[1/3]A couple covered in mud that is believed to be curative sit at the Queen’s beach in Nin, Croatia, July 13, 2023. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic
BELGRADE, July 13 (Reuters) – Swathes of the Balkans sweltered in temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Thursday in a heatwave named “Cerberus”, after the three-headed dog of the underworld in Greek mythology, that has fanned across Europe.
In Croatia, 56 firefighters with 20 vehicles and three aircraft, struggled to contain a bushfire that was spreading rapidly due to strong southerly winds near the Adriatic town of Sibenik.
In the country’s Adriatic resort of Nin, dozens of beachgoers covered themselves in thick black mud believed to have medicinal properties and an effective sunscreen.
“It (mud) is definitely better than sun screen, I think protection factor is much better,” said a tourist from Slovakia who only gave his name as Josef.
Meteorologists and doctors in Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia, warned people to stay indoors or drink plenty of liquids if venturing outside.
Temperatures were expected to stay around 40 degrees Celsius across the region into next week.
Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade and Antonio Bronic in Nin; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise
TAIPEI, July 13 (Reuters) – Chinese fighter jets monitored a U.S. Navy patrol plane that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Thursday, as China carried out a third day of military exercises to the south of the island Beijing views as China’s sovereign territory.
China has been incensed by U.S. military missions through the narrow strait, most frequently of warships but occasionally of aircraft, saying China “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the waterway. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying it is an international waterway.
The U.S. Navy’s 7th fleet said the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane, which is also used for anti-submarine missions, flew through the strait in international airspace.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military described the flight as “public hype”, adding it sent fighters to monitor and warn the U.S. plane.
“Troops in the theatre are always on high alert and will resolutely defend national sovereignty and security as well as regional peace and stability,” the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement on its WeChat account.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said Chinese warplanes and warships carried out a third day of exercises to the island’s south on Thursday, and that it detected 26 aircraft including advanced Chinese J-16 and Su-30 fighters flying out to sea and “responding to” the U.S. Poseidon.
The ministry said the U.S. aircraft had stuck to the strait’s median line and flew in a southerly direction on Thursday morning, and that Taiwan’s forces kept watch.
The median line normally serves as an unofficial barrier between Taiwan and China.
However, since last August when China held large-scale war games around Taiwan, Chinese military aircraft have been frequently crossing the line, though generally quite briefly.
China’s latest drills near Taiwan have involved fighters, bombers and warships, with the aircraft mainly flying to the island’s south and out into the Pacific through the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, according to maps provided by Taiwan’s defence ministry.
China has not commented on the exercises, which have taken place less than two weeks before Taiwan stages its own annual drills and as NATO alliance leaders said China challenges its interests, security and values with its “ambitions and coercive policies”.
Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson and Emma Rumney
HELSINKI, July 13 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Thursday gave his assurance that the United States would stay committed to NATO despite “extreme elements” of the Republican Party, in remarks during a visit to Finland to welcome it as the alliance’s latest member.
“I absolutely guarantee it,” Biden told a press conference when pressed by a Finnish reporter about the U.S. commitment to NATO given political instability in the United States. Biden’s predecessor, Republican former President Donald Trump, threatened to take the United States out of the alliance.
“No one can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet anyone could make,” Biden said. Biden, a Democrat, is running for re-election in 2024 and Trump is the front-runner for Republicans.
Concern lingers in Europe about the reliability of U.S. pledges and global alliances, years after Trump’s norm-busting presidency ended. Trump clashed with NATO leaders over funding the alliance and threatened to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Germany.
Biden said there was overwhelming support for NATO from the American people, from Congress and from both Democrats and Republicans, “notwithstanding the fact there’s some extreme elements of one party,” referring to Republicans.
“I’m saying as sure as anything could possibly be said about American foreign policy, we will stay connected to NATO,” Biden continued, showing a flash of irritation.
Biden’s visit comes almost exactly five years after Trump struck a conciliatory tone with Russian President Vladimir Putin at talks in Helsinki.
Biden was in the city to participate in a summit with the leaders of Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Norway. He came directly from this week’s NATO summit held in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had only made the alliance stronger.
Biden said NATO had officially elevated its relationship with Ukraine and created a pathway for its membership “as it continues to make progress on the necessary democratic and security reforms required of every NATO member.”
Ukraine could not join the alliance in the middle of a war, he said.
“It’s not about whether they should or shouldn’t join, it’s about when they can join. And they will join NATO,” he said of Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks as he holds a press conference with Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto in Helsinki, Finland, July 13, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Biden said Putin had “already lost the war,” as there was no possibility of Russia winning.
“NEW ERA”
Finland’s decision to join NATO broke with seven decades of military non-alignment and roughly doubled the length of the border NATO shares with Russia.
The country repelled an attempted Soviet invasion during World War Two but lost territory. It maintained accommodating relations with Russia until President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion in February 2022.
Ahead of his bilateral meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, Biden hailed Finland as an “incredible asset” to the NATO military alliance.
Niinisto said Finland’s NATO membership heralded “a new era in our security”, and applauded Biden for creating unity at the Vilnius summit, which focused on supporting Ukraine.
“You will be one of those who wrote it to history,” he said to Biden about Finland joining the alliance.
Niinisto also said Finland was open to hosting a NATO base on its territory.
“We are discussing the defence cooperation agreement and it has a lot of elements. They are still open. But we are open to negotiations and I know that our counterparties are also very open.”
Biden and the Nordic leaders said in a statement following the talks that they would continue to support Ukraine for as long as necessary.
Biden also welcomed Sweden’s prospective entry to NATO. Sweden had applied to join NATO alongside Finland, but its bid was held up by Turkey, which says Sweden is doing too little against people Ankara sees as terrorists. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan dropped objections to its application this week.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson thanked Biden for his support in the country’s push to join NATO.
Reporting by Steve Holland and Essi Lehto; Writing by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Heather Timmons, Rosalba O’Brien and Alistair Bell
July 13 (Reuters) – The sale of struggling Silicon Valley startup zGlue’s patents in 2021 was unremarkable except for one detail: The technology it owned, designed to cut the time and cost for making chips, showed up 13 months later in the patent portfolio of Chipuller, a startup in China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen.
Chipuller purchased what is referred to as chiplet technology, a cost efficient way to package groups of small semiconductors to form one powerful brain capable of powering everything from data centers to gadgets at home.
The previously unreported technology transfer coincides with a push for chiplet technology in China that started about two years ago, according to a Reuters analysis of hundreds of patents in the U.S. and China and dozens of Chinese government procurement documents, research papers and grants, local and central government policy documents and interviews with Chinese chip executives.
Industry experts say chiplet technology has become even more important to China since the U.S. barred it from accessing advanced machines and materials needed to make today’s most cutting edge chips, and now largely underpins the country’s plans for self-reliance in semiconductor manufacturing.
