A Russian court on Thursday fined the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns Wikipedia, two million rubles ($24,510) for not deleting what it said was “banned content” related to the Russian military, Interfax reported.

It said this was the seventh fine imposed on Wikimedia in 2023 for not removing prohibited information. The fines now total 8.4 million rubles.

The latest penalty was for not removing an article about a military unit that contained “classified military information” about its location, composition and equipment, including

information related to the progress of what Russia calls its special military operation in Ukraine.

Wikimedia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously said information that Russian authorities complained about was well-sourced and in line with Wikipedia standards.

Wikipedia is one of the few surviving independent sources of information in Russian since a state crackdown on online content intensified after Moscow invaded Ukraine last year.

“We are not blocking Wikipedia yet, there are no such plans for now,” Interfax quoted digital affairs minister Maksut Shadaev as saying last week.
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The humanitarian suffering created by Russia’s war on Ukraine has been accompanied by an economic shock that resonates globally, driving up food and energy prices on distant continents. With Russia’s shelling of energy infrastructure and industrial plants, its destruction of cities, mining and agricultural sites, Ukraine lost a third of its economic output in 2022 as 8 million people fell into poverty — a 15-year setback in poverty reduction goals, according to World Bank data.

Even so, Ukraine’s government continues to function, making social and compensation payments, conducting emergency repairs of heating and electrical grids struck by Russian missiles in winter, keeping trains running and repairing bridges and roads. This was made possible by deliveries of international aid that amounted to some $32 billion in 2022.

Ukraine’s government estimates another $40 billion will be needed this year, and the support appears to be in place. Earlier this month, dozens of finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Washington for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings, where donors pledged $115 billion over four years to help Ukraine maintain economic stability during the “exceptional and highly uncertain environment of a country fighting a war.”

Alfred Kammer, director of the IMF’s European Department, told VOA the program also aims to “galvanize donors,” which can provide Ukraine with the reliable “expectation that these funds will be coming.”

Kammer also hailed the new program for what he described as enhanced donor coordination — a promising improvement over last year’s disbursement efforts that, absent a formal program, resulted in chronic delays.

“Absence of an overarching framework made it difficult for donors in terms of disbursing [funds], that made it difficult for Ukrainian policymakers in terms of implementing policies, because there was always some uncertainty when money would be coming,” said Kammer.

Those delays in aid delivery forced Ukraine to print money in 2022, risking inflation and gambling with the independence of the central bank, the National Bank of Ukraine.

Ukrainian central bank chief Andriy Pyshnyi also praised the new donor program, calling it a “real life representation of [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden’s words that Ukraine will have the support that it needs.”

But because part of Russia’s war on Ukraine is a campaign of economic attrition, aid alone may not be enough.

During an Atlantic Council roundtable on Ukrainian reconstruction held earlier this year, University of Virginia historian Philip Zelikow said the West’s macroeconomic stabilization efforts are something akin to medical first aid.

“All we are doing with billions per month is keeping the patient alive in the ER,” said Zelikow, who called for a coordinated restructuring package to “give Ukrainians hope that they will come out of this.”

Post-war reconstruction

World Bank estimates for the cost of Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction have reached a staggering $411 billion. Ukraine hopes to have Russia pay for the damage it has inflicted — a position shared by allies — in part via confiscation of some $300 billion in Russian central bank assets that were frozen by Western governments after the 2022 invasion.

The U.S. Treasury’s multinational REPO (Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs) Task Force, founded in March 2022, recently announced that it has blocked or frozen more than $58 billion in sanctioned assets held by Russian oligarchs.

Once audits of the REPO seizures are complete, Pishnyi said, he’s hopeful the proceeds can be sent to Ukraine in the form of reparations. The fact that the audits are underway, he said, has finally allowed officials to move from conceptual dialogue about reparations to discussion of specific numbers.

Also founded in March 2022, Task Force KleptoCapture, a U.S. Department of Justice unit set up to enforce sweeping U.S. sanctions and export controls imposed on Russia, has seized more than $500 million in assets owned by Russian oligarchs and others who support Moscow and dodge U.S. sanctions and export controls. On April 19, the U.S. law enforcement agency formally began pressing Congress for additional authority to funnel proceeds from those seizures to Ukraine.

