In the Russian legal system, the filing of charges and a response from the accused represent the formal start of a criminal probe, initiating what could be a long and secretive Russian judicial process.
Tass quoted its source as saying: “The FSB investigation charged Gershkovich with espionage in the interests of his country. He categorically denied all accusations and stated that he was engaged in journalistic activities in Russia.”
The source declined further comment because the case is considered secret.
Russian authorities arrested Gershkovich, 31, in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, on March 29. He is the first U.S. correspondent since the Cold War to be detained for alleged spying.
The FSB specifically accused Gershkovich of trying to obtain classified information about a Russian arms factory. The Wall Street Journal has denied the accusations.
The case has caused an international uproar.
In a rare U.S. bipartisan statement, the Senate’s top two leaders demanded Friday that Russia immediately release Gershkovich. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. declared that “journalism is not a crime” and praised Gershkovich as an “internationally known and respected independent journalist.”
On Thursday, the U.S ambassador to Russia and a top Russian diplomat met to discuss the case.
In the meeting with U.S. Ambassador Lynne T. Tracy, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stressed “the serious nature of the charges” against Gershkovich, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement.
The statement repeated earlier Russian claims that the reporter “was caught red-handed while trying to obtain secret information, using his journalistic status as a cover for illegal actions.”
Lawyers representing Gershkovich met with him Tuesday for the first time since his detention, according to Wall Street Journal. Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker.
Tucker said the reporter is in good health and “is grateful for the outpouring of support from around the world. We continue to call for his immediate release.”
Gershkovich was ordered held behind bars for two months in Russia pending an investigation. A Moscow court said Monday that it had received a defense appeal of his arrest; the appeal is scheduled to be heard on April 18, Russian news agencies reported.
[ad_2]
#Report #Russia #charges #Journal #reporter #espionage
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Beijing: Visiting French President Emmanuel Macron has asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “to bring Russia to its senses” in an effort to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, according to media reports.
Macron arrived in Beijing on Wednesday on his state-visit to China with high expectations for a possible breakthrough on working with the Asian giant to find solutions to end the war, reports CNN.
While Ukraine tops the agenda, Macron’s trip also has a strong economic component, with the President being accompanied by a delegation of some 50 business leaders, with some expected to finalise or even sign new deals during the trip.
He is also joined by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron and Xi engaged in closed-door talks on Thursday, which officials from the two nations described as being “frank” and “friendly”, the BBC reported.
Later in the day, the two Presidents joint addressed the media at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
In his opening statement, Macron told Xi: “I know I can count on you to bring Russia to its senses, and bring everyone back to the negotiating table.”
He went on to say Russia had “put an end to decades of peace in Europe” and that finding a “lasting peace” that respected internationally recognized borders was “an important issue for China, as much as it is for France and for Europe”.
“We can’t have a safe and stable Europe,” as long as Ukraine remained occupied, Macron said,adding that it was “unacceptable” that a member of the UN Security Council had violated the organisation’s charter.
On his part, the Chinese leader emphasised his country’s position on the Ukraine issue which is “consistent and clear”, Xinhua news agency reported.
“It is essentially about facilitating peace talks and political settlement. There is no panacea for defusing the crisis.”
Xi said it requires all parties to do their share and create conditions for ceasefire and peace talks through a buildup of trust and added “China supports Europe in playing its role in the political settlement of the crisis”.
He also said that peace talks should resume as soon as possible and urged the international community to “stay rational, exercise restraint, and avoid taking actions that might cause the crisis to further deteriorate or even spiral out of control”.
The Chinese leader reiterated that “nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought”, as well as opposed the “use of biological weapons under any circumstances”.
“China is ready to stay in touch with France and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis,” the President added.
Since the war began in February 2022, China has claimed neutrality and attempted to frame itself as an agent of peace.
It has also released its own peace plan which Western nations have been generally dismissive of, saying it sides too much with Russia.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed interest in it and called for direct talks with Xi, who is yet to publicly respond.
Macron’s trip, which comes four years since his last visit, marks the most politically significant interaction Xi has had with a Western leader since he met US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali last November.
Macron will continues his state visit on Friday with a trip to China’s southern commercial hub of Guangzhou, where he is expected to dine with Xi.
The two also said the U.S. had been “denied consular access” to the reporter “against standard diplomatic practice and likely in violation of international law.”
