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  • Sex, lies and video cams: Andrew Tate turned women into slaves, prosecutors say

    Sex, lies and video cams: Andrew Tate turned women into slaves, prosecutors say

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    BUCHAREST, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The woman from Moldova thought it was love. Internet celebrity Andrew Tate had offered her a new life. They’d even discussed marriage. He asked for only one thing: absolute loyalty.

    “You must understand that once you are mine, you will be mine forever,” Tate told her on Feb. 4 last year in one of dozens of WhatsApp messages cited by Romanian prosecutors who allege he trafficked and sexually exploited several women.

    Tate, an influencer with millions of online followers, urged the Moldovan woman to join him in Romania. “Nothing bad will happen,” he reassured her on Feb. 9. “But you have to be on my side.”

    The following month, Romanian prosecutors say, Tate raped the woman twice in the country while seeking to enlist her in a human-trafficking operation focused on making pornography for the online platform OnlyFans, a site that allows people to sell explicit videos of themselves.

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    The allegations and messages are included in a previously unpublished court document, dated Dec. 30 and reviewed by Reuters, which paints the most detailed picture yet of the illicit business allegedly run by Tate, a former kickboxing world champion, and his brother Tristan.

    They came to light following the arrest of the brothers on Dec. 29 on charges of forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

    British-American Andrew Tate, 36, who’s been based mainly in Romania since 2017, and his 34-year-old brother have denied all the allegations against them. Reuters was unable to reach them in police detention for comment.

    In response to questions, their attorney Eugen Vidineac said he couldn’t publicly confirm or deny information about the case while the investigation was ongoing. Romania’s anti-organized crime unit also said its prosecutors couldn’t comment on the probe.

    Reuters translated the WhatsApp exchanges with the Moldovan women – which appear in Romanian in the court document – back into English, their original language. While accurate, the translation of the Romanian version provided by prosecutors may not be identical to the initial wording.

    The brothers used deception and intimidation to bring six women under their control and “transform them into slaves”, prosecutors said in the document. The 61-page file, produced by Bucharest court officials, comprises minutes of a hearing when a judge extended the Tates’ detention plus evidence submitted by the prosecution.

    Attorney Vidineac said the brothers’ alleged victims weren’t mistreated, but “lived off the backs of the famous Tates”, according to the court document. “They were joyful and nobody was forcing them to do these things,” he added.

    Vidineac acknowledged in the document that Andrew Tate and the Moldovan woman had sex but he said it was consensual and accused her of fabricating the rape claims.

    Reuters couldn’t independently corroborate the version of events provided by prosecutors or the defence lawyer, and was unable to reach the six women named in the document for comment. The news organization does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual crimes unless they have chosen to release their names.

    Two of the women told Romanian TV station Antena3 on Jan. 11 that they’re not victims and the Tates are innocent. The station identified them only by first names, Beatrice and Iasmina.

    “You cannot list me as a victim if I say I am not one,” Beatrice told the station. The four other women, including the Moldovan woman, haven’t publicly commented.

    ONLYFANS: WE’VE MONITORED TATE

    The allegations facing Tate have put intense focus on a self-described misogynist who has built an online fanbase, particularly among young men, by promoting a lavish, hyper-macho image of driving fast cars and dating beautiful women.

    In 2022, he was the world’s eighth-most Googled person, outranked only by figures such as Johnny Depp, Will Smith and Vladimir Putin, according to Google’s analysis.

    Prosecutors say the Tates controlled the victims’ OnlyFans’ accounts and earnings amounting to tens of thousands of euros, underlining concerns among some human rights groups about the potential for the exploitation of women on such platforms.

    Reuters couldn’t verify the existence of the alleged victims’ OnlyFans accounts.

    UK-based OnlyFans has 150 million users who pay “creators” monthly fees of varying amounts for their content, much of it erotic or pornographic, but also in areas such as fitness training and music.

