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  • Biden plans to use Oval Office address to make case for wartime aid to Israel and Ukraine | CNN Politics

    Biden plans to use Oval Office address to make case for wartime aid to Israel and Ukraine | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden plans to make a direct appeal to the American people to continue funding Ukraine and Israel amid their war efforts in an Oval Office address Thursday, according to two administration officials.

    The primetime address will take place on the eve of the White House requesting north of $100 billion from Congress to deliver aid and resources to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the US border with Mexico. Biden is expected to make the argument that supporting Ukraine and Israel is a matter of US national security when the world is at an inflection point.

    “He’s going to make the case that the cost of inaction and the cost of walking away is much higher,” according to one official.

    The Biden administration in August delivered its last so-called supplemental funding request, which encapsulates unique requests beyond traditional government programs. The proposal requested $24.1 billion to aid Ukraine through the end of the year, but Congress failed to approve it during a process to greenlight short-term federal funding.

    As he watched the horrific scenes of violence unfold in Israel, Biden expressed to his top advisers in recent days a desire to speak directly to the American people about the importance of supporting United States’ allies that are fighting back unprompted attacks.

    That desire set in motion days of planning and speechwriting for Biden’s Thursday primetime speech to be delivered from the Oval Office, one senior administration official told CNN. The president made clear to his advisers that the speech should emphasize that the US’s support for Ukraine and Israel is not just a powerful message to send to the world, but a matter of US national security, as well.

    Advisers expect that as with any major speech, the president himself will be making final touches and edits to the prepared remarks in the hours leading up to the speech.

    Public opinion regarding US assistance has been mixed.

    In a recent CNN poll, nearly all respondents were sympathetic with the Israeli people in the wake of surprise attacks launched by Hamas, but there was no clear consensus on the right level of US involvement. One-third (35%) said the US is providing the right amount of assistance – and another 36% were unsure whether the level of US assistance is appropriate. The US has long provided security assistance to Israel, which receives roughly $4 billion annually under a 10-year memorandum of understanding. The new request would provide billions more.

    By contrast, support to sustain aid to Ukraine has waned significantly since Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022. An August CNN poll found 55% of respondents said Congress should not pass more funding to aid Ukraine. The partisan divide has been deepening, too: Nearly three-quarters of Republicans opposed more funding for Ukraine, while 62% of Democrats supported it.

    Since Russia’s invasion, the White House and Congress have provided more than $75 billion in funding to Kyiv, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

    Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen pledged to European leaders on Monday that the US would be able to secure support for additional aid and, in an interview with Sky News, said Washington could afford financing two war efforts at once.

    “American can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs, and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.”

    Biden’s upcoming remarks, first announced Wednesday, come on the heels of his wartime visit to the Middle East, which went on even after a blast tore through a hospital in Gaza. While his planned stop in Amman, Jordan, to meet Arab leaders was canceled just as the president was preparing to depart the White House, Biden did spend hours on the ground in Tel Aviv.

    Officials on Wednesday sought to downplay the cancellation, saying it was natural for President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to return to the West Bank to mourn the dead. Later, Biden scoffed at the suggestion he was disappointed the meeting had been canceled.

    “Disappointed? Look, I came to get something done. I got it done,” he said. “Not many people thought we could get this done, and not many people want to be associated with failure.”

    For Biden, a trip in the formative days of a potentially drawn-out conflict amounted to the ultimate test of his confidence – built over decades – that getting in the same room can influence people and events.

    The US, Egypt and Israel have all signaled readiness for aid to begin moving into Gaza, following Biden’s high-profile visit.

    in a meeting that stretched well past what officials had expected, Biden sought to use his decades-long relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – one that has endured significant strain over the past year – to offer advice and seek commitments on the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

    Beforehand, officials said Biden would approach the Israeli leader with “tough questions” about the path forward and Israel’s intentions as it seeks to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. Speaking later, Biden offered a glimpse of how those conversations went, or at least his side of them.

    “I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it,” Biden told his audience, a collection of Israelis and Americans.

    “I know the choices are never clear or easy for the leadership,” Biden went on, recalling mistakes the United States made after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “There’s always cost, but it requires being deliberate, requires asking very hard questions. That requires clarity about the objectives and an honest assessment about whether the path you’re on will achieve those objectives.”

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  • Putin banks on wavering support for Ukraine, amid a race against time | CNN

    Putin banks on wavering support for Ukraine, amid a race against time | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    How does the war in Ukraine end? Earlier this year, former President Donald Trump boasted that if he were re-elected, he’d “have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.”

    Russian President Vladimir Putin is making a slightly less ambitious forecast: If things go his way, the war can be over in a week.

    In remarks Thursday at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, a Kremlin-friendly confab on global issues, Putin predicted that Ukraine would collapse if the West turns off the taps of military aid and economic assistance.

    “By and large, the Ukrainian economy cannot exist without external support,” he said. “Once you stop this, everything will be over in a week. Finished. The same applies to the defense system: Imagine that supplies will stop tomorrow — you will only have a week to live when the ammunition runs out.”

    These remarks were perhaps Putin’s most clear articulation to date his strategy in Ukraine: He is counting on the Western alliance that backs Ukraine to fracture, the longer the gruesome war of attrition grinds on. And developments in recent days, to the alarm of Ukraine’s supporters, suggest that Putin’s plan may be gaining some traction.

    Take the recent headlines from Washington. Last week, President Joe Biden signed into law a stopgap bill to avert a government shutdown, but funding for Ukraine was a casualty of the brinksmanship on Capitol Hill.

    The measure signed into law may keep the US government open only through November 17, but it includes no additional funding for Ukraine.

    The Biden administration emphasizes that that the American public’s support for Ukraine remains strong. But the lack of funding in the bill for Ukraine sets the clock ticking for Kyiv, and has the White House scrambling for workarounds.

    Throughout the war, the US has been a steady lifeline for Ukraine, committing a total of around $113 billion to it, including direct military assistance, budget infusions and humanitarian assistance.

    But the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrown the short-term prospects for a new assistance package into serious doubt: Without a permanent speaker, legislative business in the House is effectively on hold.

    The administration does have some options. The Pentagon Comptroller — the Department of Defense’s chief financial officer — has noted that there is the option to replenish Ukraine’s dwindling military supplies through what is known as Presidential Drawdown Authority.

    But to the drama in Congress add: resistance among far-right Republican legislators raises serious questions about the US sustaining aid longer term for Ukraine, particularly during a major counteroffensive.

    And then there is the race for the Republican presidential nomination, which likely also plays into Putin’s calculus. The Kremlin is no doubt mindful of the fact that several GOP aspirants are vocal skeptics when it comes to aiding Ukraine. Trump, no friend to Ukraine, is leading the pack.

    The United States, it’s worth remembering, is not the only country shouldering the financial burden of supporting Ukraine. European Union members provide around 39% of direct military assistance to Ukraine.

    Putin is clearly counting on Ukraine fatigue in Europe. Earlier this week, a party headed by Robert Fico, a populist, pro-Kremlin figure, came out on top in parliamentary elections in Slovakia, an EU and NATO member. Fico has called on the Slovak government to stop arming Ukraine, and his bogus rhetoric — blaming “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — must no doubt be music to Putin’s ears.

    Putin’s advisors also appear to be reading the defense trade press. In his remarks this week, the Kremlin leader noted that the US industrial base is struggling to ramp up demand for ammunition for Ukraine, which has been locked in an artillery slogging match with Russia.

    “The United States produces 14 thousand 155-mm shells, and Ukrainian troops expend up to five thousand per day, and there they produce 14 [thousand] per month,” he claimed at the Valdai conference. “Do you understand what we’re talking about? Yes, they are trying to increase production – up to 75,000 by the end of next year, but we still have to wait until the end of next year.”

    Putin’s notecards may have been slightly off – US monthly production is currently at 28,000 shells. But the Russian president was not mischaracterizing the fact that the US and its European allies are locked in a desperate race against Russia’s industrial base.

    Ukrainian serviceman at frontline positions south of Bakhmut on September 22.

    In a discussion this past week at the Warsaw Security Forum, Royal Netherlands Navy Adm. Rob Bauer, chair of the NATO Military Committee warned that “the bottom of the barrel is now visible” when it comes to ammunition production for Ukraine.

    Putin, then, appears to be counting on both dysfunction in Washington and stress within the transatlantic alliance for his strategy of attrition to work. That strategy, to some degree, also depends on winning a battle of perception. If Ukraine is seen as a losing cause, Kremlin logic argues, then its patrons will pull the plug.

    But what about the actual situation on the ground in Ukraine, as winter draws near and a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive makes only incremental gains? Is the situation as dire as Putin might suggest?

    Putin casts that fight in existential terms, arguing this week that nothing less than a twilight struggle is underway to establish a new world order congenial to authoritarian states — and implying that Russia is in this for the long haul.

    “The Ukrainian crisis is not a territorial conflict, I want to emphasize this,” he said at the Valdai forum. “Russia is the largest country in the world, with the largest territory. We have no interests in terms of conquering any additional territories. We still have to explore and develop Siberia, Eastern Siberia and the Far East. This is not a territorial conflict or even the establishment of a regional geopolitical balance. The question is much broader and more fundamental: we are talking about the principles on which the new world order will be based.”

    Leave aside for a moment that Putin has, at other times, brazenly framed the invasion of Ukraine as project of imperial restoration. In his remarks at Valdai, he clearly implied that Russia intends to outlast the West over Ukraine.