“U.S.-China competition is on the same starting line,” Chipuller chairman Yang Meng said about chiplet technology in an interview with Reuters. “In other (chip technologies) there is a sizeable gap between China and the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan.”
Barely mentioned before 2021, Chinese authorities have highlighted chiplets more frequently in recent years, according to a Reuters review. At least 20 policy documents from local to central governments referred to it as part of a broader strategy to increase China’s capabilities in “key and cutting-edge technologies”.
“Chiplets have a very special meaning for China given the restrictions on wafer fabrication equipment,” said Charles Shi, a chip analyst for brokerage Needham. “They can still develop 3D stacking or other chiplet technology to work around those restrictions. That’s the grand strategy, and I think it might even work.”
Beijing is rapidly exploiting chiplet technology in applications as diverse as artificial intelligence to self-driving cars, with entities from tech giant Huawei Technologies to military institutions exploring its use.
More major investments in the area are on the way, according to a review of corporate announcements.
CHINA’S CHIPLET ADVANTAGE
Chiplets, or small chips, can be the size of a grain of sand or bigger than a thumbnail and are brought together in a process called advanced packaging.
It is a technology the global chip industry has increasingly embraced in recent years as chip manufacturing costs soar in the race to make transistors so small they are now measured in the number of atoms.
Bonding chiplets tightly together can help make more powerful systems without shrinking the transistor size as the multiple chips can work like one brain.
Apple’s high-end computer lines use chiplet technology, as do Intel and AMD’s more powerful chips.
About a quarter of the global chip packaging and testing market sits in China, according to Dongguan Securities.
While some say this gives China an advantage in leveraging chiplet technology, Chipuller chairman Yang cautioned the proportion of China’s packaging industry that could be considered advanced was “not very big”.
Under the right conditions, chiplets that are personalised according to the needs of the customer can be completed quickly, in “three to four months, this is the unique advantage China holds,” according to Yang.
Needham’s Shi said according to import data published by China’s customs agency, China’s purchase of chip packaging equipment soared to $3.3 billion in 2021 from its previous high of $1.7 billion in 2018, although last year it fell to $2.3 billion with the chip market downturn.
Since early 2021 research papers on chiplets started surfacing by researchers of the Chinese military People’s Liberation Army and universities it runs, and state-run and PLA-affiliated laboratories are looking to use chips made using domestic chiplet technology according to six tenders published over the past three years.
Public documents by the government also show millions of dollars worth of grants to researchers specializing in chiplet technology, while dozens of smaller companies have sprouted throughout China in recent years to meet domestic demand for advanced packaging solutions like chiplets.
CHIPLETS ON THE TABLE
Against the backdrop of escalating U.S.-China tension, Chinese company Chipuller acquired 28 patents either owned by zGlue or invented by people whose names are on zGlue’s patents, according to an analysis using IP management technology firm Anaqua’s Acclaim IP database.
The acquisition was through a two-step transfer, first through British Virgin Islands-registered North Sea Investment Co Ltd, according to documents seen by Reuters and confirmed by Yang.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful Treasury-led committee that reviews transactions for potential threats to U.S. security, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment about whether such sales would require their approval.
CFIUS lawyers Laura Black at Akin’s Trade Group, Melissa Mannino at BakerHostetler and Perry Bechky at Berliner Corcoran & Rowe say patent sales alone would not necessarily give CFIUS authority over the deal, as it depends whether the assets purchased constitute a U.S. business.
Representative Mike Gallagher, an influential lawmaker whose select committee on China has pressed the Biden administration to take tougher stances on China, told Reuters zGlue’s case highlights the “urgent need to reform CFIUS”.
“(People’s Republic of China) entities should not be able to act with impunity to take advantage of distressed U.S. firms to transfer their IP to China,” he said in an emailed statement.
Chipuller’s Yang said zGlue’s lawyer communicated with both CFIUS and the Department of Commerce to ensure the sale to North Sea would not fall foul of export controls.
These discussions did not include mention of Chipuller or the possibility of a Chinese entity ending up in possession of the patents, according to a Chipuller spokesperson.
“Everything was done very transparently and in accordance with (U.S.) law,” Yang said.
Yang said he considered himself a founder of zGlue as he became an investor in the company in 2015, soon after its formation, and later became a director and chairman.
CFIUS visited zGlue offices in 2018 to conduct an investigation because the company’s largest non-U.S. investor, Yang, was from China, the chairman said.
“So we have spent a lot of time communicating with CFIUS,” Yang said, adding that Chipuller currently does not supply any Chinese military or U.S.-sanctioned entities.
Chipuller isn’t the only firm with chiplet technology.
Huawei, China’s tech and chip design giant that has been put on the U.S.’s most restricted list, has been actively filing chiplet patents.
Huawei published over 900 chiplet-related patent applications and grants last year in China, up from 30 in 2017, according to Anaqua’s director of analytics solutions Shayne Phillips.
Huawei declined to comment.
Reuters identified over a dozen announcements over the past two years for new factories or expansions of existing ones from companies using chiplet technology in manufacturing across China’s tech sector, representing an investment totalling over 40 billion yuan.
They include domestic giants TongFu Microelectronics (002156.SZ) and JCET Group (600584.SS), as well as fast-growing startups such as Beijing ESWIN Technology Group, which spent 5.5 billion yuan on a factory for its chiplet-focused subsidiary that began operating in April.
One article published in May by an outlet run by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) urged big Chinese tech firms the use of domestic packaging companies such as TongFu to help build China’s self-sufficiency in computing power.
“Use Chiplet technology to break through the United States’ siege of my country’s advanced process chips,” it said.
MIIT did not respond to a request for comment.
Chipuller chairman Yang puts it this way: “Chiplet technology is the core driving force for the development of the domestic semiconductor industry,” he said on the company’s official WeChat channel. “It is our mission and duty to bring it back to China.”
($1 = 7.2205 Chinese yuan renminbi)
Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee and Eduardo Baptista; Additional reporting by Echo Wang and Stephen Nellis; editing by Kenneth Li, Brenda Goh and Lincoln Feast.
Reports on global trends in computing from covering semiconductors and tools to manufacture them to quantum computing. Has 27 years of experience reporting from South Korea, China, and the U.S. and previously worked at the Asian Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and Reuters TV. In her free time, she studies math and physics with the goal …
[1/2]A view shows a residential building destroyed in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 14, 2022. Picture taken with a drone. REUTERS/Pavel Klimov/File Photo
July 3 (Reuters) – Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday.
“In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine,” Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion on its western neighbour Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow says its programme of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.
However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.
Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war and before Ukraine started its major counter offensive to regain occupied territories in the east and south in late August.
In July 2022, the United States estimated that Russia “forcibly deported” 260,000 children, while Ukraine’s Ministry of Integration of Occupied Territories, says 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.
