Українські військові заявляють, що контролюють ситуацію
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NATO has no plans to deploy combat troops to non-NATO member Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday.
Asked on BBC Television whether he would rule out putting NATO troops in Ukraine if Russia does invade, Stoltenberg said: “We have no plans to deploy NATO combat troops to Ukraine … we are focusing on providing support.”
“There is a difference between being a NATO member and being a strong and highly valued partner as Ukraine. There’s no doubt about that.”
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Генсек НАТО Єнс Столтенберг заявив, що Альянс зосереджується на наданні підтримки Україні
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The Northern Irish city of Londonderry began commemorations Sunday of one of the darkest days in modern UK history when, 50 years ago, British troops without provocation killed 13 unarmed civil rights protesters.
The anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” comes with Northern Ireland’s fragile peace destabilized by Brexit, and with families of the victims despondent over whether the soldiers involved will ever face trial.
Charlie Nash saw his 19-year-old cousin William Nash killed as members of the British Parachute Regiment fired more than 100 high-velocity rounds on January 30, 1972, at the demonstrators in Londonderry, known as Derry to pro-Irish nationalists.
“We thought there might be rioting, but nothing, nothing like what happened. We thought at first they were rubber bullets,” Nash, now 73, told AFP.
“But then we saw Hugh Gilmour [one of six 17-year-old victims] lying dead. We couldn’t take it in. Everyone was running,” he said.
“It’s important for the rest of the world to see what they done to us that day. But will we ever see justice? Never, especially not from Boris Johnson.”
Amnesty?
The UK prime minister this week called Bloody Sunday a “tragic day in our history”.
But his government is pushing legislation that critics say amounts to an amnesty for all killings during Northern Ireland’s three decades of sectarian unrest, including by security forces.
Thirteen protesters died on Bloody Sunday, when the paratroopers opened fire through narrow streets and across open wasteland.
Some of the victims were shot in the back, or while on the ground, or while waving white handkerchiefs.
At the entrance to the city’s Catholic Bogside area stands a wall that normally proclaims in large writing: “You are now entering Free Derry.”
This weekend the mural says: “There is no British justice.”
Several hundred people, including relatives of the victims, on Sunday retraced the fateful 1972 march, walking in somber silence under a leaden grey sky ahead of a late morning memorial service.
Children bearing white roses and portraits of the victims joined the poignant procession.
“I’m here to honor the people who were murdered by the British state who were trying to achieve their civil rights,” said Michael Roach, 67, a Texan with Irish roots.
“There will be no justice until the paratroopers are held to justice for murder.”
‘Unjustifiable’
After an initial government report largely exonerated the paratroopers and authorities, a landmark 12-year inquiry running to 5,000 pages found in 2010 that the victims were unarmed and posed no threat, and that the soldiers’ commander on the ground violated his orders.
“We in the inquiry came to the conclusion that the shootings were unjustified and unjustifiable,” its chairman Mark Saville, a former judge and member of the UK House of Lords, told BBC radio on Saturday.
“And I do understand, people feel that in those circumstances justice has yet to be done,” he said, while expressing concern that with the surviving soldiers now elderly, the government should have launched any prosecution “a very long time ago”.
Then as now, Londonderry was a largely Catholic city. But housing, jobs and education were segregated in favor of the pro-British Protestant minority.
Simmering tensions over the inequality made it the cradle of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland starting in the late 1960s, which finally ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
‘Reckless’
The UK’s divorce from the European Union has unsettled the fragile post-1998 consensus.
Protestant unionists want Johnson’s government to scrap a protocol governing post-Brexit trade for Northern Ireland, which treats the province differently from the UK mainland (comprising England, Scotland and Wales).
The government, which is in protracted talks with the EU on the issue, is sympathetic to their demands.
Heading into regional elections in May, some nationalists hope that Brexit could help achieve what the Irish Republican Army (IRA) never did — a united Ireland, a century after the UK carved out a Protestant statelet in the north.
Sinn Fein, which was once the political wing of the IRA, is running ahead of the once dominant unionists in opinion polls.