    But not everyone, and especially not Ukrainians, believe it’s a waiting game.

    Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics, responded to Putin’s Valdai remarks with a reminder that Ukrainians would still fight for survival regardless of Moscow’s goal of hiving off support for his country.

    Paraphrasing Putin, Mylovanov said that the Kremlin believes that “Ukraine will have one week left to LIVE once Western supplies are over. LIVE as in EXIST, not defend or resist.

    What defending or resisting comes is down not just to action on Capitol Hill. Putin’s credibility has been dented in recent months by the Wagner mutiny, as well as the Russian government’s ability to muster motivated, well-trained troops after a sustained hammering on the battlefield.

    If Putin is counting on a long war to blunt Western will to support Ukraine, he is also taking a gamble on the longevity of his system of rule — and perhaps underestimating the resolve of Ukrainians, whom he sees as merely a puppet of Washington and Brussels.

    And that is where the dark headlines for Ukraine have the unsurprising result of hardening Ukrainian resolve. Whether the deadly strike on the village of Hroza or Friday’s attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s will to fight, regardless of US and Western support, appears unwavering.

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  • Ousting of US House speaker darkens outlook for Ukraine aid as funds dry up | CNN Politics

    Ousting of US House speaker darkens outlook for Ukraine aid as funds dry up | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the US Congress has cast a dark cloud over the already troubled process of Washington’s military and financial aid for Ukraine, as its counteroffensive against Russia grinds on with little change to the frontlines.

    Without a Speaker, the House is unable to pass legislation, and it may be a week or more before a successor is elected – throwing America’s military backing for Kyiv into doubt. 

    The vote to remove McCarthy follows a weekend deal in which funding for the government was extended for 45 days – but in which no provision was made for fresh aid to Ukraine. That left the Biden administration’s $24 billion request for fresh military aid, submitted to Congress in the summer, in limbo. It also left the coffers dangerously low. 

    US President Joe Biden said at the weekend that he expected McCarthy “to keep his commitment to secure the passage and support needed to help Ukraine as they defend themselves against aggression and brutality.” McCarthy has now lost his role and has ruled out running for Speaker again. While it’s unclear who might succeed him, several potential candidates are skeptical about continuing support for Ukraine at current levels.  

    McCarthy himself warned: “Our members have a lot of questions, especially on the accountability provisions of what we want to see with the money that gets sent.” 

    The turmoil in Washington adds to other recent worries for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In Slovakia, former pro-Russia Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist party won parliamentary elections, vowing to stop sending weapons to Ukraine and to thwart its NATO ambitions. And a spat over grain exports with Poland – one of Kyiv’s earliest and most staunch allies – has led Warsaw to warn it could stop arms shipments to its neighbor.

    Money and weapons run low

    Many analysts estimate that Ukraine’s current “burn rate” of equipment, munitions and maintenance in the conflict with Russia is about $2.5 billion a month, maybe a little higher. Much of the funding for that spending comes from Washington.  

    Last week, the Pentagon’s Chief Financial Officer, Michael McCord, warned Congressional leaders that money for Ukraine was running low. In a letter subsequently released by House Democrats, McCord said that the Pentagon had about $5.4 billion left in what’s known as presidential drawdown authority, which allows the rapid dispatch of weapons from existing stocks. That’s essentially about two months’ money. 

    McCord also warned that of the roughly $26 billion that Congress had authorized to replace weapons and equipment that had been sent to Ukraine, only $1.6 billion remains. 

    One pipeline, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), is already empty. McCord told Congressional leaders that “a lack of USAI funding now will delay contracting actions that could negatively impact the department’s ability to purchase essential additional 155 mm artillery and critical munitions essential to the success of Ukraine’s armed forces.” 

    “Without additional funding now, we would have to delay or curtail assistance to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements, including for air defense and ammunition that are critical and urgent now as Russia prepares to conduct a winter offensive and continues its bombardment of Ukrainian cities,” he wrote. 

    Max Bergmann, Director of Europe and Russia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said, “The chaos in the House leaves Ukraine in a dangerous limbo. Let’s be clear, if the US Congress does not pass a funding bill, Ukraine will be in deep trouble. A lot of Ukrainians will die and their ability to fight on will be severely compromised.”

    “Without funding the US will not be able to rapidly supply Ukrainian forces,” Bergmann said on X, formerly Twitter. 

    He also noted that the drawdown authority, which had been raised to $14.5 billion, went back to $100 million on October 1, a drop in the ocean.  

    Current funding – partially boosted by a revaluation downwards of the equipment being sent – would suggest that there is just about enough funding for the rest of the calendar year.  

    But for Ukraine’s military planners, the uncertainty is an immense challenge as they try to plot any winter offensive or where to place air defenses. 

    Bergmann and others also warned that should US funding dwindle or get delayed, European countries won’t be able to pick up the slack. Inventories are already very low, as NATO officials warned Tuesday. 

    “European militaries already had empty warehouses from decades of under-investment. There isn’t much left to give. Europeans can and should get their industries humming but this again takes time,” Bergmann notes. 

    “In short, abruptly stopping funding to Ukraine could be catastrophic, leaving it deeply exposed on the battlefield. The US will also lose all credibility with allies everywhere,” says Bergman. 

    The funding of Ukraine’s war effort by the US has thus far amounted to $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion. 

    While any delays in Western aid for Ukraine will be met with concern in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials have tried to sound a note of optimism in public.

    Responding to the news that aid to Ukraine had not been included in last weekend’s temporary funding measure, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “The question is whether what happened in the US Congress last weekend is an incident or systematic,” Kuleba said on the margins of a meeting with European Union foreign ministers. 

    “I think it was an incident,” he said.

    And on Wednesday, Ukraine’s ambassador in Washington said the embassy has a good dialog with the “vast majority” of likely candidates to replace McCarthy.

    Oksana Markarova said on Facebook that there are “many names are already in the discussion” but it was too early to discuss specific candidates.

    “I can only say that we have built a good constructive dialog with the vast majority of the names that are being mentioned and their teams,” Markarova said. “We at the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA continue our active work with caucuses, committees, individual congressmen, and of course the Senate to discuss our needs and possible solutions for the next package of assistance to Ukraine.”

    But a senior adviser to Zelensky criticized “Western conservative elites” for suggesting that military aid to Ukraine should be suspended.

    Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the president’s office, wrote on X Wednesday: “When any of the representatives of Western conservative elites talk about the need to suspend military aid to #Ukraine, I have a direct question: what are your motives? Why are you so insistently against… destroying the Russian army, which has been terrifying democracies for decades, and why are you against drastically reducing #Russia’s ability to conduct ‘special destructive operations’ in different countries and on different continents?”

    Podolyak added: “Most importantly, why do you so insistently want Russia to withstand, do some work on its mistakes, reinforce its army, reboot its military-industrial complex and start looking for new opportunities to attack other countries and other – including yours – armies?”

    Podolyak did not specifically reference the freezing of US aid to Ukraine in the temporary spending measure approved by Congress at the weekend, nor the ousting of McCarthy late on Tuesday.

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  • Government on brink of shutdown ahead of midnight deadline as McCarthy slates last-minute vote | CNN Politics

    Government on brink of shutdown ahead of midnight deadline as McCarthy slates last-minute vote | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Federal agencies are making final preparations with the government on the brink of a shutdown and congressional lawmakers racing against Saturday’s critical midnight deadline – as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy mounts a last-minute push to avert the lapse in funding.

    McCarthy announced that the House will vote on a 45-day short-term spending bill Saturday, and it will include the natural disaster aid that the White House requested.

    The bill does not include $6 billion in funding to aid Ukraine, a key concession that many House Republicans demanded and a blow to allies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who lobbied Congress earlier this month for additional assistance.

    Asked if he is concerned that a member, including Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, could move to oust him over this bill, McCarthy replied, “If I have to risk my job for standing up for the American public, I will do that.”

    Infighting among House Republicans has played a central role in bringing Congress to a standoff over spending – and it is not yet clear how the issue will be resolved, raising concerns on Capitol Hill that a shutdown, if triggered, may not be easy to end.

    Democrats in the House have been trying to slow down passage of the GOP-led continuing resolution throughout the day Saturday, objecting to being forced to vote on a bill just introduced and wanting to keep Ukraine aid. It’s unclear how long Democrats will stall the House from voting.

    House Republicans met throughout Saturday morning, seesawing between options for how to proceed. Republicans including veteran appropriators and those in swing districts pushed to bring a short-term resolution to keep the government funded for 45 days to the House floor for a vote Saturday.

    McCarthy has faced threats to keeping his job throughout the month if he works with Democrats as he endures a consistent resistance from the hardline conservatives in his own party.

    A shutdown is expected to have consequential impacts across the country, from air travel to clean drinking water, and many government operations would grind to a halt – though services deemed essential for public safety would continue.

    Both chambers are scheduled to be in session Saturday, just hours before the deadline. The Senate was expected to take procedural steps to advance their own plan to keep the government funded – GOP Sen. Rand Paul had vowed all week to slow that process beyond the midnight deadline over objections to the bill’s funding for the war in Ukraine. The Senate is now waiting to see how the House developments shake out before proceeding.

    But Paul told CNN on Saturday afternoon that he won’t slow down the Senate’s consideration of the House GOP’s 45-day spending bill, if it passes the House and the Senate takes it up, allowing the Senate the ability to move the bill quickly – though any one other senator could slow that down beyond the midnight deadline.

