moscow — the traditional wreath at the World War II Memorial by the Kremlin wall; flowers to remember the victims of last week’s massacre of college students at the Black Sea port of Kerch; and flowers at the site near the Kremlin where Russian opposition leader and Putin critic Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in 2015. 
…

At least 20 people were injured when an escalator in the Rome metropolitan system collapsed Tuesday night. 

A video shown on Sky TG24 showed the escalator accelerating suddenly, and the people riding down on it collapsing onto one another. The dramatic footage showed people on the parallel escalator trying to pull others to safety.

The cause was not immediately known. The metropolitan station at Piazza Repubblica near the main Termine train station was closed by investigators. 

“The scene that we found was people piled up at the bottom of the escalator,” said Rome provincial fire chief Giampietro Boscaino. “People one on the top of the other looking for help. They had various injuries caused by the escalator that was twisted — therefore, serious injuries.”

The prefect’s office put the number of injured at 20, mostly Russians in town for a Champion’s League soccer game between CSKA Moscow and Roma. Firefighters said seven were in serious condition. 

The news agency ANSA quoted Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi as saying that witnesses reported people were jumping and dancing on the escalator before the accident. ANSA also quoted city transport agency officials as saying maintenance is carried out on metro system escalators every month.

Separately, one CSKA fan was slashed with a knife during clashes between opposing fans outside the Stadio Olimpico, the ANSA news agency reported.

About 1,500 CSKA fans were attending the match.
…

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has hinted that a key arms control pact with Russia may have run its course.

Bolton meets in Moscow Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin to explain why President Donald Trump wants to pull the U.S. out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Trump has accused Russia of violating the agreement.

“We don’t think that withdrawal from the treaty is what causes the problem. We think it’s what Russia has been doing in violation of the treaty that’s the problem,” Bolton told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. “You can’t bring someone in compliance who does not think they are in breach.”

Bolton said he believes Cold War-era bilateral treaties are no longer relevant because of today’s global security environment, where other countries are also building missiles. 

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF accord in 1987. It bans the United States and Russia from building, testing, and stockpiling ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range from 500 to 5,000 kilometers.

​Trump said the U.S. would have to start developing new weapons if Russia and China — which is not part of the INF treaty — do. 

Russia denies violating the agreement and says it is U.S. missile defense systems in Europe that are in violation.

A Putin spokesman says a U.S. pullout from the INF treaty would make the world a more dangerous place. He said Russia would have to take security countermeasures to “restore balance.” 

Russian National Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev said after his talks Monday with Bolton that Russia is willing to talk with the U.S. about the mutual complaints against one another in a bid to salvage the INF pact. 

A Russian statement also said Monday Bolton and Patrushev discussed a possible five-year extension of another arms control agreement, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. That deal took effect in 2011 and is set to expire in 2021.

Defense advocates in Washington say the INF treaty keeps the U.S. from developing a new generation of weapons in a world that faces new global security challenges.
…

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says he told Russian officials that its meddling in the 2016 election did not affect the outcome but instead created distrust.

“The important thing is that the desire for interfering in our affairs itself arouses distrust in Russian people, in Russia. And I think it should not be tolerated. It should not be acceptable,” Bolton said Monday on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Bolton is in Moscow for talks with Russian leaders on President Donald Trump’s intention to pull the United States out of a 1987 arms control agreement.

Before joining the White House, Bolton called Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election an “act of war.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian election interference and allegations of collusion with the Trump campaign — allegations both Trump and Russia deny.

The U.S. has charged a number of Russian citizens and agents with election meddling.

Last week, the Justice Department charged a Russian woman with “information warfare” for managing the finances of an internet company looking to interfere in next month’s midterm elections.

The company is owned by a business executive with alleged ties to President Vladimir Putin.

The woman, Elena Khusyaynova, said Monday she is “shocked” by the charges against her. She calls herself a “simple Russian woman” who does not speak English.
…

A Russian woman accused by the U.S. of helping oversee a social media effort to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections mocked the accusations Monday, saying that they made her feel proud.

Justice Department prosecutors alleged Friday that Elena Khusyaynova helped manage the finances of the same social media troll farm that was indicted earlier this year by special counsel Robert Mueller. The troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, is one of a web of companies allegedly controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman with reported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Khusyaynova responded Monday in a video on the internet news site Federal News Agency, reportedly also linked to Prigozhin. She said she was bewildered by the allegations that she could have influenced the U.S. elections even though she is just a simple bookkeeper who doesn’t speak English.