“Northern Ireland finds itself again in the eye of a political storm where we appear to be collateral damage for a prime minister whose future is hanging in the balance,” said professor Deirdre Heenan, a Londonderry resident who teaches social policy at Ulster University.
“The government’s behavior around the peace process has been reckless in the extreme,” she added.
Protestant hardliners have issued their own reminders of where they stand: leading up to the anniversary, Parachute Regiment flags have been flying in one unionist stronghold of Londonderry, to the revulsion of nationalists.
“How can they do that, this weekend of all weekends?” asked George Ryan, 61, a tour guide and local historian.
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«Чергове порушення суверенітету України»
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«З Арестовичем мені чудово працювалося», – заявив у «Суботньому інтерв’ю» Радіо Свобода учасник переговорів з урегулювання на Донбасі Сергій Гармаш
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Myanmar’s military government is set to pass a new cybersecurity law that will ban the use of internet services, a move that has been condemned by digital rights activists and business groups.
The Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since a coup by the military last February. A widespread grassroots movement has seen thousands refuse to accept military rule, with anti-coup communications and demonstrations now largely mobilized online.
But a draft bill released by the junta, if passed, would criminalize the use of virtual private networks and online gambling, carrying a punishment of one to three years’ imprisonment and fines of up to $2,800.
The first draft of the bill was released last year, but progress on the legislation slowed after substantial public outcry and industrywide criticism. The legislation is expected to become law next week.
“We are speculating the bill will actually be official within just a few days, it might come before the first of February,” Ma Htike, a digital rights activist, told VOA.
People living in Myanmar rely heavily on internet access, especially social media platforms such as Facebook, for news, and many have struggled to get online since the junta took control of the country’s telecommunication regulators after the Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Major Norwegian telecommunication operator Telenor recently quit its operations inside the country because of the political situation.
The military regularly shuts down the internet, routinely blocks social media platforms and censors what information can be found online, all in the name of ensuring national “stability.”
But political analyst Aung Thu Nyein describes the latest draft legislation as unusually severe.
“The leaked new communication law is the most draconian law restricting many freedoms and privacy of a person,” he told VOA. “This law could be a major roadblock to technological development as well, such as prohibiting the use of digital coins and blockchain technology, etc.
“It is definitely for the purpose of oppression of freedom of speech and a tool for control,” he said.
Junta-enforced regional internet blackouts make VPNs vital to accessing independent news online via private networks outside of the country.
According to Top10VPN, Myanmar went without internet access for 72 consecutive days from February to April of last year, driving demand for VPNs up by 7,200%. The report also says the shutdowns came at a cost, with Myanmar suffering nearly $3 billion in lost revenue, according to the indicators from the World Bank, The International Telecommunication Union, Eurostat and the U.S. Census.
Htike says most of Myanmar’s citizens continue to struggle with the blackouts.
“There are still various locations that the mobile internet has not been available,” she told VOA, adding that junta-backed regulators have scheduled price increases for internet subscriptions, which is likely to pose “a big obstacle” for most citizens in a country with typically low per capita incomes.
“[The] internet plays a pivot role to send information to all parts of the country, from cities to remote corners,” said Aung Htun, a journalist for Burma VJ, an informal network of professional and citizen video journalists who pool footage. “That’s why the military tried to raise the data fees higher than previously.”
In its attempts to control the flow of information, the Myanmar military has also cracked down on the country’s media. According to Reporting ASEAN, a monitoring group in Southeast Asia, 120 journalists have been arrested with 49 still detained and 16 convicted. The licenses of at least five media outlets have been revoked.
Aung Htun also says the looming internet restrictions under the new law will put people at increased risk of arrest in public, where the military sometimes randomly searches phones.
“It’s getting more difficult to hide data in your phone. It’s better to use simple ways; don’t keep any important data in your phone,” he said, adding that journalists must “stay low, and try to be in touch with your colleagues [only] by secure network.”
Freedom House, a nonprofit research institute that ranks internet freedom by country on a scale in which 100 is “most free,” placed Myanmar at 17 in 2021.
