The Russian attack killed Veronika in her bed on Friday morning, but left her childish chalk drawings of a happy family intact on the wall of their home.
Portraits of “Mama”, “Nika” (her nickname), her uncles, grandparents and even the family cat “Kuzia” – the names written in by an adult – stretch all along the front of the house.
They end only where the plaster was stripped off by an explosion and a fire that took the lives of the three-year-old and her mother, early on Friday morning.
Hours later, Kuzia the cat looked on, bewildered and bedraggled by a steady rain, as “Uncle Seriozha” from the wall drawings tried to sort through the charred wreckage of their single-storey home. He hurled fragments of twisted metal out into the yard, sidestepping a doll thrown to the floor by the blast.
He had been inside too last night, he said, sleeping in the room next to the one that took a direct hit. His parents-in-law are in hospital. His wife, Veronika’s maternal aunt, wandered around the house and yard, silenced by the scale of the tragedy.
Neighbours were stunned at how brutally Russia’s invasion had arrived in this semi-rural suburb of Dnipro. The river port is an industrial and military hub, “closed” to foreigners under the Soviet Union, and a target in repeated wars.
But Veronika’s family home was a long drive from the river, the docks and the factories, in an area where fruit trees in full blossom shade small vegetable patches outside village homes, and rows of tulips brighten muddy lanes.
“Its the first time we’ve had an attack here. We already thought the war was something far away, that wasn’t going to affect us directly,” said Olha, 68, a friend of “grandpa Vova” from the paintings, who was injured.
The inside of Veronika’s house. Photograph: Emre Çaylak/The Guardian
She works in a shop, and said on Friday morning soldiers who stopped by for supplies told her they had removed an unexploded missile fragment from the damaged house.
That matched the damage to the house, where one wall was missing and there had been a fierce fire, but several walls and windows were still intact. There was no crater, which a cruise missile striking such a small house would be likely to leave behind.
A few hundred metres away, some other piece of falling weaponry had hit the high roof and gables of another house. The gaping holes and black fire damage were visible across a field from Veronika’s home.
Oleksandr Kalinichenko looking at the destroyed house. Photograph: Emre Çaylak/The Guardian
Oleksandr Kalinichenko, a neighbour who lives around 300 metres away, said he had ignored air raid sirens until he saw the flash of an explosion. “My wife shouted at me: get into the shelter, immediately,” he said. “At first I thought it was some way away.”
He crawled into the basement, and when he came out, two young neighbours had been killed. “I want to tell you the Russians are pissing us off. I am 70 years old but I want to volunteer for the army, I want to strangle them with my own hands.”
Serhii Lysak, the head of the military administration for the Dnipro region, visited the shattered house to inspect the damage.
“Today we don’t need other proof to show the terrorist activity of the Russian federation. You can see what they have done,” he said, standing in front of Nika’s family portraits.
Veronika’s house in Dnipro Photograph: Emre Çaylak/The Guardian
The young family had only become targets of a Russian strike because they were trying to protect themselves from missiles, said one neighbour, who asked not to be named.
They moved into the suburban house from their own apartment in the city, after a bloody strike on a Dnipro high-rise apartment building in January. The deadliest single assault on the city during this war, the missile killed at least 40 people and injured dozens more.
A similar tragedy unfolded in the central city of Uman on Friday, where another missile slipped through air defences and destroyed much of an apartment building, killing at least 10 people. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has begged his allies for more anti-aircraft missiles, warning that the country’s supplies are running low.
The disaster in Uman shows the risks to civilians if air defences fail. But even when they work, Veronika’s death, in a place her family took her for protection, is a reminder that nowhere is entirely safe in a country at war.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
A leaked internal review commissioned by Amnesty International is said to have concluded there were significant shortcomings in a controversial report prepared by the rights group that accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by placing armed forces in civilian areas.
The report, issued last August, prompted widespread anger in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and a promise of a review by external experts of what went wrong. Among those who condemned the report was Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who accused Amnesty of “shift[ing] the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”.
Leaked to the New York Times, that unpublished review has concluded that the report was “written in language that was ambiguous, imprecise and in some respects legally questionable”, according to the newspaper.
In particular, the report’s authors were criticised for language that appeared to suggest “many or most of the civilian victims of the war died as a result of Ukraine’s decision to locate its forces in the vicinity of civilians” at a time when Russian forces were deliberately targeting civilians.