Although Ukraine has taken steps to jumpstart foreign direct investment, recently announcing plans to provide state guarantees to revitalize its export credit agency — 70% of Ukraine’s pre-war GDP drew from the private sector — some private companies are reluctant to invest amid the warfare.

But Rana Karadsheh, Central and Eastern Europe director of the World Bank-affiliated International Finance Corporation (IFC), told VOA that her organization, along with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), has programs designed to alleviate some of the inherent risk.

“There is a lot of interest [and] a little bit of natural concern about the risky environment,” she told VOA, “but I’ve been quite impressed at the level of support that we’re seeing, as we talk to companies … across the region.”

The IFC recently announced a $2 billion support package for Ukraine’s private sector — a program designed to entice private investors — while the EBRD is looking at investing $1.3 billion for emergency repairs of electrical and rail networks.

“[EBRD’s priority] is to focus on making life as bearable as possible for people,” the European development bank’s chief economist, Beata Javorcik, told VOA. “So that when the time for reconstruction comes, people will be there, human capital will be there.”

Ukraine, says Javorcik, is well positioned for post-war recovery.

“Money is obviously needed, but Ukraine has many friends abroad, so funds will be flowing,” she told VOA. “The second thing that’s needed is improvement in institutions in the quality of governance. And here, again, I’m optimistic because the accession process to the European Union can provide an anchor for the reforms and give the direction of the reforms.

“The third component, stable peace, is the most challenging precondition to achieve,” she added.

EBRD research drawn from more 200 cases of post-war recovery says Ukraine’s could take up to 25 years, though Kyiv hopes its reconstruction, and the return to normalcy that comes with it, will come much sooner.

“This generation should not be lost,” says Pyshnyi of Ukraine’s central bank, adding that he’s eager to see Ukraine become the “largest building site in Europe, if not in the world.”

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service. Some information is from Reuters.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was canceling a day of election campaigning Wednesday to rest at home, a day after he was forced to briefly interrupt a television interview over what he said was a stomach complaint.

Erdogan was being interviewed live by Turkey’s Ulke TV and Kanal 7 stations late Tuesday when the program was suddenly stopped. When the interview resumed around 20 minutes later, Erdogan, 69, explained that he had developed a serious “stomach flu” while campaigning and apologized for the interruption.

The president, who was scheduled to make a series of appearances in the cities of Kirikkale, Yozgat and Sivas on Wednesday, announced on Twitter that he would rest at home on the advice of his doctors and that Vice President Fuat Oktay would represent him at the events.

Later Wednesday, Erkan Kandemir, a deputy chairman of the ruling party announced that Erdogan had also canceled a rally planned in the southern city of Mersin for Thursday but would take part in a ceremony marking the rolling out of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant via video conference.

Turkish officials also denied online rumors claiming that Erdogan had suffered a serious illness and was hospitalized.

“We categorically reject such baseless claims regarding President (Erdogan’s) health,” his communications director, Fahrettin Altun, tweeted.

Omer Celik, another senior ruling party member wrote: “our president remains on top of his duties. After a short rest, he will continue with his program.”

Erdogan, who is seeking a third term in office as president, has been campaigning hard in the run-up to the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, sometimes attending three or more events per day.

He is facing his toughest electoral test of his 20 years in office as prime minister and president, with opinion surveys showing a slight lead for his main challenger, center-left opposition party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

In 2011, Erdogan underwent what his doctors said was a successful surgery on his digestive system.
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Workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Wednesday marked the 37th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster amid an ongoing war and nuclear threats, somberly laying flowers at a monument for victims.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the day to repeat his warnings about the potential threat of a new atomic catastrophe in Ukraine amid the war with Russia, drawing a parallel between the Chernobyl accident in 1986 to Moscow’s brief seizure of the plant and its radiation-contaminated exclusion zone following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Last year, the occupier not only seized the (Chernobyl) nuclear power plant, but also endangered the entire world again,” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post in English.

On April 26, 1986, an explosion and fire at the plant caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmosphere. Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is unknown.

Thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the plant’s radiation-contaminated exclusion zone in the early hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, churning up the site’s highly contaminated soil. Russian forces remained stationed at the closed plant between February and March last year, before they withdrew from the Kyiv area, and it was recaptured by Ukrainian troops.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv has since reestablished prewar security measures and scientific activities within the zone. But he cautioned that future moves from Moscow could endanger global nuclear safety.