Ten foreign businesses and industry groups in Myanmar said in a joint letter they are “deeply concerned” over the latest draft of the cybersecurity law.
“If enforced, the current draft disrupts the free flow of information and directly impacts businesses’ abilities to operate legally and effectively in Myanmar,” the statement read.
Htike said the new law could force customers to break the law in order to use basic business services.
“Myanmar’s economy really declined after the coup, but still small businesses have used social media and networks, but with this kind of [restriction] it’s going to be very difficult,” she added.
Feb. 1 marks one year since the Myanmar military removed the country’s democratically elected government. To mark the anniversary, anti-coup activists have called for a silent strike, which leaves the streets of towns and cities across Myanmar deserted.
“Silent strikes are a good strategy for people to get involved,” said Htike, who also warned that risks remain whether you’re demonstrating in the streets or online.
Myanmar’s military routinely stops and searches people to check phones for evidence of VPN activity, such as whether the phone has Facebook access, which is impossible without a VPN.
They also surveil the web for digital anti-junta activity.
In a silent protest, Htike added, “it might be difficult for [the military] to do search and seizure [on empty streets], but [even] if people are active [only] online, they can [still] be targeted there.”
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, gained independence from Britain in 1948, but most of its modern history has been under military rule.
After a brief period of civilian rule, the military in November 2020 began making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. On Feb. 1 of 2021, the military removed the democratically elected government and arrested leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, both of whom have since been sentenced to several jail terms.
Widespread opposition to military rule has resulted in thousands of arrests and at least 1,499 killings, according to the Thai-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
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Russia says it will relocate naval exercises off the coast of Ireland after Dublin raised concerns about them amid a tense dispute with the West over expansion of the NATO alliance and fears that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine.
The Feb. 3-8 exercises were to be held 240 kilometers off southwestern Ireland — in international waters but within Ireland’s exclusive economic zone. Ireland is a member of the 27-nation European Union but not a member of NATO.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney this week objected to the war games, saying “This isn’t a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what’s happening with and in Ukraine. The fact that they are choosing to do it on the western borders, if you like, of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that in our view is simply not welcome.”
Russia’s embassy in Ireland on Saturday posted a letter on Facebook from Ambassador Yuriy Filatov saying the exercises would be relocated outside of the Irish economic zone ”with the aim not to hinder fishing activities.”
The decision was a rare concession amid the escalating tensions surrounding Russia’s massing of an estimated 100,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and its demands that NATO promise never to allow Ukraine to join the alliance, stop the deployment of NATO weapons near Russian borders and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe.
The U.S. and NATO formally rejected those demands this week, although Washington outlined areas where discussions are possible, offering hope that there could be a way to avoid war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no public remarks about the Western response. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it leaves little chance for reaching agreement, though he also says Russia does not want war.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday that Putin could use any portion of his force to seize Ukrainian cities and “significant territories” or to carry out “coercive acts or provocative political acts” like the recognition of breakaway territories inside Ukraine.
Two territories in eastern Ukraine have been under the control of Russia-backed rebels since 2014, after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
A Russian lawmaker is encouraging residents of those areas of Ukraine to join the Russian army, a sign that Moscow is continuing to try to integrate those territories as much as possible. Viktor Vodolatsky said Saturday that residents in rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine fear assaults by Ukrainian forces and that those who hold Russian passports would be welcomed in the Russian military.
“If Russian citizens residing in the (territories) want to join the Russian Armed Forces, the Rostov regional military commissariat will register and draft them,” Vodolatsky, deputy chairman of parliament committee on relations with neighbors, told the state news agency Tass.
Russia has granted passports to more than 500,000 people in the rebel-held territories. Vodolatsky said the recruits would serve in Russia — but that leaves open the option that they could join any future invasion force.
A senior official in President Joe Biden’s administration said the U.S. welcomed Lavrov’s comments that Russia does not want war, “but this needs to be backed up with action. We need to see Russia pulling some of the troops that they have deployed away from the Ukrainian border and taking other de-escalatory steps.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly.
