Daily: 02/18/2022

«Це не навчання, це загроза війни» – прем’єр Польщі про ситуацію на кордоні України та Росії

Матеуш Моравецький підкреслив, що «на кордон наших сусідів і друзів – України була вислана армія, яка нараховує близько 150 тисяч російських солдатів»

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Mali Demands French, European Troops Leave Country Immediately

The military government of Mali says France’s decision to withdraw troops is a violation of bilateral accords.  At the same time, the government says it wants French forces to leave Mali immediately.

During an address from Elysee Palace Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the withdrawal of French and European forces from Mali would take between four and six months.

But Mali’s military government has now asked that forces with Operation Barkhane and the Takuba Task Force depart immediately. 

Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, a spokesperson for Mali’s military government, read the government’s statement on Mali’s state television station ORTM.

Maiga called France’s move a “unilateral decision,” similar to decisions that France announced last June suspending joint operations with the Malian army and ending Operation Barkhane.

These decisions, he said, were made without consultation with the Malian side and constitute flagrant violations of French-Malian agreements.

Maiga said that in view of these repeated breaches of the defense agreements, the government asks the French authorities to withdraw, without delay, Barkhane and Takuba forces from national territory, under the supervision of Malian authorities.

The French first intervened in Mali in 2013, in Operation Serval, which was aimed at taking back control of northern Mali from Islamists. Operation Serval was replaced by anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane.

The Takuba task force is a French-led European military operation of about 800 troops that was deployed in 2020. There are around 2,400 French troops currently in Mali.

Tensions between the French and Malian governments have been rising for months. France has accused Mali of working with Russian mercenaries, and Mali expelled the French ambassador in January after France’s foreign minister called Mali’s government “illegitimate.”

Mali suffered military coups in 2020 and 2021 and has been suspended from the African Union.

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Міський суд Праги дозволив екстрадувати Олександра Франчетті в Україну

Суд дав захисту громадянина Росії Олександра Франчетті тиждень на ознайомлення з матеріалами справи

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Голову оргкомітету відбору на «Євробачення» Лодигіна звільнили з посади

Раніше цього тижня організаційний комітет припинив участь співачки Аліни Паш у відборі

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US to Sell 250 Tanks to Poland

U.S. officials say the United States will sell Poland 250 M1 Abrams battle tanks to enhance the country’s security amid escalating tensions with Russia over Ukraine.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters in Warsaw Friday he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have informed Congress of their intent to sell the vehicles. 

“The timeframe for delivery of these tanks is currently under discussion,” Austin said.

Poland announced plans this summer to buy the tanks from the United States as part of a deal worth approximately $6 billion, but the sale kept getting delayed.

Austin said the procurement by Poland will also help to “ensure a more equitable sharing” of defense responsibilities within the NATO Alliance.

Austin thanked Poland for hosting an additional 4,700 U.S. soldiers who are prepared to respond should Russia invade Ukraine. There are between 9,000-10,000 American troops in Poland since President Joe Biden’s additional deployment orders earlier this month.

Biden to speak with leaders

U.S. President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak with transatlantic leaders Friday about the crisis in Ukraine. The White House has said that the president will inform the leaders about the U.S. efforts to pursue deterrence and diplomacy.

On Thursday, Biden said there is a “very high” likelihood that Russia will invade Ukraine in the next several days.

“We have reason to believe that they are engaged in a false-flag operation to have an excuse to go in,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “Every indication we have is they’re prepared to go into Ukraine, attack Ukraine.

“My sense is it will happen within the next several days,” he said.

Biden said, however, he still believes it is possible to find a diplomatic solution that would ease Russia’s concerns about NATO’s missiles and military training exercises in eastern Europe. The Western allies reject Russia’s main demand that NATO rule out the possibility of granting membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken later echoed Biden, telling the U.N. Security Council that the world can expect to see Russia attack Ukraine within days and that intelligence information indicates it could be preceded by a fabricated pretext.

“This could be a violent event that Russia will blame on Ukraine, or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government,” Blinken said. “We don’t know exactly the form it will take.”

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Blinken “noted in his remarks at the UN Security Council today that, because we believe the only responsible way to resolve this crisis is through diplomacy and dialogue, he had proposed to meet [Russian] Foreign Minister Lavrov in Europe next week.”

Price said, “The Russians have responded with proposed dates for late next week, which we are accepting, provided there is no further Russian invasion of Ukraine. If they do invade in the coming days, it will make clear they were never serious about diplomacy. We will continue to coordinate with our allies and partners and push for further engagements with Russia through the NATO-Russia Council and OSCE [the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe].”