“This is particularly the case with the opening paragraphs, which could be read as implying – even though this was not AI’s intention – that, on a systemic or general level, Ukrainian forces were primarily or equally to blame for the death of civilians resulting from attacks by Russia.”
In the immediate aftermath of publication, the initial report was seized on by Russia, including the embassy in London, to claim that Ukrainian tactics were a “violation of international humanitarian law” at a time when Russian forces were being accused of serious war crimes.
The paper added, however, that sources had told it that Amnesty’s board had sat on the 18-page review for months amid suggestions there had been pressure to water down its conclusions.
At the centre of the controversy was Amnesty’s claim that by housing military personnel in civilian buildings and launching attacks from civilian areas, Ukraine had been in breach of international law on the protection of civilians.
The expert review was conducted by five experts including Emanuela-Chiara Gillard of the University of Oxford; Kevin Jon Heller of the University of Copenhagen; Eric Talbot Jensen of Brigham Young University; Marko Milanovic of the University of Reading; and Marco Sassòli of the University of Geneva.
Experts questioned whether the authors of the original report had correctly interpreted international law regarding Ukraine as a victim of aggression and whether there was evidence that Ukraine had put civilians in “harm’s way”.
The leaked report also disclosed that there had been significant unease within Amnesty before publication, not least over the issue of whether the government of Ukraine had been sufficiently engaged with.
“These reservations should have led to greater reflection and pause” before the organisation issued its statement, the review added.
Oksana Pokalchuk, the former head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office, who resigned over the report, said she believed the review should be made public as well as a promised internal review of relations inside the organisation on how decisions were made around the report.
“I want justice to be done and to be seen done,” she told the Guardian. “One of the things that was very important to me at the time was that we should be in communication with the Ukrainian government, formally or informally, to get information from them. This wasn’t done, and it caused a lot of damage.
“What I have also not seen so far in the reporting of this review is any discussion of the larger context of the war and how this report played in favour of Russian propaganda. We need to talk about who is the aggressor and who is the victim of this war.”
An Amnesty International spokesperson said: “Amnesty commissioned a panel of external experts in the field of international humanitarian law to conduct an independent review of the legal analysis in our 4 August press release.
“Amnesty staff reviewed a first draft of the panel’s report, and their comments were taken into account in the final version, to the extent the legal panel itself deemed appropriate.
“This is part of an ongoing internal learning process, and we welcome the full findings which will inform and improve our future work.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
If there were a silver lining in her son being convicted of high treason, it was that Yelena Gordon would have a rare chance to see him.
But when she tried to enter the courtroom, she was told it was already full. But those packed in weren’t press or his supporters, since the hearing was closed.
“I recognized just one face there, the rest were all strangers,” she later recounted, exasperated, outside the Moscow City Court. “I felt like I had woken up in a Kafka novel.”
Eventually, after copious cajoling, Gordon was able to stand beside Vladimir Kara-Murza, a glass wall between her and her son, as the sentence was delivered.
Kara-Murza was handed 25 years in prison, a sky-high figure previously reserved for major homicide cases, and the highest sentence for an opposition politician to date.
The bulk — 18 years — was given on account of treason, for speeches he gave last year in the United States, Finland and Portugal.
For a man who had lobbied the West for anti-Russia sanctions such as on the Magnitsky Act against human rights abusers — long before Russia invaded Ukraine — those speeches were wholly unremarkable.
But the prosecution cast Kara-Murza’s words as an existential threat to Russia’s safety.
“This is the enemy and he should be punished,” prosecutor Boris Loktionov stated during the trial, according to Kara-Murza’s lawyer.
The judge, whose own name features on the Magnitsky list as a human rights abuser, agreed. And so did Russia’s Foreign Ministry, saying: “Traitors and betrayers, hailed by the West, will get what they deserve.”
Redefining the enemy
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, hundreds of Russians have received fines or jail sentences of several years under new military censorship laws.
But never before has the nuclear charge of treason been used to convict someone for public statements containing publicly available information.
A screen set up in a hall at Moscow City Court shows the verdict in the case against Vladimir Kara-Murza | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
The verdict came a day after an appeal hearing at the same court for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who, in a move unseen since the end of the Cold War, is being charged with spying “for the American side.”
Taken together, the two cases set a historic precedent for modern Russia, broadening and formalizing its hunt for internal enemies.
“The state, the [Kremlin], has decided to sharply expand the ‘list of targets’ for charges of treason and espionage,” Andrei Soldatov, an expert in Russia’s security services, told POLITICO.
