Tag: Ukraine

EU nears deal to restock Ukraine’s diminishing ammo supplies

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BRUSSELS — The EU is finalizing a €2 billion deal to jointly restock Ukraine’s dwindling ammunition supplies while refilling countries’ stocks, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
The plan has two major elements.
First, the EU will spend €1 billion to partially reimburse countries that can immediately donate ammunition from their own stockpiles. Secondly, countries will work together to jointly purchase €1 billion in new ammunition — the idea being that together they can negotiate bigger contracts at a lower price-per-shell.

EU ambassadors will discuss the proposal — prepared by the EU’s diplomatic wing, the European External Action Service — during a meeting on Wednesday.
The scheme — which POLITICO first reported on earlier this month — has come together rapidly in recent weeks in response to Ukraine’s pleas for more ammunition, specifically the 155-millimeter artillery shells it desperately needs to both hold territory and launch a spring counteroffensive.
And the figures, one of the documents notes, respond “to a specific request made by the Ukrainian minister of defense.”
The numbers are stark.
Estonia, which helped start the conversation in February about how the EU could jointly help fill a looming munitions shortage, has estimated that Russia is burning through 20,000-60,000 shells per day while Ukraine is trying to judiciously only use between 2,000 and 7,000.
Covering that figure will not come easy — or cheap.
Thus far, EU countries have only provided Ukraine with 350,000 155-millimeter shells in total, with the EU spending €450 million on partial reimbursements, said one EU official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. But the official pegged the cost for each new shell at €4,000, meaning costs are growing.
To cover both the losses of countries dipping into their stockpiles and funding new ammunition buys, the EU is tapping the so-called European Peace Facility. The little-known fund sits outside of the EU’s normal budget, giving officials the flexibility to use it to cover weapons purchases — once a verboten concept within the EU, a self-proclaimed peace project.
Thus far, the facility has been used solely to partially reimburse countries for their weapons donations to Ukraine. Now, documents show countries are willing to funnel an additional €2 billion into the facility — €1 billion to cover some ammunition donations and €1 billion to support joint purchases of replacement shells.
Ukrainian artillerymen in the vicinity of Bakhmut, Donetsk | Ihor Tkachov/AFP via Getty Images
The documents foresee the European Defense Agency, an EU agency meant to better coordinate members’ security efforts, possibly playing a role in coordinating the joint procurement efforts. But individual countries could also help spearhead these negotiations, as long as the country is working with at least two other EU members and not creating competing bids for the shells that drive up prices.
The joint procurement plan covers not just EU countries but Norway as well — as POLITICO first reported — potentially opening the door to some of the money going to non-EU-based companies. Norway, however, which produces ammunition, is already relatively integrated into the EU market.
EU officials are now aiming to get a consensus agreement on the plan during a meeting on Monday of foreign and defense ministers, before getting final sign-off from the 27 EU leaders at a summit in Brussels.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 14, 2023
War in Ukraine ‘distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges,’ DeSantis says

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Though DeSantis acknowledged that “peace should be the objective,” he warned that sending in troops, or advanced weapons like F-16 fighter jets and long-range missiles, “would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.”
His remarks come as Russia prepares to launch its highly telegraphed spring offensive into Ukrainian territory. Publicly, some GOP members of Congress have become split over the issue of the United States’ continued support for Ukraine, particularly the expense of supporting Ukraine against the Russian invaders.
DeSantis’ remarks put him generally in line with former President Donald Trump on the issue, who has said that defending the country from Russia is not a vital U.S. interest, but is vital for Europe.
In his statement, DeSantis emphasized the importance of prioritizing U.S. defense, particularly at the southern border.
“We cannot prioritize intervention in an escalating foreign war over the defense of our own homeland, especially as tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year from narcotics smuggled across our open border and our weapons arsenals critical for our own security are rapidly being depleted,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 14, 2023
Biden says the U.S. and Ukraine are united. Cracks are starting to show.