(This story has been refiled to fix typographical errors in paragraph 3)
Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Michael Perry
DUBAI, July 3 (Reuters) – Pope Francis said the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, has made him angry and disgusted and that he condemned and rejected permitting the act as a form of freedom of speech.
“Any book considered holy should be respected to respect those who believe in it,” the pope said in an interview in the United Arab Emirates newspaper Al Ittihad, published on Monday. “I feel angry and disgusted at these actions.
“Freedom of speech should never be used as a means to despise others and allowing that is rejected and condemned.”
A man tore up and burned a Koran in Sweden’s capital Stockholm last week, resulting in strong condemnation from several states, including Turkey whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the NATO military alliance.
While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have over-ruled those decisions, saying they infringed freedom of speech.
On Sunday, an Islamic grouping of 57 states said collective measures are needed to prevent acts of desecration to the Koran and international law should be used to stop religious hatred.
Reporting by Maha Eldahan; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Raju Gopalakrishnan
Hundreds of Israeli troops in one of biggest operations in years
Drone strikes target building in Jenin refugee camp
Gunfire and explosions heard for hours as drones circle
JENIN, West Bank, July 3 (Reuters) – Israeli forces hit the city of Jenin with drone strikes on Monday in one of the biggest West Bank operations in 20 years, killing at least eight Palestinians and involving hundreds of troops in sporadic gun battles that continued into the evening.
Gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the day as clashes continued between Israeli troops and fighters from the Jenin Brigades, a unit made up of militant groups based in the city’s crowded refugee camp.
“What is going on in the refugee camp is real war,” said Palestinian ambulance driver Khaled Alahmad. “There were strikes from the sky targeting the camp, every time we drive in, around five to seven ambulances and we come back full of injured.”
At times during the morning, at least six drones could be seen circling over the city and the adjoining camp, a densely packed area housing around 14,000 refugees in less than half a square kilometre.
The camp has been at the heart of an escalation of violence across the West Bank that has triggered mounting alarm from Washington to the Arab world, without so far opening the way to a resumption of political negotiations that have been stalled for almost a decade.
For more than a year, army raids in cities such as Jenin have become routine, while there have been a series of deadly attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and rampages by Jewish settler mobs against Palestinian villages.
The Palestinian health ministry confirmed at least eight people had been killed and more than 50 wounded in Jenin, while another man was killed in Ramallah overnight, shot in the head at a checkpoint.
The Israeli military said its forces struck a building that served as a command centre for fighters from the Jenin Brigades with what it called “precise” drone strikes using small payloads. It described the operation as an extensive counter-terrorism effort aimed at destroying infrastructure and disrupting militants from using the refugee camp as a base.
As the operation proceeded, Israeli armoured bulldozers ploughed up roads in the camp to dig up concealed improvised explosive devices, cutting water and electricity supplies, the Jenin municipality said as residents described soldiers breaking through the walls to pass from house to house.
“Nothing is safe in the camp. They dug up the roads with bulldozers. Why? What did the camp do?” said Hussein Zeidan, 67, as he recovered from his wounds in hospital.
In Washington, the State Department said it was closely tracking the situation in Jenin. A State Department spokesperson said it was imperative that all possible precautions be taken to prevent the loss of civilian lives.
An Israeli military spokesman said the operation would last as long as needed and suggested forces could remain for an extended period. “It could take hours, but it could also take days. We are focused on our goals,” he said.
Until June 21, when it carried out a strike near Jenin, the Israeli military had not used drone strikes in the West Bank since 2006. But the growing scale of the violence and the pressure on ground forces meant such tactics may continue, a military spokesman said.
[1/12]Palestinians run for cover during clashes with Israeli forces amid an Israeli military operation in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 3, 2023. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
“We’re really stretched,” a spokesman told journalists. “It’s because of the scale. And again, from our perception, this will minimize friction,” he said, adding that the strikes were based on “precise intelligence”.
‘HORNETS NEST’
Monday’s operation, involving a force described as “brigade-size” – suggesting around 1,000-2,000 troops – was intended to help “break the safe haven mindset of the camp, which has become a hornets nest,” the spokesman said.
Its apparent scale underlined the importance of the Jenin camp in violence that has further exposed the impotence of the Palestinian Authority to impose its writ over towns in the West Bank, where it holds nominal governance powers.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was suspending contacts with Israel and called for “international protection for our people”. UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was talking with all parties to de-escalate and ensure humanitarian access.
Hundreds of fighters from militant groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah are based in the camp, which was set up 70 years ago to house refugees in the aftermath of the 1948 war that accompanied the creation of Israel. The fighters have an array of weapons and a growing arsenal of explosive devices.
The Israeli military, which regularly accuses militant groups of basing fighters in civilian areas, said troops seized an improvised rocket launcher and hit a weapons production and explosives storage facility with hundreds of devices ready to be used as well as radios and other equipment.
It said it had also found weapons in a mosque where fighters had barricaded themselves inside in an underground section.
It was unclear whether the incursion would trigger a wider response from Palestinian factions, drawing in militant groups in the Gaza Strip, the coastal enclave controlled by militant Islamist group Hamas.
Saleh Al-Arouri, accused by Israel of leading the Hamas military wing in the West Bank, told Aqsa TV that fighters in Jenin should try to capture Israeli soldiers.
“Our fighters will rise from everywhere, and you will never know where the new fighter will come from,” he said.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said his forces were “closely monitoring the conduct of our enemies,” with the defence establishment “ready for all scenarios.”
Following the last major raid in Jenin in June, Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. That led to a rampage by mobs of settlers in Palestinian villages and towns.
Israel captured the West Bank, which the Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, in the 1967 Middle East war. Following decades of conflict, peace talks that had been brokered by the United States have been frozen since 2014.
Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, James Mackenzie, Dan Williams, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Rami Ayyoub in Washington and Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Frank Jack Daniel, William Maclean
TORNIO, Finland/KARLSKRONA, Sweden, July 3 (Reuters) – High above a railway bridge spanning a foaming river just outside the Arctic Circle, Finnish construction workers hammer away at a project that will smooth the connections from NATO’s Atlantic coastline in Norway to its new border with Russia.
“We will be removing some 1,200 of these one by one,” says site manager Mika Hakkarainen, holding up a rivet.
Until February 2022, the 37-million euro ($41 million) electrification of this short stretch of rail – the only rail link between Sweden and Finland – simply promised locals a chance to catch a night train down to the bright lights of Stockholm.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, that changed.
Now Finland is part of NATO, and Sweden hopes to join soon.
As the alliance reshapes its strategy in response to Russia’s campaign, access to these new territories and their infrastructure opens ways for allies to watch and contain Moscow, and an unprecedented chance to treat the whole of northwest Europe as one bloc, nearly two dozen diplomats and military and security experts told Reuters.