Meanwhile, Moscow expelled the No. 2 U.S. diplomat from the U.S. Embassy in the Russian capital.

The State Department said the expulsion of Bart Gorman, the deputy chief of mission in Moscow, “was unprovoked, and we consider this an escalatory step and are considering our response.”

In Brussels, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Russia is continuing to mass its forces along Ukraine’s borders and that he sees no indication that Moscow is sending troops home, as it claims.

“We don’t see that,” the Pentagon chief said at a meeting of NATO defense ministers. “Quite the contrary, we see them add to the more than 150,000 troops they already have arrayed along that border. … We even see them stocking up their blood supplies.”

“I know firsthand that you don’t do these sorts of things for no reason, and you certainly don’t do them if you’re getting ready to pack up and go home,” Austin said. U.S. officials say Moscow has sent another 7,000 troops to the Ukraine border in recent days.

Austin added, “There is no reason, of course, that it should ever come to this. Just like there is no reason for Russia to again invade Ukraine” after annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The Kremlin contends it is withdrawing troops from near the Ukraine border but said it will take time to do so.

Austin said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin “chooses war” instead of a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine crisis, “it will be Mr. Putin who will bear the responsibility for the suffering and the immense sacrifice that ensues.”

Austin said that “a peaceful outcome that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity represents the best outcome for Ukraine, to be sure, but also for Russia and for the Russian people.”

Russia’s intentions could become clearer after the United States and its allies analyze a document that the Kremlin delivered to U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan in Moscow.

It is Russia’s written response to the recent U.S. and NATO offer to negotiate over their missile deployment and troop exercises in Europe while rejecting Russia’s demands related to possible Ukrainian membership in NATO.

The U.S. is also watching the conflict between Russian separatists and Kyiv’s forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where 14,000 people have been killed in the past eight years.

On Thursday, Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels traded accusations of firing across a cease-fire line. Austin said reports of the shelling were “certainly troubling. We’ve said for some time that the Russians might do something like this in order to justify a military conflict, so we’ll be watching very closely.”

Struck during the shelling was a kindergarten classroom in Stanytsia Luhanska, in pro-Ukrainian territory in Donbas.

Separatists in the Luhansk region blamed the Ukrainian government for the shelling, adding that rebel forces returned fire, according to The Associated Press.

However, Ukraine disputed the claim, saying separatists had shelled its forces, but they didn’t fire back. The Ukrainian military command said the shelling wounded two teachers and cut power to half the town, according to media reports.

“Attacks on kindergartens and schools have been a sad reality for children in eastern Ukraine over the last eight years,” UNICEF said in a statement early Friday. “More than 750 schools have been damaged since the beginning of the conflict, disrupting access to education for thousands of children on both sides of the contact line.”

“Educational facilities should remain a safe space where children can be protected from threats and crises and a haven where they can learn, play, and grow to their full potential,” UNICEF said.

Yasar Halit Cevik, the head of the monitoring mission for the OSCE, told the U.N Security Council there had been 500 explosions along the contact line from Wednesday evening to Thursday. He said that tensions then appeared to ease, with fewer blasts reported.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said in a tweet, “The aggressor in Donbas is clear – Russia.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was deeply concerned about the flare-up in violence. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for a condemnation of what he called a “severe violation of Minsk agreements by Russia amid an already tense security situation.” The U.S. Embassy also made similar comments in another tweet.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “We are concerned that Russia is trying to stage a pretext for an armed attack against Ukraine.”

He said that “NATO’s door remains open” to negotiations, but the Western alliance cannot accept when “big powers intimidate, bully or dictate others.” He invited Russia to “engage in good faith” over the Ukraine crisis.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

 

 

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У Росії братові Навального замінили умовний термін на реальний

26 січня цього року МВС Росії оголосило Олега Навального у федеральний розшук

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Угруповання «ЛНР» також оголосило про евакуацію цивільних до Росії

Раніше про евакуацію мешканців до Росії оголосив ватажок «ДНР» Денис Пушилін

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West, Russia Dispute Events in Eastern Ukraine

Western leaders and Russia maintained a withering war of words Friday in the weeks-long standoff over Ukraine and amid Kremlin threats to retaliate militarily unless NATO agrees to withdraw the small level of forces it has stationed in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe, now members of the Western alliance.  

A leader of the Russia-backed separatists in Donbas called Friday for civilians to evacuate from Donetsk to Russia.

Many of the sharpest exchanges focused on a shelling Thursday in eastern Ukraine that damaged a kindergarten and injured five civilians in the small town of Stanytsia Luhanska in Ukrainian government-controlled territory in Donbas.