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Publicly, there has been little separation between Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, an alliance on full display last month when the American president made his covert, dramatic visit to Kyiv. But based on conversations with 10 officials, lawmakers and experts, new points of tension are emerging: The sabotage of a natural gas pipeline on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean; the brutal, draining defense of a strategically unimportant Ukrainian city; and a plan to fight for a region where Russian forces have been entrenched for nearly a decade.
Senior administration officials maintain that unity between Washington and Kyiv is tight. But the fractures that have appeared are making it harder to credibly claim there’s little daylight between the U.S. and Ukraine as sunbeams streak through the cracks.
For nine months, Russia has laid siege to Bakhmut, though capturing the southeastern Ukrainian city would do little to alter the trajectory of the war. It has become the focal point of the fight in recent weeks, with troops and prisoners from the mercenary Wagner Group leading the combat against Ukrainian forces. Both sides have suffered heavy losses and reduced the city to smoldering ruins.
Ukraine has dug in, refusing to abandon the ruined city even at tremendous cost.
“Each day of the city’s defense allows us to gain time to prepare reserves and prepare for future offensive operations,” said Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces. “At the same time, in the battles for this fortress, the enemy loses the most prepared and combat-capable part of his army — Wagner’s assault troops.”
Multiple administration officials have begun worrying that Ukraine is expending so much manpower and ammunition in Bakhmut that it could sap their ability to mount a major counteroffensive in the spring.
“I certainly don’t want to discount the tremendous work that the Ukrainians’ soldiers and leaders have put into defending Bakhmut — but I think it’s more of a symbolic value than it is a strategic and operational value,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Kyiv, for now, has ignored Washington’s input.

Meanwhile, an assessment by U.S. intelligence suggested that a “pro-Ukraine group” was responsible for the destruction of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last fall, shedding light on a great mystery. The new intelligence, first reported by The New York Times, was short on details but appeared to knock down a theory that Moscow was responsible for sabotaging the pipelines that delivered Russian gas to Europe.
Intelligence analysts do not believe Zelenskyy or his aides were involved in the sabotage, but the Biden administration has signaled to Kyiv — much like it did when a car bomb in Moscow killed the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist last year — that certain acts of violence outside of Ukraine’s borders will not be tolerated.
There has also been, at times, frustration about Washington’s delivery of weapons to Ukraine. The United States has, by far, sent the most weapons and equipment to the front, but Kyiv has always looked ahead for the next set of supplies. Though most in the administration have been understanding about Kyiv’s desperation to defend itself, there have been grumblings about the constant requests and, at times, Zelenskyy not showing appropriate gratitude, according to two White House officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
“I do think the administration is split, the National Security Council split” on what weapons to send to Ukraine, said McCaul, who’s in constant touch with senior Biden officials. “I talk to a lot of top military brass and they are, in large part, supportive of giving them the ATACMS.”
The administration hasn’t provided those long-range missiles because there are few to spare in America’s own arsenal. There’s also fear that Ukraine might strike faraway Russian targets, potentially escalating the war.
A recent report that the Pentagon was blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence of possible Russian war crimes with the International Criminal Court also put another dent in the unity narrative. White House officials were dismayed when the New York Times story came out, fearful it would damage the moral case the U.S. has made for supporting Ukraine against Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The administration definitively declared the alliance between the United States — and its allies — and Kyiv remained strong, and that it would last as long as the war raged.
National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the White House is “in constant communication with Ukraine as we support their defense of their sovereignty and territorial integrity.” She added that with Putin showing no signs of ceasing his war, “the best thing we can do is to continue to help Ukraine succeed on the battlefield so they can be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table for when that time comes.”
But the growing disconnects may foreshadow a larger divide over the debate as to how the war will end.
Though Biden has pledged steadfast support, and the coffers remain open for now, the U.S. has been clear with Kyiv that it cannot fund Ukraine indefinitely at this level. Though backing Ukraine has largely been a bipartisan effort, a small but growing number of Republicans have begun to voice skepticism about the use of American treasure to support Kyiv without an end in sight to a distant war.
Among those who have expressed doubt about support for the long haul is House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has said that the U.S. would not offer a “blank check” to Ukraine and rejected Zelenskyy’s invitation to travel to Kyiv and learn about the realities of war.
“There is always some friction built in,” said Kurt Volker, a special presidential envoy for Ukraine during the Trump administration. “Zelenskyy also stepped in it a bit with McCarthy — coming across as needing to ‘educate’ him, rather than work with him.”
But many observers credit remarkable transatlantic unity, praising the alliance holding firm despite the economic and political toll the war has taken.
“I see the little fissures, but those have existed with points of disagreement and varied views between the U.S. and Ukraine even before the big February invasion, and since then,” said Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “Zelenskyy has made pointed remarks before toward the U.S., and the White House has expressed disagreement with him — publicly and privately — on specific aspects, but that hasn’t shifted or eaten away at the overall U.S. support and partnership.”
Points of crisis still hover on the horizon. Zelenskyy’s insistence that all of Ukraine — including Crimea, which has been under Russian control since 2014 — be returned to Ukraine before any peace negotiations begin would only extend the war, U.S. officials believe. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has signaled to Kyiv that Ukraine’s potential recapture of Crimea would be a red line for Putin, possibly leading to a dramatic escalation from Moscow.
Moreover, the Pentagon has consistently expressed doubts whether Ukraine’s forces — despite being armed with sophisticated Western weapons — would be able to dislodge Russia from Crimea, where it has been entrenched for nearly a decade.
For now, Biden continued to stick to his refrain that the United States will leave all decisions about war and peace to Zelenskky. But whispers have begun across Washington as to how tenable that will be as the war grinds on — and another presidential election looms.
“There has never been a war in history without setbacks and challenges,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), an Army veteran and HFAC member. “The question is not whether Ukrainians have setbacks, but how they respond and overcome them. Ukraine will overcome, defeat Russia and remain free.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 12, 2023
Sunak and Macron hail ‘new chapter’ in UK-France ties