“PUT RUSSIA AT RISK”
The Finnish rail improvements around Tornio on the Swedish border are one example. Due for completion next year, they will make it easier for allies to send reinforcements and equipment from across the Atlantic to Kemijarvi, an hour’s drive from the Russian border and seven hours from Russia’s nuclear bastion and military bases near Murmansk in the Kola peninsula.
Among forces based there, Russia’s Northern Fleet includes 27 submarines, more than 40 warships, around 80 fighter planes and stocks of nuclear warheads and missiles, data collected by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) shows.
In a military conflict with NATO, the Fleet’s main task would be to secure control of the Barents Sea and stop ships bringing reinforcements from North America to Europe through the waters between Greenland, Iceland and the UK.
That’s something Finland can help NATO resist.
“It’s all about containing those kinds of capabilities from the north,” retired U.S. Major General Gordon B. Davis Jr. told Reuters.
Maps showing marine traffic through the Baltic
Besides opening its territory, Helsinki is buying the right assets, particularly fighter jets, “to add value to (the) northeastern defence and, frankly, in a conflict put Russia at risk,” he said.
Sweden’s contribution will, by 2028, include a new generation of submarines in the Baltic Sea that Fredrik Linden, Commander of Sweden’s First Submarine Flotilla, says will make a big difference in protecting vulnerable seabed infrastructure and preserving access – currently major security headaches, as the September 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines read more showed.
“With five submarines we can close the Baltic Sea,” Linden told Reuters. “We will cover the parts that are interesting with our sensors and with our weapons.”
Analysts say the change is not before time. Russia has been actively developing its military and hybrid capabilities in the Arctic against the West, partly under the cover of international environmental and economic cooperation, the FIIA’s Deputy Director Samu Paukkunen told Reuters. Russia’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Paukkunen’s institute estimates Western armed forces are militarily about 10 years behind Russia in the Arctic.
Even with the losses that Russia has sustained in Ukraine, the naval component of the Northern Fleet and the strategic bombers remain intact, Paukkunen said.
NATO-member Denmark phased out its submarine fleet in 2004, part of a move to scale back its military capabilities after the end of the Cold War, and it has yet to decide on future investments. Norway is also ordering four new submarines, with delivery of the first due in 2029.
“It seems to me that we have some catching up to do, because we haven’t done it properly for the last 25 years,” said Sebastian Bruns, a senior researcher into maritime security at Kiel University’s Institute for Security Policy.
Maps showing marine traffic through the Baltic
“A WHOLE PIECE”
Both developments show how the expanded alliance will reshape Europe’s security map. The region from the Baltic in the south to the high north may become almost an integrated operating area for NATO.
“For NATO it’s quite important to have now the whole northern part, to see it as a whole piece,” Lieutenant Colonel Michael Maus from NATO’s Allied Command Transformation told Reuters. He chaired the working group which led Finland’s military integration into NATO.
“With (existing) NATO nations Norway and Denmark, now we have a whole bloc. And thinking about potential defence plans, it’s for us a huge step forward, to consider it as a whole area now.”
This became clear in May, when Finland hosted its first Arctic military exercise as a NATO member at one of Europe’s largest artillery training grounds 25 km above the Arctic Circle.
The nearby town of Rovaniemi, known to tourists as the home of Santa Claus, is also the base of Finland’s Arctic air force and would serve as a military hub for the region in case of a conflict. Finland is investing some 150 million euros to renew the base to be able to host half a new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter jets, due to arrive from 2026.
An undated artist’s rendition depicts divers and an unmanned vehicle exiting the A26 submarine. Saab AB/Handout via REUTERS
For the May manoeuvres, nearly 1,000 allied forces from the United States, Britain, Norway and Sweden filled the sparse motorways as they joined some 6,500 Finnish troops and 1,000 vehicles.
Captain Kurt Rossi, Field Artillery Officer of the U.S. Army, led a battery bringing in an M270 multiple rocket launcher.
It was first shipped from Germany across the Baltic Sea, then trucked nearly 900 km to the north.
“We haven’t been this close (to Russia) and been able to train up in Finland before,” Rossi said.
If there was a conflict with Russia in the Baltic Sea area – where Russia has significant military capabilities at St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad – the shipping lane NATO used for that exercise would be vulnerable. Finland relies heavily on maritime freight for all its supplies – customs data shows almost 96% of its foreign trade is carried across the Baltic.
The east-west railway link across the high north will open up an alternative, which could prove crucial.
“I think the Russians can quite easily interrupt the cargo transportation by sea so basically this northern route is the only accessible route after that,” said Tuomo Lamberg, manager for cross border operations at Sweco, the Swedish company designing the electrification.
Maps showing marine traffic through the Baltic
“NOTHING BEATS THEM”
But that risk, too, may recede when Sweden joins NATO.
Down beneath the Baltic Sea waterline, the submarine commander Linden shows a reporter the captain’s quarters of the Gotland, one of four submarines currently in Sweden’s fleet, which will bring NATO’s total in the Baltic countries to 12 by 2028.
The Kiel institute expects Russia to add one to three submarines in the coming years, to bring its Baltic submarine total to four, along with its fleet of around six modern warships. Its capabilities at Kaliningrad also include medium-range ballistic missiles.
“This can be the loneliest place in the world,” says Linden, who captained the vessel for many years. On a typical mission, which lasts two to three weeks, there is no communication with headquarters, he said.
The Gotlands, like Germany’s modern Type 212 submarines, will be among NATO’s most advanced non-nuclear submarines and can stay out of port for significantly longer than most other conventional models, the researcher Bruns said read more .
“I would say, without a doubt, that the Gotland-class and the German Type 212 are the most capable non-nuclear submarines in the world,” said Bruns.
“There is nothing that beats them, quite literally. In terms of how quiet they are, the engines they use, they are particularly quiet and very maneuverable.”
In submarine warfare, Linden said, the primary question is where the adversary is. A careless crew member dropping a wrench or slamming a cupboard door can lead to detection.
“We talk quietly on board,” Linden said. “You shouldn’t believe … films where orders are shouted.”
The Gotland is based at Karlskrona, about 350 km across the Baltic from Kaliningrad. With an average of 1,500 vessels per day trafficking the Baltic according to the Commission on Security and Cooperation In Europe, it is one of the world’s busiest seaways – and there is really only one way out, the Kattegatt Sea between Denmark and Sweden.
The shallow and crowded seaway can only be accessed through three narrow straits that submarines can’t pass through without being detected.
LISTENING POWERS
If any of the straits were to be closed, the sea freight traffic to Sweden and Finland would be hit hard and the Baltic states completely cut off. But with Sweden in the alliance, that becomes more preventable, because Sweden’s submarines will add to NATO’s listening powers.