Justice Department prosecutors claimed that Khusyaynova, of St. Petersburg, ran the finances for a hidden but powerful Russian social media effort aimed at spreading distrust for American political candidates and causing divisions on hot-button social issues like immigration and gun control. It marked the first federal case alleging foreign interference in the 2018 midterm elections.

“I was surprised and shocked, but then my heart filled with pride,” Khusyaynova said. “It turns out that a simple Russian woman could help citizens of a superpower elect their president. Dear people of the world! Let’s all help the American people elect such politicians who would behave in a humane way and lead our planet to peace and goodness. Let’s all wish America to become a great and peaceful country again!”
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The outgoing deputy head of the monitoring mission to Ukraine of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says newly compiled statistics prove that lack of political will is the only thing allowing near-daily outbreaks of violence to continue claiming lives in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

Alexander Hug, whose 10-year OSCE appointment expires this month, also said the very people empowered to halt the conflict — those who signed the Minsk agreement — could make it happen within a matter of hours.

“Fourteen times now, both sides have agreed to recommit to the cease-fire, and every time this happens, daily cease-fire violations plummet from four digits to fewer than 10, and that’s within a single day,” Hug told VOA’s Ukrainian service. “So, the military-technical part of this conflict can end within hours. Overnight. And this isn’t speculation. We have evidenced it with our statistics based on observations made in the aftermath of recommitments.”

Although OSCE reports typically reveal which side has instigated a given episode of violence, Hug said the data also show that assigning blame is futile.

“In black and white, our reports show where and by whom these violations take place,” he said. “When we see heavy weapons in areas where they shouldn’t be — and we’ve seen thousands this year alone, 45 percent in [Ukrainian]-government-controlled areas and 55 percent in [Russian-backed-separatist-controlled] areas — it’s clear beyond any doubt who is responsible for the tanks, the mortars, these multiple rocket launch systems, because we see it and describe it in our reports, and yet the hardware doesn’t move.”

The data also show that pointing the finger in the aftermath of violence is counterproductive, and that amplifying the voices of people most vulnerable to conflict — civilians in proximity to the front lines — has been the most effective way to reduce violence and facilitate a constructive dialogue.

“We have been outlining in sometimes gruesome detail the misery and suffering of civilians along the contact line, and I’m convinced — as are many of my colleagues, if I can speak on their behalf — that only dialogue” between people along the front lines and signatories to the Minsk agreement itself “will bring about a solution to this conflict,” said Hug.

“It’s for the sake of civilians that this conflict must end, specifically because it is civilians that do not believe in this conflict,” he said. “We talk to them, and they tell us it’s not their conflict; they don’t understand why it continues, and all they want is for it to end.”

​Phantom divisions

Upward of 40,000 Ukrainians are estimated to cross the front lines each day, Hug said, indicating that most civilians aren’t heavily invested in the idea of a territorially divided country, which is how the conflict is often framed by international media outlets.

“People on the ground don’t believe in the contact line,” he said. “It is a line that is a harsh reality every day when they have to cross it, but in their minds it doesn’t exist. There are no firm lines of division.

“And with only very few exceptions have I ever seen any hatred developing on either side of the contact line,” he said, adding that that observation includes neighboring communities that have been shelled and shot at daily for years. “When you think of this fact, it’s quite amazing.”

Onus on Kremlin

David Kramer, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, said even if Hug’s data supporting an immediate cease-fire were sound, it wouldn’t be sustainable unless the Kremlin saw that it had nothing more to gain from remaining in Ukraine.

“To be clear, the responsibility for stopping the conflict lies in Moscow,” he said. “It lies with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who to this day refuses to recognize that there are Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.”

Kramer, who is currently senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a Washington think tank, also said increased sanctions would be vital to progress.

“Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine didn’t invade Russia,” he said. “So, I do think we need to see a stronger effort from the West to apply more pressure on the Kremlin and its cronies because, absent that pressure, we’re not going to see Putin move.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll see any movement until after both the presidential and parliamentary elections [in Ukraine],” he added.