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PARIS — Vegetarian sushi and rugby brought the leaders of Britain and France together after years of Brexit rows.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday held the two countries’ first bilateral summit in five years, amid warm words and wishes for closer post-Brexit cooperation.
“This is an exceptional summit, a moment of reunion and reconnection, that illustrates that we want to better speak to each other,” Macron told a joint press conference afterward. “We have the will to work together in a Europe that has new responsibilities.”

Most notably from London’s perspective, the pair agreed a new multi-annual financial framework to jointly tackle the arrival of undocumented migrants on small boats through the English Channel — in part funding a new detention center in France.
“The U.K. and France share a special bond and a special responsibility,” Sunak said. “When the security of our Continent is threatened, we will always be at the forefront of its defense.”
Macron congratulated Sunak for agreeing the Windsor Framework with the European Commission, putting an end to a long U.K.-EU row over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland, and stressing it marks a “new beginning of working more closely with the EU.”
“I feel very fortunate to be serving alongside you and incredibly excited about the future we can build together. Merci mon ami,” Sunak said.
It has been many years since the leaders of Britain and France were so publicly at ease with each other.
Sunak and Macron bonded over rugby, ahead of Saturday’s match between England and France, and exchanged T-shirts signed by their respective teams.
Later, they met alone at the Élysée Palace for more than an hour, only being joined by their chiefs of staff at the very end of the meeting, described as “warm and productive” by Sunak’s official spokesman. The pair, who spoke English, had planned to hold a shorter one-to-one session, but they decided to extend it, the spokesman said.
They later met with their respective ministers for a lunch comprising vegetarian sushi, turbot, artichokes and praline tart.
Macron congratulated Sunak for agreeing the Windsor Framework with the European Commission | Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images
Speaking on the Eurostar en route to Paris, Sunak told reporters this was the beginning of a “new chapter” in the Franco-British relationship.
“It’s been great to get to know Emmanuel over the last two months. There’s a shared desire to strengthen the relationship,” he said. “I really believe that the range of things that we can do together is quite significant.”
In a show of goodwill from the French, who pushed energetically for a hard line during Brexit talks, Macron said he wanted to “fix the consequences of Brexit” and opened the door to closer cooperation with the Brits in the future.
“It’s my wish and it’s in our interests to have closest possible alliance. It will depend on our commitment and willingness but I am sure we will do it,” he said alongside Sunak.
Tackling small boats
Under the terms of the new migration deal, Britain will pay €141 million to France in 2023-24, €191 million in 2024-25 and €209 million in 2025-26.
This money will come in installments and go toward funding a new detention center in France, a new Franco-British command centre, an extra 500 law enforcement officers on French beaches and better technology to patrol them, including more drones and surveillance aircraft.
The new detention center, located in the Dunkirk area, would be funded by the British and run by the French and help compensate for the lack of space in other detention centers in northern France, according to one of Macron’s aides.
According to U.K. and French officials, France is expected to contribute significantly more funding — up to five times the amount the British are contributing — toward the plan although the Elysée has refused to give exact figures.
A new, permanent French mobile policing unit will join the efforts to tackle small boats. This work will be overseen by a new zonal coordination center, where U.K. liaison officers will be permanently based working with French counterparts.
Sunak stressed U.K.-French cooperation on small boats since November has made a significant difference, and defended the decision to hand more British money to France to help patrol the French northern shores. Irregular migration, he stressed, is a “joint problem.”
Ukraine unity
Sunak and Macron also made a show of unity on the war in Ukraine, agreeing that their priority would be to continue to support the country in its war against Russian aggression.
The French president said the “ambition short-term is to help Ukraine to resist and to build counter-offensives.”
“The priority is military,” he said. “We want a lasting peace, when Ukraine wants it and in the conditions that it wants and our will is to put it in position to do so.”
The West’s top priority should remain helping Ukrainians achieve “a decisive battlefield advantage” that later allows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sit down at the negotiating table with Russian President Vladimir Putin from a stronger position, Sunak said en route to the summit.
“That should be everyone’s focus,” he added. “Of course, this will end as all conflicts do, at the negotiating table. But that’s a decision for Ukraine to make. And what we need to do is put them in the best possible place to have those talks at an appropriate moment that makes sense for them.”
The two leaders also announced they would start joint training operations of Ukrainian marines.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 9, 2023
McCarthy rejects Zelenskyy’s invitation to Ukraine