Linden says the Gotland’s crew can sometimes hear Russia’s vessels. The range of sound travel varies partly depending on the seasons. In winter, he said, you can hear as far as the island of Oeland – just a bit further than the distance between London and Birmingham in the UK.
“You can lie outside Stockholm and hear the chain rattling on Oeland’s northern buoy,” Linden said. “In the summer you can hear maybe 3,000 meters.”
By 2028, once Sweden takes delivery of a new design of vessel, this capacity will increase. The new design, known as A26, will allow submarine crews to deploy remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), combat divers or autonomous systems of some sort without putting the submarine or crew at risk, Bruns said.
“Depending on the mission it could be an ROV that safeguards a pipeline or data cable, it could be combat divers that go ashore in the cover of darkness, it could be almost anything.”
That capacity will increase Sweden’s scope to control comings and goings through the Baltic.
“If you count all the forces, with Germany in the lead and Sweden and Finland coming on board, all those have really shifted the balance in the Baltic Sea quite significantly,” said Nick Childs, Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“It would make it very difficult for the Russian Baltic Sea fleet to operate in a free way,” he said. “But it could … still pose challenges for NATO.”
Anne Kauranen reported from Tornio, Johan Ahlander from Karlskrona; additional reporting from Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen and Sabine Siebold in Brussels; Edited by Sara Ledwith
HANOI, July 3 (Reuters) – Vietnam has banned Warner Bros’ highly-anticipated film “Barbie” from domestic distribution over a scene featuring a map that shows China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea, state media reported on Monday.
The U-shaped “nine-dash line” is used on Chinese maps to illustrate its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea, including swathes of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.
“Barbie” is the latest movie to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s controversial nine-dash line, which was repudiated in an international arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016. China refuses to recognise the ruling.
In 2019 the Vietnamese government pulled DreamWorks’ animated film “Abominable” and last year it banned Sony’s action movie “Unchartered” for the same reason. Netflix also removed an Australian spy drama “Pine Gap” in 2021.
[1/2]Actor Margot Robbie is photographed during a photocall for the upcoming Warner Bros. film “Barbie” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake
“Barbie”, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was originally slated to open in Vietnam on July 21, the same date as in the United States, according to state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.
“We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” the paper reported, citing Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films.
Warner Bros did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vietnam and China have long had overlapping territorial claims to a potentially energy-rich stretch in the South China Sea. The Southeast Asian country has repeatedly accused Chinese vessels of violating its sovereignty.
Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor
HONG KONG, July 3 (Reuters) – Hong Kong police on Monday accused eight overseas-based activists of serious national security offences including foreign collusion and incitement to secession and offered rewards for information leading to their arrest.
The accused are activists Nathan Law, Anna Kwok and Finn Lau, former lawmakers Dennis Kwok and Ted Hui, lawyer and legal scholar Kevin Yam, unionist Mung Siu-tat, and online commentator Yuan Gong-yi, police told a press conference.
“They have encouraged sanctions … to destroy Hong Kong and to intimidate officials,” Steve Li, an officer with the police’s national security department, told reporters.
Issuing wanted notices and offering rewards of HK$1 million ($127,656) each, police said the assets of the accused would be frozen where possible and warned the public not to support them financially.
The notices accused the activists of asking foreign powers to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.
The activists are based in several countries, including the United States, Britain and Australia. Yam is an Australian citizen. They are wanted under a national security law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony in 2020, after the financial hub was rocked by protracted anti-China protests the previous year.
The United States on Monday condemned the move through a U.S. State Department spokesman, who said it set “a dangerous precedent that threatens the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people all over the world.”
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly criticised the decision to issue the arrest warrants and said his government “will not tolerate any attempts by China to intimidate and silence individuals in the UK and overseas”.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her government was “deeply disappointed.” Australia, she said, has consistently expressed concern about the broad application of the national security law.
Some countries, including the United States, say the law has been used to suppress the city’s pro-democracy movement and has undermined rights and freedoms guaranteed under a “one country, two systems” formula, agreed when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities say the law has restored the stability necessary for preserving Hong Kong’s economic success.
ACTIVISTS DEFIANT
Several of the accused activists said they would not cease their Hong Kong advocacy work.
“It’s my duty … to continue to speak out against the crackdown that is going on right now, against the tyranny that is now reigning over the city that was once one of the freest in Asia,” Yam, a senior fellow with Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law, told Reuters by telephone from Australia.
“I miss Hong Kong but as things stand, no rational person would be going back,” added Yam, who police accused of meeting foreign officials to instigate sanctions against Hong Kong officials, judges and prosecutors.
Former Democratic party lawmaker Ted Hui told Reuters the “bounty” adds to the arrest warrants already issued for him under the national security law, but “free countries will not extradite us”.
“The bounty … makes it clearer to the western democracies that China is going towards more extreme authoritarianism,” he said in Australia, where he has lived since 2021 on a bridging visa.
Anna Kwok, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, told Reuters from Washington she would not back down.
“One key thing I urge President Biden to do immediately is to say a strong and firm NO to (Hong Kong chief executive) John Lee’s possible entry into the United States for November’s APEC meeting in San Francisco,” Kwok wrote.
“He’s the man who has orchestrated the far-reaching transnational repression,” she said. “Bar John Lee.”
Finn Lau, an activist based in London told Reuters the reward was motivated by the fact that many democratic countries had suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong.
Nathan Law, who obtained refugee status in the UK two years ago, said that people in Hong Kong should not cooperate. “We should not limit ourselves, self-censor, be intimidated, or live in fear,” he said on Twitter.
Police told the press conference 260 people had been arrested under the national security law, with 79 of them convicted of offences including subversion and terrorism, but admitted that the chances of prosecution were slim if the defendants remained abroad.
“We are definitely not putting on a political show nor disseminating fear,” Li, the police official, said.
“If they don’t return, we won’t be able to arrest them, that’s a fact,” he said. “But we won’t stop wanting them.
Reporting by James Pomfret and Jessie Pang; additional reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Robert Birsel, Alison Williams and Conor Humphries
MEXICO CITY, July 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. wants Mexico’s government to build strong institutions to protect worker rights as companies aiming to avoid supply chain disruptions in far-off production spots bring more jobs to the country, a top U.S. labor official told Reuters.
Mexico has begun to benefit from “nearshoring” in which companies seek to move production closer to the U.S. market while maintaining competitive costs.
The trend is further testing a trade deal known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), in effect since July 2020.
The pact has tougher labor rules than its 1994 predecessor and underpins new Mexican laws that empower workers to push for better wages and conditions after years of stagnant salaries and pro-business union contracts.
Three years into the deal, experts say, some workers have begun to benefit but broad impacts are still far off.
“Hopefully that will ensure that Mexico doesn’t become a dumping ground for companies looking for cheap labor and lax regulations,” said Thea Lee, U.S. Deputy Undersecretary for International Labor Affairs who polices USMCA compliance.