    House Republicans have so far thrown cold water on a bipartisan Senate proposal to keep the government funded through November 17, but they have failed to coalesce around a plan of their own to avert a shutdown amid resistance from a bloc of hardline conservatives to any kind of short-term funding extension.

    “After meeting with House Republicans this evening, it’s clear the misguided Senate bill has no path forward and is dead on arrival,” McCarthy wrote on X. “The House will continue to work around the clock to keep government open and prioritize the needs of the American people.”

    His late Friday night message came after a two-hour conference meeting in the Capitol, where McCarthy floated several different options – including putting the Senate bill on the floor or passing a short-term bill that excludes Ukraine money. But there is still no consensus on what – if anything – they will put on the House floor Saturday to avoid a government shutdown.

    McCarthy suffered another high-profile defeat on Friday when the House failed to advance a last-ditch stopgap bill.

    In the aftermath of Friday’s failed vote, McCarthy told reporters he had proposed putting up a “clean” stopgap bill, and said he was “working through maybe to be able to do that.”

    “We’re continuing to work through – trying to find the way out of this,” McCarthy said.

    The Senate’s bipartisan bill would provide additional funds for Ukraine aid, creating a point of contention with the House where many Republicans are opposed to further support to the war-torn country.

    McCarthy argued on Friday that aid to Ukraine should be dropped from the Senate bill. “I think if we had a clean one without Ukraine on it, we could probably be able to move that through. I think if the Senate puts Ukraine on there and focuses on Ukraine over America, I think that could cause real problems,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.

    The Senate, meanwhile, is working to advance its own bipartisan stopgap bill. The chamber is on track to take a procedural vote Saturday afternoon to move forward with the bill, particularly if the last-minute House bill falters. But it’s not yet clear when senators could take a final vote to pass the bill and it may not happen until Monday, after the government has already shut down.

    Border security has also become a complicating factor for the Senate bill as many Republicans now want to see the bill amended to address the issue.

    Senate Republicans said Friday that they were still discussing what kind of border amendment they would want to add to the bill, and were unsure if the chamber could even advance the bill in Saturday’s procedural vote without the addition of a border amendment.

    “Nothing’s really coming together, too many moving parts at this stage,” said Sen. Mike Braun, an Indiana Republican. “I think what I understand is we’re going to have a vote tomorrow … and other than that, there’s nothing that’s really crystallized in anything that probably would be palatable with the House.”

    This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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  • The message behind Putin’s Wagner meeting | CNN

    The message behind Putin’s Wagner meeting | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “vertical of power” – the way in which the entire structure of Russian political power rests on one man – has undergone profound stress testing in the wake of the Wagner mercenary group’s aborted march on Moscow in June.

    But everything is now business as usual, and the remnants of Wagner are back in the government’s control, if Kremlin messaging is to be believed.

    In a televised meeting Friday, Putin met with Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and former Wagner commander Andrey Troshev, according to a partial transcript published by the Kremlin.

    The meeting was held in a long-familiar format. Putin was seated at the head of a conference table with briefing papers and notes, making some general remarks before settling down to official business. The language was sober, competent and relatively substance-free: It could have been a routine meeting with a regional governor to discuss economic plans, at least judging by the official readout.

    But unpack the language, and Putin’s Friday meeting appeared to put a reassuring gloss on the Russian government’s attempt to bring the mercenary group to heel. Troshev – who goes by the call sign, ‘Sedoy,’ meaning ‘grey hair’ – is the man Putin tapped to run the mercenary outfit after its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s dramatic fall from grace.

    After leading the group’s insurrection this summer and then accepting an apparent deal to end it, Prigozhin died in late August when his private jet plummeted from the skies over Russia’s Tver region. But the damage that Prigozhin did to Putin’s image of infallibility has lingered.

    So Putin on Friday did one of the things he does best: Delving into the minutiae of governing.

    “I would like to talk to you about issues of a social nature,” Putin told Troshev, without naming Wagner. “You maintain relationships with your comrades with whom you fought together, and now you continue to carry out these combat missions.”

    Continued Putin: “We have created the ‘Defenders of the Fatherland’ fund, and I have said many times and want to emphasize again: regardless of the status of the person who performs or has performed combat missions, social guarantees must be absolutely the same for everyone.”

    By dangling the carrot of “social guarantees,” one might conclude that the Russian government will be taking on the system of cash handouts and compensation that Wagner fighters in Ukraine enjoyed under Prigozhin’s leadership, something that won the mercenary leader some measure of loyalty. That such guarantees accrue “regardless of status” would appear to acknowledge that mercenary activities are technically proscribed by Russian law.

    The Russian leader also alluded to an earlier offer made to Wagner fighters after the short-lived rebellion: Sign contracts with the Russian ministry of defense, or head for neighboring Belarus. Wagner’s future in Belarus has since been thrown into doubt and the Russian government appears to be moving more energetically to bring the remnants of Wagner into conventional military structures, along with all the benefits that might entail.

    “At the last meeting, we talked about the fact that you will be involved in the formation of volunteer units that can perform various combat missions, primarily, of course, in the zone of a special military operation,” Putin said, using the official doublespeak for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    “You yourself fought in such a unit for more than a year. You know what it is, how it’s done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that combat work goes on in the best and most successful way.”

    Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Friday that Troshev “is already working with the defense ministry” – citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov – signaling that he will not be a freelance entrepreneur as Prigozhin was.

    But that doesn’t answer the somewhat broader question of what the Russian state plans to do with all the work it has outsourced to Wagner in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Wagner fighters have been active in several African countries, including Mali, the Central African Republic, and Libya.

    The presence of Yevkurov in the meeting may offer one clue. In late August, Yevkurov led a Russian military delegation to the Libyan city of Benghazi to meet with the Libyan National Army, led by the renegade general Khalifa Haftar.

    Wagner has supported the Libyan National Army for several years, reportedly backing Haftar’s 2019-2020 military campaign against the Tripoli-based government. The US military says Wagner has also used Libya as a logistical foothold, flying cargo flights into bases in eastern Libya to resupply its operations there.

    Evidence has also emerged that Wagner has used bases in Libya to supply Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.

    Wagner has long acted as an often-deniable extension of Russian foreign policy. If Friday’s meeting is any guide, Yevkurov appears to be a point man for future Wagner activity while Troshev takes on a different brief: overseeing Wagner 2.0 for the war in Ukraine.

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  • Detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich’s parents describe what it was like seeing him in Russia | CNN Business

    Detained WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich’s parents describe what it was like seeing him in Russia | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich remains “defiant” six months after he was detained in Russia on spying charges, which he and the Journal strenuously deny, his mother told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday night.

    “He’s smiling. He understands what’s going on,” Ella Milman said. “And I have to say, under all the circumstances, he’s doing really well.”

    Gershkovich’s parents have been able to go to Russia twice. They saw him in June and were able to talk to him, though Cooper noted he was essentially in a glass box.

    “Being there, it was like having him back,” his father, Mikhail Gershkovich, said. “Just the physical presence and his voice made you very happy.”

    Gershkovich was arrested in March during a reporting trip. The FSB, Russia’s main security service, accused him of trying to obtain state secrets — a charge Gershkovich and his employer have extensively denied.

    If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

    Gershkovich’s parents left the Soviet Union to come to the United States. Evan’s initial reporting trips in the country didn’t worry the two of them.

    “He came to Russia in 2017. Things were a lot different at the time,” Milman said.

    The family keeps in touch with Gershkovich through letters, which are up to 10 pages long and include printed pictures. His sister, Danielle Gershkovich, says they can hear his voice through his writing — fitting, Cooper noted, as he’s a print journalist.

    “It’s like sitting on the couch,” Milman said. “The only thing is that the answer comes the following week.”

    Those who want to help need to keep the focus on Evan, Danielle said, whether it’s people posting on social media or reading his reporting.

    From a young age, Gershkovich was curious and easily connected with people, Milman said.

    “He always would come home after his fancy trips and wanted to have a hamburger and buffalo wings and watch baseball and watch American football,” Milman said. “He’s an American boy who has roots in Russian culture.”

    The journalist’s detention is a source of tension between Washington and Moscow.

    “The US position remains unwavering. The charges against Evan are baseless. The Russian government locked Evan up for simply doing his job. Journalism is not a crime,” US ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy said to reporters earlier this month.

    In September, a Moscow court refused to hear an appeal against his pre-trial detention, leaving Gershkovich behind bars. His pre-trial detention has been extended twice since his arrest, once in May and again in August. An appeal against his first pre-trial detention was also denied.

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  • Takeaways from President Biden’s first impeachment hearing by House Oversight panel | CNN Politics

    Takeaways from President Biden’s first impeachment hearing by House Oversight panel | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Republicans kicked off their first impeachment inquiry hearing Thursday laying out the allegations they will pursue against President Joe Biden, though their expert witnesses acknowledged Republicans don’t yet have the evidence to prove the accusation they’re leveling.

    Thursday’s hearing in the House Oversight Committee didn’t include witnesses who could speak directly to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealing at the center of the inquiry, but the hearing offered Republicans the chance to show some of the evidence they’ve uncovered to date.

    None of that evidence has shown Joe Biden received any financial benefit from his son’s business dealings, but Republicans said at Thursday’s hearing what they’ve found so far has given them the justification to launch their impeachment inquiry.