Lavrov has said the U.S. suggested the two sides could talk about limits on the deployment of intermediate-range missiles, restrictions on military drills and rules to prevent accidents between warships and aircraft. He said the Russians proposed discussing those issues years ago, but Washington and its allies never took them up on it.
He also said those issues are secondary to Russia’s main concerns about NATO. He said international agreements say the security of one nation must not come at the expense of others, and said he would send letters to his Western counterparts asking them to explain their failure to respect that pledge.
Washington has warned Moscow of devastating sanctions if it invades Ukraine, including penalties targeting top Russian officials and key economic sectors. Lavrov said Moscow had warned Washington that sanctions would amount to a complete severing of ties.
NATO, meanwhile, said it was bolstering its deterrence in the Baltic Sea region.
Russia has launched military drills involving motorized infantry and artillery units in southwestern Russia, warplanes in Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, and dozens of warships in the Black Sea and the Arctic. Russian troops are also in Belarus for joint drills, raising Western fears that Moscow could stage an attack on Ukraine from the north from Belarus. The Ukrainian capital is only 75 kilometers from the border with Belarus.
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Five decades after British soldiers killed 13 unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers on one of the defining days of the Northern Ireland conflict, relatives are still searching for the justice they believe is needed for a scarred society to heal.
Family and friends of the 13 Catholics who died in Londonderry on “Bloody Sunday,” Jan. 30, 1972 – and of a 14th who died later of his wounds – gathered this week for a series of commemorations to mark the event that helped fuel three decades of bitter sectarian and political violence.
While a judicial inquiry found in 2010 that the victims were innocent and had posed no threat to the military, the commemorations come just months after prosecutors announced that the only British soldier charged with murder will not face trial.
“Our generation are very slowly dying off… and we would like to see it when we’re still alive,” said Jean Hegarty, whose brother Kevin McElhinney was shot dead aged 17. She supports legal action to bring the soldier to trial.
“My head would say no, but my heart would still like to believe that we can see at least some soldiers face a court,” she said.
Bitterness
Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace process has been hailed around the world for its success in largely ending a conflict in which more than 3,000 people were killed.
Irish nationalist militants seeking unification with the Republic of Ireland faced off against the British Army and loyalists determined to keep the province British.
But nearly a quarter of a century after the peace, the bitterness lingers.
A number of flags of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment, whose members shot the protesters, were hung from lamp posts in the city in the run-up to the commemorations, something that has become an annual ritual. The regiment condemned the action.
A leading member of Northern Ireland’s pro-British Democratic Unionist Party complained that “countless words” had been written about Bloody Sunday but little about two soldiers shot dead by Irish nationalist militants a few days earlier.
While the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was responsible for about half of the deaths in the conflict, nationalists argue the violence was spurred by a repressive state that denied them their rights – and rarely more vividly than on Bloody Sunday.
“I’m disappointed by the belligerence of politicians,” said Hegarty. “In some respects there has not been a lot of change. In some respects there has been tonnes.”
Commemorations this weekend will include a memorial service on Londonderry’s main square and a play centered on a famous photograph of priest Edward Daly holding up a white handkerchief to British soldiers as men tried to carry a dying man to safety.
The play will be performed entirely by locals in a city where January 30 retains a “real deep poignancy,” said director Kieran Griffiths, who worked closely with the relatives.
Gleann Doherty, whose father Patrick was among those killed on Bloody Sunday, believes the relatives have been given more closure than most impacted by the conflict. The detailed inquiry led Britain’s then-Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010 to apologize for the “unjustified and unjustifiable killings.”
The current British government last year announced a plan to halt all prosecutions of soldiers and militants in a bid to draw a line under the conflict – a move that angered relatives and has been rejected by all the main local political parties.
“We’re sort of one of the lucky – if you can call it lucky – ones to have some sort of answers to what happened,” said Doherty.
“It’s fairly difficult to get any sort of reconciliation… when you have the British government trying to close the door on any possibility” of justice, he added.