She said in an interview that Mexico was working to fulfill its commitments, backed by leadership keen on helping workers.
Mexico’s new regulations favor companies taking on higher ethical standards, she said.
“Maybe 20 years ago it was okay for a multinational corporation to throw up their hands and say, ‘we have no idea what’s in our supply chain, what the labor conditions are,’” she added.
“That doesn’t seem to be acceptable anymore.”
Mexico has made progress improving labor courts, resolving worker complaints faster and easing union organization, but needs to do more, Lee said.
“Our hope is that Mexico will be well-poised to take advantage of nearshoring … if they continue on the path towards really building labor institutions that work, where workers can have confidence.”
Since 2020, several U.S. labor complaints in Mexico have paved the way for independent unions to land pay raises and even expand. Lee said such examples inspire workers who in the past may have feared threats or dismissals for trying to organize.
Yet one employer that faced two USMCA complaints, U.S.-based VU Manufacturing that makes interior car parts in the northern city of Piedras Negras, recently dismissed dozens of employees just months after a new union, La Liga, pressed for better wages. VU did not respond to a request for comment.
Lee said the company risks penalties if it does not uphold an agreement around worker rights. But La Liga members have already been laid off, and fear the company aims to discourage organizing, said union leader Cristina Ramirez, who lost her job.
“It’s very disappointing and frustrating,” Ramirez said. “We wanted to fight for things to improve.”
Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by David Gregorio
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 22 (Reuters) – Construction on a mansion belonging to Brazilian soccer player Neymar Jr was halted on Thursday due to environmental violations, officials said on Thursday, adding that the high-profile athlete could face a fine of at least $1 million.
The residence is located in the coastal town of Mangaratiba on the south coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
The luxury project violated rules regarding use and movement of fresh water sources, rock and sand, the local government said in a statement.
If the violations are proved, Neymar Jr could be forced to pay at least 5 million reais ($1.05 million) in fines, according to the statement.
Officials said that during their visit to the property to stop construction, the athlete’s father, Neymar da Silva Santos, insulted them. He was subsequently threatened with arrest but was ultimately not detained.
A Neymar family spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.
($1 = 4.7729 reais)
Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Writing by Peter Frontini and Carolina Pulice
Editing by Shri Navaratnam
MADRID, June 23 (Reuters) – The co-founder of OceanGate Expeditions, which owned the submersible that imploded during a dive to the Titanic wreck, defended on Friday the chief executive’s commitment to safety and risk management after he died with four others on the craft.
Guillermo Söhnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush in 2009, left the company in 2013, retaining a minority stake. Rush was piloting the Titan submersible on the trip that began on Sunday. Debris from the vessel was found on Thursday.
“Stockton was one of the most astute risk managers I’d ever met. He was very risk-averse. He was very keenly aware of the risks of operating in the deep ocean environment, and he was very committed to safety,” Söhnlein told Reuters.
Questions about Titan’s safety were raised in 2018 during a symposium of submersible industry experts and in a lawsuit by OceanGate’s former head of marine operations, which was settled later that year. This incident has prompted further debate.
“I believe that every innovation that he took … was geared toward two goals: One, expanding humanity’s ability to explore the deep ocean. And secondly, to do it as safely as possible,” he said in video interview from his home in Barcelona.
The Titan submersible, operated by OceanGate Expeditions to explore the wreckage of the sunken SS Titanic off the coast of Newfoundland, dives in an undated photograph. OceanGate Expeditions/Handout via REUTERS/ File Photo
Söhnlein said he completely trusted Rush, even though they did not always see “eye-to-eye on things”.
OceanGate has not addressed queries by industry experts about its decision to forgo certification from industry third parties such as the American Bureau of Shipping or the European company DNV.
“There’s this tendency in the community to equate classification with safety. While that could be the case, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be safe without classification,” he said, adding that people should wait for an official report analyzing the incident rather than speculate.
“There’s going to be a time for (making assessments), and I don’t think right now is the right time to do that,” he said.
Despite the tragedy, he said continuing with deep-sea exploration was vital for humanity and that it was the best way to honor those who died in the submersible.
“Let’s figure out what went wrong, learn some lessons and let’s get down there again,” he said.
Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Edmund Blair
Madrid-raised German-American breaking news in Spain and Portugal. Previously covered markets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with a special focus on chemical companies and regular contributions to Reuters’ German-language service. Worked at Spanish news agency EFE (Madrid/Bangkok) and the European Pressphoto Agency (Frankfurt).
BUCHAREST, June 23 (Reuters) – Internet personality Andrew Tate will remain under house arrest in Romania for another 30 days from the end of June pending trial on charges of human trafficking, a Bucharest court ruled on Friday.
Tate was indicted on Tuesday along with his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects for human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.
They are under house arrest pending an investigation into abuses against seven women whom prosecutors say were lured through false claims of relationships, accusations the suspects have denied.
The four suspects were held in police custody from Dec. 29 until March 31 before a Bucharest court put them under house arrest, which prosecutors on Tuesday sought to extend.
The Tate brothers are citizens of the United States and Britain. Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist, built up a following of millions on social media, promoting his own lavish lifestyle in posts which critics say denigrate women.
The court needs to approve preventative restrictive measures such as house arrest every 30 days. It held a hearing on Wednesday and said it would rule on Friday.
“We’re not the first affluent wealthy men who have been unfairly attacked,” Tate told reporters on Wednesday after the hearing. “I love this country, I’m going to stay here regardless no matter what and I look forward to being found innocent at the end of everything.”
The trial will not start immediately. Under Romanian law, the case gets sent to the Bucharest court’s preliminary chamber, where a judge has 60 days to inspect the case files to ensure legality.
Trafficking of adults carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years, as does rape.
Prosecutors also said they were investigating the four suspects in a separate ongoing case on allegations of money laundering, witness tampering, and child and adult trafficking.
Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Octav Ganea; Editing by Alan Charlish and Peter Graff
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with U.S. and Indian technology executives in Washington on Friday, the final day of a state visit where he agreed new defense and technology cooperation and addressed challenges posed by China.
U.S. President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet for Modi on Thursday, declaring after about 2-1/2 hours of talks that their countries’ economic relationship was “booming.” Trade has more than doubled over the past decade.
Biden and Modi gathered with CEOs including Apple’s (AAPL.O) Tim Cook, Google’s (GOOGL.O) Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) Satya Nadella.
Also present were Sam Altman of OpenAI, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, and Indian tech leaders including Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group, and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the White House said.
“Our partnership between India and the United States will go a long way, in my view, to define what the 21st century looks like,” Biden told the group, adding that technological cooperation would be a big part of that partnership.