Separatists in the Luhansk region attempted to blame the Ukrainian government for the shelling, adding that rebel forces returned fire, according to the Associated Press. However, Ukraine disputed the claim, saying Russia-backed separatists had shelled its forces, but they didn’t fire back. The Ukrainian military command said the shelling wounded two teachers and cut power to half the town, according to media reports.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Poland Friday that an invasion of Ukraine could see tens of thousands of war refugees fleeing to Poland “trying to save themselves and their families from the scourge of war.”  

He said the U.S. is continuing to provide military aid to Ukraine and is boosting the military capability of NATO’s Central European states. “It is ironic that what Mr. Putin did not want to see happen was a stronger NATO on his flank — and that’s exactly what he will see going forward.” 

Poland’s defense minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, welcomed at a joint press conference in Warsaw the Biden administration’s decision to provide 250 M1-A1 Abrams tanks to Poland.

He rebuked Russia for revanchism, saying the “best response” is “not appeasement from the side of the free world, but deterrence.”

Ukraine and the Western allies blame Moscow-backed separatists in the disputed Donbas region for additional artillery and mortar salvos, as well as the strike on the kindergarten. They say the salvos signal Moscow’s intentions to launch a major attack, possibly in the next few days.

False-flag accusations

Citing the shelling, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused Russia of orchestrating “false flag” attacks in eastern Ukraine and said Moscow was behind the shelling. He described the situation as “very grim.” 

The Ukrainian military said separatists opened fire on more than 10 settlements Thursday, using heavy artillery, mortars and a tank. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has dubbed the military action a “big provocation.”

Meanwhile, Russia and its armed proxies in Donbas say Ukrainian forces are responsible for Thursday’s shelling across a cease-fire line that has separated the rival forces since 2015, prompting Western officials to warn the Kremlin is preparing an excuse to invade Ukraine. 

The Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian authorities again made competing claims over three further salvos of artillery and mortar fire Friday, just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the U.N. Security Council that Russia is planning “a fake, even a real, attack.”

“Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide. This could be a violent event that Russia will bring on Ukraine or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed reports of a planned Russian invasion but said the situation in eastern Ukraine is “escalating.” He told reporters, “We have repeatedly warned that the excessive concentration of Ukrainian armed forces in the immediate vicinity of the line of demarcation, coupled with possible provocations [by Ukraine], could pose a terrible danger. Now we see that these provocations are taking place.”

A flurry of meetings between Western leaders began Friday, with U.S. President Joe Biden hosting a call involving, among others, the leaders of Ukraine’s neighbor Poland, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, the European Union and NATO. 

Harris in Munich

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Munich for a summit and two days of talks with global leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Zelenskiy.

“I will join other world leaders to underscore our commitments to our allies and partners and demonstrate our unity in the face of Russian aggression on Ukraine’s borders,” Harris tweeted on arrival in Germany.

Ahead of the meetings, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, accused the Kremlin of trying to set the clock back to the Soviet era and criticized what she described as Russia’s “Cold War demands.”

Russia has been demanding “security guarantees” from the West, including a legally binding assurance that Ukraine will never join NATO. Western leaders have rejected the demand for guarantees, on the grounds that Moscow has no right to dictate to independent nations and is only willing to discuss arms control and confidence-building measures.

The Ukrainian military said Friday it had recorded at least 60 cease-fire violations by pro-Russian separatists in the previous 24 hours, with one soldier injured. It accused Russia’s armed proxies of using weapons banned under a cease-fire agreement struck in 2015 under the Minsk Accord, which was brokered by France and Germany.  

Kyiv also says pro-Russian forces have used small drones to drop explosives on Ukrainian positions. It warned Friday that pro-Russian separatist authorities are preparing to evacuate civilians from towns they control, including the city of Donetsk, in preparation for a possible escalation of hostilities.

In a statement posted on Facebook, Gen. Valery Zaluzhniy, Ukraine’s top general, said he had “information from the occupied territories” about an evacuation. He denied his forces have any offensive plans. 

“I officially declare: the armed forces of Ukraine continue to observe the Minsk agreement and the rules of international humanitarian law, and do not plan any offensive operations or the shelling of civilians,” he said.

Separatist fighting

Separatist leaders in Donbas, however, accuse Ukraine of violations and offensive plans, although they concur with Kyiv there has been an uptick in breaches of the cease-fire. 

“The situation has tangibly worsened on the contact line over the past day. The enemy is trying to escalate the conflict on direct orders from the Kyiv military and political leadership,” the militia spokesperson of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Yan Leshchenko, told reporters. 

Militia leaders in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic also said in a statement there has been a “sharp escalation on the contact line.” 

Fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces has been flaring and simmering, escalating and de-escalating for eight years. Mostly low-level skirmishes are routine and a daily occurrence. But some Ukrainian officials say Thursday’s bombardment was different and more menacing because it involved multiple bombardments coordinated along the 250-kilometer frontline.

Other officials, though, disagree, saying coordinated artillery and mortar has been seen before. 

While both sides say there has been a significant uptick in military activity the past 48 hours, assertions repeated by media outlets, reports from a monitoring team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe don’t altogether confirm that.

On Thursday, the OSCE recorded 189 ceasefire violations, including 128 explosions in the Donetsk region, and in the Luhansk region the mission recorded 402 ceasefire violations, including 188 explosions. 

That was an increase on the previous 24-hour reporting period when the mission recorded 24 violations in Donetsk and 129 in Luhansk. 

Cease-fire violations

But on February 11 the OSCE recorded almost 1,000 cease-fire violations across both Donetsk and Luhansk. 

The OSCE has been monitoring military activity in Donbas since 2016, and its remit doesn’t allow it to apportion blame for cease-fire violations, but most are committed by pro-Moscow separatists, former members of the mission tell VOA.

And last year saw a marked decrease in cease-fire violations with the mission recording 93,902, down from 134,767 in 2020. Sixteen civilians were killed and 75 injured in 2021. The worst year for breaches of the cease-fire was in 2017, when the OSCE reported 401,336 violations. 

The OSCE has reported this week some serious obstacles placed by combatants on the freedom of movement of their monitoring teams. On Wednesday 27 kilometers southwest of Luhansk, monitors were told by separatists to leave the area and were instructed to seek prior authorization before trying to visit again. 

On Wednesday, too, the mission’s freedom of movement was restricted at a heavy weapons storage facility controlled by Ukrainian forces in the Luhansk region and later at a storage site in a separatist controlled area in Donetsk. The OSCE also says its drones have been targeted by GPS signal interference “caused by probable jamming.”

Western allies are fearful Russia might try repeat a tactic it was accused of using in 2008 to provoke a military reaction from Georgia and to trigger the first European war of the 21st century. Pro-Russian volunteer paramilitaries, mainly Chechens, prompted confrontations with the Georgians giving the Kremlin a pretext for intervention to defend the breakaway republics of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

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Росія оголосила про нові навчання за участю «стратегічних сил»

У навчаннях братимуть участь війська і техніка повітряно-космічних сил Росії з Південного військового округу, а також ракетні підрозділи Північного і Чорноморського флотів

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ЮНІСЕФ: від початку конфлікту на Донбасі були пошкоджені понад 750 навчальних закладів

«Освітні заклади повинні залишатися безпечним простором, де діти мають бути захищеним від загроз і криз»

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У ДБР дозволили керівникам Нацгвардії відвідати в СІЗО підозрюваного у стрілянині на «Південмаші»

Захист розцінює цей дозвіл як «спробу тиску на підзахисного» і вважає його незаконним

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CNN: нещодавно зведений понтонний міст через Прип’ять у Білорусі зник

Супутникові знімки від Maxar і Planet Labs свідчили, що міст з’явився вночі у вівторок. Але до четверга мосту вже не було, повідомляє телеканал

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Prospect of War in Ukraine Raises Questions About Europe’s Natural Gas Supply 

One of the many unsettling questions raised by the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is what an armed conflict in Eastern Europe would do to the energy supply of the countries of the European Union, which have become increasingly reliant on Russian natural gas for electricity generation, industrial applications, and commercial and residential use.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the countries of the European Union and the United Kingdom imported more than 80% of the natural gas they consumed in 2020, up from 65% a decade before.

Of the gas it imports, the EU receives the majority of it, about 74%, via pipelines. The remainder arrives in liquid form, typically on specialized cargo ships. Russia is the largest supplier of the fuel to the countries of the EU, with about 35% of total imports, all of it arriving via multiple pipelines, many of which cross through Ukraine on their way to countries in central Europe.

To be sure, a major disruption in natural gas transmission to Europe would also negatively affect Russia, which relies on energy sales for much of its income, Charlie Riedl, executive director at the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, told VOA. He said an outcome that leaves Russia without that income stream is likely not a viable situation for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the long term.

“It has long-term ramifications for Russia’s gas business — something that Putin is, I’m sure, acutely aware of,” he said. “Losing market share in Europe is problematic, given that the vast majority of Russian-produced gas winds up in Europe. So, there are challenges associated with that, if you’re thinking about this from a Russian standpoint, in addition to the sanctions that they will be facing on a broader scale.”