Beijing: Visiting French President Emmanuel Macron has asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “to bring Russia to its senses” in an effort to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, according to media reports.
Macron arrived in Beijing on Wednesday on his state-visit to China with high expectations for a possible breakthrough on working with the Asian giant to find solutions to end the war, reports CNN.
While Ukraine tops the agenda, Macron’s trip also has a strong economic component, with the President being accompanied by a delegation of some 50 business leaders, with some expected to finalise or even sign new deals during the trip.
He is also joined by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Macron and Xi engaged in closed-door talks on Thursday, which officials from the two nations described as being “frank” and “friendly”, the BBC reported.
Later in the day, the two Presidents joint addressed the media at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
In his opening statement, Macron told Xi: “I know I can count on you to bring Russia to its senses, and bring everyone back to the negotiating table.”
He went on to say Russia had “put an end to decades of peace in Europe” and that finding a “lasting peace” that respected internationally recognized borders was “an important issue for China, as much as it is for France and for Europe”.
“We can’t have a safe and stable Europe,” as long as Ukraine remained occupied, Macron said,adding that it was “unacceptable” that a member of the UN Security Council had violated the organisation’s charter.
On his part, the Chinese leader emphasised his country’s position on the Ukraine issue which is “consistent and clear”, Xinhua news agency reported.
“It is essentially about facilitating peace talks and political settlement. There is no panacea for defusing the crisis.”
Xi said it requires all parties to do their share and create conditions for ceasefire and peace talks through a buildup of trust and added “China supports Europe in playing its role in the political settlement of the crisis”.
He also said that peace talks should resume as soon as possible and urged the international community to “stay rational, exercise restraint, and avoid taking actions that might cause the crisis to further deteriorate or even spiral out of control”.
The Chinese leader reiterated that “nuclear weapons must not be used and nuclear wars must not be fought”, as well as opposed the “use of biological weapons under any circumstances”.
“China is ready to stay in touch with France and play a constructive role in the political settlement of the crisis,” the President added.
Since the war began in February 2022, China has claimed neutrality and attempted to frame itself as an agent of peace.
It has also released its own peace plan which Western nations have been generally dismissive of, saying it sides too much with Russia.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed interest in it and called for direct talks with Xi, who is yet to publicly respond.
Macron’s trip, which comes four years since his last visit, marks the most politically significant interaction Xi has had with a Western leader since he met US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali last November.
Macron will continues his state visit on Friday with a trip to China’s southern commercial hub of Guangzhou, where he is expected to dine with Xi.
BRUSSELS — Finland formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday, becoming its 31st member on the same day as NATO’s 74th anniversary.
The country applied to join NATO last May in a foreign policy U-turn prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s entry brings to the alliance a new 1,340-kilometer border with Russia — as well as its own significant military capabilities.
Finland and Sweden initially planned to join the alliance together. But Turkey and Hungary dragged out the ratification process for the two countries, ultimately signing off on Finland’s bid last week but leaving Sweden hanging in the wind.
On Tuesday this week, Turkey and Finland completed the final steps in the process, handing over accession documents to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Standing alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Finnish Foreign Minister PekkaHaavisto at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken declared: “With receipt of this instrument of accession, we can now declare that Finland is the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty.”
The Finnish flag was then raised outside NATO headquarters.
“The era of military nonalignment in our history has come to an end,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said at the accession ceremony, which was attended by senior officials and the alliance’s foreign ministers. “A new era begins,” he continued.
“Finland’s membership,” the president emphasized, “is not targeted against anyone.”
But Niinistö also underscored the importance of Sweden soon joining the alliance.
“Finland’s membership is not complete without that of Sweden. Our persistent efforts for a rapid Swedish membership will continue,” the Finnish leader said.
In his speech, Stoltenberg also made a nod to Stockholm’s ongoing accession bid.
“This has been the fastest accession process in NATO’s modern history,” he said at the ceremony. “I look forward to welcoming Sweden into the alliance as soon as possible.”
[ad_2]
#Finland #officially #NATO #member
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BRUSSELS — The next big transatlantic trade fight is primed to explode.
Negotiators from Brussels and Washington are scrambling to solve a five-year dispute over steel and aluminum dating back to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European imports. They have until October to get a deal but are still so far apart that European officials now fear the chances of an agreement are slim.