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with reporters at the U.S. Capitol on March 7, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit the embattled nation amid his hesitancy to greenlight aid, a request the California Republican quickly shut down.
“He has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an interview.
When informed about the Ukrainian invitation, the speaker told CNN that he would not take the trip and blamed the Biden administration for not acting quickly enough to aid Ukraine. Still, McCarthy (R-Calif.) held his position that the U.S. should not be sending a “blank check” to Kyiv, repeating a position he initially made last fall that sparked uproar from members of both parties.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023
Who blew up Nord Stream?

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Nearly six months on from the subsea gas pipeline explosions, which sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world in September, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of who blew up Nord Stream.
Some were quick to place the blame squarely at Russia’s door — citing its record of hybrid warfare and a possible motive of intimidation, in the midst of a bitter economic war with Europe over gas supply.
But half a year has passed without any firm evidence for this — or any other explanation — being produced by the ongoing investigations of authorities in three European countries.

Since the day of the attack, four states — Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and the U.K. — have been publicly blamed for the explosions, with varying degrees of evidence.
Still, some things are known for sure.
As was widely assumed within hours of the blast, the explosions were an act of deliberate sabotage. One of the three investigations, led by Sweden’s Prosecution Authority, confirmed in November that residues of explosives and several “foreign objects” were found at the “crime scene” on the seabed, around 100 meters below the surface of the Baltic Sea, close to the Danish Island of Bornholm.
Now two new media reports — one from the New York Times, the other a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR, plus newspaper Die Zeit — raised the possibility that a pro-Ukrainian group — though not necessarily state-backed — may have been responsible. On Wednesday, the German Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had searched a ship in January suspected of transporting explosives used in the sabotage, but was still investigating the seized objects, the identities of the perpetrators and their possible motives.
In the information vacuum since September, various theories have surfaced as to the culprit and their motive:
Theory 1: Putin, the energy bully
In the days immediately after the attack, the working assumption of many analysts in the West was that this was a brazen act of intimidation on the part of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spelt out the hypothesis via his Twitter feed on September 27 — the day after the explosions were first detected. He branded the incident “nothing more [than] a terrorist attack planned by Russia and act of aggression towards the EU” linked to Moscow’s determination to provoke “pre-winter panic” over gas supplies to Europe.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also hinted at Russian involvement. Russia denied responsibility.
The Nord Stream pipes are part-owned by Russia’s Gazprom. The company had by the time of the explosions announced an “indefinite” shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipes, citing technical issues which the EU branded “fallacious pretences.” The new Nord Stream 2 pipes, meanwhile, had never been brought into the service. Within days of Gazprom announcing the shutdown in early September, Putin issued a veiled threat that Europe would “freeze” if it stuck to its plan of energy sanctions against Russia.
But why blow up the pipeline, if gas blackmail via shutdowns had already proved effective? Why end the possibility of gas ever flowing again?
Simone Tagliapietra, energy specialist and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said it was possible that — if it was Russia — there may have been internal divisions about any such decision. “At that point, when Putin had basically decided to stop supplying [gas to] Germany, many in Russia may have been against that. This was a source of revenues.” It is possible, Tagliapietra said, that “hardliners” took the decision to end the debate by ending the pipelines.