Russian forces have also been stationed at southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world, since capturing the site early in the war.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly accused Russia of using the plant as a base for firing on nearby Ukrainian-held territory. On Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported that heavy Russian artillery fire hit cities on the western bank of the Dnipro River just across from the plant.

The plant has six reactors, all of which have been shut down over the past year.

“We must do everything to give no chance to the terrorist state to use nuclear power facilities to blackmail Ukraine and the entire world,” Zelenskyy said in his Telegram post. Zelenskyy’s office published photos of him laying flowers at two Kyiv memorials to Chernobyl victims and observing a minute’s silence.

At the site of the exclusion zone, workers and engineers placed flowers at a memorial Wednesday and received awards from the minister of environment, Ruslan Strilets.

Mykola Pobedin, an engineer, recalled with fear the 25 days he spent under Russian occupation. He had been working at the station for 35 years, but on the day of the invasion, he encountered something he never thought he would.

“Heading to the workplace, I saw a tank that was standing right here, and the muzzle was pointed at the station,” he said. He recalled sleeping and eating little for the next weeks, with even bread running out.

More than 150 members of the Ukrainian National Guard captured during Russia’s occupation of the Chernobyl exclusion zone remain in Russian custody, Strilets said. The level of radiation at the plant was now normal, he added.

“The day when the exclusion zone was crossed, when the Ukrainian flag flew over the Chernobyl station again, it was a day, it was a sign that Ukraine would definitely win this war,” he said.
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South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa backtracked on remarks he made Tuesday that the country would withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

The president’s office late Tuesday walked back comments Ramaphosa made earlier that day at a briefing, saying he misspoke when he said the governing African National Congress (ANC) party would “pull out” of the International Criminal Court.  

His remarks sparked controversy as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who is wanted by the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine, is invited to an August summit in South Africa. 

As a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the ICC, Pretoria is required to arrest Putin if he sets foot in the country.  

But just hours after Ramaphosa said the ANC party would quit the court in The Hague, his spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said the remarks were an error.

“South Africa remains a signatory to the ICC in line with a resolution of the 55th national conference of the ANC – held in December 2022 – to rescind an earlier decision to withdraw from the ICC,” he said.

Magwenya said the correction followed an error made at a media briefing by the ANC on South Africa and the ICC, which he said the president had “regrettably” and “erroneously” affirmed.  

Ramaphosa had said there had long been a feeling in the governing party that the court treats some countries unfairly. 

The ANC wanted to pull out of the ICC some years ago but was prevented from doing so by a South African court ruling that found it unconstitutional.  

It is not yet clear if Putin will attend a summit of the BRICS group of emerging nations– Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. 

Even if he does, it is far from guaranteed that South Africa would arrest the Russian president.  

Pretoria refused to act on an ICC arrest warrant in 2015, when former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited.

The African National Congress party is staunch friends with Moscow, which as leader of the Soviet Union supported its fight against Apartheid’s white minority rule.   

Kyiv also supported the ANC’s struggle for democracy, but Pretoria has so far refused to condemn the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
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A slick new video that has gone viral on Russian social media platforms shows a taxi driver, a security guard and a fitness coach at work.

“Did you really dream of being this kind of defender?” the footage released by the Russian defense ministry says.

The video, set to dramatic music, then depicts armed men in full combat gear walking across a battlefield in thick fog.

“You’re a real man! Be one!” says the ad, encouraging Russians to sign a contract with the defense ministry.

Moscow has launched an aggressive military recruitment campaign complete with videos and ubiquitous billboards as Kyiv gears up for a counter-offensive after months of stalemate in eastern Ukraine.

“Our job is defending the motherland,” reads one of the billboards in the capital, showing three soldiers under a big blue sky.

“An honorable job and a decent salary,” says another slogan.

Last September, President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” military mobilization — Russia’s first since World War II — sending shockwaves across the country and prompting tens of thousands to flee.

Unwilling to announce a second mobilization drive, Moscow has instead opted for a massive PR campaign, hoping to lure Russians with financial incentives.

Tapping into macho culture

The authorities have not disclosed their target but various estimates say Moscow could be trying to recruit 400,000 volunteers.

“The authorities are almost certainly seeking to delay any new, overt mandatory mobilization for as long as possible to minimize domestic dissent,” British military intelligence said this week.

Those who sign a contract with the Russian defense ministry are promised a monthly salary of at least 204,000 rubles ($2, 450).