Waiting game

Earlier on Thursday, Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, told an Atlantic Council gathering the same thing.

“I think that Russia has essentially decided to wait out the Ukrainian election, see what happens,” he said. “Maybe there’ll be new opportunities that arise to get a more favorable position for Russia. So I think they intend to just play it out.”

Volker’s remarks came shortly after Putin told the Valdai Club in Sochi that he hoped a government more friendly to Russia would emerge from the Ukrainian presidential election, set for March 31.

“We need to wait until the internal political cycles are finished, and I really expect that we will be able to build at least some kind of relations and reach some kind of agreement with a new leadership of the country. We’re ready for that, we want that,” Putin told the gathering of Russian and Western foreign policy experts.

Putin charged that the current government in Kyiv led by President Petro Poroshenko has made its mark by “selling Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiments” to the West.

Volker said Russia appeared more determined than ever to continue backing separatists fighting the government in eastern Ukraine despite extensive efforts by the United States and Western Europe to pressure Russia over its aggression in Ukraine.

Coordinated sanctions critical

The best strategy for the West, Volker said, is to maintain pressure on Moscow through the economic sanctions, which were first imposed on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

“We will see whether President [Donald] Trump agrees with what Ambassador Volker has to say, but I agree that we need to put more pressure on Russia,” said Alexander Vershbow, a former NATO deputy secretary-general and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

“The only way to bring about a solution in conformity with the Minsk agreement is if there more pressure on Russia, because clearly they’re comfortable with the status quo,” he added. “That being said, sanctions can be an overused weapon, so I think what’s more important is to maintain solidarity with the Europeans and find a way to increase sanctions in a coordinated way together. Then the Russians will pay more attention.”

Bogdan Tsioupine of VOA’s Ukrainian service reported from London. Danila Galperovich of VOA’s Russian service contributed reporting from Washington. Some information for this report came from RFE.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May was seeking to scotch a growing rebellion against her Brexit plans Monday, urging lawmakers to back her and saying a divorce deal with the European Union is 95 percent complete.

May’s office said she planned to tell the House of Commons that “the vast majority” of issues are settled, including the status of Gibraltar, Britain’s territory at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

The prime minister also appealed to voters directly with an article in The Sun tabloid, saying “the very last stages of the talks are going to be the hardest of all” but insisting “the finish line is in sight.”

But May faces dissent from her political opponents — and, more worryingly, her own Conservative Party — over her blueprint for separation and future relations with the bloc.

Grumbling has grown since she suggested last week that Britain could remain bound by EU rules for two years or more during a transition period after it leaves on March 29.

London and Brussels say the main obstacle to an amicable divorce is finding a way to avoid customs posts and other barriers on the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

Both sides agree there must be no hard border that could disrupt businesses and residents on both sides and undermine Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace process. But each has rejected the other side’s solution.

An inconclusive EU summit last week ended without a breakthrough on the border impasse. Britain and the EU say they remain hopeful of striking a deal this fall, so that relevant parliaments can approve it before Brexit day.

But May’s room for maneuver is limited by pressure from pro-Brexit Conservatives and her government’s Northern Irish ally, the Democratic Unionist Party, who oppose any more compromises with the EU.

She’s also opposed by pro-EU lawmakers who want to keep close ties with the bloc after Brexit.

Amid talk of a leadership challenge, criticism of May has grown increasingly intemperate. Weekend newspaper headlines saying the prime minister is entering “the killing zone” and faces a metaphorical knifing drew sharp rebukes.

Conservative legislator Sarah Woollaston tweeted to condemn the “disturbing & violent language” used by some of her colleagues.

Conservative lawmaker Grant Shapps said the coming week would be dangerous for May, as pro-Brexit Tories pondered whether to try to oust her.

“It’s fairly high on the scale” of risk, Shapps told the BBC. “But she operates at the upper end of that scale almost every day of her life and remarkably, walks out at the other end.”

With the Brexit clock ticking, fears are growing that Britain could crash out of the bloc without an agreement, an outcome that could create chaos at the borders and in both the EU and British economies.

The Confederation of British Industry says a majority of U.K. firms are poised to implement their Brexit contingency plans by Christmas, steps that could include cutting jobs, adjusting supply chains outside the U.K., stockpiling goods and relocating production and services overseas.

 
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