Without a deal, both sides could reimpose billions of dollars worth of trade tariffs on each other’s goods — potentially spreading well beyond steel to hit products including French wines, U.S. rum, vodka and denim jeans.
While U.S. negotiators are still hopeful that an agreement can be reached in time, the political fallout of failure for President Joe Biden would be serious, with U.S. exports facing a hit just ahead of his potential re-election battle in 2024. More broadly, another breakdown in trade relations between Europe and the United States would heap further pressure on a relationship that is already under strain from Biden’s green subsidies package for American industries.
With a more assertive China threatening to disrupt supply lines, and Russia’s war in Ukraine straining global commerce, the last thing world trade needs is a new crisis between major Western allies. Six EU officials briefed on the talks worry that’s exactly what will happen.
“The start positions are just too far away,” said one of the officials, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters. “The huge concessions that would have to be made are politically not realistic in that timeframe.”
The transatlantic disagreement is a hangover from the days of Trump, who imposed tariffs on €6.4 billion worth of European steel and exports in 2018. The tariffs were extra sensitive because Trump had imposed them on grounds of national security.
After he came to power, Biden agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities rather than a complete end to the dispute. His aim was for negotiators to work jointly on making steel production greener and fighting global overcapacity. The unofficial U.S. goal is also to squeeze Beijing’s dumping of Chinese steel, which is made with far more coal-fired power.
But unless a new deal is struck by October, the risk is that tariffs return. A summit between Biden and EU leaders has now been penciled in for October, potentially to coincide with the final leg of talks on the dispute.
China hawks
Officials in Brussels see the ongoing negotiations as just another push from the U.S. to force them into taking a harder line against China. “The language just seems written to tackle one country specifically,” said one of the European officials.
Discussions only recently picked up pace through the exchange of a U.S. concept paper and then an EU response. Those texts showed how far apart the two sides are on key issues, the officials said.
Washington wants to impose tariffs on imported steel or aluminum products, which would increase progressively based on how carbon-intensive the manufacturing process is, according to the proposal seen by POLITICO. Countries that join the agreement, which would be open to nations outside the EU, would face lower tariffs, or none at all, compared to those that do not.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally at Waco airport | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The EU’s response — also seen by POLITICO — does not include any form of tariffs, according to the officials. Brussels fears the American plan for tariffs goes against the rules of the World Trade Organization, which is a no-go for the EU.
But a senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, told POLITICO that tariffs should not be off the table.
“That’s a pretty powerful tool for driving the market both to reduce carbon intensity as well as to reset the playing field to counteract non-market practices and excess capacity,” the U.S. official said. “What we’ve been trying to understand and respond to, in part, is what are those reasons that the EU has to have concerns about a tariff-type structure.”
Karl Tachelet, deputy director general of European steel association Eurofer, said: “We haven’t seen any real ambition or vision to use this as an opportunity to tackle excess capacity or decarbonization. So it can only lead to a clash of views.”
Americans don’t see it that way.
“The U.S. and the EU share a commitment to tackling the dual threat of non-market excess capacity and the climate crisis, and the Biden administration is committed to developing a high-ambition framework that accomplishes those objectives for our workers and these critical industries,” said Adam Hodge, spokesperson for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
A student does steel work in Dayton, Ohio | Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images
But the senior Biden administration official argued that the EU proposal lacks ambition. It makes “tweaks around the margin” without actually attacking “the fundamental problem” that the two sides agreed to address when they called their truce.
“Our concern with the EU’s paper is that it doesn’t really change the dynamic of trade,” the U.S. official said.
“If we’re going to change the course of the impact of non-market excess capacity on market economies like the U.S. and EU, as well as really thinking about how can we use trade as a tool to drive decarbonization, we need to produce something that’s different and more ambitious,” the official added.
Several officials said Washington is also seeking an exemption from the EU’s carbon border tax, which imposes a tax on some imported goods to make sure European businesses are not undercut by cheaper products made in countries with weaker environmental rules.
Such an exemption for the U.S. is another no-go for Brussels. A European Commission spokesperson said giving the U.S. a pass on the carbon border tax would constitute a breach of WTO rules and “cannot be compared with” the U.S. steel and aluminum measures.