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Президент Казахстану Касим-Жомарт Токаєв дав перше інтерв’ю від початку протестів
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Володимир Путін пропонує, щоб власники російських паспортів в ОРДЛО не вказували реєстрацію місця проживання під час звернень за соцвиплатами
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Italian President Sergio Mattarella was re-elected for a second term on Saturday, with party chiefs asking him to carry on after a week of fruitless voting in parliament to choose a successor.
At the eighth round of balloting among more than 1,000 lawmakers and regional delegates in the Chamber of Deputies, loud applause broke out when Mattarella passed the 505 votes needed for election.
Mattarella, 80, had ruled out remaining in office, but with the country’s political stability at risk he changed his mind in the face of appeals from parliamentary leaders who met him at his palace earlier in the day.
In Italy’s political system, the president is a powerful figure who gets to appoint prime ministers and is often called on to resolve political crises in the euro zone’s third-largest economy, where governments survive around a year on average.
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Ukraine’s leader and his defense and security aides are assessing Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s intentions differently from many of their Western counterparts. Are they just more stoical after eight years of persistent Russian provocations and a long-running war in eastern Ukraine—or are they misreading their Russian adversary?
Washington and London have both warned the chances are high that Putin will order an invasion of Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden has been warning for weeks of the “distinct possibility” Russia might invade Ukraine next month, and he reiterated the point Thursday in a phone discussion with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, according to the White House.
Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, says he is “not optimistic” a Russian incursion into Ukraine can be stopped. He told the BBC while visiting Berlin there was still “a chance” an invasion could be halted, but added, “I’m not optimistic.”
Russia denies it is preparing to launch a major assault on Ukraine, accusing Western powers of alarmism. The Kremlin insists the more than 100,000 troops it has deployed along Ukraine’s borders are just taking part in exercises.
But Zelenskiy appears to suspect Moscow will do something short of launching a full-scale invasion and more likely will continue to wage the highly sophisticated form of psychological and hybrid warfare it has been using against Ukraine and Europe with growing intensity for the past decade and more.
The Ukrainian president has been calling for calm ahead of Wednesday’s meeting among officials of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France — known as the “Normandy format” — to discuss once again the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, nearly half of which has been occupied since 2014 by Russian soldiers and armed local proxies.
Asked at a news conference Friday for foreign media about the different assessments and of a possible rift with Biden, Zelenskiy cited his concerns over Ukraine’s economy, saying that talk of an imminent invasion is adversely affecting the economy. “For me, the question of the possible escalation is not less acute as for the United States and other partners,” he said.
But he complained the media was giving the impression we have an army in the streets and “that’s not the case.” And he said Ukraine doesn’t “need this panic” because it is damaging the economy. “We may lose the current economy,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader pointedly took issue last week when the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia announced evacuations of personnel from their embassies. Zelenskiy and his aides expressed frustration, saying the withdrawal of some diplomatic staff was premature.
One official told VOA the evacuations undermined efforts to calm the fears of ordinary Ukrainians. The United States and Britain also have told their nationals to leave Ukraine.
According to Ukrainian officials, Zelenskiy has broached the issue of evacuations with U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the withdrawal of staff is an “overreaction” and something Russia can exploit to sow fear and to destabilize.
Aside from worries about the economy and Ukrainian morale, though, Kyiv appears to be at odds with Washington and London over Putin’s strategy, as well as over how near he is to completing a military buildup that would allow him to launch a full throttle invasion.
According to Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, Russia doesn’t have enough troops in place to mount a full-scale invasion. He told reporters this week, “The number of Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and occupied territories of Ukraine is large, it poses a threat to Ukraine, a direct threat to Ukraine, however, at the moment, as we speak, this number is insufficient for a full-scale offensive against Ukraine along the entire Ukrainian border.”
