LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday questioned a Russian teacher at length about an 18th century rebellion which shook Empress Catherine the Great’s Russia, offering his own view on the lesson from history: the state must be strong.
Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999, is facing the most serious challenge of his rule as his forces lose ground in their seven-month war in Ukraine while Russia confronts the West in the most dangerous standoff since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
In a long televised video conference with a group of award-winning teachers, Putin unexpectedly began grilling one of them about the 1773-1775 Pugachev Rebellion.
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“What was it, this Pugachev Rebellion? Why did it happen? What is your view?” Putin asked the startled teacher, who gave several reasons for the most serious domestic challenge of Catherine’s 34-year reign.
Putin quipped that the teacher’s answer was like that of a diplomat from the Russian foreign ministry, and asked again for a clear view about the causes and result of the rebellion led by Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, who pretended to be Tsar Peter III.
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting via video link in Sochi, Russia September 27, 2022. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS
“He imagined himself the tsar,” Putin said of Pugachev who, buoyed by rumours of dynastic intrigue at court, fanned a major insurgency in 1773 before he was finally defeated by Catherine’s forces more than a year and a half later.
“Basically it was an element of the weakness of central authority in the country,” Putin said.
Putin has repeatedly tried to strengthen the Russian state after the chaos of the 1990s, though critics such as jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny say the Kremlin chief has made a brittle system of personal rule that is reliant on sycophancy.
The Kremlin chief has warned repeatedly against what he casts as U.S. attempts to foment revolution across the former Soviet Union.
Pugachev was executed in public in January 1775 on Moscow’s Red Square. But the revolt had a lasting influence on Catherine and was used as the canvas for Alexander Pushkin’s historical novel “The Captain’s Daughter”.
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Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan
SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS, Oct 5 (Reuters) – South Korea and the U.S. military conducted rare missile drills and an American supercarrier repositioned east of North Korea after Pyongyang flew a missile over Japan, one of the allies’ sharpest responses since 2017 to a North Korean weapon test.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that nuclear-armed North Korea risked further condemnation and isolation if it continued its “provocations.”
However, Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy told a U.N. Security Council meeting called by the United States that imposing sanctions on North Korea was a “dead end” that brought “zero result,” and China’s deputy U.N. ambassador said the council needed to play a constructive role “instead of relying solely on strong rhetoric or pressure.”
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Washington called the test “dangerous and reckless,” and the U.S. military and its allies have stepped up displays of force.
South Korean and American troops fired a volley of missiles into the sea in response, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday, and the allies earlier staged a bombing drill with fighter jets in the Yellow Sea.
The aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, a U.S. Navy ship that made its first stop in South Korea last month for the first time in years, will also return to the sea between Korea and Japan with its strike group of other warships. The South Korean military called it a “highly unusual” move designed to show the allies’ resolve to respond to any threats from North Korea.
Speaking during a visit to Chile, Blinken said the United States, South Korea and Japan were working closely together “to demonstrate and strengthen our defensive and deterrent capabilities in light of the threat from North Korea.”
He reiterated a U.S. call for Pyongyang to return to dialogue, and added: “If they continue down this road, it will only increase the condemnation, increase the isolation, increase the steps that are taken in response to their actions.”
The U.N. Security Council met on Wednesday to discuss North Korea despite China and Russia telling council counterparts they were opposed to an open meeting of the 15-member body.
The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Kritenbrink, accused China and Russia this week of emboldening North Korea by not properly enforcing sanctions.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in an address to the Security Council, said North Korea had “enjoyed blanket protection from two members of this council.”
In May, China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-led push to impose more U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches, publicly splitting the Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang with sanctions in 2006.
A surface-to-surface missile is fired into the sea off the east coast in this handout picture provided by the Defense Ministry, South Korea, October 5, 2022. South Korean Defense Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
Kritenbrink also said a resumption of nuclear weapons testing by North Korea for the first time since 2017 was likely only awaiting a political decision.
South Korean officials said North Korea had completed preparations for a nuclear test and might use a smaller weapon meant for operational use or a big device with a higher yield than in previous tests.
SOUTH KOREAN MISSILE FAILURE
The South Korean military confirmed that one of its Hyunmoo-2C missiles failed shortly after launch and crashed during the exercise, but that no one was hurt.
Footage shared on social media by a nearby resident and verified by Reuters showed smoke and flames rising from the military base.