Workers at LB Steel LLC in Illinois manufacture wheel assemblies for high-speed trains | Scott Olson/Getty Images
Another European concern is that the U.S. wouldn’t scrap the possibility of re-imposing tariffs on the EU, even though the WTO branded them as illegal. Under Trump, Brussels argued only a complete withdrawal of the tariffs would satisfy the EU, contending the duties were an illegal slap in the face of an ally.
The senior U.S. official said that using national security to justify the tariffs — a rationale that would surely draw opposition in Brussels — “hasn’t been a part of our conversation with the EU to date.” But the Biden administration’s concept paper wasn’t written with WTO compliance top of mind, the official added.
Landing zone
Brussels and Washington are now negotiating to find a landing zone.
“Both sides are coming from two different positions on this,” said one of the European officials, while stressing that “there is a mutual interest to find a solution.”
Others were more pessimistic. Either way, a Plan B is taking shape in the background. Several of the European officials stressed the EU and the U.S. can also buy more time by prolonging the current ceasefire. “The deadline is always flexible,” said Uri Dadush, a Washington-based fellow at the Bruegel think tank. “Both sides can easily agree to extend.”
Steven Overly reported from Washington. Sarah Anne Aarup and Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels.
[ad_2]
#Trumps #tariff #time #bomb #threatens #blow #transatlantic #trade
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping showed no sign of changing his position over Russia’s war on Ukraine after talks Thursday with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
On the second day of Macron’s state visit to China, Xi took his long-standing line on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — saying that “all sides” have “reasonable security concerns” — and gave no hint he would use his influence to help end the conflict.
“China is willing to jointly appeal with France to the international community to remain rational and calm,” was as far as the Chinese leader would go during a press conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
“Peace talks should be resumed as soon as possible, taking into account the reasonable security concerns of all sides with reference to the U.N. Charter … seeking political resolution and constructing a balanced, effective and sustainable European security framework,” he added, sitting next to Macron.
The French president arrived in China on Wednesday in the hope of pushing China to use its leverage with Russia to end the conflict, and to get Beijing to speak out against the Kremlin’s threat to host nuclear missiles in Belarus.
During his private meeting with Xi, Macron raised Western concerns that Beijing will deliver weapons to China, according to a French diplomat with knowledge of the talks. But the French leader didn’t seem to get far.
“The president urged Xi not to make deliveries to Russia that would help its war against Ukraine. Xi said this war is not his,” the diplomat said, speaking anonymously to describe the private session.
The talks — which an Elysée Palace official nonetheless described as “frank and constructive” — ultimately lasted an hour and a half.
Afterward, the action moved to a signing ceremony, where officials and business leaders inked several deals, including the sale of 160 Airbus aircraft. According to the Elysée, the Chinese government approved the purchase of 150 A320 Neo planes and 10 A350s — a delivery that was part of a €36-billion deal Airbus announced last year. The information contradicted previous information from an Elysée official, who said a new sale was being negotiated.
During the deal-signing ceremony, every Chinese minister and business executive bowed deeply to Xi before signing the contracts with their French counterparts.
Xi and Macron then stepped in for their joint appearance, billed as a “press conference with Communist characteristics” — essentially meaning no press questions allowed.
The two leaders’ contrasting styles were immediately apparent. Xi read his carefully scripted remarks while staring straight ahead before ceding to Macron. The French leader then proceeded to speak for roughly twice as long as his host — a protocol faux pas that members of Xi’s Chinese entourage noticed.
Xi himself at times looked impatient and annoyed as Macron continued speaking. The Chinese leader heaved several deep sighs and appeared uncomfortable as Macron addressed him directly while apparently ad-libbing on the Ukraine war and their joint responsibility to uphold peace.
Macron also appealed to Xi to explicitly condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Speaking about peace and stability means talking about the war waged by Russia against Ukraine. You’ve made some important comments,” the French leader said. “This is a war that involves all of us because a member of the Security Council has decided to violate the U.N. charter. We cannot accept that.”
Macron and Xi spent one and a half hours in bilateral talks that were described as “frank and constructive” by an Elysée Palace official | POOL photo by Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images
French lawmaker Anne Genetet, who also held talks Thursday with Chinese officials, admitted there were “no surprises” in the Chinese position on Ukraine, but argued it was still useful to lay some groundwork on the issue.
“It’s the beginning,” Genetet said. “There will be more talks and some private moments [between Xi and Macron]. Maybe we’ll get some other messages.”