A notice on the Moscow mayor’s website specifies that servicemen will be paid “at least 204,000 rubles” in “the zone of the special military operation”, the Kremlin’s official term for the offensive in Ukraine.

Those who take part in offensives are promised a daily bonus of 8,000 rubles (around $100) and at least 50,000 rubles (around $615) for capturing or destroying enemy weapons and military equipment.

Some praised the recruitment drive.

“In Russia, this is a good amount to support your family, and even your parents,” Pyotr Lipka, a 21-year-old student from the southern city of Volgograd, told AFP.

“This makes sense: if a person defends his motherland, why shouldn’t he get paid?” Lipka said, adding that signing a contract was better than being mobilized.

The PR campaign in support of the army builds on Russia’s macho culture, promoting the image of a “real man” as strong and patriotic.

Last year, the authorities admitted embarrassing mistakes in their troop call-up for Ukraine, after some public outrage over students, older or sick people being mistakenly ordered to report for duty.

‘Avoiding a new shock’

Yevgeny Krapivin, 41, served as a professional soldier when Russia fought Chechen separatists in 1999-2002 and would like to sign up again to fight in Ukraine.

He said recruitment officers first turned him away, pointing to his age. “Then they told me: ‘Wait. You can get a call at any moment’,” he told AFP in central Moscow. “I am ready.”

The launch of the new recruitment drive has coincided with preparations for May 9 celebrations marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, which has reached a cult status under Putin.

This month Putin approved a controversial bill to create a digital draft system that could stop men from leaving the country.

Kremlin critics say the bill will greatly facilitate mobilizing men to fight and clamp down on those avoiding the draft as the assault on Ukraine stretches into a second year.

Political observers say the Kremlin is keen to keep a tight lid on social discontent in Russia as economic troubles mount.

“Authorities clearly want to avoid a new shock, a new stress for society,” Denis Volkov, head of independent pollster Levada Centre, told AFP, referring to a military mobilization.

“And they’ve opted for a different scenario: to recruit volunteers,” he said.

The campaign could be successful, especially in Russia’s small, poverty-stricken towns, he added.

The new approach seemed to be working, Volkov said.

“We are not seeing any of the panic that there was in autumn,” he said.

“No one is queueing up to go across the border.”
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The graves are dug in the morning. Four plots, each two meters deep in the section of a cemetery in a central Ukrainian city devoted to the nation’s fallen soldiers. 

The day begins for Oleh Itsenko, 29, and Andrii Kuznetsov, 23, shortly after dawn, when the two diggers report for the grueling work. A day in their lives tells the story of Ukraine’s mounting war dead. They won’t be finished until sunset. 

With a tractor equipped with an earth auger, they bore into the ground. Armed with shovels, they go about carving out perfect rectangles with precision, the final resting place for the country’s soldiers killed in fierce battles on Ukraine’s eastern front. 

There will be four funerals today in the main cemetery of Kryvyi Rih, an iron-mining city 400 kilometers from the capital, Kyiv. 

“It’s hard,” says Itsenko, a former metal worker. “But someone’s got to do it.” 

In Ukraine, even the business of death has become routine as funerals are held for soldiers across the country almost every day, at times multiple times a day. The war’s death toll is kept a closely guarded secret by government and military officials, but it can be measured in other ways: through the long, working hours of the two young men, the repetitive rhythm of shovels and spades scooping up soil, the daily processions of weeping mourners. 

Western officials estimate there have been at least 100,000 Ukrainians soldiers killed or wounded since Russia’s full-scale invasion began last year. Estimates for Moscow’s war dead and wounded are double that as Ukrainian military officials report Russia is using wave tactics to exhaust resources and deplete their morale. 

Many soldiers have died fighting in Bakhmut, in what has become the war’s longest battle, and among the deadliest. Ukrainian forces in the city are surrounded from three directions by advancing Russian invaders and are determined to hold on to the city to deprive Moscow of any territorial victories. In the process, many Ukrainian servicemen have died. 

At 11 a.m., when the first coffin arrives, the two men lean back, exhausted, under the late morning sun. Shovels to the side, they peer from under baseball caps as the familiar scene, now a routine, unfolds. 

The family of Andrii Vorobiov, 51, weep as they enter the premises. Dozens more mourners arrive in buses. The deceased’s fellow servicemen weep as the coffin, draped in the yellow and blue of the national flag, is placed on the gravel. Vorobiov died in an aerial bomb attack in Bakmut, leaving behind three children. 