    The company, whose 1.5 million creators can earn anything from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands a month, says on its website it’s “the safest digital media platform”. It was founded in 2016 and grew rapidly during COVID-19 lockdowns.

    An OnlyFans spokesperson told Reuters that Andrew Tate “has never had” a creator account or received payments. They said OnlyFans had been monitoring him since early 2022 and taken “proactive measures” to stop him posting or monetizing content, without elaborating on the reasons for the scrutiny or the steps taken.

    The spokesperson added that creators as a whole underwent extensive identification checks and that all content was reviewed by the platform, which worked closely with law enforcement. Vidineac declined to comment about the measures taken by OnlyFans against Tate.

    HOW I GET WOMEN TO LOVE ME

    Andrew Tate’s image has been stoked by a series of contentious comments. He’s compared women to dogs and said they bear some responsibility for being raped. His remarks got him banned from Facebook, Instagram and other leading social media platforms last year.

    A spokesperson for Meta said Tate was banned in August 2022 from its Facebook and Instagram platforms for violating its policies, which forbid “gender-based hate, any threats of sexual violence, or threats to share non-consensual intimate imagery”.

    Tate said on a podcast in 2021 that he had started a webcam business in Britain that had peaked with 75 women working for him earning $600,000 a month – a sum Reuters was unable to independently verify. He didn’t elaborate in the podcast on what the women did.

    Up until last month, his website offered a course costing more than $400 that promised to teach “every step to building a girl who is submissive, loyal and in love with you”.

    “THAT IS MY SKILL. To extremely efficiently get women in love with me,” he said on the website. The pages about the course, reviewed by Reuters, were removed in January.

    In a separate YouTube video aimed at men who want to make money by putting women on OnlyFans, Tate called the platform “the greatest hustle in the world”. The original date of the video, which was uploaded multiple times, is unclear.

    In the court document, lawyer Vidineac said Tate’s online persona was a “virtual character” constructed to gain followers and make money, and had “nothing to do with the real man”.

    Tate’s Twitter account, reinstated in November, one month after billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform, protests his innocence to his 4.8 million followers. “They have arrested me to ‘look’ for evidence … which they will not find because it doesn’t exist,” said a Jan. 15 post.

    AMERICAN WOMAN ‘VERY AFRAID’

    Tate first met the Moldovan woman virtually on Instagram in January 2022 before they met in person in London the following month, and by March she was in Romania, prosecutors said in the court document, which includes WhatsApp exchanges between Feb. 4 and Apr. 8.

    Authorities moved on the brothers on Apr. 11, when police raided one of their properties in Bucharest on suspicion that an American woman was being held there against her will.

    According to prosecutors, the American woman – another of the alleged six victims – met Tristan Tate online in November 2021, then in person in Miami the following month. They said he lured her to Romania by expressing “false feelings” for her and promising a serious relationship, paid for her plane ticket and said he could help her earn “100K a month” on OnlyFans.

    Tristan Tate picked her up at Bucharest airport in a Rolls-Royce on April 5 2022, and took her back to his house, which had two armed guards, the court document said.

    He told her she wasn’t a prisoner but said the guards wouldn’t let her outside without his permission, it added. He said it was dangerous for her to leave “because he had enemies”.

    There were cameras all over the house, which Tristan Tate monitored remotely, prosecutors said in the document. He once messaged the American to say he could see where she was and what she was doing, they said.

    When she moved to another house with four of Andrew Tate’s “girlfriends” she was allowed outside but only if accompanied by other women, said the prosecutors, adding that she was “very afraid” of the brothers.

    In the document, Tate’s lawyer said the American woman had a mobile phone, internet access and the freedom to leave the house as she pleased.

    The woman has not spoken publicly about the Tates or the prosecutors’ allegations.

    Romanian prosecutors said on Jan. 15 that as part of their probe into the suspects they had seized assets worth almost $4 million, including a fleet of luxury cars from Andrew Tate’s compound on the outskirts of Bucharest.