Xi and Macron will head to the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Friday, where they will hold more talks and a private dinner.
However, in what will be read as a concession to the French, Xi did talk about the need for the warring parties to “protect victims including women and children,” which comes after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Putin over his role in illegally transferring Ukrainian children to Russia.
Xi didn’t explicitly mention Russia in his remarks, though. And in a move likely to irk U.S. officials, Xi also said that China and France should “resume exchanges between the legislative bodies and militaries.” He then included France in a common refrain that Chinese officials use to criticize the U.S.
“China and France shall continue to … oppose Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation, joining hands in addressing all types of global challenges,” Xi said.
On Thursday, Xi also held talks with Macron and with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was invited by Macron to showcase European unity but who will not take part in many of the events between the Chinese and French leaders.
Indeed, von der Leyen held her own solo press conference as night fell on Thursday in Beijing. Unencumbered by the formalities of a state visit, the EU leader took questions from reporters and sent several pointed messages to Beijing.
She warned it against aiding Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine: “Arming the aggressor is a clear violation of international law — he should never be armed,” she said. “This would indeed significantly harm the relationship between the European Union and China.”
And she touched a diplomatic third rail: Taiwan.
“Nobody should unilaterally change the status quo by force in this region,” she said, alluding to China’s threats toward the self-governing island. “The threat of the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Von der Leyen did echo Macron’s message, however, that China could play an important role in Ukraine, calling Beijing’s stance “crucial.”
She added: “We expect China will play its role and promote a just peace, one that respects Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.”
Clea Caulcutt and Jamil Anderlini reported from Beijing. Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.
[ad_2]
#Macron #fails #move #Jinping #Russias #war #Ukraine
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The Kremlin didn’t waste time blaming Ukraine for orchestrating the weekend bombing of a cafe in St. Petersburg, leaving what they claimed was 40 injured and high-profile ultranationalist military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky dead.
And Ukrainian officials were no less firm batting away the charge.
They blamed an “internal political fight” for the blast just a mile from where Vladimir Putin’s ex-wife lives in the historic heart of the Russian president’s hometown.
“Spiders are eating each other in a jar,” tweeted Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
Who should one believe?
“Every day in Russia, it’s a thriller series,” noted Ksenia Sobchak on her Telegram channel. The former Russian presidential candidate and self-exiled daughter of Putin’s onetime patron, Anatoly Sobchak, St. Petersburg’s first post-Soviet mayor, understands better than most that things are seldom as they seem in Putin’s Russia — if ever.
As in any good thriller, the assassination of Tatarsky boasts a cast of colorful characters, an enigmatic figure at the center, rollercoaster twists and turns, as well as distracting sub-plots delaying the denouement.
But in this whodunnit — as with so many in Russia — in the end we’re unlikely to discover the real identity of the murderer or their motives.
Like with the car bombing in August on the outskirts of Moscow of commentator Darya Dugina, daughter of Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist ideologue, the list of possible perps is long. But that aside, little is certain or reliable — despite the wealth of CCTV footage that’s been released and the surprisingly quick arrest of a 26-year-old, Darya Trepova, until recently an assistant at a vintage clothing store.
She was seen giving Tatarsky a plaster figurine, which Russian investigators say was packed with TNT. In a video released by Russian authorities, Trepova is heard saying she “brought a statuette” inside the cafe, which “later exploded,” adding she would prefer to say later who asked her to give the blogger the gift. It is unclear whether Trepova was making her remarks under duress.
Last year, Trepova, who is married but separated from her husband according to two friends who spoke with POLITICO, was jailed for 10 days for protesting against Russia’s war on Ukraine. But for many reasons, she seems an unlikely bomber and was pictured leaving the cafe, Street Food Bar No 1 — once owned by Wagner paramilitary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and now run by his former son-in-law — as shocked and dazed as others caught in the blast.
Her friends, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing they could be ensnared in the anti-terrorist investigation, say they find it unlikely she knew about the bomb, and her estranged husband, Dmitry Rylov, told a Russian media outlet that killing is just not in her character. “I am fully confident that she never could have done something like that willingly,” he said. “My wife was set up because she would never kill anyone.”
Darya Trepova, charged with terrorism over the April 2 bomb blast | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
But that isn’t stopping Kremlin officials from painting her as a killer doing the bidding of Ukrainians in league with Russia’s anti-Putin opposition.