When the priest is done reciting the funeral rites, Vorobiov’s wife throws her hands over his coffin and wails. His daughter holds his medals, won for acts of bravery in the battlefield. 

“I won’t see you again,” she screams. “You won’t come to breakfast. I can’t bear it!” 

Between tears and screams, Itsenko and Kuznetsov wait for the last handful of dirt to be tossed onto the lowered coffin. Then they can begin the work of filling Vorobiov’s grave. 

The outpouring of grief is normal, Kuznetsov said. He isn’t affected most of the time because they are strangers. 

But once, he was asked to help carry the coffin because there weren’t enough pallbearers. He couldn’t hold back his anguish in the middle of that crowd. 

He didn’t even know the guy, he reflected. 

Kuznetsov never imagined he would be a gravedigger. He has a university degree in technology. A good degree, he was told by his teachers. 

“If it’s so good, then why am I doing this?” he asked, panting as he shoveled dirt into Vorobiov’s grave. 

There were no jobs, and he needed the money, he said finally. 

Itsenko lost his job when the war broke out, and learned the local cemetery needed diggers. Without any options, he didn’t need to think twice. 

It is 1:30 p.m. While the two young men are still working to fill the first grave, another funeral is starting. 

The family of Andrii Romanenko, 31, erects a tent to protect the coffin from the afternoon sun. The priest reads the rites, and the wailing starts again. 

Romanenko died when he was hit by a mortar defending the city of Bakhmut. A fellow serviceman, Valery, says they had served together in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk but parted ways in December. 

“He went too soon,” says Valery, sighing deeply. He speaks on the condition his last name be withheld, citing Ukrainian military protocols for active soldiers. 

As mourners bid their last farewell and toss earth into Romanenko’s grave, Itsenko and Kuznetsov still have not finished filling the first. 

“Got to hurry,” says Itsenko, wiping the sweat from his brow. 

There will be two more funerals in the next hour. And tomorrow, there will be another three funerals. Neither man can afford to stop. 

“What we are doing is for the greater good,” Itsenko says. “Our heroes deserve a proper resting place.” 

But he, his family’s only breadwinner, wouldn’t want to be fighting alongside them. 

“It’s better here,” he says, patting Vorobiov’s grave with his shovel. Kuznetsov plunges the cross into the earth, the last step before the flowers are laid. 

One done, three more to go. 
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Britain’s Prince William has settled a phone-hacking claim against Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper arm for a “huge sum” after a secret deal struck with Buckingham Palace, lawyers for the heir’s brother Prince Harry said in court documents.

Harry, the younger son of King Charles, is suing Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) at the High Court in London for multiple unlawful acts allegedly committed on behalf of its tabloids, the “Sun” and now defunct “News of the World”, from the mid-1990s until 2016.

In preliminary hearings this week, NGN, which has paid out millions of pounds to settle more than a thousand phone-hacking cases, is seeking to strike out claims by the prince and British actor Hugh Grant, arguing they should have taken action sooner.

It also denies anyone from the “Sun” was involved in any unlawful activity.

In a submission to the court, Harry’s legal team said the reason he had not brought action before was because a deal had been agreed between NGN and the “institution” — Buckingham Palace — to hold off any claims until the conclusion of other outstanding phone-hacking litigation.

“In responding to this bid by NGN to prevent his claims going to trial, the claimant has had to make public the details of this secret agreement, as well as the fact that his brother, His Royal Highness, Prince William, has recently settled his claim against NGN behind the scenes,” his lawyers said.

In a witness statement, Harry said NGN had settled William’s claim “for a huge sum of money in 2020… without any of the public being told, and seemingly with some favourable deal in return for him going ‘quietly’ so to speak.”

William’s office said it could not comment on ongoing legal proceedings and NGN had no comment.

During a criminal trial brought against “News of the World” journalists and others in 2014, its former royal editor Clive Goodman said in the mid-2000s he had hacked the voicemails of Harry as well as those of William, and William’s wife Kate.

Her phone was hacked 155 times, William’s 35 and Harry’s nine times, Goodman said.

In his 31-page statement, Harry railed against senior NGN figures and his own family, who he has accused of being in cahoots with the press to protect their image, saying the secret deal was struck to avoid a member of the royal family in the witness box.