Up until now, the worst the foreign press corps feared was having their accreditation revoked by Russia’s Foreign Ministry. This is now changing.
For Kremlin critics, the gloves have of course been off for far longer — before his jailing, Kara-Murza survived two poisonings. He had been a close ally of Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in 2015 within sight of the Kremlin.
But such reprisals were reserved for only a handful of prominent dissidents, and enacted by anonymous hitmen and undercover agents.
After Putin last week signed into law extending the punishment for treason from 20 years to life, anyone could be eliminated from public life with the stamp of legitimacy from a judge in robes.
“Broach the topic of political repression over a coffee with a foreigner, and that could already be considered treason,” Oleg Orlov, chair of the disbanded rights group Memorial, said outside the courthouse.
Like many, he saw a parallel with Soviet times, when tens of thousands of “enemies of the state” were accused of spying for foreign governments and sent to far-flung labor camps or simply executed, and foreigners were by definition suspect.
Treason as catch-all
Instead of the usual Investigative Committee, treason cases fall under the remit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, making them uniquely secretive.
In court, hearings are held behind closed doors — sheltered from the public and press — and defense lawyers are all but gagged.
But they used to be relatively rare: Between 2009 and 2013, a total of 25 people were tried for espionage or treason, according to Russian court statistics. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, that number fluctuated from a handful to a maximum of 17.
Former defense journalist Ivan Safronov in court, April 2022 | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
Involving academics, Crimean Tatars and military accused of passing on sensitive information to foreign parties, they generally drew little attention.
The jailing of Ivan Safronov — a former defense journalist accused of sharing state secrets with a Czech acquaintance — formed an important exception in 2020. It triggered a massive outcry among his peers and cast a spotlight on the treason law. Apparently, even sharing information gleaned from public sources could result in a conviction.
Combined with an amendment introduced after anti-Kremlin protests in 2012 that labeled any help to a “foreign organization which aimed to undermine Russian security” as treason, it turned the law into a powder keg.
In February 2022, that was set alight.
Angered by the war but too afraid to protest publicly, some Russians sought to support Ukraine in less visible ways such as through donations to aid organizations.
The response was swift: Only three days after Putin announced his special military operation, Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office warned it would check “every case of financial or other help” for signs of treason.
Thousands of Russians were plunged into a legal abyss. “I transferred 100 rubles to a Ukrainian NGO. Is this the end?” read a Q&A card shared on social media by the legal aid group Pervy Otdel.
“The current situation is such that this [treason] article will likely be applied more broadly,” warned Senator Andrei Klimov, head of the defense committee of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.
Inventing traitors
Last summer, the law was revised once more to define defectors as traitors as well.
Ivan Pavlov, who oversees Pervy Otdel from exile after being forced to flee Russia for defending Safronov, estimates some 70 treason cases have already been launched since the start of the war — twice the maximum in pre-war years. And the tempo seems to be picking up.
Regional media headlines reporting arrests for treason are becoming almost commonplace. Sometimes they include high-octane video footage of FSB teams storming people’s homes and securing supposed confessions on camera.
Yet from what can be gleaned about the cases from media leaks, their evidence is shaky.
Instead of the usual Investigative Committee, treason cases fall under the remit of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, making them uniquely secretive | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
In December last year, 21-year-old Savely Frolov became the first to be charged with conspiring to defect. Among the reported incriminating evidence is that he attempted to cross into neighboring Georgia with a pair of camouflage trousers in the trunk of his car.
In early April this year, a married couple was arrested in the industrial city of Nizhny Tagil for supposedly collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence. The two worked at a nearby defense plant, but acquaintances cited by independent Russian media Holod deny they had access to secret information.
“It is a reaction to the war: There’s a demand from up top for traitors. And if they can’t find real ones, they’ll make them up, invent them,” said Pavlov.
Although official statistics are only published with a two-year lag time, he has little doubt a flood of guilty verdicts is coming.
“The first and last time a treason suspect was acquitted in Russia was in 1999.”
No sign of slowing
If precedent is anything to go by, Gershkovich will likely eventually be subject to a prisoner swap.
That is what happened with Brittney Griner, a U.S. basketball star jailed for drug smuggling when she entered Russia carrying hashish vape cartridges.
And it is also what happened with the last foreign journalist detained, in 1986 when the American Nicholas Daniloff was supposedly caught “red-handed” spying, like Gershkovich.
Back then, several others were released with him — among them Yury Orlov, a human rights activist sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp for “anti-Soviet activity.”