“The Kyiv regime supports terrorist actions,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow just hours after the dust had settled on the second assassination on Russian soil of a prominent advocate of the war on Ukraine.
And Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services,” noting Trepova was an “active supporter” of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Opposition activist Ivan Zhdanov has warned that Russian authorities are likely to push the “Navalny narrative” to discredit dissidents and set the stage for show trials, including another one against the imprisoned opposition leader with the goal of extending his nine-year prison sentence.
Mysterious group claims responsibility
Amid all the speculation and counter-narratives being hurled around, things are getting very murky.
Midweek, Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian lawmaker turned dissident who lives in Kyiv, posted a statement from a mysterious group, the National Republican Army, saying it was responsible for the bombing of Trepova, “the well-known warmonger and war propagandist.”
The NRA, which also claimed responsibility for Dugina’s assassination, said: “This action was prepared and carried out by us autonomously, and we have no connection and have not received assistance from any foreign structures, let alone special services.”
But as with the Dugina bombing, the group offered nothing concrete to prove they were behind Tatarsky’s killing, and the claim is being greeted with skepticism by security experts.
The famed blogger was assassinated while giving a talk at the cafe on how Russian war correspondents and bloggers should write about the conflict. The event was hosted by the ultranationalist group Cyber Front Z, which said it had hired the cafe for the evening. “There was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures but unfortunately, they were not enough,” the group said on Telegram.
Maxim Fomin, who was born into a miner’s family in Donetsk in 1982, chose to write under a nom de plume — Vladlen Tatarsky is a character in a novel by Victor Pelevin. He worked a variety of jobs, including in the mines, before being arrested for bank robbery. His nine-year prison sentence was curtailed when he was pardoned in 2014 by the self-styled head of the separatist “Donetsk Republic,” Alexander Zakharchenko. Tatarsky then enlisted in a local pro-Russia militia.
By 2016 he was blogging a thuggish but supercharged Russian nationalistic take on what it was like to fight in Donbas, relishing the violence, looting and drinking while cautioning would-be volunteers, “before you go to war, ask yourself if you really want to look into the abyss.”
Last year Tatarsky clocked up more than half a million subscribers to his Telegram channel. There they could read his gung-ho, macho chronicles of war, including his own experiences fighting, and rants against Ukraine. “Ukrainians should be cured of their Russophobia and nationalism, as our own forefathers once cured the excellent country called Germany of its mad Führer and his ideas,” he wrote.
A portrait of Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin | Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images
Tatarsky became a star draw on Russia’s state television and last year he attended a Kremlin ceremony marking the illegal annexation of seized Ukrainian territory. In a video he posted from the event, he announced: “We’ll triumph over everyone, kill everyone, loot everything we want.”
While backing wholeheartedly the war on Ukraine, Tatarsky was, like other ultranationalists, increasingly vitriolic about the poor tactics of Russia’s generals, labeling them “idiots” and backing Prigozhin in the war of words between the Wagner boss and the country’s defense chiefs.
Some local media reports suggest Prigozhin was due to attend Tatarsky’s talk on Sunday, although the paramilitary leader made no mention of that on his Telegram channel when lamenting Tatarsky’s death.
Prigozhin also dismissed the idea that Ukraine had a hand in the killing of the solider-cum-blogger, saying, “I would not blame the Kyiv regime for these actions.” He suggested the killing was carried out by “a group of radicals,” but enigmatically added they’re “hardly related to the government,” as in the Russian government, leaving it hanging as to whether they had any such ties.
His remark has fueled speculation that the FSB or another Russian intelligence service may have had a hand in the blast, either tricking anti-Putin activists into a so-called false flag operation or partnering with some others in the fratricidal world of Russian ultranationalism to kill Tatarsky and blame it on Kyiv and Navalny. According to this theory, the FSB has a vested interest in disciplining Prigozhin — bombing the cafe associated with him sends a warning not to step too far out of line with his attacks on defense chiefs.
Conned into a bombing?
So how does Trepova fit into all of this? The very few friends willing to talk with the media say she could well have been conned into taking the figurine into the cafe. Some analysts agree. “It cannot be excluded that she did not know about the bomb,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder and head of R.Politik, a think tank. “Her subsequent actions suggest that no one had prepared her for a quick escape after the attack, which means she may have been used unwittingly.”