Some independent Ukrainian analysts agree with Kyiv’s assessment that a full-scale invasion isn’t likely. “I don’t believe there will be a full-scale military invasion,” said Taras Kuzio, an analyst at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based research group, and a professor at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
“In that sense, I agree with Ukrainian military officials,” he said in a recent British television debate. “There aren’t enough troops there. Ukraine is a huge territory. It has the third largest army in Europe. And if you’re working on the basis of a three-to-one ratio of invading versus defending armies, which is the number you need to be successful, then Russia would need 500,000 to 600,000 troops to overcome Ukraine. It doesn’t have that, and it’s not projected to have that.”
Kuzio believes it is more likely Russia may mount an incursion around the Black Sea coast and expand on territory it holds in the Donbass region.
Ukrainian officials admit privately they are caught somewhat in a quandary. They need Western military assistance and materiel—from anti-tank rockets to surface-to-air missiles—and they need the West to be strong, to stand up to Putin and to deter Russia from any kind of attack, limited or otherwise. But they don’t want to talk up the threat, wreck their economy and panic their people. It is a fine line they’re walking, several officials told VOA.
Western officials say they have to be ready for all eventualities and they don’t want to be caught wrong-footed, as they were in 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Russia then encouraged and assisted armed proxies to seize part of the Donbass in the wake of a popular uprising that toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a Putin ally.
That means, they say, reinforcing NATO’s military presence in eastern Europe, in neighboring NATO countries, and making sure everyone understands the stakes are high. “Putin is unpredictable and any gaps he sees he will jump through; any weakness, he will exploit,” a senior NATO official told VOA.
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Міністр закордонних справ Дмитро Кулеба заявив, що Україна має продуману дипломатичну стратегію протидії російській ескалації
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Кадрове рішення Реджеп Таїп Ердоган ухвалив після того, як були оприлюднені офіційні дані про інфляцію на найвищому за 19 років рівні
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Два саморобні вибухові пристрої спрацювали біля сільського колодязя неподалік міста Дера-Бугті
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Західний і Південний військові округи Росії розпочали перевірку боєготовності 25 січня на тлі повідомлень про можливе вторгнення в Україну
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Розвідка пильно стежить за ситуацією довкола окупованого Криму, заявляє командування українських Збройних сил
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By filing a formal complaint against China at the World Trade Organization this week, the European Union is throwing its weight into support for member state Lithuania in what is being cast as a test of the EU’s willingness to defend the interests of even its smallest members in the face of Chinese power and aggression.
The complaint, which seeks a ruling from the WTO, alleges that China has violated the trade body’s rules by carrying out against Lithuania coercive actions that also interfered with the EU’s all-member-inclusive single market and supply chain.
China’s actions are widely seen as intending to punish the Baltic country of 2.8 million people for leaving the 17+1, a regional group Beijing established, and agreeing to host in its capital a Taiwanese representative office bearing the name “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania” rather than “Taipei Representative Office,” as such offices are titled elsewhere.
“Over the past weeks, the European Commission has built up evidence of … a refusal to clear Lithuanian goods through customs, rejection of import applications from Lithuania, and pressuring EU companies operating out of other EU Member States to remove Lithuanian inputs from their supply chains when exporting to China,” the EU said in a statement Thursday, adding that China’s actions “appear to be discriminatory and illegal under WTO rules.”
Before the announcement, a European Commission spokesperson in Brussels told VOA, “As we have consistently stressed, the EU will stand up against all types of political pressure and coercive measures applied against any Member State. We stand by Lithuania. Lithuanian exports are EU exports.”
Jonathan Hackenbroich, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA that while some within the EU initially questioned the extent to which Lithuania had consulted other member states prior to announcing its decisions concerning China and Taiwan, those concerns paled compared with the seriousness of the threat China’s actions posed to the political and economic integrity of the 27-member bloc.
If China’s action is left unchallenged, EU member states and businesses will end up losing more of their freedom, Hackenbroich warned in a recent essay, Coercion With Chinese Characteristics: How Europe Should Respond to Interference in Its Internal Trade.
The essay states that while China’s aggressive thinking and deeds “should be a source of great worry for European businesses and governments,” the EU must urgently do more to promptly identify and effectively counter China’s coercive methods against nations that defy its wishes.