    Democrats responded by accusing Republicans of doing Donald Trump’s bidding and raising his and his family’s various foreign dealings themselves, as well as Trump’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate in 2019 the same allegations now being raised in the impeachment inquiry.

    Here’s takeaways from Thursday’s first impeachment inquiry hearing:

    While Republicans leveled accusations of corruption against Joe Biden over his son’s business dealings, the GOP expert witnesses who testified Thursday were not ready to go that far.

    Forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, one of the GOP witnesses, undercut Republicans’ main narrative by saying there wasn’t enough evidence yet for him to conclude that there was “corruption” by the Bidens.

    “I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or wrongdoing,” Dubinsky said. “More information needs to be gathered before I can make such an assessment.”

    He said there was a “smokescreen” surrounding Hunter Biden’s finances, including complex overseas shell companies, which he said raise questions for a fraud expert about possible “illicit” activities.

    Conservative law professor Jonathan Turley also said that the House does not yet have evidence to support articles of impeachment against Joe Biden, but argued that House Republicans were justified in opening an impeachment inquiry.

    “I want to emphasize what it is that we’re here today for. This is a question of an impeachment inquiry. It is not a vote on articles of impeachment,” Turley said. “In fact, I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish. But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden.”

    Turley said that Biden’s false statements about his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business endeavors, as well as the unproven allegations that Biden may have benefited from his son’s business deals, were reason for the House to move forward with the impeachment inquiry. (CNN has previously reported that Joe Biden’s unequivocal denials of any business-related contact with his son have been undercut over time, including by evidence uncovered by House Republicans.)

    Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor, has repeatedly backed up Republican arguments on key legal matters in recent years, including his opposition to Trump’s first and second impeachments.

    Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pushed Turley further on his comments, asking whether he would vote “no” today on impeachment.

    “On this evidence, certainly,” Turley said. “At the moment, these are allegations. There is some credible evidence there that is the basis of the allegations.”

    Witnesses are sworn in before the House Oversight Committee on September 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

    House Republicans opened their first impeachment hearing Thursday with a series of lofty claims against the president, as they try to connect him to his son’s “corrupt” business dealings overseas.

    House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer claimed the GOP probes have “uncovered a mountain of evidence revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain,” even though he hasn’t put forward any concrete evidence backing up that massive allegation.

    Two other Republican committee chairs further pressed their case, including by citing some of the newly released Internal Revenue Service documents, which two IRS whistleblowers claim show how the Justice Department intervened in the Hunter Biden criminal probe to protect the Biden family. However, many of their examples of alleged wrongdoing occurred during the Trump administration before Joe Biden took office.

    Ahead of the hearing, the Republican chairs released a formal framework laying out the scope of their probe, saying it “will span the time of Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to the present, including his time out of office.”

    The document outlines specific lines of inquiry, including whether Biden engaged in “corruption, bribery, and influence peddling” – none of which Republicans have proved yet.

    The memo included four questions the Republicans are seeking to answer related to whether Biden took any action related to payments his family received or if the president obstructed the investigations into Hunter Biden.

    House Oversight Committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 28, 2023.

    At the close of the hearing Thursday, Comer announced that he was issuing subpoenas for the bank records of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and brother, James Biden.

    The subpoenas will be for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records, a source familiar with the subpoenas confirmed.

    The subpoenas are not a surprise, as Comer has been signaling his intention to issue the subpoenas for the personal bank records. They show where Republicans will head next in their investigation as they continue to seek evidence to substantiate their unproven allegations about the president.

    Some inside the GOP expressed frustration to CNN in real time with how the House GOP’s first impeachment inquiry hearing is playing out, as the Republican witnesses directly undercut the GOP’s own narrative and admit there is no evidence that Biden has committed impeachable offenses.

    “You want witnesses that make your case. Picking witnesses that refute House Republicans arguments for impeachment is mind blowing,” one senior GOP aide told CNN. “This is an unmitigated disaster.”

    One GOP lawmaker also expressed some disappointment with their performance thus far, telling CNN: “I wish we had more outbursts.”

    The bar for Thursday’s hearing was set low: Republicans admitted they would not reveal any new evidence, but were hoping to at least make the public case for why their impeachment inquiry is warranted, especially as some of their own members remain skeptical of the push.

    But some Republicans are not even paying attention, as Congress is on the brink of a shutdown – a point Democrats hammered during the hearing.

    “I haven’t watched or listened to a moment of it,” said another GOP lawmaker. There’s a shutdown looming.”

    Rep Jim Jordan delivers remarks during the House Oversight Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on September 28, 2023 in Washington, DC.

    Democrats repeatedly pointed out that the Republican allegations about foreign payments were tied to money that went mostly Hunter Biden – but not the to the president.

    “The majority sits completely empty handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing, no smoking gun, no gun, no smoke,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight committee.

    Raskin’s staff brought in the 12,000 pages of bank records the committee has received so far, as Raskin said, “not a single page shows a dime going to President Joe Biden.”

    Raskin also had a laptop open displaying a countdown clock for when the government shuts down in a little more than two days – another point Democrats used to bash Republicans for focusing on impeachment and failing to pass bills to fund the government. The Democrats passed the laptop around to each lawmaker as they had their five minutes to question the witnesses.

    Their arguments also previewed how Democrats intend to play defense for the White House as Republicans move forward on their impeachment inquiry.

    The Democrats needled Republicans for not holding a vote on an impeachment inquiry – one Democrat asked Turley whether he would recommend a vote, which Turley said he would.

    Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks on the Democratic side of the aisle, as the House Oversight Committee begins an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

    House Democrats’ 2019 impeachment of Trump was sparked by Trump’s attempts to push Ukraine to investigate allegations involving Biden and his son’s position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company – some of the same allegations now being probed by the House GOP.

    That led Democrats Thursday to push for testimony from Rudy Giuliani, who as Trump’s personal lawyer sought to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine in 2019.

    Twice, the Democrats forced the Oversight Committee to vote on Democratic motions to subpoena Giuliani, votes that served as stunts to try to hammer home their argument that Giuliani tried and failed to corroborate the same allegations at the heart of the Biden impeachment inquiry.

    “I ask the question: Where in the world is Rudy Giuliani?” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, one of the Democrats who forced the procedural vote. “That’s how we got here, ladies and gentlemen. And this committee is afraid to bring him before us and put him on the record. Shame! And the question was raised. What does this have to do with it? It has everything to do with it.”

    In addition to Giuliani, Raskin sought testimony from Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani’s who was indicted in 2019. Parnas subsequently cooperated with the Democratic impeachment inquiry, including providing a statement from a top official at Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company, stating, “No one from Burisma had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him.”

    Several Democrats also raised Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who worked in the White House, receiving $2 billion from Saudi Arabia through a company he formed after leaving the White House.

    The Democrats charged that Kushner’s actions were far worse than Hunter Biden’s, because Kushner worked in government, while Biden’s son did not.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist from January 2024, president declares | CNN

    Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist from January 2024, president declares | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The president of the self-declared separatist state in Nagorno-Karabakh, Samvel Shahramanyan, signed a decree Thursday to dissolve all state institutions from January 1, 2024 following its defeat by Azerbaijan.

    The Azerbaijani victory last week following a brief military offensive triggered a a huge exodus of ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and marked the end of decades of conflict.

    President Samvel Shahramanyan’s decree called for all institutions and organizations of the Republic of Artsakh – which is not recognized internationally – to dissolve by the start of next year.

    “The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases its existence,” read the decree, which was shared on Facebook by the Artsakh government.

    Shahramanyan said the decision had been made “due to the current difficult military-political situation.”

    Azerbaijan’s campaign lasted 24 hours, before both sides agreed to a Russia-brokered ceasefire which saw Karabakh’s armed forces disband. But the Azerbaijani presidency insisted that the Artsakh government also dissolve itself, warning that, if they did not do so, the offensive would continue “until the end.”

    The decree called on Azerbaijan to observe the “free, unconstrained, and unhindered passing of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the militants who laid down their weapons, with their property and transportation means through Lachin corridor.”

    More than half of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh has fled for Armenia over the past week, after Azerbaijan lifted the blockade of the Lachin corridor – the only road connecting the enclave to Armenia – to allow people to leave.

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  • Ukraine ‘clarifying’ whether Russian commander was killed in strike, after video purportedly shows him alive | CNN

    Ukraine ‘clarifying’ whether Russian commander was killed in strike, after video purportedly shows him alive | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Ukraine’s military has said it is “clarifying” information received about the alleged assassination of Russian commander Viktor Sokolov, after Moscow released a video that appears to show him alive and well.

    Kyiv claimed on Monday it killed Sokolov, the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, in an attack on the fleet’s headquarters in occupied Crimea last Friday.

    But the Russian Ministry of Defense published a video on Tuesday that appears to show Sokolov participating in a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and other Russian military leaders.

    In the footage, a man resembling Sokolov appears to join the meeting via video conference. The nametape on his uniform reads Sokolov V. N. and his screen shows the Cyrillic letters “ЧФ,” the abbreviation for the Black Sea Fleet. CNN cannot confirm this is Sokolov, when the meeting took place or where his video appearance was filmed.

    “Since the Russians were urgently forced to publish a response with Sokolov allegedly alive, our units are clarifying the information,” Ukraine Special Operations Forces said on Telegram Tuesday.