 

Different degrees of disruption

Should Russia send troops into Ukraine, disruptions caused by fighting could prompt some shortages, particularly in Slovakia, Austria and Italy, which receive most of their natural gas through pipelines via Ukrainian territory.

However, Europe would likely face other disruptions, not directly caused by fighting.

The United States and its NATO allies have promised to apply a set of punishing international sanctions on Russia if it sends troops into Ukraine. If those sanctions include a refusal to buy Russia’s gas, or if Moscow elects to turn off the flow in retaliation, the shortage of gas flowing into Europe would further worsen.

This could result in an energy crisis that would leave the EU searching for alternative sources of natural gas, much of which is not near at hand. Norway pumps a considerable amount of gas into northern Europe through existing pipelines, but according to officials in that country, the system is operating at full capacity. Flows from the U.K. and Denmark are also unlikely to fill the gap.

Other pipelines serving Europe include the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, which moves gas from Azerbaijan through Turkey, and a network of pipelines in North Africa that connect to Spain and Sicily.

A major new pipeline known as Nord Stream 2, which would deliver Russian gas directly to Germany by crossing under the Baltic Sea, is awaiting approvals before it can come online. U.S. President Joe Biden has warned that the U.S. will take whatever steps it can to block the new pipeline from opening if Russia invades Ukraine.

 

Few good options

“Unfortunately, Europe has found itself in a position where it doesn’t have too many good options,” Dustin Meyer, vice president of natural gas markets for the American Petroleum Institute, told VOA.

The only real alternative to existing pipelines is to increase the amount of gas that Europe imports in liquefied form. The EU does have a large number of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals dotting the coast along the Mediterranean Sea, the North Atlantic, and the North and Baltic seas.

However, Meyer said, “a lot of those terminals are being fully utilized for the first time in a while. That helps make a bad situation a little bit better. But they’re running at pretty much full capacity, and the main threats — either a pipeline cutoff through Ukraine or a total pipeline cutoff — haven’t happened yet. So, while that import capacity is significant, I don’t think anybody really expects that with their existing infrastructure, Europe could just totally turn away from Russia right now, and instead rely entirely on, say, LNG imports.”

A matter of years

Experts say the prospect of losing access to Russian gas is likely to lead to governments across Europe creating more capacity to import LNG from the United States and other countries, but they warned that creating that new capacity, on both the demand and supply sides, will take time.

Even with most of the world’s LNG-transporting ships currently delivering their cargo to Europe, Riedl of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas told VOA, “there is not enough LNG on the water, regardless of its coming from the United States or anywhere else around the world, to alleviate [the shortage] if Russia were to cut off all supplies.”

And that’s not a problem that can be solved soon. Even if export capacity in the U.S. and other LNG-exporting countries rises, Riedl said, Europe’s ability to handle increased imports will take time to develop.

“If they started today, it would be multiple years — a five-to-seven-year kind of time frame — and that would be a best-case scenario,” he said.

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‘I Hate This Sport!’: Rage, Teen Tears and Olympic Collapse

The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word.

After one of the most dramatic nights in their sport’s history, Russia’s trio of teenage figure skating stars each enter an uncertain future.

Her Olympics and life turned upside down by a doping case, world record-holder Kamila Valieva faces a possible ban and a coach whose first response to her disastrous skate Thursday was criticism.

“Why did you let it go? Why did you stop fighting?” cameras caught Eteri Tutberidze — the notoriously strict coach who will be investigated over Valieva’s failed drug test — telling the 15-year-old after she fell twice and dropped out of medal contention.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said he was disturbed by the intense pressure on the young skaters, particularly Valieva, and criticized her coaches without naming Tutberidze.

“When I afterwards saw how she was received by her closest entourage, with such, what appeared to be a tremendous coldness, it was chilling to see this,” he said at a news conference Friday. “Rather than giving her comfort, rather than to try to help her, you could feel this chilling atmosphere, this distance.”

Some in skating have pushed to raise the minimum age for participation at the Olympics from 15 to 17 or 18.

As Valieva placed fourth and left in tears, she received a message of support from 2018 silver medalist Evgenia Medvedeva.

“I am so happy that this hell is over for you,” Medvedeva posted on Instagram. “I really value you and love you and I’m happy that you can relax now, sweetie. I congratulate you on the end of the Olympics and I hope that you can live calmly and breathe.”

Unfortunately for Valieva, she can’t relax just yet. The failed drug test which turned her life upside down still hangs over her head.

While she was allowed to keep skating in Beijing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to avoid “irreparable harm,” that ruling is valid only until a full investigation of her Dec. 25 test for the banned substance trimetazidine is resolved. The case could take months and still cost Valieva and her Russian teammates the gold medal they won in last week’s team event.