Blowing up Nord Stream, in this reading of the situation, was a final declaration of Russia’s willingness to cut off Europe’s gas supply indefinitely, while also demonstrating its hybrid warfare capabilities. In October, Putin said that the attack had shown that “any critical infrastructure in transport, energy or communication infrastructure is under threat — regardless of what part of the world it is located” — words viewed by many in the West as a veiled threat of more to come.
Theory 2: The Brits did it
From the beginning, Russian leaders have insinuated that either Ukraine or its Western allies were behind the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said two days after the explosions that accusations of Russian culpability were “quite predictable and predictably stupid.” He added that Moscow had no interest in blowing up Nord Stream. “We have lost a route for gas supplies to Europe.”
Then a month on from the blasts, the Russian defense ministry made the very specific allegation that “representatives of the U.K. Navy participated in planning, supporting and executing” the attack. No evidence was given. The same supposed British specialists were also involved in helping Ukraine coordinate a drone attack on Sevastopol in Crimea, Moscow said.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said the “invented” allegations were intended to distract attention from Russia’s recent defeats on the battlefield. In any case, Moscow soon changed its tune.
Theory 3: U.S. black ops
In February, with formal investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark still yet to report, an article by the U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh triggered a new wave of speculation. Hersh’s allegation: U.S. forces blew up Nord Stream on direct orders from Joe Biden.
The account — based on a single source said to have “direct knowledge of the operational planning” — alleged that an “obscure deep-diving group in Panama City” was secretly assigned to lay remotely-detonated mines on the pipelines. It suggested Biden’s rationale was to sever once and for all Russia’s gas link to Germany, ensuring that no amount of Kremlin blackmail could deter Berlin from steadfastly supporting Ukraine.
Hersh’s article also drew on Biden’s public remarks when, in February 2022, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he told reporters that should Russia invade “there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
The White House described Hersh’s story as “utterly false and complete fiction.” The article certainly included some dubious claims, not least that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has “cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War.” Stoltenberg, born in 1959, was 16 years old when the war ended.
Russian leaders, however, seized on the report, citing it as evidence at the U.N. Security Council later in February and calling for an U.N.-led inquiry into the attacks, prompting Germany, Denmark and Sweden to issue a joint statement saying their investigations were ongoing.
Theory 4: The mystery boatmen
The latest clues — following reports on Tuesday from the New York Times and German media — center on a boat, six people with forged passports and the tiny Danish island of Christiansø.
According to these reports, a boat that set sail from the German port of Rostock, later stopping at Christiansø, is at the center of the Nord Stream investigations.
Germany’s federal prosecutor confirmed on Wednesday that a ship suspected of transporting explosives had been searched in January — and some of the 100 or so residents of tiny Christiansø told Denmark’s TV2 that police had visited the island and made inquiries. Residents were invited to come forward with information via a post on the island’s Facebook page.
Both the New York Times and the German media reports suggested that intelligence is pointing to a link to a pro-Ukrainian group, although there is no evidence that any orders came from the Ukrainian government and the identities of the alleged perpetrators are also still unknown.
Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, tweeted he was enjoying “collecting amusing conspiracy theories” about what happened to Nord Stream, but that Ukraine had “nothing to do” with it and had “no information about pro-Ukraine sabotage groups.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about the latest reports, adding that it was possible that there may have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said only that their investigation was ongoing, while a spokesperson for Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said information would be shared when available — but there was “no timeline” for when the inquiries would be completed.
The mystery continues.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 8, 2023
Opinion | How Russia’s War Against Ukraine Is Advancing LGBTQ Rights