    “Available sources claim that the Black Sea Fleet Commander is among the dead. Many have not yet been identified due to the fragmentation of body fragments,” the statement added.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier on Tuesday refused to comment on the Ukrainian claim that Sokolov had been killed.

    The Ukrainian Special Operations Forces had earlier said Friday’s attack – the latest in a string of bold strikes on the occupied peninsula of Crimea – killed 34 people, including Sokolov.

    Ukrainian Defense Intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov said Russia was using Crimea as a “logistics hub” and that “the ultimate goal, of course, is the de-occupation of Ukrainian Crimea.”

    Ukraine has increasingly been hitting strategic Russian targets in Crimea, the Black Sea region of southern Ukraine that has been occupied by Moscow since 2014.

    Before Friday’s attack, Ukrainians had already carried out a series of strikes on Crimea. They hit a Russian military airfield at Saky, degraded Russian air defenses on the northwest coast, and carried out a missile attack on the main dry-dock and ship-repair facility in Sevastopol, crippling an attack submarine and a landing ship.

    Russia appointed Sokolov as its new commander for its Crimea-based Black Sea fleet in August 2022, according to reports from state media outlet TASS at the time.

    Sokolov had been serving as the Naval Academy chief since 2020. He served as the Northern Fleet deputy commander from 2013 until 2020. The change of command came amid heavy losses and a string of explosions at Russian military facilities in Crimea.

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  • Ukraine says strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet HQ left dozens dead and wounded ‘including senior leadership’ | CNN

    Ukraine says strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet HQ left dozens dead and wounded ‘including senior leadership’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Ukraine said Saturday its bold strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in the Crimean city of Sevastopol had left dozens dead and wounded “including senior leadership.”

    The attack on Friday is perhaps the most dramatic example yet of the confidence with which Ukraine is going after Russian facilities in occupied Crimea – and shows the vulnerability of critically important infrastructure on the peninsula.

    In a statement on Telegram, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said a special op dubbed “Crab Trap” was timed to strike while senior members of Russia’s Navy were meeting, and that the attack left dozens of dead and wounded “including the senior leadership of the fleet.” No names have been given and CNN has not independently verified the claim.

    Sevastopol is the largest city in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Ukraine has not given up hope of reclaiming it.

    “The daring and painstaking work of the Special Operations Forces enabled them to hit the Black Sea Fleet headquarters ‘on time and with precision’ while the Russian Navy’s senior staff was meeting in the temporarily occupied city of Sevastopol,” it said in the statement.

    “The data was transmitted to the Air Force for strike. The details of the attack will be revealed once it is possible. The result is dozens of dead and wounded occupiers, including the senior leadership of the fleet,” the statement read.

    It added, “We are moving further!”

    Attacks have strategic and symbolic importance

    No further details or any evidence as to specific casualties among Russia’s Black Sea Fleet have so far been provided by Ukraine.

    Russia’s Ministry of Defense has to date only said that a Russian soldier was missing after Friday’s missile attack, which local authorities said left the naval HQ damaged scattered debris hundreds of meters away.

    The incident was the latest in a string of attacks targeting Russian facilities in Crimea.

    The Ukrainians have hit a Russian military airfield at Saky, degraded Russian air defenses on the north-west coast, and carried out a missile attack on the main dry-dock and ship-repair facility in Sevastopol, crippling an attack submarine and a landing ship.

    The attack on Saky caused unspecified but “serious damage” at the airfield, according to sources in Ukraine’s Security Services (SBU).

    In the wake of Friday’s attack, Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksii Danilov warned that the Russian Black Sea Fleet could be “sliced up like a salami” in potential future strikes.

    There are plenty of reasons for Ukraine to target Crimea. It’s politically a sign that despite the slow progress on the front lines in its counteroffensive, Ukraine can still inflict serious damage on the Russian military. Targets such as the Crimea bridge have considerable symbolic value as well as strategic purpose.

    It’s also part of a broader effort – in Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk – to hit Russian logistics, fuel, maintenance and command centers, in order to disrupt their ability to supply the front lines.

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  • Memorial from broken headstones to mark desecrated Jewish cemetery in Belarus | CNN

    Memorial from broken headstones to mark desecrated Jewish cemetery in Belarus | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    When a large Jewish cemetery was paved over last century to create a sports ground in Belarus, the headstones were used to make roads and buildings.

    Decades later, the desecrated stone slabs began to emerge during renovation works. Now, thanks to the hard work of a charity based in Belarus and the United Kingdom, the headstones will be given the respect they deserve as part of a new memorial on the site.

    The haunting structure will be erected at the site of the former cemetery in Brest, crafted from broken bits of headstones that have resurfaced over the past two decades in the city and the surrounding area.

    Brest, also known as Brest-Litovsk, had been a hub of Jewish life before World War II, with Jewish residents first recorded there in the 14th century. It was home to more than 20,000 Jews before the war. After the Holocaust, only about 10 remained, according to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial center.

    Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been buried in the cemetery, among them famous rabbis and talmudic sages, but today there is little evidence their graves ever existed.

    The first stage of the desecration began during the war, when the Nazis tried to destroy the cemetery by selling off the headstones. That destruction continued under the Soviets in the post-war era, when they proceeded to use the religious markers for paving slabs and building works – before later covering the whole site in asphalt to create a running track and football stadium, according to representatives of the Jewish community in Belarus today. The sports facilities, although run down, still exist on the site and are open to the public.

    All traces of the once-sprawling cemetery had been lost until the late 1990s, when parts of the broken stones began to resurface during construction work in and around the city.

    “Currently there’s nothing there to say it’s a cemetery,” said Debra Brunner, chief executive and co-founder of The Together Plan, a charity spearheading the memorial project.

    Over the past few years, hundreds of remnants of matzevot – the Hebrew word for headstones – have been collected and stored in a warehouse, where they have been photographed, cataloged and added to a detailed and searchable database. They will now form part of a large memorial at the site.

    Artur Livshyts and The Together Plan team work to photograph and catalog the salvaged headstones in 2021.

    “There are 1,287 pieces with any sign of writing and probably between 2,000 and 2,500 more pieces but with no signs of writing,” said Artur Livshyts, co-director of The Together Plan, whose US partner organization is called The Jewish Tapestry Project.

    Earlier this year, Livshyts, one of around 20,000 Jewish people living in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, was contacted by a young couple who had just bought a dilapidated house in Brest which had stood empty for more than 20 years.

    Brunner said: “It was in very bad condition but they bought it to renovate it. During their building works they discovered that the basement was constructed out of matzevot. It turns out that after the war the family who lived in this house had used the matzevot as building materials.”

    After that family suffered a series of misfortunes, people said this was “a curse from the headstones,” Brunner said.

    “When this new couple discovered the headstones they felt compelled to do the right thing and so they reached out to the Jewish community in Brest to ask what to do.”

    Artur Livshyts (center) helps to load some of the headstones collected from a house in Brest earlier this year.

    The memorial, which Brunner and Livshyts hope will be in situ by the end of 2024, aims to “acknowledge and honor the community that was so brutally extinguished, and educate visitors about Brest’s vibrant Jewish community of today,” according to the charity.

    The memorial will be located on a corner of the site, away from the sports facilities. It will feature a black granite plaque with writing in English, Russian and Hebrew, while the surrounding area will be landscaped with trees, grass and wild flowers. The Brest municipality is supportive of the concept and has pledged to maintain its upkeep once it opens, according to The Together Plan.

    The office of the mayor of Brest has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment on the project. Belarus, under President Alexander Lukashenko, has come under international pressure over its role in Russia’s war in Ukraine and repression of civil society.

    The charity estimates that it must raise around $325,000 for the memorial – a third of which has been pledged by a donor, Stephen Grynberg, with a close connection to Brest’s Jewish past.

    Grynberg’s late father, Jack, was one of the handful of Brest’s Jewish residents to survive the Holocaust. The Los Angeles-based film maker told CNN that dozens of his relatives were killed by the Nazis.

    The cemetery was covered with tarmac and transformed into a sports stadium and running track, which remains in use today.

    In the 1990s, Grynberg worked as an interviewer for the Shoah Foundation, an initiative set up by Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg to record the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. Inspired by its work, he persuaded his father to try to open up about his wartime experiences and together they traveled back to Brest.

    “That trip was really profound for me,” Grynberg, 60, told CNN. “What I came to learn was that there were 70 to 100 family members in this town and they all perished. Dad’s grandparents on both sides, uncles, aunts, cousins. His whole family other than his nuclear family was murdered.”

    He added: “In 1997 there were no signs of the cemetery. We were taken there and our guide said ‘this is where the cemetery was.’ Like so many things with the Holocaust, you can’t really understand them, you just have these complicated visceral feelings. I was just trying to compute the idea of them bulldozing a cemetery and building on it. That was the empty feeling I had.”

    In 2015, Grynberg returned to Brest, where he heard about the instances of headstones resurfacing during construction work, and met with Brunner and Livshyts.

    Embracing their vision for a memorial at the former cemetery site, Grynberg commissioned Texas-based designer Brad Goldberg – whose family had taken in Grynberg’s father when he first arrived in the United States and knew him well – to come up with a plan for it.

    Stephen Grynberg is pictured with his late father, Jack.

    “I’m not sure but I don’t think I had any relatives in this cemetery because my family came to Brest,” said Grynberg, who explained that his grandparents had moved to Brest, so his ancestors are likely to have been buried elsewhere in Belarus. “These are all people buried there before the war. It really feels more about my connection to what this town is.”