Runner-up Alexandra Trusova was also in despair after her history-making five quadruple jumps proved not enough to beat teammate Anna Shcherbakova to the gold medal. “I hate this sport,” she shouted at the side of the rink. “I won’t go onto the ice again.”

Trusova said she was happy with the skate but not with the result, an apparent jab at the judging that gave Shcherbakova enough extra points for artistry to keep her ahead.

Trusova could be heard crying that she was the only one without a gold medal. The Russians won the team event using Valieva twice instead of allowing Shcherbakova or Trusova to skate one of the women’s programs. That win could be stripped because of Valieva’s doping case.

Trusova later said her comments about not skating again had been “emotional,” the result of missing her family and her dogs, but didn’t commit to compete at next month’s world championships.

Of the three teenagers, Trusova has had the most fractious relationship with Tutberidze. She switched coaches briefly, returning to the Tutberidze camp in May of last year. And her music selection seemed to send a message. She danced her long program to Cruella from the movie soundtrack.

Shcherbakova seemed unsure how to react the drama unfolding around her, and said she felt sorry for Valieva. “I still don’t comprehend what has happened. On the one hand I feel happy, on the other I feel this emptiness inside.”

Shcherbakova arrived in Beijing as the world champion from 2021, but Valieva’s record-breaking scores and Trusova’s all-or-nothing quads turned her into an underdog to her younger teammates. Being called an Olympic champion was “unreal,” Shcherbakova said. “I don’t feel like it’s me they’re talking about.”

Russian skaters’ careers are typically so short that at the age of 17, Shcherbakova almost immediately faced questions over whether she would retire.

“I have the desire to skate, and I can’t even imagine being without figure skating,” she said. The 2026 Olympics are a long way off, and no Tutberidze-trained woman has ever stayed in elite skating long enough to become a two-time Olympian. The last woman to retain the gold was Katarina Witt of East Germany in 1988.

What happens next for Shcherbakova and her teammates-turned-rivals depends on many factors — the eventual doping verdict, any further punishment for Tutberidze and the rest of her entourage and the myriad of injuries which can plague young skaters performing quads.

As she tries to recover from a failure on the sport’s biggest stage, Valieva remains at the center of a confrontation between Russia and international institutions. About six hours before she took to the ice, Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov said he would not give up the team event gold medal “under any circumstances, regardless of the results of the disciplinary investigation into the athlete.”

Just one of many unresolved questions for the three young Russian skaters. 

 

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US, Allies Warn Possible Russian Cyberattacks Could Reverberate Globally 

The United States and its Western allies are bracing for the possibility that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would have a ripple effect in cyberspace, even if Western entities are not initially the intended target.

“I am absolutely concerned,” U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told the virtual Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday when asked about the chances of catastrophic spillover from a cyberattack on Ukraine.

“It’s not hypothetical,” Monaco said, pointing to the June 2017 “NotPetya” virus, engineered by Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU.

The virus initially targeted a Ukrainian accounting website but went on to hobble companies around the world, including Danish shipping giant Maersk and U.S.-based FedEx.

“Companies of any size and of all sizes would be foolish not to be preparing right now,” Monaco said. “They need to be shields-up and really be on the most heightened level of alert.”

Monaco is not the first high-ranking U.S. official to warn that potential Russian actions in cyberspace might reverberate in unexpected ways.

“We’ve seen this play before,” U.S. National Cyber Director Chris Inglis warned a virtual audience earlier this month. Like Monaco, he alluded to the NotPetya attack: “It got out of its reservoir, so to speak, and it then eviscerated broad swaths of infrastructure across Europe and across the United States.”

U.S. Homeland Security Department officials said that for the moment, there were no specific or credible threats indicating an attack like NotPetya is about to be unleashed against the United States. But they said they were not taking any chances and were closely collaborating with Ukraine and other allies, just in case.

Russia’s record

“We are all hands on deck,” Homeland Security Undersecretary Robert Silvers told the Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday.

“It’s no secret that Russia has proven itself willing to use cyber means to achieve its broader geopolitical objectives,” Silvers added, pointing to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s energy grid in 2015.

Some officials remained concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would give the order to target countries beyond Ukraine as part of any military action against Ukraine.

“I don’t think Ukraine is his goal,” said Jaak Tarien, the director of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Estonia.

“Putin said in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference that he is sick and tired of the existing security architecture and he wants to change that, and he’s still at it,” Tarien told Thursday’s cybersecurity conference. His goal is “to get U.S. allies to fight amongst each other and disrupt our unity. So cyber is a really, really good way to do that.”