South Korea’s military said the fire was caused by burning rocket propellant, and although the missile carried a warhead, it did not explode. It apologised for worrying residents.
It is not rare for military hardware to fail, and North Korea has suffered several failed missile launches this year as well. However, the South Korean failure threatened to overshadow Seoul’s efforts to demonstrate military prowess in the face of North Korea’s increasing capabilities.
The Hyunmoo-2C is one of South Korea’s latest missiles and analysts say its capability as a precision “bunker buster” make it a key part of Seoul’s plans for striking the North in the event of a conflict.
In its initial announcement of the drill, South Korea’s military made no mention of the Hyunmoo-2C launch or its failure, but later media briefings were dominated by questions about the incident.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has made such displays of military force a cornerstone of his strategy for countering North Korea, had vowed that the overflight of Japan would bring a decisive response from his country, its allies and the international community.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned North Korea’s test in the “strongest terms,” and the European Union called it a “reckless and deliberately provocative action.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the launch and said it was a violation of Security Council resolutions.
It was the first North Korean missile to follow a trajectory over Japan since 2017, and its estimated 4,600-km (2,850-mile) flight was the longest for a North Korean test, which are usually “lofted” into space to avoid flying over neighbouring countries.
Analysts and security officials said it may have been a variant of the Hwasong-12 IRBM, which North Korea unveiled in 2017 as part of what it said was a plan to strike U.S. military bases in Guam.
Neither North Korea’s government nor its state media have reported on the launch.
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Reporting by Joori Roh in Seoul, Humeyra Pamuk in Santiago, David Brunnstrom in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by Chris Reese, Sandra Maler, Gerry Doyle and Jonathan Oatis
LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – As President Vladimir Putin completed paperwork for the annexation of four regions of Ukraine on Wednesday, the Kremlin said there was no contradiction between Russian retreats and Putin’s vow that they would always be part of Russia.
In the biggest expansion of Russian territory in at least half a century, Putin signed laws admitting the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia region into Russia.
The conclusion of the legalities of the annexation of up to 18% of Ukrainian territory came as Russian forces battled to halt Ukrainian counter-offensives within it, especially north of Kherson and west of Luhansk.
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Asked if there was a contradiction between Putin’s rhetoric and the reality of retreat on the ground, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “There is no contradiction whatsoever. They will be with Russia forever and they will be returned.”
The wording of the laws is unclear about what exact borders Russia is claiming for the annexed territories and Peskov declined to give clear guidance.
“Certain territories will still be returned and we will continue to consult with the population that expresses a desire to live with Russia,” Peskov said.
The contrast between a set of defeats on the battlefield and lofty language from the Kremlin about Russia’s might have raised concerns within the Russian elite about the conduct of the war.
Such is the depth of feeling over the retreats that two Putin allies publicly scolded the military top brass about the failings.
ANNEXATION
Russia declared the annexations after holding what it called referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine. Western governments and Kyiv said the votes breached international law and were coercive and non-representative.
More than seven months into a war that has killed tens of thousands and triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis, Russia’s most basic aims are still not achieved.
The areas that are being annexed are not all under control of Russian forces and Ukrainian forces have recently driven them back.
Together with Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, Putin’s total claim amounts to more than 22% of Ukrainian territory, though the exact borders of the four regions he is annexing are still yet to be finally clarified.
Moscow, which recognised Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, will never give the regions back, Putin said on Friday at a grand Kremlin treaty-signing ceremony which brought the partially controlled regions into Russia.
Russia’s parliament said people living in the annexed regions would be granted Russian passports, the Russian Central Bank would oversee financial stability and the Russian rouble would be the official currency.
In justifying the Feb. 24 invasion, Putin said that Russian speakers in Ukraine had been persecuted by Ukraine which, he said, the West was trying to use to undermine Russian security.
Ukraine and its Western backers say that Putin has no justification for what they say is an imperial-style land grab. Kyiv denies Russian speakers were persecuted.
Now Putin casts the war as a battle for Russia’s survival against the United States and its allies, which he says want to destroy Russia and grab its vast natural resources.
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Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Philippa Fletcher
WARSAW, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Concerts by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters were cancelled by a venue in the Polish city of Krakow, organisers said on Sunday, after the artist’s comments on the war in Ukraine caused a storm of criticism.