Buckingham Palace “wanted to avoid at all costs” the reputational damage caused by publication in the 1990s of details of an “intimate telephone conversation” between Charles and the now Queen Consort Camilla, when his father was still married to his mother Princess Diana, his statement said.
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Latest Developments

Estonian Prime Minister supports Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, EU
China says it respects the sovereignty of former Soviet states
Letter containing unknown substance was sent to the French embassy in Moscow, the TASS news agency said Monday, citing law enforcement.

Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile struck a museum in the city of Kupiasnk on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring 10 others.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia is doing all it can to destroy Ukraine’s history, culture and its people.

“Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods,” Zelenskyy said after the Kupiansk attack. “We have no right to forget about it for a single second. We must and will respond!”

Zelenskyy said those responsible for committing war crimes “will definitely be brought to justice and it will be merciless.”

Russian forces seized Kupiansk, an important rail hub in northeastern Ukraine, during the early part of the invasion it launched in Ukraine last year. Ukrainian forces took it back in September.

Grain deal

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed a “way forward” of the Black Sea Grain Deal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Guterres outlined his proposal in a letter to the Russian president on “the improvement, extension and expansion” of a grain deal that would allow the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain, a U.N. spokesperson said on Monday after Guterres and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in New York.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Monday that an agreement between Moscow and the United Nations on Russia’s grain and fertilizer exports is not being fulfilled and there are “lots of details” to be discussed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary-General Guterres.

The Kremlin has indicated it will not allow the deal — brokered by the U.N. and Turkey last year — to continue beyond May 18 unless Russia’s terms on its own grain and fertilizer exports are met.

The European Union and Japan have pushed back against a U.S. proposal for G-7 countries to ban all exports to Russia, the Financial Times reported Monday.

Lavrov did not answer questions on his way in or out of the 90-minute meeting with Guterres. “Don’t shout at me,” he told reporters.

During the Security Council meeting Monday, Guterres said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “causing massive suffering and devastation to Ukraine and its people” and contributing to “global economic dislocation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Tensions between major powers are at a historic high. So are the risks of conflict, through misadventure or miscalculation,” he remarked.

Sitting next to the U.N. chief, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned the council that the world is now in a more dangerous situation than even during the Cold War. “As during the Cold War, we have reached the dangerous, possibly even more dangerous, threshold,” Lavrov said during the session on “Maintenance of International Peace and Security” that he was chairing.

Russia holds the monthly rotating presidency of the 15-member body for April.

Some material in this report came from Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The European Union’s top diplomat described as good news China’s distancing from controversial comments from one of its envoys who questioned the sovereignty of Ukraine and other former Soviet states.    

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell’s remarks come after China’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, sparked an uproar by suggesting countries emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union did not have status under international law.     

“They [China] issued a tweet yesterday saying they hope that this statement or remark issued was not the official position of China,” Borrell said. “And now we have the concrete answer from China that it’s not. So, it’s good news.”     

Made during an interview with French media, Ambassador Lu’s remarks add to European unease about China’s growing economic and political clout — and its stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.    

Beijing says it wants to be a mediator ending the war. But some EU member states are skeptical — especially those once part of the Soviet Union.     

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said at an EU foreign ministers meeting Monday in Luxembourg that “We’ve been always saying that we do not trust China as a mediator, as a possible mediator. It definitely has chosen a side. It’s sided with Russia, politically.”    

Ammunitions for Ukraine was another top item at the Luxembourg meeting. The EU has promised to deliver a million artillery shells or missiles to Kyiv within a year. But member states are at odds over whether to procure them only within the EU — France’s position to boost the bloc’s defense industry — or tap other countries.    

“I understand those who want to see the European military industry flourishing. Indeed, we need that. But if we delay currently, Ukrainians might not push as far and as successfully as they could with our assistance,” Landsbergis argued. “Therefore, speed is the main factor that we should be looking for now.”    

The EU’s Borrell predicts member states would finalize a plan to procure ammunitions for Ukraine within days.   
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Russia has threatened to scrap the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which enables the safe export of grain from Ukrainian ports onto the world market. The threat comes as members of the G-7 group of rich nations are reportedly mulling further sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due to discuss the grain deal with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York this week.

Export ban

The G-7 countries are considering a near total ban on all exports to Russia, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported April 21, citing Japanese government sources.