Observing that there were a variety of tech companies represented at the meeting from startups to well established firms, Modi said: “Both of them are working together to create a new world.”
Modi, who has appealed to global companies to “Make in India,” will also address business leaders at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.
The CEOs of top American companies, including FedEx (FDX.N), MasterCard (MA.N) and Adobe (ADBE.O), are expected to be among the 1,200 participants.
NOT ‘ABOUT CHINA’
The backdrop to Modi’s visit is the Biden administration’s attempts to draw India, the world’s most populous country at 1.4 billion and its fifth-largest economy, closer amid its growing geopolitical rivalry with Beijing.
Modi did not address China directly during the visit, and Biden only mentioned China in response to a reporter’s question, but a joint statement included a pointed reference to the East and South China Seas, where China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
Farwa Aamer, director for South Asia at the Asia Society Policy Institute, in an analysis note described that as “a clear signal of unity and determination to preserve stability and peace in the region.”
Alongside agreements to sell weapons to India and share with it sensitive military technology, announcements this week included several investments from U.S.-firms aimed at spurring semiconductor manufacturing in India and lowering its dependence on China for electronics.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the challenges presented by China to both Washington and New Delhi were on the agenda, but insisted the visit “wasn’t about China.”
“This wasn’t about leveraging India to be some sort of counterweight. India is a sovereign, independent state,” Kirby said at a news briefing, adding that Washington welcomes India becoming “an increasing exporter of security” in the Indo-Pacific.
“There’s a lot we can do in the security front together. And that’s really what we’re focused on,” Kirby said.
Some political analysts question India’s willingness to stand up to Beijing over Taiwan and other issues, however. Washington has also been frustrated by India’s close ties with Russia while Moscow wages war in Ukraine.
DIASPORA TIES
Modi attended a lunch on Friday at the State Department with Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Asian American to hold the No. 2 position in the White House, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In a toast, Harris spoke of her Indian-born late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who came to the United States at age 19 and became a leading breast cancer researcher.
“I think about it in the context of the millions of Indian students who have come to the United States since, to collaborate with American researchers to solve the challenges of our time and to reach new frontiers,” Harris said.
Modi praised Gopalan for keeping India “close to her heart” despite the distance to her new home, and called Harris “really inspiring.”
On Friday evening, Modi will address members of the Indian diaspora, many of whom have turned out at events during the visit to enthusiastically fete him, at times chanting “Modi! Modi! Modi!” despite protests from others.
Activists said Biden had failed to strongly call out what they describe as India’s deteriorating human rights record under Modi, citing allegations of abuse of Indian dissidents and minorities, especially Muslims. Modi leads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has held power since 2014.
Biden said he had a “straightforward” discussion with Modi about issues including human rights, but U.S. officials emphasize that it is vital for Washington’s national security and economic prosperity to engage with a rising India.
Asked on Thursday what he would do to improve the rights of minorities including Muslims, Modi insisted “there is no space for any discrimination” in his government.
“There is no end to data that shows Modi is lying about minority abuse in India, and much of it can be found in the State Department’s own India country reports, which are scathing on human rights,” said Sunita Viswanath, co-founder Hindus for Human Rights, an advocacy group.
Reporting by Steve Holland, Simon Lewis and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Doina Chiacu, David Brunnstrom and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Don Durfee and Grant McCool
Jeff Mason is a White House Correspondent for Reuters. He has covered the presidencies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden and the presidential campaigns of Biden, Trump, Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain. He served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association in 2016-2017, leading the press corps in advocating for press freedom in the early days of the Trump administration. His and the WHCA’s work was recognized with Deutsche Welle’s “Freedom of Speech Award.” Jeff has asked pointed questions of domestic and foreign leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. He is a winner of the WHCA’s “Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure” award and co-winner of the Association for Business Journalists’ “Breaking News” award. Jeff began his career in Frankfurt, Germany as a business reporter before being posted to Brussels, Belgium, where he covered the European Union. Jeff appears regularly on television and radio and teaches political journalism at Georgetown University. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a former Fulbright scholar.
June 23 (Reuters) – Russia urged the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday to ensure Ukraine does not shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, saying it was otherwise operating safely.
Alexei Likhachev, chief executive of the Russian state nuclear energy firm Rosatom, made the comments at a meeting with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, Rosatom said in a statement, after Grossi visited the plant last week.
“We expect concrete steps from the IAEA aimed at preventing strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, both on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and on adjacent territory and critical infrastructure facilities,” Rosatom quoted its chief as saying in a statement.
The IAEA said this week that the power plant was “grappling with … water-related challenges” after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam emptied the vast reservoir on whose southern bank the plant sits.
It also said the military situation in the area had become increasingly tense as Kyiv began a counteroffensive against the Russian forces that have seized control of swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Moscow and Kyiv have regularly accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power station, with its six offline reactors. International efforts to establish a demilitarised zone around it have so far failed.
Ukraine this week accused Russia of planning a “terrorist” attack at the plant involving the release of radiation, while Moscow on Friday detained five people who it said were planning to smuggle radioactive caesium-137 at the request of a Ukrainian buyer in order to stage a nuclear incident.
Ukrainian general reports “tangible success” in south
Ukraine is in early stages of counteroffensive
Officials signal that main part of offensive lies ahead
President orders audit into recruitment centres
Each side says the other has suffered heavy losses
KYIV, June 23 (Reuters) – Ukraine signalled on Friday that the main push in its counteroffensive against Russian forces was still to come, with some troops not yet deployed and the operation so far intended to “set up the battlefield.”
And one of its top generals reported “tangible successes” in advances in the south – one of two main theatres of operations, along with eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine says it has retaken eight villages in the early stages of its most ambitious assault since Russia’s full-scale invasion 16 months ago, but President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this week that gains had been “slower than desired.”
Addressing the pace of the Ukrainian advances, three senior officials on Friday sent the clearest signal so far that the main part of the counteroffensive has not yet begun.
“Offensive operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue in a number of areas. Formation operations are underway to set up the battlefield,” presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
“The counteroffensive is not a new season of a Netflix show. There is no need to expect action and buy popcorn.”
Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said the “main events” of the counteroffensive were “ahead of us.”
“And the main blow is still to come. Indeed, some of the reserves – these are staged things – will be activated later,” Maliar told Ukrainian television.
General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine’s “Tavria,” or southern front, wrote on Telegram: “There have been tangible successes of the Defence Forces and in advances in the Tavria sector.”
Tarnavskyi said Russian forces had lost hundreds of men and 51 military vehicles in the past 24 hours, including three tanks and 14 armoured personnel carriers.
Although the advances Ukraine has reported this month are its first substantial gains on the battlefield for seven months, Ukrainian forces have yet to push to the main defensive lines that Russia has had months to prepare.