The video of Trepova looking as stunned as others struggling away from the bombed cafe goes some way to supporting that idea. She also hardly fits the profile of a determined bomber or even much of a radical, reading through her social media posts before many were expunged since she was detained very quickly after the bombing.
According to the Telegram-based independent news site Baza, she was known in St. Petersburg as a feminist and activist. But her posts on Vkontakte, or VK, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, included mainly selfies and angst-ridden remarks about her life and very little on social or political issues. She comes across as much younger than a twenty-something, more like a teenager.
The two friends who spoke to POLITICO agree, saying she was mainly interested in fashion and the cinema, could be flighty and entered lightly into her marriage, which fell apart quickly. A month ago, she abruptly decided to give up her job and move to Moscow, mentioning some kind of lucrative job. She only returned to St. Petersburg a few days before the bombing and stayed at a friend’s apartment. Her mother told reporters she saw her daughter just hours before the blast and she seemed her normal self.
There are also some suspicious anomalies, including the quickness of her identification, the speedy interrogations of her mother and sister, and her own arrest — all in a matter of hours after the bombing.
Russian security sources told RBC that they aren’t ruling out Trepova was manipulated. Nonetheless, on Tuesday she was charged with carrying out a terror attack and illegally carrying an explosive device for an organized group.
That still leaves a question: Who was this group? And then we go back into the dizzying narratives.
[ad_2]
#Petersburg #bombing
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
ABOARD COTAM UNITÉ (FRANCE’S AIR FORCE ONE) — Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
Just hours after his flight left Guangzhou headed back to Paris, China launched large military exercises around the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its territory but the U.S. has promised to arm and defend.
Those exercises were a response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s 10-day diplomatic tour of Central American countries that included a meeting with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she transited in California. People familiar with Macron’s thinking said he was happy Beijing had at least waited until he was out of Chinese airspace before launching the simulated “Taiwan encirclement” exercise.
Beijing has repeatedly threatened to invade in recent years and has a policy of isolating the democratic island by forcing other countries to recognize it as part of “one China.”
Taiwan talks
Macron and Xi discussed Taiwan “intensely,” according to French officials accompanying the president, who appears to have taken a more conciliatory approach than the U.S. or even the European Union.
“Stability in the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who accompanied Macron for part of his visit, said she told Xi during their meeting in Beijing last Thursday. “The threat [of] the use of force to change the status quo is unacceptable.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron in Guangdong on April 7, 2023 | Pool Photo by Jacques Witt / AFP via Getty Images
Xi responded by saying anyone who thought they could influence Beijing on Taiwan was deluded.
Macron appears to agree with that assessment.
“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
In his trilateral meeting with Macron and von der Leyen last Thursday in Beijing, Xi Jinping went off script on only two topics — Ukraine and Taiwan — according to someone who was present in the room.
“Xi was visibly annoyed for being held responsible for the Ukraine conflict and he downplayed his recent visit to Moscow,” this person said. “He was clearly enraged by the U.S. and very upset over Taiwan, by the Taiwanese president’s transit through the U.S. and [the fact that] foreign policy issues were being raised by Europeans.”
In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
‘Vassals’ warning
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
Macron has long been a proponent of strategic autonomy for Europe | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions.
While sitting in the stateroom of his A330 aircraft in a hoodie with the words “French Tech” emblazoned on the chest, Macron claimed to have already “won the ideological battle on strategic autonomy” for Europe.
He did not address the question of ongoing U.S. security guarantees for the Continent, which relies heavily on American defense assistance amid the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
As one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the only nuclear power in the EU, France is in a unique position militarily. However, the country has contributed far less to the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion than many other countries.
As is common in France and many other European countries, the French President’s office, known as the Elysée Palace, insisted on checking and “proofreading” all the president’s quotes to be published in this article as a condition of granting the interview. This violates POLITICO’s editorial standards and policy, but we agreed to the terms in order to speak directly with the French president. POLITICO insisted that it cannot deceive its readers and would not publish anything the president did not say. The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée.
[ad_2]
#Europe #resist #pressure #Americas #followers #Macron
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Chinese leader Xi Jinping had one overriding message for his visiting French counterpart Emmanuel Macron this week: Don’t let Europe get sucked into playing America’s game.