    The intention, he said, is not to replicate a cemetery, but to bring “dignity back to the people who are buried in this place.”

    In a telephone interview with CNN, Goldberg said his design comprises two large arcs enclosing a large space on the site, which will feature some of the broken stones.

    “I call it an embrace,” he said. “This embrace is meant to house those headstones that are still intact.

    “It isn’t a cemetery,” he added. “They are all facing in different directions as if they are having a conversation with each other.

    “One rabbi that we have consulted has described it as being about life rather than about death.”

    Livshyts told CNN: “This will lay the stones to rest, back where they belong. I call it historical justice.”

    He added: “Of course we can’t locate the actual bodies to the stones that are there but at least we can bring back the stones and have them standing where the cemetery used to be.”

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  • World must learn from Bosnian war in dealing with sexual violence in Ukraine conflict, report says | CNN

    World must learn from Bosnian war in dealing with sexual violence in Ukraine conflict, report says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The world must learn from the mistakes made after the war in Bosnia to avoid putting Ukrainian victims of rape and conflict-related sexual violence through decades of trauma, a new expert report has warned.

    Ukrainian prosecutors and independent investigators from the United Nations and other international organizations have said there is mounting evidence that Russian troops are using rape and sexual violence as part of their campaign of terror in Ukraine – similar to the systematic use of rape by the Bosnian Serb army during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. Russia has denied the allegations.

    The report by the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a US-based think tank, is set to be released and discussed in a debate in the UK Parliament on Thursday.

    It says that if the world wants to avoid the repeat of the trauma faced by the victims in Bosnia, it needs to focus on the victims first in Ukraine. Many in Bosnia have waited for decades before coming forward and the vast majority of sexual crimes committed there have gone unpunished.

    “Rape was one of the main aspects of the war in Bosnia and yet when we look at the Dayton Peace Accords, there were no women around the table, there were no survivors of conflict-related sexual violence,” said Emily Prey, one of the report’s lead authors, referring to the 1995 agreement that ended the Bosnian war.

    “They didn’t have a say in the peace (negotiations), and so instead of a real, sustainable, lasting peace, the Dayton Accords actually only froze the conflict,” she told CNN.

    Prey said that when considering survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, it is crucial to put aside biases and stigma and make sure everyone who is impacted is included.

    “We often think sexual violence is a crime that only happens to women, but it’s a crime that happens to everyone. Women and girls, men, boys, people with diverse gender identities,” Prey said.

    “Men who were victims of conflict-related sexual violence in the Bosnian war are only just coming forward to say that they survived this crime, and so they have gone decades without receiving the support that they need. And we’re seeing this in Ukraine as well.”

    Prey added that children born of wartime rape are often forgotten as well. Between 2,000 and 4,000 children were born just from the documented cases of wartime rapes in Bosnia, although the real number is likely much higher.

    “If we don’t really think about conflict-related sexual violence enough, then we especially don’t think about children born of wartime rape. In Bosnia, they were called the ‘Invisible Children’… and they have been fighting for years to get recognition because they’ve faced barriers and difficulties throughout their lives,” she added.

    The report also says it will be crucial for Ukraine’s allies to be ready to prosecute perpetrators on behalf of Ukraine. This can happen either under the UN’s Genocide Convention or in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows national or international courts to prosecute individuals for crimes against international law committed in other territories.

    Prey said a recent case of a Bosnian Serb soldier charged with murder and rape that was transferred from Bosnia to Montenegro, where the accused was living, was a good example of this mechanism working well.

    The International Criminal Court has already issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and launched an investigation into alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Several countries including Lithuania, Germany, Sweden, and Spain have all opened their own investigations into alleged Russian atrocities.

    However, Prey said these cases could be costly and lengthy, which means there needs to be an extra focus on providing immediate help to the victims, including psychological and social support, free health care and free legal aid.

    “They might not see any conclusion to a court case for 10 or 20 years,” she said. “And survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, they deserve more than that. They deserve justice for themselves, accountability, but they also need to live, they need to take care of their families, they need to pay their bills and they need the support for this.”

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  • Russia gives Kim Jong Un an inside look at its warplanes and frigates | CNN

    Russia gives Kim Jong Un an inside look at its warplanes and frigates | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected warplanes, toured an airfield and visited a Pacific Fleet frigate on Saturday as the latest stop on his tour of Russia took him to Vladivostok.

    Russian state media reported that Kim had met the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the Knevichi airfield in Vladivostok before both men were accompanied by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, on a visit to the Pacific Fleet frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov.

    The North Korean leader was shown the ship’s central command center and its modern missile weapon control systems, the Russian Ministry of Defence said via Telegram.

    The Russian defence ministry added that Admiral Evmenov had talked to Kim about the “expanded capabilities of the new control systems, which allow Kalibr sea-based cruise missiles to be effectively used against sea and coastal targets at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers from the ship.”

    Afterwards Kim was gifted a replica of the ship and left a comment in the frigate’s guest book, though the ministry did not reveal what he wrote.

    The stop in Vladivostok is Kim’s latest in a tour of Russia and its Far East region that follows his meeting with President Vladimir Putin earlier this week, at which the North Korean leader appeared to endorse Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

    The meeting has led to speculation around the potential for some kind of military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

    The ministry said on Saturday that the frigate had been selected to showcase the modernization within the Far East region “which clearly demonstrates the capabilities of the shipbuilding industry.”

    Earlier in the morning, Kim and Shoigu had toured the Knevichi airfield in Vladivostok, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, where Kim was shown Russian aircraft including the Tu-160, Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3.

    Kim also saw the Su-34, Su-30SM, Su-35S fighter jets along with the Su-25SM3 attack aircraft, RIA added.

    The Kinzhal hypersonic missile system and Russia’s Tu-214 long-haul passenger airplane were also on display, it said.

    On Friday, North Korean state media reported Kim had been “deeply impressed” by a visit to a Russian aircraft manufacturing plant.

    Kim toured facilities for aircraft design and assembly at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Yuri Gagarin Aviation Plant, where he was struck by “the rich independent potential and modernity of the Russian aircraft manufacturing industry,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

    He met test pilots, climbed aboard a Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet, and watched a test flight of the airplane, KCNA said.

    The facility Kim toured on Friday is Russia’s largest aviation manufacturing plant and builds and develops warplanes for the ministry of defense, including Su-35S and Su-57 fighter jets, according to the Russian state media agency TASS. Kim’s late father, Kim Jong Il, visited it in 2002.

    On Friday’s visit Kim “expressed sincere regard for Russia’s aviation technology” and how it had undergone “rapid development, outpacing the outside potential threats, and wished the plant success in its future development,” KCNA reported.

    After the tour and a luncheon, Kim left a message in the visitor’s book saying, “Witnessing the rapid development of Russia’s aviation technology and its gigantic potential” before signing it with the date and his name.

    According to a Russian government press release on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said Moscow saw “the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries” with North Korea.

    “This is especially relevant for achieving the tasks our countries face to achieve technological sovereignty,” he said in a statement circulated on Telegram.

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits an aircraft manufacturing plant in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Russia on September 15, 2023.

    While exact details remain scant on what sorts of talks have taken place behind closed doors, observers say it’s clear what each is looking for from the other.

    Moscow is desperate for fresh supplies of ammunition and shells as its war with Ukraine drags on – and Pyongyang is believed to be sitting on a stockpile.

    Meanwhile, after years of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and missiles program, North Korea is equally in need of everything from energy to food to military technology, all of which Russia has.

    When the two leaders met at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Amur Region, a reporter asked Putin whether Russia would help North Korea “launch its own satellites and rockets” – to which Putin responded, “That’s exactly why we came here.”

    The Russian president also said Kim “shows great interest in space, in rocketry, and they are trying to develop space.”

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  • The West fears a closer Russia and North Korea. China may not | CNN

    The West fears a closer Russia and North Korea. China may not | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    A rare meeting between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un at a space launch center in the Russian Far East earlier this week has triggered alarm from countries from South Korea and Japan to Ukraine, the United States and its partners in Europe.

    But China, the biggest economic lifeline for both Moscow and Pyongyang whose border lies less than 200 miles (321 kilometers) from where the two leaders met, may have a different view.

    Rather than look to oppose or limit cooperation between Russia and North Korea, Beijing may see more benefits than risks for itself in this emerging axis, analysts say – particularly in regard to its great power rivalry with the US.

    And while it’s unclear exactly how much insight Chinese officials have into negotiations between North Korea and Russia, analysts say the meeting itself may not have gone forward with some level of consideration of China’s ties to the two.

    “(Given) the importance of the support that China provides to both, China is of course looming in the background,” said Alexander Korolev, a senior lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

    “China is too important for both North Korea and Russia, so for them it would be foolish to do something behind China’s back that it wouldn’t like,” he said. “The China factor is there.”

    Neither North Korea or Russia has released details of any agreements reached during the more than five hours Putin and Kim spent together during a tour of the Vostochny Cosmodrome, closed-door talks, and a lavish state dinner – where both leaders toasted to their countries’ growing friendship.

    But observers say it’s clear what each is looking for from the other.

    Moscow is desperate for fresh supplies of ammunition and shells to feed what’s become a war of attrition in Ukraine – and Pyongyang is believed to be sitting on a stockpile. Pyongyang, after years of sanctions over its nuclear weapon and missiles program, is in need of everything from energy to food to military technology – all of which Russia has.