Some now harbor hope that a deal involving Gershkovich could also help Kara-Murza, who is well-known in Washington circles and suffers from severe health problems.
For ordinary Russians, any glimmers of hope that the traitor push will slow down are even less tangible.
Those POLITICO spoke to say a Soviet-era mass campaign against traitors is unlikely, if only because the Kremlin has a fine line to walk: arrest too many traitors and it risks shattering the image that Russians unanimously support the war.
Some harbor hope that a deal involving Gershkovich could also help Kara-Murza, who is well-known in Washington circles | Maxim Shipenkov/EPA-EFE
And in the era of modern technology, there are easier ways to convey a message to a large audience. “If Stalin had had a television channel, there would’ve likely not been a need for mass repression,” reflected Pavlov.
Yet the repressive state apparatus does seem to have a momentum of its own, as those involved in investigating and prosecuting treason and espionage cases are rewarded with bonuses and promotions.
In a first, the treason case against Kara-Murza was led by the Investigative Committee, opening the door for the FSB to massively increase its work capacity by offloading work on others, says Soldatov.
“If the FSB can’t handle it, the Investigative Committee will jump in.”
In the public sphere, patriotic officials at all levels are clamoring for an even harder line, going so far as to volunteer the names of apparently unpatriotic political rivals and celebrities to be investigated.
There have been calls for “traitors” to be stripped of their citizenship and to reintroduce the death penalty.
And in a telling sign, Kara-Murza’s veteran lawyer Vadim Prokhorov has fled Russia, fearing he might be targeted next.
Аs Orlov, the dissident who was part of the 1986 swap and who went on to become an early critic of Putin, wrote in the early days of Putin’s reign in 2004: “Russia is flying back in time.”
Nearly two decades on, the question in Moscow nowadays is a simple one: how far back?
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
A new law that allows Russia to seize foreign-owned energy assets should be a final warning to Western firms to cut their losses and leave the market for good, one of the country’s most prominent exiled businessmen has cautioned.
“There are no guarantees for the safety of investments anywhere, but Vladimir Putin’s regime has demonstratively built an illegitimate and lawless state,” former oil and gas magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky told POLITICO.
“The withdrawal of assets should have started a very long time ago, even before the war. And on February 24, 2022, the decision should certainly have been made,” he said.
Last Tuesday, Putin signed a decree that allows the government to take control of assets owned by foreign firms and individuals from “unfriendly nations” — a long list of apparently hostile governments that includes the U.S., the U.K., the entirety of the EU and all G7 member countries.
Ventures owned by Germany’s Uniper and Finland’s Fortum energy companies were the first to be targeted. While Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Moscow was only assuming “temporary” control of their day-to-day management, he argued that it would help create a pool of assets that Moscow could expropriate in retaliation for Russian property sequestered by European governments.
German oil and gas company Wintershall, meanwhile, has warned that while it intends to divest its shares in Siberian oil and gas production, rules requiring Kremlin approval mean getting its funds out will be “difficult.”
“Everything can happen in Russia these days in terms of direct interference with our rights to our assets,” CEO Mario Mehren explained at a press conference this week.
A number of Western energy firms have already announced their complete departure from Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, including Norway’s Equinor and U.S. oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil. Others, including Shell, BP, TotalEnergies and Wintershall have announced their intent to fully or partially divest, but the terms of their exits are still being worked out.
While Khodorkovsky, who fled the country a decade ago, admitted that European firms might now find it “psychologically difficult” to accept making losses on their investments in major fossil fuel projects, he believes that as time goes on “foreign assets in Russia will continue to fall in price and the risk of their confiscation will increase.”
“Now the risks have become so high that they are no longer covered by profits from any legitimate activity,” he said.
As the founder of Siberian oil and gas conglomerate Yukos, Khodorkovsky was once believed to be Russia’s wealthiest man, having snapped up former state energy assets for a fraction of their worth after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, having emerged as a key political opponent to Putin, Khodorkovsky’s company was hit with a series of fraud charges, its assets were expropriated and he was imprisoned for almost eight years.
“That the Kremlin was not punished for this allowed Putin to conclude that this is an acceptable practice,” Khodorkovsky added, “and that the West is weak and ready to accept any lawlessness if he, Putin, is strong enough.”
Now, he is calling for Russian state assets to be confiscated as compensation for both the damage wrought on Ukraine and to pay back foreign investors.
“This will be fair, but the owners of private assets should be given the right to defend their innocence in court,” the exiled former oligarch said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin should be tried in The Hague for war crimes, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a surprise visit to the Netherlands.