“The G-7 countries have already stopped exporting a wide range of items to Russia, including products that can be used for military purposes and luxury goods. But the latest plan could expand the trade embargo to used cars, tires, cosmetic items and clothing,” Kyodo reported.

The G-7 includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on the social media site Telegram that if the G-7 implements such a ban, Moscow will terminate the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“This idea from the idiots at the G-7 about a total ban of exports to our country by default is beautiful in that it implies a reciprocal ban on imports from our country, including categories of goods that are the most sensitive for the G-7. In such a case, the grain deal — and many other things that they need — will end for them,” Medvedev wrote Sunday on Telegram.

Grain deal

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the U.N. and Turkey last July, enables the vital export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports onto world markets through the joint inspection of vessels at a facility in Istanbul.

Ukraine is the world’s fifth biggest grain producer, and around 28 million tons have been exported under the deal since July. Its termination could have a devastating impact amid a global food crisis, said Ian Mitchell, a senior fellow at the London-based Center for Global Development.

“If the Black Sea deal isn’t renewed and Ukraine can’t export, then I expect to see food commodity prices to increase substantially again,” Mitchell told The Associated Press.

Professor Stephen Flynn, founding director of the Global Resilience Institute at Boston’s Northeastern University, said any such price spike would have grave implications for security.

“Anything that disrupts the food supplies has a dramatic effect, not just on potentially putting lives at risk but also fueling instability in parts of the world that already are facing significant violence and disruption,” Flynn told VOA.

May expiration

Moscow had already indicated it may not renew the grain deal beyond its next expiration on May 18, well before the reports of a G-7 export ban. The deal is supposed to be renewable every 120 days. At the last renewal in March, Russia agreed to extend the deal for only 60 days.

The Kremlin says a separate but parallel memorandum of understanding it had agreed with the U.N. to help Russia’s own agriculture sector in the face of Western sanctions is failing.

“Namely, the removal of any obstacles to the export of Russian fertilizers and grain — practically nothing has been done here,” Lavrov said April 20 during a visit to Cuba.

Despite that claim, figures show Russian wheat exports actually doubled in the first two months of 2023 compared to 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Russian demands

Among the Kremlin’s demands are the return of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT global payment system, the resumption of supplies of farm machinery to Russia, and the lifting of restrictions on insurance and access to ports for Russian ships and cargo.

“Certainly, those demands cannot be fully met, and the Russians know it,” said Flynn. “They’re again trying to leverage food to get all the concessions they can get. They’re doing it at a time when it’s almost certain that we’re going to see an uptick in the conflict, with the Ukrainians potentially trying to really push back the Russian positions.”

Inspections

So, what happens if Russia terminates the grain initiative?

“In theory, if the Russians opt out of doing the inspections, the inspections could be done without them. And the inspections are to confirm that the ships coming in to pick up grains are carrying agricultural products, not weapons,” Flynn said.

“If Russia clearly decides to be aggressive and mine the areas where the ships move, [or] potentially target those ships, then the ships aren’t going to move, and insurance rates would go very high. Decisions would be made by shipowners not to come into the Black Sea. And that would really put a strangle on the flow of grains,” Flynn told VOA.

UN response

The U.N. has also urged Russia to extend the deal.

“Our message is clear: We urge all involved to meet their responsibilities to ensure that vessels continue to move smoothly and safely in the interest of global food security. … The positive humanitarian impact all over the world of the initiative is evident and not limited to its exports to specific low-income countries. It’s in everyone’s interest to keep it going and to work within the agreed-to policy procedures,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on April 12.

G-7 agriculture ministers meeting in Miyazaki, Japan, called for the grain deal to be extended.

“We condemn Russia’s attempts to use food as a means of destabilization and as [a] tool of geopolitical coercion and reiterate our commitment to acting in solidarity and supporting those most affected by Russia’s weaponization of food,” the ministers said in an official communiqué issued April 23.
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The severe divisions between Western nations and Russia over its invasion of Ukraine overshadowed a U.N. Security Council meeting presided over by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday.

Russia holds the rotating presidency of the 15-nation council this month. Before even entering the chamber to discuss Moscow’s chosen theme of “effective multilateralism through the defense of the principles of the U.N. Charter,” Western nations denounced the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine and its hypocrisy in choice of meeting topic.