Waters had been due to appear in Krakow next April, but Polish media reports about an open letter he wrote to Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska urging her to ask her husband to choose “a different route” and criticising the West for supplying Ukraine with arms provoked a fierce backlash.
“Live Nation Polska and Tauron Arena Krakow have cancelled Roger Waters’ concert,” organisers said in a statement on the venue’s website. They did not elaborate on the reason for the cancellation.
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On Saturday, state-run news agency PAP reported that a spokesperson for the Tauron Arena had said that Walters’ management had cancelled the concert without giving a reason.
Poland counts itself among Kyiv’s staunchest allies, and public support for the Ukrainian cause is very high.
Local councillors in Krakow had been due to vote on a resolution declaring Waters ‘Persona non grata’ on Wednesday.
In a social media post, Waters said that it was not true that he or his management had cancelled the concerts and criticised local councillor Lukasz Wantuch over the vote to declare him unwelcome in the city.
“Lukasz Wantuch has threatened to hold a meeting asking the council to declare me ‘Persona non grata’ because of my public efforts to encourage all involved in the disastrous war in Ukraine, especially the governments of the USA and Russia, to work towards a negotiated peace,” Waters wrote in a post on Facebook.
“If Mr Lukasz Wantuch achieves his aim, and my forthcoming concerts in Krakow are cancelled, it will be a sad loss for me, because I have been looking forward to sharing my message of love with the people of Poland.”
Wantuch said in a Facebook post on Sunday morning that he was in Ukraine and would comment on Waters’ statement in the evening.
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Reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Susan Fenton
Sept 25 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that Ukraine had received sophisticated air defence systems from the United States.
It was the first acknowledgment that Ukraine had received the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), long sought by Kyiv and whose shipment was approved by Washington late last month.
“We absolutely need the United States to show leadership and give Ukraine the air defence systems. I want to thank President (Joe) Biden for a positive decision that has been already made,” Zelenskiy said, according to an English-language transcript of the interview.
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“But believe me, it’s not even nearly enough to cover the civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universities, homes of Ukrainians.”
Zelenskiy also thanked the United States for HIMARS and other multiple rocket-launching systems enabling Ukraine to advance against Russian occupying forces.
Ukraine has staged counter-offensives this month to free from occupation large swathes of territory in northeastern Kharkiv region. It has also made advances in the south.
Russia describes its seven-month-old incursion into Ukraine as a “special military operation” and denies it targets civilian sites.
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Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
KYIV, Sept 25 (Reuters) – The Ukrainian Defence Ministry on Sunday ridiculed Moscow’s partial mobilization to bolster its forces in Ukraine, posting on Twitter a mash-up of social media videos of Russian police beating and arresting men protesting the call-up.
The mockery came as Russia’s two top lawmakers expressed concern about the drive, ordering regional officials to resolve “excesses” that have ignited public anger, triggered demonstrations and prompted military-age men to make for border crossings. read more
“Russia still has remnants of a professional army” that the Ukrainian army “hasn’t yet destroyed,” the Ukrainian defence ministry said in an English-language tweet, referring to this month’s rout of Russian forces from much of the northeastern Kharkiv region. “Looks like we’ll be ‘de-mobilizing’ these Russians ahead of schedule.”
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The mobilization has prompted both sides to trade a fresh round of insults. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that fake statements on social media were in part to blame for the reaction to the announcement.
“There is now no shortage of explanations and there are opportunities to ask questions,” Peskov said. “We have to look calmly, thoughtfully and objectively at the provocative, huge number of fake statements on social media and not give in to these provocative actions.”
Multiple reports have documented how people with no military service have been issued draft papers – contrary to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu’s guarantee that only those with special military skills or combat experience would be called up – prompting even ultra-loyal pro-Kremlin figures to publicly express concern.
Officials say 300,000 more Russians will called up to serve in the mobilisation campaign.
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Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Susan Fenton and Daniel Wallis
Rightist bloc set for majority in both houses-exit polls
Meloni would be country’s first woman prime minister
Early vote follows collapse of Draghi government
Record low turnout casts shadow over result
ROME, Sept 25 (Reuters) – A right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was on course for a clear majority in the next parliament, giving the country its most right-wing government since World War Two.
Meloni, as leader of the largest coalition party, was also likely to become Italy’s first woman prime minister.
Meloni, 45, plays down her party’s post-fascist roots and portrays it as a mainstream conservative group. She has pledged to support Western policy on Ukraine and not take undue risks with the third largest economy in the euro zone.