“Look, everyone can understand this is a test,” said Benjamin Haddad, senior director of the Europe Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “This is a test of whether Europeans will break off their solidarity with one of their smaller members in exchange of economic interests.”
Haddad told VOA that he wouldn’t be surprised if the EU came up with strong measures in support of Lithuania. “Because I think there’s just this feeling that Lithuania should not be left on its own.”
Besides, doing so is consistent with the vision for Europe spelled out by French President Emmanuel Macron. France took over the six-month EU presidency Jan. 1. “If you talk about sovereignty, or if you talk about strategic autonomy, that means defending all of the EU members against external challenges and threats. Clearly we have China being aggressive against one of the smaller (EU) members.”
French and EU policymakers are no doubt mindful of “a broader shift in European mindsets about China,” Haddad said.
“Three years ago, the EU released a paper saying China is a trade partner, an economic competitor but also a systemic rival; I think now you see more and more of the systemic rival piece take precedence.”
The battle between Beijing and Vilnius has been closely watched around the world. Analysts in Poland recently wrote that China’s new, more aggressive tactics are also meant to intimidate other EU countries, mainly those in central Europe, “where the economic cooperation model with China is similar to Lithuania’s.”
That model involves only minor direct sales to China but significant indirect export through the supply chains of Western European companies. China is applying its punitive measures to products containing any Lithuanian-made content, in effect issuing what analysts describe as secondary sanctions that also harm businesses and industries from third countries, including other nations in the EU.
Lithuania’s direct exports to China constitute only 1% of its total exports, but its industry and manufacturing are closely linked with German and other multinational corporations that Beijing is pressuring to stop sourcing from Lithuania.
Given Germany’s status as an economic powerhouse in the EU, the reaction of the German businesses and government to China’s pressure is considered crucial.
Observers noticed that the Federation of German Industries, or BDI, supported the EU’s WTO filing, saying the union needs to take decisive measures.
New message from Berlin
Addressing an audience gathered at the Mercator Institute to discuss its China 2022 forecast, Tobias Lindner, a German deputy foreign minister, described the disagreements with China as touching “the core of European values and interests — not addressing this now will cost us dearly in the long run.”
“We will continue to seek cooperation between China and the EU and Germany,” Lindner said. “However, the partnership that we seek will be looked at strategically: Does it conform with our values? Is it in our interest?”
Lithuania’s top economic official said her government hasn’t ruled out a diplomatic solution, while also underscoring the EU’s role going forward. “If the EU talks in one voice, then there is always a solution,” Ausrine Armonaite told Politico.
“When it comes to a situation that Lithuania is in, today it’s Lithuania; day after tomorrow it may be any other European countries,” she said.
There are signs that mutual support and solidarity are taking root among EU nations as the bloc and member states individually face challenges from multiple directions.
“The fact that we’re a member of the European Union, it means we have to defend other member states of the EU should they feel they’re being coerced by third parties,” Anze Logar, Slovenian foreign minister, told VOA in an interview last month.
In September, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa wrote a letter to fellow EU member states urging them to support Lithuania as the latter started to receive punitive blows from Beijing.
Asked whether Slovenia came under fire from Beijing because of the letter, Logar said it wouldn’t have mattered.
“It’s a matter of principle,” he said. “If you’re a member of a club, you have to defend your partners in this club, because we expect we’ll be defended when somebody from outside attacks us, that other member states will come to our own defense.”
Slovenia may need help from the EU club quite soon. Slovenian businesses reported their contracts were being canceled by China after Jansa described the tactics China deployed against Lithuania as “terrifying” and said his government is in talks with Taiwan to establish representative offices.
On Thursday, following the EU’s WTO filing announcement, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office announced that “the United States will request to join these @WTO consultations in solidarity with Lithuania and the European Union.”
The State Department announced Friday that Undersecretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez will travel to Vilnius on Sunday, followed by a stop in Brussels.