‘EVERYTHING IS STILL AHEAD’ – UKRAINIAN COMMANDER
“I want to say that our main force has not been engaged in fighting yet, and we are now searching, probing for weak places in the enemy defences. Everything is still ahead,” the Guardian quoted Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, as saying in an interview with the British newspaper.
Moscow has sought to portray the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure. It says Kyiv’s forces have suffered heavy losses, while Ukraine says Russia has lost many soldiers in heavy fighting since the counterattack began.
Reuters is unable to verify the situation on the battlefield but has reached two of the villages recaptured by Kyiv.
Ukraine has prepared new military units for its long-awaited counteroffensive, including 12 new brigades, but only three of them have been seen in combat so far. It has also received an array of weapons from its Western allies to help it take back swathes of territory occupied by Russia.
Presidential adviser Podolyak said that the time Ukraine had needed to persuade its Western partners to provide the necessary weapons had given the Russian military the opportunity to dig in and strengthen their defence lines.
“Breaking the Russian front today requires a reasonable and balanced approach. The life of a soldier is the most important value for Ukraine today,” he said.
Zelenskiy, meanwhile, ordered the creation of a special commission to carry out an audit of heads of military draft offices in regions across Ukraine.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said he had instructed commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy to remove the head of an office in the southern port of Odesa after media reports that the official owned property in Spain.
“It is very unpleasant, openly immoral and incorrect that this person remained in his position despite everything,” he said.
Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka, Writing by Olena Harmash, Editing by Timothy Heritage, Ron Popeski and Jonathan Oatis
HANOI, June 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan will stop at Central Vietnam’s port city of Danang on Sunday in a rare visit for a U.S. warship to the southeast Asian nation, as tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea remain high.
The ship will arrive on Sunday afternoon and stay at Danang until June 30, local media reported the spokesperson for Vietnam’s foreign affairs ministry as saying. The spokesperson did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The visit of the USS Ronald Reagan is only the third for a U.S. aircraft carrier since the end of the Vietnam War.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt stopped in Vietnam in 2020 to mark 25 years since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.
This year Washington is seeking to upgrade its formal ties with Vietnam, amid Hanoi’s frequent disputes with Beijing over boundaries in the South China Sea. China claims the waters almost in their entirety, including the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam and other countries in the region.
U.S. carriers frequently cross the energy-rich sea, which contains crucial routes for global trade. The warships are often shadowed by Chinese vessels.
On Wednesday, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong and a group of escorting vessels sailed south through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.
June 22 (Reuters) – The owner of the submersible that went missing during a tourist expedition to the Titanic’s wreckage says that the crew on board have “sadly been lost”, CNN reported on Thursday.
“We grieve the loss of life,” CNN reported OceanGate as saying.
Reporting by Rami Ayyub in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech
Prigozhin says army bombed his men, vows ‘justice’
Moscow accuses him of calling for armed mutiny
Wagner chief takes feud with top brass to new level
Prigozhin earlier accused army of deceiving Putin
LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) – Russia accused mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin of armed mutiny on Friday after he alleged, without providing evidence, that the military leadership had killed a huge number of his fighters in an air strike and vowed to punish them.
The standoff, many of whose details remained unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis President Vladimir Putin has faced since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – something he called a “special military operation” – in February last year.
As the standoff between Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary force, and the defence ministry appeared to come to a head, the ministry issued a statement saying Prigozhin’s accusations were “not true and are an informational provocation”.
Prigozhin said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that 25,000 fighters were en route to oust the leaders of the defence establishment in Moscow.
He said: “Those who destroyed our lads, who destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, will be punished. I ask that no one offer resistance …
“There are 25,000 of us and we are going to figure out why chaos is happening in the country,” he said, promising to tackle any checkpoints or air forces that got in Wagner’s way.
At about 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, Moscow time (2300 GMT), Prigozhin issued a new message saying his forces had crossed the border from Ukraine, and were in the southern Russian city of Rostov.
He said they were ready to “go all the way” against the top brass, and to destroy anyone who stood in their way.
At around the same time, the state news agency TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying all Russia’s main security services were reporting to Putin “round the clock” on the fulfilment of his orders with respect to Prigozhin.
Security was being tightened in Moscow, TASS said, focusing on what it called the capital’s most important government sites and infrastructure.
Earlier on Friday, Prigozhin had appeared to cross a new line in his increasingly vitriolic feud with the ministry, saying that the Kremlin’s rationale for invading Ukraine was based on lies concocted by the army’s top brass.
The FSB domestic security service said it had opened a criminal case against him for calling for an armed mutiny, a crime punishable with a jail term of up to 20 years.
“Prigozhin’s statements are in fact calls for the start of an armed civil conflict on Russian territory and his actions are a ‘stab in the back’ of Russian servicemen fighting pro-fascist Ukrainian forces,” the FSB said.
“We urge the … fighters not to make irreparable mistakes, to stop any forcible actions against the Russian people, not to carry out the criminal and traitorous orders of Prigozhin, to take measures to detain him.”
Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery before the funeral of Russian military blogger Maxim Fomin widely known by the name of Vladlen Tatarsky, who was recently killed in a bomb attack in a St Petersburg cafe, in Moscow, Russia, April 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova/File Photo
GENERALS URGE PRIGOZHIN TO BACK DOWN
Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal asking Prigozhin to reconsider his actions.
“Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority,” he said.
Army General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine whom Prigozhin has praised in the past, in a separate video said that “the enemy is just waiting for our internal political situation to deteriorate”.
“Before it is too late … you must submit to the will and order of the people’s president of the Russian Federation. Stop the columns and return them to their permanent bases,” he said.
Prigozhin, whose men spearheaded the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, has for months been openly accusing Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of rank incompetence and of denying Wagner ammunition and support.
An unverified video posted on a Telegram channel close to Wagner showed the purported scene of an air strike against Wagner forces. It showed a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been broken by force. There appeared to be one body, but no more direct evidence of any attack.
It carried the caption: “A missile attack was launched on the camps of PMC (Private Military Company) Wagner. Many victims. According to eyewitnesses, the strike was delivered from the rear, that is, it was delivered by the military of the Russian Ministry of Defence.”
Prigozhin has tried to exploit Wagner’s battlefield success, achieved at enormous human cost, to publicly berate Moscow with seeming impunity, while carefully avoiding criticism of Putin.
But on Friday he for the first time dismissed Putin’s core justifications for invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, something for which many Russians have been fined or jailed.
“The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” Prigozhin said in a video clip. “The war wasn’t needed to demilitarise or denazify Ukraine.”
Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who moved to France when Russia invaded Ukraine, told Reuters that Wagner’s fighters were likely to stand with Prigozhin.
“We have looked down on the army for a long time … Of course they support him, he is their leader,” he said.
“They won’t hesitate (to fight the army), if anyone gets in their way.”
Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey; Editing by Daniel Wallis
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