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However, the outcome is likely to ring alarm bells in European capitals and on financial markets, given the desire to preserve unity in confronting Russia and concerns over Italy’s daunting debt mountain.
An exit poll for state broadcaster RAI said the bloc of conservative parties, that also includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, won between 41% and 45%, enough to guarantee control of both houses of parliament.
“Centre-right clearly ahead both in the lower house and the Senate! It’ll be a long night but even now I want to say thanks,” Salvini said on Twitter.
Italy’s electoral law favours groups that manage to create pre-ballot pacts, giving them an outsized number of seats by comparison with their vote tally.
RAI said the right-wing alliance would win between 227 and 257 of the 400 seats in the lower house of parliament, and 111-131 of the 200 Senate seats.
Full results are expected by early Monday.
Leader of Brothers of Italy Giorgia Meloni poses with her ballot at a polling station during the snap election in Rome, Italy September 25, 2022. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
RECORD LOW TURNOUT
The result caps a remarkable rise for Meloni, whose party won only 4% of the vote in the last national election in 2018, but this time around was forecast to emerge as Italy’s largest group on around 22-26%.
But it was not a ringing endorsement, with provisional data pointing to turnout of just 64.1% against 74% four years ago — a record low number in a country that has historically enjoyed a high level of voter participation.
Although heavy storms in the south appeared to have deterred many from voting there, participation fell across a swathe of northern and central cities, where the weather was calmer.
Italy has a history of political instability and the next prime minister will lead the country’s 68th government since 1946 and face a host of problems, notably soaring energy costs and growing economic headwinds.
Initial market reaction is likely to be muted given that opinion polls had forecast the result accurately.
“I don’t expect a big impact although it’s not necessarily the case that Italian assets will do particularly well tomorrow (Monday) given how the market is starting to treat Europe and countries with worrisome public finances and exposure to the crisis and Ukraine,” said Giuseppe Sersale, fund manager and strategist at Anthilia in Milan.
Italy’s first autumn national election in over a century was triggered by party infighting that brought down Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s broad national unity government in July.
The new, slimmed-down parliament will not meet until Oct. 13, at which point the head of state will summon party leaders and decide on the shape of the new government.
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Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, Rodolfo Fabbri and Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, and Danilo Masoni in Milan
Editing by Keith Weir
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The White House on Friday reiterated that Joe Biden was not signaling a change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan when he said the United States would come to the island’s aid if it was attacked by China, and analysts dismissed the president’s remark as a gaffe.
While Washington is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it has long followed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
Biden called that into question when he was asked at a CNN town hall in Baltimore on Thursday night whether the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if it was attacked by China and he replied: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”
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Shortly after he spoke, a White House spokesperson said there was no change in policy and analysts said it appeared the president misspoke.
Asked at a Friday news briefing whether it was Biden’s intention to move away from strategic ambiguity to make an unambiguous statement about how the United States would respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: “Our policy has not changed. He was not intending to convey a change in policy, nor has he made a decision to change our policy.”
Psaki added that, as stated in Brussels earlier on Friday by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “nobody wants to see cross-strait issues come to blows, certainly not President Biden, and there’s no reason that it should.”
Psaki said the U.S. defense relationship with Taiwan was guided by the long-established Taiwan Relations Act, under which Washington would “continue assisting Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.”
Another principle of the act was that Washington “would regard any efforts to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific and of grave concern to the United States,” she added.
Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, called Biden’s remark a “gaffe” and said it was “patently not true” that Washington has a commitment to defend Taiwan.
“Some are suggesting a deliberate effort to send unclear signals, but in my view, that makes no sense. A confused U.S. policy weakens deterrence,” she said, noting that Biden’s Asia policy czar, Kurt Campbell, had rejected “strategic clarity” over Taiwan.
Another Taiwan expert, Douglas Paal, a former U.S. representative in Taipei, said Biden was focused at the town hall on selling his domestic economic agenda.
“Despite his reputation on foreign affairs, he can be occasionally sloppy when distracted,” Paal said. “The White House was right to issue a speedy ‘no-change-in-policy’ correction, because that is where policy is.”
Biden’s remark comes at an awkward time, while White House officials are gearing up for a virtual meeting between him and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which, sources say, they hope will show the world Washington can responsibly manage tense relations between the rival superpowers.