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I could not have imagined the LGBTQ movement building such momentum when I first visited Ukraine as a reporter in 2013. Ukraine was then on the verge of consummating its long-negotiated “association agreement” with the European Union, a step Russian President Vladimir Putin bitterly opposed. As the deadline to sign the agreement approached, an oligarch close to Putin funded a campaign with billboards reading, “Association with EU means same-sex marriage.” Anti-EU protesters dubbed the EU “Gayropa.”
This effort failed to dissuade Ukrainians from a European path. When Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, tried to call off the EU deal at the last moment, pro-European protesters revolted, taking to the streets across Ukraine until a new government was installed and moved ahead with the deal. (This became known as the Revolution of Dignity, or the Maidan, after the square where the protests were centered.) LGBTQ activists across the country were integral to this movement, reflecting both their aspirations for their country and the belief that becoming a European democracy would advance LGBTQ rights. When Russia responded to the revolution with bloodshed — seizing Crimea and backing puppet armies in the eastern Donbas region — LGBTQ people stepped up to support the Ukrainian military fighting for the country’s autonomy.
But Ukrainians and their leaders did not immediately recognize LGBTQ people’s contribution to the fight for democracy, nor that true democracy required LGBTQ equality.
At the time, Ukraine’s new lawmakers refused to comply with a standard requirement for countries seeking closer ties with the EU, to adopt legislation banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The EU bent its rules to move ahead with the process anyway, allowing the Ukrainian government to later quietly ban employment discrimination with an administrative order that required no vote in parliament. When activists planned an LGBTQ pride march in Kyiv in 2014, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko used the fight with Russian-backed forces in the country’s east to argue a pride parade would be inappropriate “when battle actions take place and many people die.”
As Ukrainian activists organized new pride parades in city after city over the last decade, many have been met with hostility from city leaders, violence, or both. This was in part just a reflection of the times — anti-LGBTQ policies still prevailed in much of Europe, especially in the eastern part of the continent. But anti-LGBTQ propaganda coming out of Russia also swayed many Russian-speakers in the region, and this messaging gained moral legitimacy from anti-LGBTQ religious leaders.
But the past decade has also seen Ukrainians standing firm in their commitment to democracy, and a growing understanding that this includes protections for fundamental rights.
There was an explosion of organizing by LGBTQ people in the years that followed the Revolution of Dignity, and some slow advances were made. But it’s been the stories of queer Ukrainians fighting and dying in the war with Russia that have truly helped other Ukrainians to see them as full citizens.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023
Garland makes surprise visit to Ukraine

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“Just over twelve months ago, invading Russian forces began committing atrocities at the largest scale in any armed conflict since the Second World War,” Garland said at the conference, according to a readout provided by the Justice Department. “We are here today in Ukraine to speak clearly, and with one voice: the perpetrators of those crimes will not get away with them.”
“In addition to our work in partnership with Ukraine and the international community, the United States has also opened criminal investigations into war crimes in Ukraine that may violate U.S. law,” Garland added.
“The United States recognizes that what happens here in Ukraine will have a direct impact on the strength of our own democracy,” Garland said, before invoking historical parallels including the Holocaust and Nuremberg war trials.
Garland stressed that U.S. human rights and environmental prosecutors are providing advice and assistance to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office on specific cases, including environmental war crimes.
The surprise visit comes just after the one-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and just about two weeks after President Joe Biden made his first trip to the country — which had also been unannounced — since the war began. Garland is the second Cabinet official to visit Ukraine in recent weeks, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveling to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy on Feb. 27.
This is also the second surprise visit Garland has made to Ukraine since Russia invaded. The first was in June 2022, when he traveled to western Ukraine to discuss the actions the U.S. was taking to hold Russia accountable for war crimes and atrocities.
Garland said in a February statement marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion that prosecutors from the Justice Department’s War Crimes Accountability Team were “working closer than ever before” with its Ukrainian counterparts to “investigate specific crimes committed by Russian forces, including attacks on civilian targets.”
“Over the past year, the Ukrainian people have shown the world what courage looks like,” Garland said in the statement. “And for as long as it takes, the Department of Justice will continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our Ukrainian and international partners in defense of justice and the rule of law.”