“By organizing this debate, Russia is trying to portray itself as a defender of the U.N. Charter and multilateralism,” European Union Ambassador Olaf Skoog said, surrounded by envoys from all 27 EU nations. “Nothing can be further from the truth. It is cynical. We all know that while Russia is destroying, we are building. While they violate, we protect. The U.N. Charter, the U.N. General Assembly, the ICJ [International Court of Justice], the ICC [International Criminal Court]—everywhere you look, Russia is in contempt.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, flanked by her Canadian and Irish counterparts, told reporters that Russia has repeatedly violated universal human rights and fundamental freedoms both domestically and abroad.

She was accompanied by the sister of American Paul Whelan, who was arrested on espionage charges while on a visit to Moscow. He has been in detention in Russia since December 2018 and is currently being held at a remote penal colony.

“Paul has not committed a crime, but a crime has been committed against him,” Elizabeth Whelan told reporters.

She said her brother is a “pawn and victim” of Russia and its strategy to detain American citizens to extract concessions from Washington.

“This is not the work of a mature and responsible nation; it is the action of a terrorist state,” Elizabeth Whelan said. “Paul was first in what has been an escalating series of wrongful detentions by Russia. First, my brother Paul Whelan, then Trevor Reed, both tourists. The sports star Brittney Griner. And now the journalist Evan Gershkovich.”

Reed was released in April 2022 and Griner in December. Both were part of prisoner exchanges between Moscow and Washington. Gershkovich was in Russia as the Moscow correspondent for the U.S. newspaper the Wall Street Journal when he was arrested on March 29 during a reporting trip and accused of spying.

Inside the Security Council chamber, the Russian foreign minister, with no hint of irony, complained that Russian reporters who had applied to cover his New York trip only received their U.S. visas as his plane took off, and he directly appealed to the reporters covering the meeting.

“So, I request, insist, that you compensate for the loss of the presence of Russian journalists,” Lavrov said. “Try to make your reporting objective so that the international community has a genuinely multilateral objective overview in your assessments and the facts provided.”

Lavrov sat next to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as the U.N. chief condemned the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, is causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people and adding to the global economic dislocation triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Guterres said.

Turning to the topic of the debate—effective multilateralism—the U.N. chief said there must be better cooperation to strengthen multilateral institutions.

“Members of this council, particularly those that enjoy the privilege of serving permanently, have a particular responsibility to make multilateralism work, rather than contribute to its dismemberment,” Guterres said. Russia is among the five permanent members of the 15-nation Security Council, along with Britain, China, France and the United States.

Lavrov’s remarks went on for nearly 25 minutes in a sometimes-incoherent ramble of familiar themes—Russia is fighting Nazis in Ukraine; NATO is a threat to Russia; sanctions are illegitimate; the West never intended to implement the Minsk Agreements but only wanted to buy time to arm Ukraine.

He added that the United States wanted “to leverage the openly racist regime” in Kyiv in the hope of weakening Russia and eliminating its competitors.

“It is clear to all, even though not everybody talks about this, it is not at all about Ukraine,” Lavrov said. “It is about how international relations will continue to be shaped through the establishment of a sound consensus on the basis of balance of interests or through the aggressive and volatile advancement of Washington’s hegemony.”

The council meeting was held at the ministerial level, but of the 15 council members, only Gabon and Ghana sent their deputy foreign ministers, and the United Arab Emirates sent a minister of state. Most of the other members were represented at the ambassador level.

Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary-General Guterres met Monday afternoon for private discussions that lasted nearly one and half hours.

Their meeting comes just weeks before the May 18 deadline Russia has set for the U.N. to meet its conditions to extend a deal that facilitates the exports of Ukrainian grain and Russian grain and fertilizer through the Black Sea. Moscow has complained for months that it is not benefiting from the nine-month-old deal.

The U.N. said in a readout of the meeting that the secretary-general gave Lavrov a letter for President Vladimir Putin, “outlining a proposed way forward aimed at the improvement, extension and expansion” of the deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The U.N. said the proposal takes into account positions expressed by the parties and the risks posed by global food insecurity, as well as a “detailed report” on the progress already achieved in addressing Moscow’s concerns about its food and fertilizer shipments.

A similar letter is being sent to Ukrainian and Turkish officials. Turkey is one of the signatories to the grain deal, and ships traveling to and from Ukraine pass through the Bosphorus Strait and are inspected by a joint team in Istanbul.
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