“We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague,” Zelenskyy said. “The one who deserves to be sentenced for these criminal actions right here, in the capital of international law.”
The Ukrainian president spoke in The Hague, where he traveled unexpectedly Thursday. He is expected to meet Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo later in the day.
In March, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant against Putin over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority, but the warrant means that the ICC’s 123 member countries are required to arrest Putin if he ever sets foot on their territory, and transfer him to The Hague.
The warrant’s existence has already caused a stir in South Africa, where the Russian president could attend the next BRICS summit in August.
Last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the country should leave the ICC — but his office backtracked a few hours later, stressing South Africa remained part of the court.
In spite of numerous reports that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine — including a recent U.N. investigation which said that Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amounted to a war crime — the Kremlin has denied it committed any crimes.
In his speech Thursday, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had committed more than 6,000 war crimes in April alone, killing 207 Ukrainian civilians.
The Ukrainian president renewed his call to create a Nüremberg-style, “full-fledged” tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression and deliver “a full justice” — and lasting peace.
“The sustainability of peace arises from the complete justice towards the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.
Speaking shortly before Zelenskyy, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said the Netherlands was “ready and willing” to host that court, as well as registers of the damages caused by Russia’s invasion, echoing similar statements he made in December.
“Illegal wars cannot be unpunished,” Hoekstra said. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that Russia is held to account.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
KYIV — From the glass cage in a Kyiv courtroom, Roman Dudin professed his innocence loudly.
And he fumed at the unusual decision to prevent a handful of journalists from asking him questions during a break in the hearing.
The former Kharkiv security chief is facing charges of treason and deserting his post, allegations he and his supporters deny vehemently.
“Why can’t I talk with the press?” he bellowed. As he shook his close-cropped head in frustration, his lawyers, a handful of local reporters and supporters chorused his question. At a previous hearing Dudin had been allowed during a break to answer questions from journalists, in keeping with general Ukrainian courtroom practice, but according to his lawyers and local reporters, the presence of POLITICO appeared to unnerve authorities.
Suspiciously, too, the judge returned and to the courtroom’s surprise announced an unexpected adjournment, offering no reason. A commotion ensued as she left and further recriminations followed when court guards again blocked journalists from talking with Dudin.
***
Ukraine’s hunt for traitors, double agents and collaborators is quickening.
Nearly every day another case is publicized by authorities of alleged treason by senior members of the security and law-enforcement agencies, prosecutors, state industry employees, mayors and other elected officials.
Few Ukrainians — nor Western intelligence officials, for that matter — doubt that large numbers of top-level double agents and sympathizers eased the way for Russia’s invasion, especially in southern Ukraine, where they were able to seize control of the city of Kherson with hardly any resistance.
And Ukrainian authorities say they’re only getting started in their spy hunt for individuals who betrayed the country and are still undermining Ukraine’s security and defense.
Because of historic ties with Russia, the Security Service of Ukraine and other security agencies, as well as the country’s arms and energy industries, are known to be rife with spies. Since the 2013-14 Maidan uprising, which saw the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow’s satrap in Ukraine, episodic sweeps and purges have been mounted.
As conflict rages the purges have become more urgent. And possibly more political as government criticism mounts from opposition politicians and civil society leaders. They are becoming publicly more censorious, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his tight-knit team of using the war to consolidate as much power as possible.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said authorities were investigating more than 650 cases of suspected treason and aiding and abetting Russia by officials | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Last summer, Zelenskyy fired several high-level officials, including his top two law enforcement officials, prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova and security chief Ivan Bakanov, both old friends of his. In a national address, he said authorities were investigating more than 650 cases of suspected treason and aiding and abetting Russia by officials, including 60 who remained in territories seized by Russia and are “working against our state.”
“Such a great number of crimes against the foundations of national security and the connections established between Ukrainian law enforcement officials and Russian special services pose very serious questions,” he said.
***
But while there’s considerable evidence of treason and collaboration, there’s growing unease in Ukraine that not all the cases and accusations are legitimate.
Some suspect the spy hunt is now merging with a political witch hunt. They fear that the search may be increasingly linked to politicking or personal grudges or bids to conceal corruption and wrongdoing. But also to distract from mounting questions about government ineptitude in the run-up to the invasion by a revanchist and resentful Russia.
Among the cases prompting concern when it comes to possible concealment of corruption is the one against 40-year-old Roman Dudin. “There’s something wrong with this case,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a former Ukrainian deputy prime minister and now opposition lawmaker, told POLITICO.