U.S. agencies are likewise worried that as tensions escalate, Russia may be tempted to ramp up cyber operations.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI and the National Security Agency issued a joint advisory warning that Kremlin-linked actors might use a variety of techniques to target U.S. defense contractors. 

Not all cyber experts are convinced Russia will resort to cyberattacks to hurt the West, even if the U.S. and its allies make good on promises to hit Moscow with severe economic sanctions.

“I don’t think that cyber [attacks] from state actors is going to be the first or the preferred mechanism for response,” Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, told the Munich Cyber Security Conference.

“Russia has enormous leverage in the economic sphere, even outside of cyber, to respond through export control measures, for example, on critical materials like aluminum and uranium and titanium and palladium and many other things that will do a lot to hurt the U.S. economy and the global economy,” he said.

Alperovitch also cautioned that Russia might be willing to let cybercriminals do the work instead, perhaps releasing a number of ransomware actors it has arrested in recent weeks.

“That would send an unmistakable, even unspoken message to the Russian cybercrime ecosystem that it’s open season on Western organizations,” he said.

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Tesla Faces Another US Investigation: Unexpected Braking

U.S. auto safety regulators have launched another investigation of Tesla, this time tied to complaints that its cars can come to a stop for no apparent reason.  

The government says it has 354 complaints from owners during the past nine months about “phantom braking” in Tesla Models 3 and Y. The probe covers an estimated 416,000 vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years.  

No crashes or injuries were reported. 

The vehicles are equipped with partially automated driver-assist features, such as adaptive cruise control and “Autopilot,” which allow them to automatically brake and steer within their lanes. 

Documents posted Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the vehicles can unexpectedly brake at highway speeds.  

“Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, and often repeatedly during a single drive cycle,” the agency said. 

Many owners in the complaints say they feared a rear-end crash on a freeway. 

The probe is another enforcement effort by the agency that include Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” software. Despite their names, neither feature can legally drive the vehicles without people supervising. 

Messages were left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla. 

It’s the fourth formal investigation of the Texas automaker in the past three years, and NHTSA is supervising 15 Tesla recalls since January 2021. In addition, the agency has sent investigators to at least 33 crashes involving Teslas using driver-assist systems since 2016 in which 11 people were killed. 

In one of the complaints, a Tesla owner from Austin, Texas, reported that a Model Y on Autopilot brakes repeatedly for no reason on two-lane roads and freeways. 

“The phantom braking varies from a minor throttle response to decrease speed to full emergency braking that drastically reduces the speed at a rapid pace, resulting in unsafe driving conditions for occupants of my vehicle as well as those who might be following behind me,” the owner wrote in a complaint filed February 2. People who file complaints are not identified in NHTSA’s public database.  

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been fighting with U.S. and California government agencies for years, sparring with NHTSA and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Last week, NHTSA made Tesla recall nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because a “Boombox” function can play sounds over an external speaker and obscure audible warnings for pedestrians of an approaching vehicle. Musk, when asked on Twitter why the company agreed to the recall, responded: “The fun police made us do it (sigh).” 

Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said it’s encouraging to see NHTSA’s enforcement actions “after years of turning the other way,” with Tesla. But he said the company keeps releasing software onto U.S. roads that isn’t tested to make sure it’s safe. 

“A piecemeal investigative approach to each problem that raises its head does not address the larger issue in Tesla’s safety culture — the company’s continued willingness to beta test its technology on the American public while misrepresenting the capabilities of its vehicles,” Brooks wrote in an email Thursday. 

Other recent recalls by Tesla were for “Full Self-Driving” equipped vehicles that were programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds, heating systems that don’t clear windshields quickly enough, seat belt chimes that don’t sound to warn drivers who aren’t buckled up, and to fix a feature that allows movies to play on touch screens while cars are being driven. Those issues were to be fixed with online software updates. 

In August, NHTSA announced a probe of Teslas on Autopilot failing to stop for emergency vehicles parked on roadways. That investigation covers a dozen crashes that killed one person and injured 17 others.  

Thursday’s investigation comes after Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles in October for a similar phantom braking problem. The company sent out an online software update to fix a glitch with its more sophisticated “Full Self-Driving” software. 

Tesla did a software update in late September that was intended to improve detection of emergency vehicle lights in low-light conditions. 

Selected Tesla drivers have been beta testing the “Full Self-Driving” software on public roads. NHTSA also has asked the company for information about the testing, including a Tesla requirement that testers not disclose information. 

 

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Vatican Spy Story Takes Center Stage as Fraud Trial Resumes

The Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates, with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy.

According to written testimony obtained Thursday, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers brought in members of the Italian secret service to sweep his office for bugs and commissioned intelligence reports from them, completely bypassing the Vatican’s own police force in the process.