    To be sure, North Korea potentially pumping munitions into Russia could raise awkward optics for China, which accounts for the vast majority of North Korea’s trade and remains Russia’s most powerful diplomatic partner after its Ukraine invasion.

    The international community has long looked to Beijing to exert pressure over its government to follow the rules.

    And in recent months Beijing has been at pains to frame itself as a proponent of peace in the conflict in Ukraine – part of a bid to win back lost goodwill in Europe, which has recoiled over Beijing’s decision to continue to strengthen its ties with Russia despite its war.

    Beijing has already signaled what its official response to any military cooperation between the two would be, with its Foreign Ministry this week repeatedly telling reporters that Wednesday’s meeting was “between the two countries” – implying it’s not China’s business.

    But while China itself has appeared careful to avoid any large-scale military support of Russia, analysts say it may see potential support from North Korea as a boost to its own geopolitical calculus, where Russia remains a crucial partner amid rising tensions with the West.

    “(If) North Korea is really prepared to provide ammunition to Russia, it would be good for the Chinese expectation that Russia doesn’t experience a major military defeat in the battlefield in Ukraine,” said Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

    “In that respect, it’s good for China’s geopolitical interests … in terms of China and Russia on the one hand and Western countries on the other,” he said.

    China, which supported communist North Korea in the Korean War some 70 years ago, has maintained a complicated relationship with its rogue neighbor.

    Like Russia, it has backed past United Nations sanctions against North Korea’s weapons programs – though it’s also been accused of practicing an arbitrary implementation of these controls and in recent years has blocked efforts to strengthen sanctions and led efforts to ease them.

    Now, as China feels constrained by what it sees as an increasingly hostile US and its allies, it may welcome a stronger coordination with both Russia and North Korea as counterweights, analysts say.

    In that vein, a shift in the relationship between Russia and North Korea which sees Moscow lending support to Pyongyang could also take pressure off China – and strengthen its position in the region.

    “China would support a more capable North Korea in many respects – economically, militarily – and a North Korea that continues to serve as a troublemaker for the US,” said Li.

    One reason? “When you have a more assertive North Korea it will lead to some sort of incentive for the US and South Korea to seek China’s cooperation in terms of dealing with North Korea,” he said.

    Meanwhile, mutual support between the two sanctions-hit neighbors could mitigate international pressure on China over its strong ties to both.

    “Since China is not the sole supporter of either, it reduces China’s isolation for its support of both,” Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, who said that while their tightening of ties is not without drawbacks for Beijing, its leaders would still likely see this as a “net gain.”

    Even a transfer of military technology from Russia to North Korea, which may be concerning to China given its interests in regional stability, may have a silver lining, according to Sun.

    China has a stake in avoiding seeing tensions between North Korea and US-allied South Korea escalate into conflict, which could spark to an influx of refugees across its own borders — as well as American military response.

    “Such a (military technology) transfer will be destabilizing for the region, but China will turn the table and blame the US and its allies for pushing both Russia and North Korea in a corner. This reinforces China’s opposition to the ‘Asian NATO’ it sees US as orchestrating,” she said.

    But despite the potential gains, experts also say China is not immune to the risks that can come from a stronger Russia or a stronger North Korea.

    “Beijing has a large stake in global trade,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

    “(It) can ill afford collateral damage from destabilizing pariah state behavior, such as the invasion of Ukraine and habitually threatening the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.

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  • An explosive Elon Musk biography is just hitting shelves. But the book’s acclaimed author is already walking back a major claim | CNN Business

    An explosive Elon Musk biography is just hitting shelves. But the book’s acclaimed author is already walking back a major claim | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.



    CNN
     — 

    Walter Isaacson’s highly anticipated biography on Elon Musk is hitting shelves on Tuesday — and he is already walking back a major claim.

    Isaacson reported in his book that Musk had abruptly turned off Ukraine’s access to his Starlink satellite internet system last year just as the country was launching an underwater drone attack on a Russian fleet in Crimea, depriving the Eastern European country’s forces of critical communications for the assault and rendering the offensive a failure.

    “He secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast,” fearing the sneak attack would lead to a “mini-Pearl Harbor” scenario and nuclear war, Isaacson wrote in the book, according to an excerpt obtained and first reported by CNN. “As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.”

    That explosive claim, which set off alarms and triggered a tsunami of questions about Musk’s role as a key figure potentially determining the fate of Vladimir Putin’s ruthless war, turned out not to be quite as Isaacson had told it. Musk pushed back last week, writing on X that Starlink was never activated over Crimea and that he had actually received “an emergency request from government authorities” to enable the service, with the “obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor.”

    “If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” Musk wrote.

    Perhaps more importantly, Isaacson subsequently walked back the bombshell claim, which had received significant media coverage and was published as an “untold story” book excerpt in The Washington Post.

    “To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not,” Isaacson posted on X, effectively reiterating what Musk had said. “They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet.”

    “Based on my conversations with Musk, I mistakenly thought the policy to not allow Starlink to be used for an attack on Crimea had been first decided on the night of the Ukrainian attempted sneak attack that night,” Isaacson added in a follow up post. “He now says that the policy had been implemented earlier, but the Ukrainians did not know it, and that night he simply reaffirmed the policy.”

    The correction has cast a pall over the biography from Isaacson, a highly respected author who has written acclaimed biographies on historic visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. Isaacson, a professor of history at Tulane University and former head of CNN, has for years enjoyed such a sterling reputation in the media industry that newsrooms have often taken his reporting to be fact.

    Now, Isaacson is having to grapple with an embarrassing problem. A spokesperson for his publisher Simon & Schuster told me on Monday that “future editions of the book will be updated” to no longer include the error.

    Newsrooms, meanwhile, are updating their stories in the wake of the mischaracterization. Over the weekend, The Post updated the excerpt it had published and offered a correction to its readers.

    “After publication of this adaptation, the author learned that his book mischaracterized the attempted attack by Ukrainian drones on the Russian fleet in Crimea,” the correction stated. “Musk had already disabled (‘geofenced’) coverage within 100 km of the Crimean coast before the attack began, and when the Ukrainians discovered this, they asked him to activate the coverage, and he refused. This version reflects that change.”

    CNN also updated its story on Monday, noting Isaacson had backpedaled his initial claims.

    “After this story published, Walter Isaacson clarified his explanation regarding Elon Musk restricting Ukrainian military access to Starlink, a critical satellite internet service,” an editor’s note said. “This story has been updated to reflect that change.”

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  • Kim Jong Un to visit Russia at Vladimir Putin’s invitation | CNN

    Kim Jong Un to visit Russia at Vladimir Putin’s invitation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Kim Jong Un will travel to Russia at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, Pyongyang and Moscow said on Monday, amid warnings from the United States that the two leaders could strike an arms deal.

    The US government said last week that such a meeting could take place as part of Russia’s efforts to find new suppliers for weapons to use in its war against Ukraine.

    Neither country specified when or where the visit would take place, nor what would be on the agenda of any potential face-to-face. The Kremlin said in a statement Monday that Kim would pay an official visit to Russia “in the coming days,” while North Korean state media said they would “meet and have a talk.”

    However, it appears likely that the two leaders will see each other in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, where they met for the first time in April 2019. Putin reportedly arrived in Vladivostok on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to state TV Russia 24. Kim, meanwhile, appears to be on a train heading to Russia, a South Korean government official told CNN.

    The visit will be Kim’s first foreign trip since the Covid-19 pandemic. With its borders sealed because of that for much of the past three years, North Korea has only recently begun to relax travel restrictions.

    It will also be only Kim’s 10th trip since assuming power in 2011. All of those came in 2018 and 2019, as the North Korean leader engaged in negotiations over his nuclear weapons and missile programs in three meetings with then-US President Donald Trump – one in Singapore, one in Hanoi and one in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating North and South Korea.

    Kim also made four trips to China over those two years to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The remaining trip was to the DMZ in 2018 to meet with then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

    Vladivostok lies 130 km (80 miles) from the border with North Korea.

    The North Korea leader is said to prefer traveling in an upscale armored train – as did his father before him – but rail travel accounts for less than half of his foreign trips. Three of this nine trips have been made in planes and two, both to the DMZ, by car.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also visited Pyongyang in July in an attempt to convince it to sell artillery ammunition.

    Last Tuesday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that North Korea it will “pay a price” if it strikes an arms deal with Russia, though he did not elaborate on these potential repercussions.

    North Korea is already under United Nations and US sanctions imposed over Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction program.

    The potential Putin-Kim meeting could lead to Pyongyang getting its hands on the sort of weapons those sanctions have barred it from accessing for two decades, especially for its nuclear-capable ballistic missile program.

    It also comes after more than a year and a half of war in Ukraine has left the Russian military battered, depleted and in need of supplies.

    Following Monday’s announcement from both countries, the White House urged North Korea to “not provide or sell arms to Russia.

    “As we have warned publicly, arms discussions between Russia and the DPRK are expected to continue during Kim Jong-Un’s trip to Russia,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in response to Russia and North Korea’s announcement.

    The statement also urged the country to “abide by the public commitments that Pyongyang has made to not provide or sell arms to Russia.”

    After reports emerged of North Korean arms sales to Russia in September 2022, a North Korean Defense Ministry official said at the time that Pyongyang had “never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia before and we will not plan to export them.”