And that’s the view of the handful of supporters who were present for last week’s hearing. “This is a political persecution, and he’s a very good officer, honest and dignified,” said 50-year-old Irina, whose son, now living in Florida, served with Dudin. “He’s a politically independent person and he was investigating corruption involving the Kharkiv mayor and some other powerful politicians, and this is a way of stopping those investigations,” she argued.
Zelenskyy relieved Dudin of his duties last May, saying he “did not work to defend the city from the first days of the full-scale war.” But Dudin curiously wasn’t detained and charged for a further four months and was only arrested in September last year. Dudin’s lead lawyer, Oleksandr Kozhevnikov, says neither Zelenskyy nor his SBU superiors voiced any complaints about his work before he was fired.
“To say the evidence is weak is an understatement — it just does not correspond to reality. He received some awards and recognition for his efforts before and during the war from the defense ministry,” says Kozhevnikov. “When I agreed to consider taking the case, I told Roman if there was any hint of treason, I would drop it immediately — but I’ve found none,” he added.
The State Bureau of Investigation says Dudin “instead of organizing work to counter the enemy … actually engaged in sabotage.” It claims he believed the Russian “offensive would be successful” and hoped Russian authorities would treat him favorably due to his subversion, including “deliberately creating conditions” enabling the invaders to seize weapons and equipment from the security service bases in Kharkiv. In addition, he’s alleged to have left his post without permission, illegally ordered his staff to quit the region and of wrecking a secure communication system for contact with Kyiv.
But documents obtained by POLITICO from relevant Ukrainian agencies seem to undermine the allegations. One testifies no damage was found to the secure communication system; and a document from the defense ministry says Dudin dispersed weapons from the local SBU arsenal to territorial defense forces. “Local battalions are grateful to him for handing out weapons,” says Kozhevnikov.
And his lawyer says Dudin only left Kharkiv because he was ordered to go to Kyiv by superiors to help defend the Ukrainian capital. A geolocated video of Dudin in uniform along with other SBU officers in the center of Kyiv, ironically a stone’s throw from the Pechersk District Court, has been ruled by the judge as inadmissible. The defense has asked the judge to recuse herself because of academic ties with Oleh Tatarov, a deputy head of the presidential administration, but the request has been denied.
According to a 29-page document compiled by the defense lawyers for the eventual trial, Dudin and his subordinates seem to have been frantically active to counter Russia forces as soon as the first shots were fired, capturing 24 saboteurs, identifying 556 collaborators and carrying out reconnaissance on Russian troop movements.
Roman Dudin is facing charges of treason and allegations that he eased the way for Russian invaders | Jamie Dettmer for POLITICO
Timely information transmitted by the SBU helped military and intelligence units to stop an armored Russian column entering the city of Kharkiv, according to defense lawyers.
“The only order he didn’t carry out was to transfer his 25-strong Alpha special forces team to the front lines because they were needed to catch saboteurs,” says Kozhevnikov. “The timing of his removal is suspicious — it was when he was investigating allegations of humanitarian aid being diverted by some powerful politicians.”
***
Even before Dudin’s case there were growing doubts about some of the treason accusations being leveled — including vague allegations against former prosecutor Venediktova and former security chief Bakanov. Both were accused of failing to prevent collaboration by some within their departments. But abruptly in November, Venediktova was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to Switzerland. And two weeks ago, the State Bureau of Investigation said the agency had found no criminal wrongdoing by Bakanov.
The clearing of both with scant explanation, after their humiliating and highly public sackings, has prompted bemusement. Although some SBU insiders do blame Bakanov for indolence in sweeping for spies ahead of the Russian invasion.
Treason often seems the go-to charge — whether appropriate or not — and used reflexively.
Last month, several Ukrainian servicemen were accused of treason for having inadvertently revealed information during an unauthorized mission, which enabled Russia to target a military airfield.
The servicemen tried without permission to seize a Russian warplane in July after its pilot indicated he wanted to defect. Ham-fisted the mission might have been, but lawyers say it wasn’t treasonable.
Spy hunt or witch hunt? With the word treason easily slipping off tongues these days in Kyiv, defense lawyers at the Pechersk District Court worry the two are merging.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
LONDON — Frost/Nixon it was not. But at least the golf course got a good plug.
Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage bagged a half an hour sit-down interview with Donald Trump on Wednesday as part of the former U.S. president’s trip to his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.