The reported actions of Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the No. 2 in the Vatican secretariat of state, raise some fundamental questions about the security and sovereignty of the Vatican, since he purportedly invited foreign intelligence operatives into the Holy See’s inner sanctum, and then outsourced internal Vatican police spy work to them.

Peña Parra hasn’t been charged with any crime, though his subordinates have. They are among 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal, on trial in the Vatican criminal tribunal in connection with the Vatican’s bungled 350 million euro investment in a London property.

In the trial, which resumes Friday, prosecutors have accused the Holy See’s longtime money manager, Italian brokers and lawyers of fleecing the pope of tens of millions in fees and of then extorting the Vatican of 15 million euros to finally get full ownership of the property.

Peña Parra’s role in the scandal has always been anomalous, since he authorized his subordinates to negotiate the final contracts in the deal, and then triggered a suspicious transaction report when he sought a 150-million-euro loan from the Vatican bank to extinguish the mortgage on the property. But prosecutors at least for now have spared him indictment.

The new testimony, reported by the Italian news agency Adnkronos and Domani daily and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, provides another twist in the affair and underscores the Hollywood levels of intrigue that plague the Vatican and have rarely come to light. Until now.

One of Peña Parra’s former deputies, Vincenzo Mauriello, told prosecutors that in May or June 2019, after the London deal was finalized, Peña Parra told him he wanted to do a security sweep of his office because he believed his private conversations “after a short while were becoming known outside.”

Peña Parra asked if Mauriello knew anyone outside the Vatican security apparatus who could do the job and Mauriello said he suggested a friend who worked in Italy’s AISI foreign intelligence service. After a preliminary meeting, the spy, Andrea Tineri, conducted the sweep on a Friday afternoon when few people were in the palazzo, Mauriello testified.

Nothing was found. But Peña Parra then asked Tineri to produce some intelligence dossiers on key figures, Mauriello testified. Tineri and his boss at the AISI presented the findings to Peña Parra, handing over a white envelope in one of their many encounters on Vatican soil, he said.

Adnkronos quoted unnamed Italian intelligence officials as denying Mauriello’s account. But Vatican prosecutors identified Tineri by name in their search warrant as one of Mauriello’s contacts and said he had visited the Vatican eight times. Vatican prosecutors apparently didn’t realize he was a member of Italy’s foreign intelligence service and that they were identifying and publishing wiretaps of a foreign spy.

That the Vatican and Italy cooperate on security matters is not unusual: Italian police patrol St. Peter’s Square, and there are official levels of cooperation between Vatican gendarmes and Italian law enforcement. But Tineri’s spy work for Peña Parra certainly fell outside official channels, intentionally so. Mauriello recalled that he even had to escort Tineri past the Vatican security booth at one point because the gendarmes were asking too many questions.

Peña Parra, who remains in his day job as the Vatican interior minister, declined to comment Thursday, citing the ongoing trial, his office said. He didn’t refer to Mauriello’s claims in his lengthy defense memo to Vatican prosecutors. But he made it clear that as soon as he arrived at the Vatican in late 2018, he found a series of problematic activities that he sought to clean up, including outrageous spending, intransigent employees and dubious decision-making in the operational headquarters of the Holy See.

It is not the first time the secretariat of state has outsourced intelligence work: Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who was Peña Parra’s predecessor, is on trial in part because he hired a self-styled Sardinian security analyst with purported claims to the Italian intelligence services as a consultant to help negotiate the liberation of Catholic missionary hostages in Africa.

And Pope Francis himself authorized Vatican prosecutors to conduct wiretaps of Italian citizens on Italian soil, in yet another of the sovereignty-defying details of the case. 

 

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Biden: Threat of Russian Invasion of Ukraine ‘Very High’ 

U.S. President Joe Biden says there is a “very high” likelihood that Russia will invade Ukraine in the next several days. Three top U.S. officials are in Europe to meet with allies about the escalations in Eastern Europe. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb reports from Brussels.

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Радіо Свобода просить ЄСПЛ покарати Росію за статус «іноагента»

У новому документі медіакорпорація вказує на те, що і закон про «іноземних агентів», і санкції, які він передбачає, порушують 10 статтю Європейської конвенції з прав людини (там ідеться про свободу висловлювань)

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Соціологи зʼясували, що підтримка членства в НАТО і ЄС стала максимальною з 2014 року

За даними групи «Рейтинг», 62% українців виступають за інтеграцію України до НАТО, це щонайменше на чотири відсотки більше, ніж наприкінці 2021 року. Водночас 30% респондентів не підтримують такий вибір

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