Beijing is eager to avoid the EU falling further under U.S. influence, at a time when the White House is pursuing a more assertive policy to counter China’s geopolitical and military strength.
Russia’s yearlong war against Ukraine has strengthened the alliance between Europe and the U.S., shaken up global trade, reinvigorated NATO and forced governments to look at what else could suddenly go wrong in world affairs. That’s not welcome in Beijing, which still views Washington as its strategic nemesis.
This week, China’s counter-offensive stepped up a gear, turning on the charm. Xi welcomed Macron into the grandest of settings at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, along with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. This was in sharp contrast to China’s current efforts to keep senior American officials at arm’s length, especially since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a trip to Beijing during the spy balloon drama earlier this year.
Both American and Chinese officials know Europe’s policy toward Beijing is far from settled. That’s an opportunity, and a risk for both sides. In recent months, U.S. officials have warned of China’s willingness to send weapons to Russia and talked up the dangers of allowing Chinese tech companies unfettered access to European markets, with some success.
TikTok, which is ultimately Chinese owned, has been banned from government and administrative phones in a number of locations in Europe, including in the EU institutions in Brussels. American pressure also led the Dutch to put new export controls on sales of advanced semiconductor equipment to China.
Yet even the hawkish von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, has dismissed the notion of decoupling Europe from China’s economy altogether. From Beijing’s perspective, this is yet another significant difference from the hostile commercial environment being promoted by the U.S.
Just this week, 36 Chinese and French businesses signed new deals in front of Macron and Xi, in what Chinese state media said was a sign of “the not declining confidence in the Chinese market of European businesses.” While hardly a statement brimming with confidence, it could have been worse.
For the last couple of years European leaders have grown more skeptical of China’s trajectory, voicing dismay at Beijing’s way of handling the coronavirus pandemic, the treatment of protesters in Hong Kong and Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims, as well as China’s sanctions on European politicians and military threats against Taiwan.
Then, Xi and Vladimir Putin hailed a “no limits” partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. While the West rolled out tough sanctions on Moscow, China became the last major economy still interested in maintaining — and expanding — trade ties with Russia. That shocked many Western officials and provoked a fierce debate in Europe over how to punish Beijing and how far to pull out of Chinese commerce.
Beijing saw Macron as the natural partner to help avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations, especially since Angela Merkel — its previous favorite — was no longer German chancellor.
Macron’s willingness to engage with anyone — including his much-criticized contacts with Putin ahead of his war on Ukraine — made him especially appealing as Beijing sought to drive a wedge between European and American strategies on China.
Xi Jinping sees Macron as the natural to Angela Merkel, his previous partner in the West who helped avoid a nosedive in EU-China relations | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Not taking sides
“I’m very glad we share many identical or similar views on Sino-French, Sino-EU, international and regional issues,” Xi told Macron over tea on Friday, in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, according to Chinese state media Xinhua.
Strategic autonomy, a French foreign policy focus, is a favorite for China, which sees the notion as proof of Europe’s distance from the U.S. For his part, Macron told Xi a day earlier that France promotes “European strategic autonomy,” doesn’t like “bloc confrontation” and believes in doing its own thing. “France does not pick sides,” he said.
The French position is challenged by some in Europe who see it as an urgent task to take a tougher approach toward Beijing.
“Macron could have easily avoided the dismal picture of European and transatlantic disunity,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute. “Nobody forced Macron to show up with a huge business delegation, repeating disproven illusions of reciprocity and deluding himself about working his personal magic on Xi to get the Chinese leader to turn against Putin.”
Holger Hestermeyer, a professor of EU law at King’s College London, said Beijing will struggle to split the transatlantic alliance.
“If China wants to succeed with building a new world order, separating the EU from the U.S. — even a little bit — would be a prized goal — and mind you, probably an elusive one,” Hestermeyer said. “Right now the EU is strengthening its defenses specifically because China tried to play divide and conquer with the EU in the past.”
Xi’s focus on America was unmistakable when he veered into a topic that was a long way from Europe’s top priority, during his three-way meeting with Macron and von der Leyen. A week earlier the Biden administration had held its second Summit for Democracy, in which Russia and China were portrayed as the main threats.
“Spreading the so-called ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ [narrative],” Xi told his European guests on Thursday, “would only bring division and confrontation to the world.”
[ad_2]
#China #Macron #drive #wedge #Europe #America
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