China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own, expressed its displeasure, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying Beijing has no room for concessions on its core interests.
China urges the United States “not to send the wrong signals to the forces of Taiwan independence, to avoid seriously harming Sino-U.S. ties and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
Taiwan’s presidential office said its position remained the same, which is that it will neither give in to pressure nor “rashly advance” when it gets support.
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Reporting by Jeff Mason, Tim Ahmann and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis
Palestinians, rights watchdogs reject the designations
Israel accuses groups of funnelling aid to militants
TEL AVIV, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Israel on Friday designated six Palestinian civil society groups as terrorist organisations and accused them of funnelling donor aid to militants, a move that drew criticism from the United Nations and human rights watchdogs.
Israel’s defence ministry said the groups had ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), a left-wing faction with an armed wing that has carried out deadly attacks against Israelis.
The groups include Palestinian human rights organisations Addameer and Al-Haq, which document alleged rights violations by both Israel and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
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“(The) declared organizations received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations, using a variety of forgery and deceit,” the defence ministry said, alleging that the money had supported PFLP’s activities.
The designations authorise Israeli authorities to close the groups’ offices, seize their assets and arrest their staff in the West Bank, watchdogs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a joint statement.
Addameer and another of the groups, Defense for Children International – Palestine, rejected the accusations as an “attempt to eliminate Palestinian civil society.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories said it was “alarmed” by the announcement.
“Counter-terrorism legislation must not be used to constrain legitimate human rights and humanitarian work,” it said, adding that some of the reasons given appeared vague or irrelevant.
“These designations are the latest development in a long stigmatizing campaign against these and other organizations, damaging their ability to deliver on their crucial work,” it said.
Israel’s ally the United States was not given advance warning of the move and would engage Israel for more information about the basis for the designations, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
“We believe respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and a strong civil society are critically important to responsible and responsive governance,” he said.
But Israel’s defence ministry said: “Those organizations present themselves as acting for humanitarian purposes; however, they serve as a cover for the ‘Popular Front’ promotion and financing.”
An official with the PFLP, which is on United States and European Union terrorism blacklists, did not outright reject ties to the six groups but said they maintain relations with civil society organisations across the West Bank and Gaza.
“It is part of the rough battle Israel is launching against the Palestinian people and against civil society groups, in order to exhaust them,” PFLP official Kayed Al-Ghoul said.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the “decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine’s most prominent civil society organizations.”
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians seek the territories for a future state.
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Reporting by Rami Ayyub in Tel Aviv; Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem; Editing by William Maclean and Mark Porter
NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Lev Parnas, a onetime associate of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was found guilty on Friday of violating U.S. campaign finance laws during the 2018 elections.
Parnas, a Ukraine-born American businessman, and his former associate Igor Fruman had been accused of soliciting funds from Russian businessman Andrey Muraviev to donate to candidates in states where the group was seeking licenses to operate cannabis businesses in 2018.
Parnas also concealed that he and Fruman, who pleaded guilty in September, were the true source of a donation to a group supporting Republican then-President Trump, prosecutors said. Giuliani’s attorney has said the Parnas case is separate from a probe into whether violated lobbying laws while representing Trump.
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Giuliani, a U.S. prosecutor in the 1980s before he was elected New York’s mayor in 1994, has not been charged with any crimes and denies wrongdoing.
Parnas was found guilty on all six counts of federal election law violations that he faced, which included illegally helping a foreigner contribute to a U.S. election campaign, making contributions in the names of others, and lying to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
Andrey Kukushkin, a Muraviev associate and California resident who was tried alongside Parnas, was found guilty on Friday of two counts of campaign finance violations. Kukushkin is also a Ukraine native.
The trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan has drawn attention because of the role Parnas and Belarus-born U.S. citizen Fruman played in helping Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney while he held office, to investigate Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. Biden won the election, denying Trump a second term.
Parnas, dressed in a blue suit, stared straight at the jury as the verdict was read. Kukushkin, wearing a grey sweater, shook his head after he was pronounced guilty on the second count.
“I’ve never hid from nobody,” Parnas said as he left court wearing a black “Combat COVID” mask. “I’ve always stood and tried to tell the truth.”
His attorney Joseph Bondy said they would be filing a motion to vacate the verdict “in the interest of justice.”