The hardball questions just kept on coming as the two men got stuck into everything from how great Trump is to just how massively he’s going to win the next election.
POLITICO tuned in to the GB News session so you didn’t have to.
Trump could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours
Trump sees your complex, grinding, war in Ukraine and raises you the deal-making credentials he honed having precisely one meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
“If I were president, I will end that war in one day — it’ll take 24 hours,” the ex-POTUS declared. And he added: “That deal would be easy.”
Time for a probing follow-up from the host to tease out the precise details of Trump’s big plan? Over to you Nige! “I think we’d all love to see that war stop,” the hard-hitting host beamed.
Nicola Sturgeon bad, Sean Connery great
Safe to say Scotland’s former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon — who quit a few months back and whose ruling Scottish National Party now faces the biggest crisis of its time at the top — is not on Trump’s Christmas card list.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever met her,” Trump said. “I’m not sure that I ever met her.” But he knew one thing for certain. Sturgeon “didn’t love Scotland” and has no respect for people who come to the country and spend “a lot of money.” Whoever could he mean?
One Scot did get a thumbs-up though. Sean Connery, who backed Trump’s golf course and was therefore “great, a tough guy.”
Boris Johnson was a far-leftist
Boris Johnson’s big problem? Not the bevy of scandals that helped call time on the beleaguered Conservative British prime minister, that’s for sure.
Instead, Trump reckons it was Johnson’s latter-day conversion to hard-left politics, which went shamefully unreported on by every single British political media outlet at the time. “They really weren’t staying Conservative,” he said of Johnson’s government. “They were … literally going far left. It never made sense.”
Joe Biden isn’t coming to King Charles’ coronation because he’s asleep?
Paging the royals: Turns out Joe Biden — who is sending First Lady Jill Biden to King Charles’ coronation this weekend — won’t be there because he is … catching some Zs. “He’s not running the country. He’s now in Delaware, sleeping,” Trump said.
Don’t worry, though: Trump explained how Biden’s government is actually being run by “a very smart group of Marxists or communists, or whatever you want to call them.” Johnson should hang out with those guys!
Meghan Markle ain’t getting a Christmas card either
Trump found time to wade into Britain’s never-ending culture war over the royals, ably assisted by a totally-straight-bat question from Farage who said Britain would be “better off without” Prince Harry turning up to the weekend festival of flag-waving.
Harry’s wife Meghan Markle has, Trump said, been “very disrespectful to the queen, frankly,” and there was “just no reason to do that.” Harry, whose tell-all memoir recently rocked the royals, “said some terrible things” in a book that was “just horrible.”
But do you know one person who really, really respected the queen? Donald J. Trump, who “got to know her very well over the last couple of years” and revealed he once asked her who her favorite president was.
Trump didn’t get an answer, he told Farage — but we’re sure he had one in mind.
Trump’s golf course really is just absolutely brilliant
Only got half an hour with the indicted former leader of the free world now leading the Republican pack for 2024? Better keep those questions tight!
Happily, Farage got the key stuff in, remarking on how “unbelievable” Trump’s Turnberry golf course is, and how it slots neatly into “the best portfolio of golf courses anyone has ever owned.”
“We come here from this golf course,” Farage helpfully told Trump, from the golf course. “You turned this golf course around. It’s now the No. 1 course in the whole of Britain and Europe. You’ve got this magnificent hotel. You must have missed this place?”
Trump, it turns out, certainly had missed the place. He is, after all, a man with “very powerful ideas on golf and where it should go.” A news ticker reminded us Turnberry is the No. 1 rated golf course in Europe.
Legal troubles? What legal troubles?
A couple of minutes still on the clock, Farage danced delicately around Trump’s recent courtroom drama, saying he had never seen the former president “looking so dejected” as when he sat before the Manhattan Criminal Court last month.
Trump predicted the drama would “go away immediately” if he wasn’t running for president. But he made clear there are still some burning issues keeping him going: Namely, taking on the “sick, horrible people” hounding him through the courts and relitigating the 2020 election result.
In an actual flash of tension, Farage delicately suggested Trump won in 2016 by tapping into voters’ concerns rather than reeling off his own grievances. “You brought this up,” the former president shot back.
At least they ended it on a positive note. Trump said a vote for him in 2024 would “get rid of crime — because our cities, Democrat-run, are crime-infested rat holes.” Unlike Trump Turnberry, which is the No. 1 rated golf course in Europe!
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Russia hammered Ukraine with a new barrage of missiles and drones in the early hours of Monday morning, as Moscow gears up to celebrate victory over the Nazis in World War II.