Washington’s “continuing strong support for Lithuania in the face of political pressure and economic coercion from the People’s Republic of China” is on the agenda of discussions between Fernandez and his Lithuanian counterparts, the State Department said. Fernandez will also be discussing measures to counter economic coercion with EU officials in Brussels.
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Relations have rarely been good between Albania and Serbia. But for Serbian footballers playing in the land of their erstwhile foes, the sport transcends the long-standing differences between the rivals.
“Football is a fabulous tool for learning to live together,” said Luka Milanovic, 29, who is one of 15 Serbian footballers playing professionally in Albania.
Ties between Albania and Serbia have long been beset by differences, especially their conflicting views over the status of Kosovo.
Following a bloody war in the late 1990s, Belgrade continues to view the territory as a renegade province and has never recognized its independence declaration made in 2008.
The mistrust between Kosovo — with its Albanian and Muslim majority — and Serbia — a largely Orthodox nation — is far from Milanovic’s thoughts on the pitch.
He has been given a “warm welcome” since arriving four months ago to play professionally in Albania for Kukes, a first division team hailing from a mountainous region bordering Kosovo.
The area once hosted more than 500,000 ethnic Albanians fleeing attacks by Serb forces during the war in Kosovo.
Now, the region is peaceful and home to Kosovar Albanians, Montenegrins and Croatians who also play football professionally for Kukes.
“I’m here for the love of football,” Luka told AFP.
For him, competing in Albania is a natural continuation of a career that has seen him play for Red Star and OFK Belgrade in Serbia along with stints in Belgium, Malaysia, Greece and Hungary.
‘The language of football’
“For the players and supporters, Luka is one of us,” said Erjon Allaraj, the club’s spokesman.
“We speak different languages, but we all know the language of football,” added Kukes’ captain Gjelberim Taip — an Albanian from the southern Serbian town of Bujanovac.
For the birth of Milanovic’s first child in December, the whole team joined him in celebrating.
His experience is far from the exception.
On the other side of the country not far from the shores of the Adriatic, Aleksandar Ignjatovic, 33, remembers the shock and concern from his friends when he told them he was moving to Albania to play with KF Lac.
“Now, when they look on Instagram at my life in Albania, many tell me they want to come visit me,” Ignjatovic tells AFP.
With an eye towards retirement, Ignjatovic says he hopes to draw on his experiences in Albania to develop a post-football career.
“I am thinking of opening a tourism agency that will allow me to work in Albania and Serbia. I now know all the beautiful places in Albania,” he says, with the hopes of cashing in on Serbia’s growing tourism industry.
Ignjatovic also prides himself in having many Albanian friends and scoffs at the ethnic prejudices that have long divided many communities in the region.
‘How it should be’
“Football allows us to strengthen our ties. Football and politics are two completely different worlds,” says Ignjatovic, who has been living in Tirana for three years with his wife Mila, his son Ignjat and his three-month-old daughter Iskra.
But for Vladimir Novakovic, a football analyst with the Serbian sports channel Sportklub, the willingness of Serbs to play in Albania may ultimately boil down to finding a job that pays.
And while sports has the ability to unite, it has also served as a powerful venue for nationalist sentiment over the years, especially in the Balkans where football ultras have embraced virulent xenophobia during matches.
In 2014, violence broke out during a qualifying match for the European Championships between Serbia and Albania after a drone flew over the pitch with a flag used by Albanian nationalists.
And during the World Cup in 2018, the Swiss pair Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka — both of whom have Kosovo lineage — were fined by FIFA for celebrating their goals against Serbia by making a pro-Kosovan “double eagle” — a gesture which represents the Albanian flag.
The incident was widely panned in Serbia, where to date no Albanians are playing in the country’s professional football leagues.
For 82-year-old Borisav Stojacic, the absence of Albanians in Serbia is a more recent aberration, as he reminisced about the simpler times during “the Yugoslav era, when the presence of Albanian players… was nothing extraordinary”.
“That’s how it should be,” he tells AFP. “Emphasizing someone’s nationality is a problem that appeared only a few decades ago.”
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