Lev Parnas, Ukrainian-American businessman and former Giuliani associate, walks to the United States Court in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., October 18, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Segar
“It’s obviously a very difficult time for Mr. Parnas and his wife and his children,” Bondy said.
U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken denied a request from prosecutors to detain Parnas and Kukushkin. “The defendants have sufficiently established that they’re not a risk of flight,” Oetken said after the jury left.
Oetken set a sentencing date of Feb. 16 for Kukushkin. He did not set a sentencing date for Parnas, who faces another possible trial on separate fraud charges.
‘IN WELL OVER HIS HEAD’
The case provided a glimpse into the inner workings of political fundraising in the United States.
“You saw the wires from Muraviev,” Assistant U.S Attorney Hagan Scotten told the jury during closing arguments on Thursday. “You saw how that money came out on the other side, finding its way into American elections, where the defendants thought they had bought influence to further their business.”
Parnas’ defense lawyers countered that Muraviev’s funds went toward business investments, not campaign contributions, and that the donation to the pro-Trump group was from a company founded by Parnas and broke no laws.
In his closing statement Parnas attorney Bondy characterized his client as a passionate proponent of marijuana legalization who was “in well over his head.” He argued that Muraviev’s money funded business operations, not campaign contributions.
Deliberations in the trial began on Friday morning and lasted about five hours.
Fruman, who lives in Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting campaign contributions from a foreign national. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.
Parnas and Kukushkin had faced two counts of conspiring to make donations from a foreign national, and making the donations. Parnas had also been charged with four other counts, including making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission.
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Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Franklin Paul, Grant McCool and Jonathan Oatis
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The United States hopes to soon relocate around 150 U.S.-trained Afghan Air Force pilots and other personnel detained in Tajikistan for more than two months after they flew there at the end of the Afghan war, a U.S. official said.
The State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to offer a timeline for the transfer but said the United States wanted to move all of those held at the same time. The details of the U.S. plan have not been previously reported.
Reuters exclusively reported first-person accounts from 143 U.S.-trained Afghan personnel being held at a sanatorium in a mountainous, rural area outside of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, waiting for a U.S. flight out to a third country and eventual U.S. resettlement.
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Speaking on smuggled cell phones kept hidden from guards, they say they have had their phones and identity documents confiscated.
There are also 13 Afghan personnel in Dushanbe, enjoying much more relaxed conditions, who told Reuters they are also awaiting a U.S. transfer. They flew into the country separately.
The Afghan personnel in Tajikistan represent the last major group of U.S.-trained pilots still believed to be in limbo after dozens of advanced military aircraft were flown across the Afghan border to Tajikistan and to Uzbekistan in August during the final moments of the war with the Taliban.
In September, a U.S.-brokered deal allowed a larger group of Afghan pilots and other military personnel to be flown out of Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.
Two detained Afghan pilots in Tajikistan said their hopes were lifted in recent days after visits by officials from the U.S. embassy in Dushanbe.
Although they said they had not yet been given a date for their departure, the pilots said U.S. officials obtained the biometric data needed to complete the process of identifying the Afghans. That was the last step before departure for the Afghan pilots in Uzbekistan.
PREGNANT AFGHAN PILOT
U.S. lawmakers and military veterans who have advocated for the pilots have expressed deep frustration over the time it has taken for President Joe Biden’s administration to evacuate Afghan personnel.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was pressed on the matter in Congress last month, expressing concern at a hearing for the pilots and other personnel.
Reuters had previously reported U.S. difficulties gaining Tajik access to all of the Afghans, which include an Afghan Air Force pilot who is eight months pregnant.
In an interview with Reuters, the 29-year-old pilot had voiced her concerns to Reuters about the risks to her and her child at the remote sanatorium. She was subsequently moved to a maternity hospital.
“We are like prisoners here. Not even like refugees, not even like immigrants. We have no legal documents or way to buy something for ourselves,” she said.
The pregnant pilot would be included in the relocation from Tajikistan, the U.S. State Department official said.
Even before the Taliban’s takeover, the U.S.-trained, English-speaking pilots had become prime targets of the Taliban because of the damage they inflicted during the war. The Talibantracked down the pilotsand assassinated them off-base.
Afghanistan’s new rulers have said they will invite former military personnel to join the revamped security forces and that they will come to no harm.
Afghan pilots who spoke with Reuters say they believe they will be killed if they return to Afghanistan.
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Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Grant McCool
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