    ‘SEXUALLY EXPLOITATIVE CONTENT’

    The detention of the Tates, along with two Romanian women accused of working for them, has been extended to Feb. 27. Their appeal against that detention was rejected by a court on Wednesday. A judge can order their detention for up to 180 days while the investigation is ongoing, which means it could stretch into late June.

    The suspected accomplices, Georgiana Naghel and Luana Radu, controlled the six victims’ OnlyFans and TikTok accounts on behalf of the Tates, skimming off half the revenue and fining women for being late or sniffling on camera, said prosecutors.

    The pair threatened to beat the women up if they did not do their job, according to the court document.

    Naghel and Radu have denied all the allegations against them. Vidineac, who also represents Naghel, and Radu’s lawyer said they couldn’t comment on the case.

    The Tates’ operation put women on TikTok to drive traffic to OnlyFans because of its lucrative subscriptions, prosecutors said. Reuters couldn’t independently verify the existence of the TikTok accounts in question.

    TikTok said in a statement that Andrew Tate was banned from its platform, and that it had been taking action against videos and accounts related to him that violated its prohibition against “sexually exploitative content”.

    The company declined to comment further, citing Romania’s ongoing investigation.

    Reporting by Luiza Ilie, Octav Ganea and Andrew R.C. Marshall. Editing by Jason Szep and Pravin Char

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Luiza Ilie

    Thomson Reuters

    Bucharest-based general news reporter covering a wide range of Romanian topics from elections and economics to climate change and festivals.

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  • Analysis: Ukraine’s new weapon will force a Russian shift

    Analysis: Ukraine’s new weapon will force a Russian shift

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    WASHINGTON/KYIV, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The United States has answered President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s plea for rockets that can strike deep behind the front lines of the nearly year-long conflict with Russia.

    Now Russian forces will need to adapt or face potentially catastrophic losses.

    The new weapon, the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), will allow Ukraine’s military to hit targets at twice the distance reachable by the rockets it now fires from the U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). If included as expected in an upcoming weapons-aid package first reported by Reuters, the 151 km (94 mile) GLSDB will put all of Russia’s supply lines in the east of the country within reach, as well as part of Russian-occupied Crimea.

    This will force Russia to move its supplies even farther from the front lines, making its soldiers more vulnerable and greatly complicating plans for any new offensive.

    “This could slow down [a Russian assault] significantly,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defence minister. “Just as HIMARS significantly influenced the course of events, these rockets could influence the course of events even more.”

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    GLSDB is GPS-guided glide bomb that can manoeuvre to hit hard-to-reach targets such as command centres. Made jointly by SAAB AB (SAABb.ST) and Boeing Co (BA.N), it combines the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB) with the M26 rocket motor, both of which are common in U.S. inventories.

    It is not yet compatible with HIMARS, but the United States will provide Ukraine new launchers for the rockets, said sources. GLSDB could be delivered as early as spring 2023, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

    VULNERABLE SUPPLY LINES

    When the United States first sent HIMARS launchers in June, it supplied rockets with a 77 km (48 mile) range. This was a major boost for the Ukrainian military, allowing it to destroy Russian ammunition dumps and weapons storage facilities.

    Once Ukraine has the new glide bombs, say military experts, Russia will need to push its supplies even farther away.

    “We are currently unable to reach Russian military facilities more than 80 kilometres away,” said Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Musiyenko. “If we can reach them practically all the way to the Russian border, or in occupied Crimea, then of course this will lower the attacking potential of Russian forces.”

    Crucially, Ukraine will soon be able to reach every point of the occupied overland route to Crimea via Berdiansk and Melitopol. That will force Russia to redirect its supply trucks to the Crimean bridge, which was badly damaged in an attack in October.

    “Russia is using Crimea as a big military base from which it sends reinforcements for its troops on the southern front,” said Musiyenko. “If we had a 150km (munition), we could reach that and disrupt the logistical connection with Crimea.”