In the Kyiv region, Ukrainian air defense shot down 35 Iranian-made Shahed drones, according to Ukraine’s air force. But the debris damaged several buildings and injured civilians. Russian bombers also fired at least eight cruise missiles at the Odesa region, leaving food warehouses destroyed.
Russia celebrates the Soviet triumph over Hitler on May 9 annually, and President Vladimir Putin has used the holiday to boost his strongman image during his decades in power.
But this year’s celebrations will be somewhat muted, with Putin canceling parades in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, which border Ukraine, and in Russian-occupied Crimea, citing security concerns. Moscow is now in the second year of its full-scale war on Ukraine and there’s no sign of imminent victory, while even the Kremlin is no longer completely safe after last week’s drone attack.
Ukraine said all the drones were shot down, but falling debris still caused destruction. At least five people were injured, reported Sergiy Popko, head of Kyiv region’s military administration. Several cars were destroyed, and residential buildings, a diesel reservoir and a gas pipe were damaged.
Ukraine’s southern Odesa region also came under fire. The Ukrainian army reported that Russia fired at least eight cruise missiles at the region.
“X-22 type missiles hit the warehouse of one of the food enterprises and the recreational zone on the Black Sea coast,” the Ukrainian military said. “Emergency services work at the scene. Three people, all workers of the warehouse, got minor injuries. One person is missing,” Yuriy Kruk, head of Odesa district military administration, reported.
On the eve of Russia’s V-Day, the strikes come as the Kremlin struggles to break a stalemate in Bakhmut, which it has spent months attacking. Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has veered wildly in recent days, first threatening to pull his forces out of Bakhmut over a row with the Kremlin’s top military officials — then announcing his troops would remain on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s top priority is to hold Bakhmut through May 9 — and embarrass Putin in the process.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The Ukrainian military shot down a hypersonic Russian missile over Kyiv using the newly acquired Patriot missile defense system, an air force commander confirmed on Saturday.
It’s the first time Ukraine has been known to intercept one of Moscow’s most sophisticated weapons, after receiving the long-sought, American-made defense batteries from the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram, referring to a Kh-47 missile, which flies at 10 times the speed of sound. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Ukraine confirmed that two Patriot batteries were operational last month, following training on the system from the U.S. and Germany, according to the Kyiv Independent. The interception of the hypersonic missile also represents a major success for the Patriot technology, in use on the battlefield after 20 years of upgrades.
Kyiv had initially denied that it had shot down the Kinzhal missile.
Ukraine first asked Washington for Patriot systems in 2021, well before Russia’s current war of aggression began in February 2022. The U.S. and Germany have each sent at least one Patriot battery to Ukraine; and the Netherlands said it has provided two.
Separately, a well-known Russian nationalist writer was injured in a car bomb, reported TASS, Russia’s state-owned news service. Zakhar Prilepin was wounded in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, in a blast that killed one person, according to the report.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the blast was the “direct responsibility of the U.S. and Britain,” without providing evidence, according to Reuters.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Hundreds of civilians on Sunday fled Ukrainian territories under Russian control as part of an “evacuation” ahead of what’s feared to be intense fighting around an area home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
A Ukrainian mayor slammed Moscow’s move as a cover-up operation to move troops, while the U.N. nuclear watchdog raised concerns over heavy fighting during a potential spring counteroffensive when Ukrainian forces are expected to seek to regain control of territories lost to Russian control.
Russian forces announced the evacuation for 18 settlements on Friday, and over the weekend, civilians have been rushing to leave those areas. The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, called it a “mad panic” as thousands of cars were stuck on the roads with five-hour waits, BBC reported.
Meanwhile, Russian paramilitary group Wagner’s boss on Sunday signaled that his men would continue to fight in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a U-turn from an earlier threat — made in a video filmed alongside dead bodies — to withdraw from there as he criticized Moscow for failing to supply his group with the ammunition it needed.
Russian defense officials reportedly had reservations about over-assisting Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner mercenaries have played a key role in securing control over Ukraine’s eastern territories.
In Bakhmut, Ukraine has accused Russia of attacking the besieged city with phosphorus munitions.
Russia’s Federal Security Services claimed on Sunday they had foiled an attempt by Ukrainian intelligence to attack a military airfield in central Russia with drones stuffed with explosives. Kyiv has not responded to the accusation but previously attributed such actions to “false flag” operations or Russians opposed to President Vladimir Putin.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