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 4, 2023
Allowing Russia’s impunity in attacking Ukraine sends a message to potential aggressors: Blinken

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New Delhi: Allowing Russia to wage war against Ukraine with impunity would be a message to “would be aggressors” everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday in presence of his counterparts from India, Japan and Australia.
Blinken, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue, also said the principles driving the international system are being challenged and even countries beyond Europe are working to support Ukraine knowing the severity of the challenge and its possible implications in the future.
“If we allow with impunity Russia to do what it’s doing in Ukraine, then that’s a message to would be aggressors everywhere that they may be able to get away with it too,” he said.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi and Australia’s Penny Wong were also part of the session.
“The principles that underlie the entire international system that are necessary for trying to keep peace, the stability that grew out of two world wars are being challenged, being aggressed along with Ukraine,” he said.
“And part of the reason that countries way beyond Europe are also so focused on this and are working to support Ukraine and deal with the challenge is because they know it could have an effect here,” Blinken said.
Blinken’s comments came a day after he briefly met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Delhi in their first face-to-face encounter since the start of the war in Ukraine in February last year.
When asked whether Quad is an interim consultative group for the US even as the real action unfolds with its old allies and in the old world, Blinken said the grouping is an important platform to address various challenges facing the Indo-Pacific.

The Quad comprises India, the US, Japan and Australia.
“I think the very fact not only of our presence here today but our presence and engagement day-in, day-out, including through the Quad and the work that we’re doing not only during the meetings that we have but in between, is powerful evidence of the fact that, as you might say, we can run and chew gum at the same time,” he said.
“And for us the future is so much in the Indo-Pacific. Our engagement throughout the region, both through the Quad and in other ways, is as comprehensive and as deep as any time I can remember,” he said. Blinken said the four countries are very well-placed to increase in a variety of ways their collaboration on emerging technology and on innovation, and “that’s something that we’ll also do through the Quad.” The Japanese foreign minister said Quad as a whole will be coordinating all key efforts of the four countries so that we can do much better than just “one plus one plus one plus one is four”.
“But the one plus one plus one plus one could be six, seven or eight by coordinating and listening.” Hayashi said Quad is a platform for practical cooperation and it is not trying to exclude anybody.
“No, I don’t think — look, we are not apologetic,” said Jaishankar. The external affairs minister was asked to respond to the common refrain from the Quad countries that “this is not against anyone, we are not a security grouping, we are not a military grouping”. “So we do stand for something. What I would not like to be defined as is standing against something or somebody, because that diminishes me. That makes it out as though some other people are the centre of the world and I’m only there to be for them or against them,” he said.
China has been suspicious about the Quad and feels that the grouping is aimed at containing it.
Jaishankar said the Quad is offering more choices. “We do collectively offer something different,” he said.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 3, 2023
Germany’s Scholz says China ‘declared it will not deliver’ weapons to Russia

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MESEBERG, Germany — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday said China had declared it won’t supply Russia with weapons for its war against Ukraine, suggesting that Berlin has received bilateral assurances from Beijing on the issue.
Scholz was speaking at a press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who told reporters that the EU has received “no evidence” so far from the U.S. that Beijing is considering supplying lethal support to Moscow.
Senior U.S. officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken have expressed deep concern in recent weeks that China could provide weapons such as kamikaze drones to Russia, which in turn triggered warnings to Beijing from EU politicians. Scholz himself urged Beijing last week to refrain from such actions and instead use its influence to convince Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.
Yet speaking at Sunday’s press conference, which was held at the German government retreat in Meseberg north of Berlin, Scholz claimed that China had provided assurances that it would not send weapons to Russia.
“We all agree that there should be no arms deliveries, and the Chinese government has declared that it will not deliver any either,” the chancellor said in response to a question by POLITICO. “We insist on this and we are monitoring it,” he added.
Scholz’s comments came as a surprise because China has not publicly rejected the possibility of weapons deliveries to Russia. The chancellor appeared to suggest that Beijing had issued such reassurances directly to Germany.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell received similar private assurances last month. Borrell told reporters that China’s top diplomat Wang Yi had told him in a private discussion at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February that China “will not provide arms to Russia.”
“Nevertheless, we have to remain vigilant,” Borrell said.

Von der Leyen, who attended the first day of a two-day German government retreat in Meseberg, told reporters that the EU still had not seen any proof that China is considering sending arms to Russia.
“So far, we have no evidence of this, but we have to observe it every day,” the Commission president said. She did not reply to the question on whether the EU would support sanctions against China should there be such weapon deliveries, saying that was a “hypothetical question” she would not answer.
Stuart Lau contributed reporting.

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#Germanys #Scholz #China #declared #deliver #weapons #Russia
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 2, 2023