    Beyond the logistical impact, the addition of a longer-range weapon to Ukraine’s arsenal could help shake Russian confidence.

    Tom Karako, a weapons and security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that while Ukraine would benefit from an even longer range weapon, GLSDB is “a really important step to give the Ukrainians longer reach and to keep the Russians guessing.”

    NO ATACMS – YET

    For the Biden administration, the decision to send GLSDB to Ukraine represents a step toward meeting Ukraine’s demand for the 185-mile (297km) range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missile, which the administration has so far declined to provide, fearing a further escalation of the conflict.

    The glide bombs, while not as powerful, are much cheaper, smaller and easier to deploy than ATACMS, making them well suited for much of what Ukraine hopes to accomplish: disrupting Russian operations and creating a tactical advantage.

    Still, said Karako, it is possible the Ukrainians could end up receiving an even longer range weapon in the future.

    “Time and again, we’ve seen the administration say that they would go up to a certain point, but not beyond,” he said. “Then, as the situation has deteriorated, they’ve found the necessity to, in fact, go further.”

    This was the case with HIMARS, the Patriot missile defence system, and, just this month, Abrams tanks, all initially off-limits to Ukraine before the administration ended up approving shipments.

    But for now, the focus will be on how quickly the new glide bombs can arrive in Ukraine, said Zagorodnyuk.

    “If they speed it up…this could hugely change the situation on the field of battle.”

    Editing by Don Durfee and Peter Graff

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Analysis: Russian mercenary boss courts Putin with Ukrainian battlefield success

    Analysis: Russian mercenary boss courts Putin with Ukrainian battlefield success

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    • Wagner Group spearheaded assault on Ukraine’s Soledar
    • Mercenary chief, in PR push, claims credit for Wagner
    • Success hailed by some, played down by others

    LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – In the twilight of the Soviet Union, Yevgeny Prigozhin was languishing in prison for theft. Now as the founder of Russia’s most powerful mercenary group, he is vying for Vladimir Putin’s favour by claiming a rare battlefield win in Ukraine.

    His aim is to leverage the success that Wagner Group, his mercenary outfit, had this week in pushing Ukrainian forces out of the salt mining town of Soledar, a move that revives Russian plans to seize more of eastern Ukraine after multiple defeats.

    Russia claimed victory on Friday but Ukraine said its troops were still fighting in the town. Reuters could not immediately verify the situation.

    Prigozhin, 61, who is sanctioned in the West and casts himself as a ruthless patriot, had posed in combat gear with his men in a salt mine beneath Soledar and said they were fighting alone, an assertion initially contradicted by defence officials.

    The Kremlin on Thursday spoke of the “absolutely heroic selfless actions” of those fighting in Soledar. The defence ministry on Friday attributed victory to its airborne units, missile forces and “artillery of a grouping of Russian forces”.

    Prigozhin said Russian officials were not giving his forces due credit.

    “They constantly try to steal victory from the Wagner PMC (private military company) and talk about the presence of other unknown people just to belittle Wagner’s merits,” he complained.

    The defence ministry responded hours later with a new statement “to clarify” the situation which acknowledged that Wagner fighters, whose actions it hailed as “courageous and selfless,” had been the ones to storm the town.

    Some commentators have said Prigozhin could one day be made defence minister, but it is not fully clear how much influence the businessman from St Petersburg has gained with Putin, who tends to balance factions with a strategy of divide and rule.

    ‘A NEW HERO’

    Prominent Putin supporters, some with access to the Russian leader, have contrasted Prigozhin’s progress with what they say has been a less impressive performance by the regular military.

    Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, has hailed the shaven-headed mercenary chief as “a new hero.”

    “Prigozhin has flaws too. But I won’t tell you about them. Because Prigozhin and Wagner are now Russia’s national treasure. They are becoming a symbol of victory,” Markov wrote on his blog, saying they should be given more resources by the state.

    Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state-controlled RT channel and close to the Kremlin, thanked Prigozhin for Soledar.

    Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speech writer, suggested on his blog that Prigozhin was manoeuvring in case Putin removed Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, 67, his long-standing ally.

    Prigozhin has played down the idea he is seeking official elevation in the past, while not emphatically ruling it out. His press service, and the Kremlin, did not immediately reply to requests for fresh comment.

    Putin has said Wagner does not represent the state and is not breaking Russian law and has the right to work and promote its business interests anywhere in the world.

    One of the military bloggers who help shape Russians’ view of the conflict likened Prigozhin to a Roman centurion licensed to operate above and outside the law to achieve Putin’s goals.

    “A couple more successful Wagner operations and online votes proposing Prigozhin for Minister of Defence will cease to be fantasy,” said Zhivov Z.

    Yet Igor Girkin, a Russian nationalist and former Federal Security Service officer who helped launch the original Donbas war in 2014 and is under U.S. sanctions, has said Prigozhin is careless with the lives of his men. He has also said capturing Soledar and nearby Bakhmut would not be militarily significant.

    Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s Chef” by Western media because he once ran a floating restaurant in St Petersburg where Putin ate, has plenty to gain or lose.

    He has his own future to consider at a time of tumult as well as the commercial interests of Wagner, which Russian officials say has military and mining contracts in Africa and is active in Syria. He also has a vast catering company serving state entities, as well as troll farms and media outlets.

    “In essence, he is a private businessman who is highly dependent on how his relations with the authorities are structured. This is a very vulnerable position,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik analysis firm.

    The attendance on a Wagner training course this month of the governor of Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine looked like another way for Prigozhin to enhance his connections, she said.

    ‘UNSPECIFIED SAFEGUARDS’

    Russia has allowed Prigozhin to recruit tens of thousands of convicts from its prisons for Wagner, which U.S. officials say is a 50,000-strong force, and let him equip them with tanks, aircraft and missile defence systems.

    It has also stood by while he flung sometimes profane criticism at the top brass, although some Western military analysts suggested the appointment of the most senior general to lead the war in Ukraine was designed to balance his influence.

    Before Russia’s invasion, something Moscow calls “a special military operation”, Prigozhin had denied his Wagner connection. In September, he said he had founded the mercenary group in 2014.

    Despite its sometimes publicly strained ties with the Russian defence ministry, some Western military analysts suspect Wagner is closely affiliated with it.

    Leonid Nevzlin, an Israel-based former executive at oil major Yukos which he says was illegally appropriated by the Russian state, something it denies, said this week there was a risk Wagner could throw off Kremlin control.

    One source close to the Russian authorities, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, said the Kremlin viewed Prigozhin as a useful operator but maintained unspecified safeguards over leaders of armed groups.

    “There is a ceiling (of growth) and mechanisms in place,” said the source, who declined to provide more details.

    Reporting by Andrew Osborn; editing by Philippa Fletcher

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Exclusive: U.S. to remove some Chinese entities from red flag list soon, U.S. official says

    Exclusive: U.S. to remove some Chinese entities from red flag list soon, U.S. official says

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    WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – The Biden administration plans to remove some Chinese entities from a red flag trade list, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday amid closer cooperation with Beijing.

    The plan to remove them soon from the so-called “unverified” list is thanks to greater willingness from the Chinese government to permit U.S. site visits, the person said.

    The Commerce Department declined to comment.

    Reuters could not determine the number or names of entities designated for removal.

    The decision signals a degree of renewed cooperation between Washington and Beijing, the world’s largest economies which are locked in a heated trade and technology war.

    The decision, which mean U.S. exporters will no longer have to conduct additional due diligence before sending goods to the Chinese entities, may not herald a broader thaw.

    Asked about the decision at a Chinese foreign ministry briefing on Thursday, spokesman Wang Wenbin said they urged the United States to stop taking unfair and discriminatory practices against certain Chinese companies.

    “China will continue to uphold the legitimate and justified interests of Chinese companies,” he said.