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  • True to life but without the price tag: The decoy weapons Ukraine wants Russia to destroy | CNN

    True to life but without the price tag: The decoy weapons Ukraine wants Russia to destroy | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    They are created with one single aim in mind: to be destroyed as quickly as possible. And in that, the steelworks company behind them boasts, these decoy weapons are remarkably successful: hundreds have been targeted by Russian forces almost as soon as they were deployed.

    Ukrainian D-20 gun-howitzers, American-made M777 howitzers, mortar tubes, air defense radars… the list goes on. If it is deployed and operational in Ukraine, chances are that Metinvest has either copied it, or is in the process of doing so, inside the small hangar that sits, tucked away, on the edge of a vast industrial site in central Ukraine. There you will find an impressive array of replicas of the latest American and European killing technology.

    Before the war, the company was Ukraine’s largest metallurgy group but had no involvement in arms manufacture, according to a representative of the company who asked to remain anonymous. In fact, it still doesn’t, as its only foray into the world of weaponry is this side line in decoys, remarkably true to life but equipped with neither the firing range, nor the hefty price tag.

    The aim, says the spokesman, is twofold: to save Ukrainian lives and to trick Russians into squandering their own, very expensive, kamikaze drones, shells and missiles.

    The idea is that, from the sky, the decoys should look worthy of attack, without spending too much. And that has meant striking a balance in the choice of materials, complementing cheap plywood – which doesn’t give off the right heat signature to trick Russian heat-seeking radars and drones – with enough metal that they should be fooled

    “War is expensive and we need the Russians to spend money using drones and missiles to destroy our decoys”, explains Metinvest’s spokesman. “After all, drones and missiles are expensive. Our models are much, much cheaper.”

    Take, for instance, the M777 155mm howitzer. The real thing costs several million dollars. Metinvest’s version costs under $1000 to make and involves nothing fancier than old sewer pipes. But – and this is the point – it costs Russian forces just as much to destroy with a drone strike as the real thing.

    “After each hit, the military gives us trophy wreckage,” explains the company’s spokesman, “We collect them. If our decoy was destroyed, then we did not work in vain.”

    Initially the decoys were fairly crude, he says. When the war began the company’s workers scrambled to make replicas to be rushed to the front lines, in order to make Ukraine seem better armed than it really was. But as the war has worn on and the weaponry arriving in the country has grown ever more sophisticated, so too have Metinvest’s decoys.

    The real test now – the measure of each decoy’s success – is how long they stay in the field. If one design survives too long, the company’s decoy designers go back to the drawing board. As a result, the company’s catalogue of fake weaponry is getting impressively long and varied.

    If one design survives too long in the field, the company's decoy designers go back to the drawing board, resulting in a long and varied catalogue of fake weaponry.

    “We do not count the number of decoys produced, but the number of those destroyed, and this is the main thing for us,” says the spokesman. “The sooner our decoys are destroyed, the better for us”.

    So far, he says, many hundreds have been destroyed and the company is struggling to keep up with the army’s demand. He shows us photographs of the decoys out in the field, in various stages of their short life, until finally coming upon a picture of which he is particularly proud.

    It shows, hanging from a tree somewhere in Ukraine, a life-size effigy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is also the work of his men, he says with satisfaction, and like the weapons, he hopes, soon a thing of the past.

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  • Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin’s death | CNN

    Zelensky dismisses compromise with Putin, pointing to Prigozhin’s death | CNN

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    Kyiv
    CNN
     — 

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the Russian mercenary leader whose plane crashed weeks after he led a mutiny against Moscow’s military leadership – shows what happens when people make deals with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

    As Ukraine’s counteroffensive moves into a fourth month, with only modest gains to show so far, Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria he rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin.

    “When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

    The Wagner leader’s dramatic death, which followed a short-lived rebellion that threatened the authority of the Russian president, was a warning to be heeded, Zelensky suggested.

    While the United States and other key Ukrainian allies continue to supply weapons to Kyiv, and stress that conditions to pursue a “just and durable” peace are not yet in place, a handful of world leaders, such as Brazil’s Lula Da Silva, have put the onus on Ukraine to end the war.

    As evidence for his position, Zelensky cited other countries which have been attacked by Russian soldiers and continue to be partially occupied by them.

    “Did you see any compromise from Putin on other issues? With Georgia? With Moldova?” Zelensky asked rhetorically.

    Ukraine has made incremental gains in the south amid fierce fighting with Russian troops, accounts from the front lines suggest.

    Geolocated videos on Friday showed a wasteland of shell holes, abandoned trenches and wrecked military hardware in the area between Robotyne, Verbove and Novoprokopivka — a triangle of villages that hold the key for Ukrainians to getting closer to Tokmak, an important hub for Russian defenses.

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  • Cuba says ‘human trafficking network’ is sending its nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine | CNN

    Cuba says ‘human trafficking network’ is sending its nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Cuba says it has uncovered a human trafficking network operating from Russia that is recruiting Cubans to fight for their longstanding ally in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

    Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been trafficked and “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine,” the Cuban foreign ministry said Monday in a statement.

    The ministry gave few details about the alleged trafficking operations, but said that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.

    There were no reports of any arrests of people allegedly involved in the trafficking operation. In September, reports surfaced on social media of Cubans who said they were serving in Russia’s armed forces but that they had been tricked into joining the war effort and mistreated when they refused to fight. CNN was not able to independently verify those allegations, and it is not clear how many Cubans may be fighting for Russia.

    Cuba stressed in its statement that it “is not part of the war in Ukraine.” The Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.

    The report comes amid efforts by Russia to boost its forces in Ukraine, which have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and with the future of the mercenary Wagner Group in doubt.

    Moscow announced a plan earlier this year to increase the strength of the Russian armed forces by 30% to 1.5 million servicemen. In July, the Russian state Duma voted to extend the military draft age to include citizens from 18 to 30 years old, up from 27.

    For much of the conflict, the official Russian army has been bolstered by mercenaries contracted to Wagner. But after the death of the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops in an aborted mutiny against Moscow in June, it is unclear whether Russia will rely on Wagner forces to wage its war in Ukraine.

    Cuba was a major ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and relations between Havana and Moscow have remained cozy since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    Cuba has been a staunch defender of Russia’s war on the country, blaming the US and NATO for the conflict. As Cuba grapples with its worse economic crisis in decades, Russia has supplied the communist-run island with badly needed food and shipments of crude oil. Since the war began the two nations have signed a flurry of agreements promising increased Russian foreign investment in Cuba.

    In a rare interview in May, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian state-controlled network RT that Cuba condemned “the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” echoing one of the Kremlin’s justifications for its brutal war.

    Diaz-Canel visited Moscow in November last year to attend the unveiling of a statue of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also traveled to Cuba on separate trips this year and hailed the relations between the two countries.

    There are historical precedents of Cubans fighting alongside and on behalf of Russia.

    In several conflicts in Africa during the Cold War, “the deal was the Cubans would supply the soldiers, the Soviets would supply the weapons,” Sergei Radchenko, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.

    Thousands of Cuban fighters intervened in support of communist forces in Angola in 1975, as well as in Ethiopia in 1977, alongside Soviet troops and using Soviet equipment.

    “Having Cuban mercenaries – you might call them mercenaries, or at that time it was revolutionary fighters – is a longstanding precedent as far as Cuba and the Cuban-Russian relationship is concerned,” said Radchenko. In Cuba, those military interventions – often fighting South African-trained mercenaries – are celebrated as having played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa.

    However, Radchenko said, the statement issued by Cuba’s foreign ministry “sounds like something very different,” due to the suggestion of coercion.

    Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said he was not surprised that Russia is seeking Cuban mercenaries to wage its war.

    “This is the typical Russian modus operandi of getting mercenaries to do their fighting for them – particularly in desperate states,” Sabatini told CNN, adding that Cuba “is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”

    What was surprising, he said, was the reaction of the Cuban government, which suggests that Russia “touched a nerve.”

    “The Cuban government is fiercely loyal to its allies,” Sabatini said. “That they would call this out is an indication that they truly feel humiliated and exploited by what is an ally taking advantage of their citizens – at a time of desperate need.”

    Russia has offered foreign fighters more than $2000 a month to fight in Ukraine, a fortune in Cuba where doctors do not earn that much in an entire year. Russia has also reportedly offered citizenship to foreigners willing to take up arms.

    “It’s particularly insulting, too, because the way you are rewarding these mercenaries is giving them a chance to flee their country,” said Sabatini. “That hurts.”

    In May, the Russian regional newspaper Ryazan Vedomosti reported that Cuban immigrants living in Russia had joined the Russian army.

    “Several citizens of the Republic of Cuba went to serve in the Russian army. According to them, the Cubans want to help our country carry out tasks in the zone of a special military operation, and some of them would like to become citizens of Russia in the future,” said the article.

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  • Fire consumes oil depot in St. Petersburg | CNN

    Fire consumes oil depot in St. Petersburg | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Dozens of firefighters are working to put out a blaze that is burning at an oil depot in St. Petersburg, Russian authorities said.

    Videos from the area posted on social media show a large plume of black smoke rising as explosions ring out.

    The fire was first reported at 10:59 a.m. local time, Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said. A hangar of 80 by 10 meters (262 by 33 feet) is up in flames, but the full area of the conflagration is still being determined, the ministry said. Sixty firefighters and 12 emergency vehicles were on the scene as of around 1 p.m.

    Russian online news outlet Fontanka reported the fire was at the Ruchi oil depot.

    The cause of the incident is not yet known. No casualties have been reported so far.

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