    The Biden administration is also expected to add Chinese memory chipmaker YMTC to a tougher export control list as soon as this week, according to another person familiar with the matter.

    YMTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Companies are added to the unverified list because the United States cannot complete on-site visits to determine whether they can be trusted to receive sensitive U.S. technology exports. Such U.S. inspections in China require the approval of China’s commerce ministry.

    Under new rules announced in October, if a government prevents U.S. officials from conducting site checks at companies on the unverified list, Washington may after 60 days add them to the entity list, which means much tougher penalties.

    “The goal of (that rule) was to drive better behavior from countries that were not allowing end-use checks,” U.S. export control chief Alan Estevez said at an event earlier this month. “We are seeing better behavior,” he said, specifically singling out Beijing.

    In October, YMTC was added to the unverified list along with dozens of other Chinese entities, fueling widespread speculation that the company would be added to the entity list. Suppliers are barred from shipping U.S. technology to entity-listed companies unless the suppliers can attain a difficult-to-obtain license.

    A person familiar with the matter said YMTC was among some companies that received site visits in late November, suggesting that the chipmaker’s expected addition to the entity list may be related to other matters.

    YMTC was already under investigation by the Commerce Department over allegations it violated U.S. export rules by supplying chips to entity-listed Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei without a license.

    U.S. lawmakers from both political parties have called on the Biden administration to add YMTC to the list. Its planned addition was first reported by the Financial Times.

    Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Editing by Chris Sanders, Howard Goller and Raissa Kasolowsky

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Exclusive: Russians, Ukrainians met in UAE to discuss prisoner swap, ammonia, sources say

    Exclusive: Russians, Ukrainians met in UAE to discuss prisoner swap, ammonia, sources say

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    RIYADH, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Representatives from Russia and Ukraine met in the United Arab Emirates last week to discuss the possibility of a prisoner-of-war swap that would be linked to a resumption of Russian ammonia exports, which go to Asia and Africa, via a Ukrainian pipeline, three sources with knowledge of the meeting said.

    The sources said the talks were being mediated by the Gulf Arab state and did not include the United Nations despite the U.N.’s central role in negotiating the ongoing initiative to export agricultural products from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Ammonia is used to make fertilizer.

    However the talks aim to remove remaining obstacles in the initiative extended last week and ease global food shortages by unblocking Ukrainian and Russian exports, they added.

    The sources asked not to be named in order to freely discuss sensitive matters.

    The Russian and Ukrainian representatives travelled to the UAE capital Abu Dhabi on Nov. 17 where they discussed allowing Russia to resume ammonia exports in exchange for a prisoner swap that would release a large number of Ukrainian and Russian prisoners, the sources said.

    Reuters could not immediately establish what progress was made at the talks.

    The Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey, Vasyl Bodnar, told Reuters that “releasing our prisoners of war is part of negotiations over opening Russian ammonia exports”, adding “Of course we look for ways to do that at any opportunity”. Bodnar said he was unaware if a meeting took place in the UAE.

    Putin said on Wednesday that Russian officials would work to unblock Russian fertilisers stuck in European ports and to resume ammonia exports.

    The UAE’s foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

    Lana Nusseibeh, UAE’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said Abu Dhabi remains firmly committed to help keep channels of communication open, encourage dialogue and support diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine.

    “In times of conflict, our collective responsibility is to leave no stone unturned towards identifying and pursuing paths that bring about a peaceful and swift resolution of crises,” Nusseibeh said in a statement carried by state news agency WAM.

    Russia and Ukraine’s defence and foreign ministries did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

    Asked if the United Nations were involved in the talks, a spokesperson for the organisation declined to comment.

    WESTERN PRESSURE

    The export of Russian ammonia would be via an existing pipeline to the Black Sea.

    The pipeline was designed to pump up to 2.5 million tonnes of ammonia gas per year from Russia’s Volga region to Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Pivdennyi, known as Yuzhny in Russian, near Odesa for onward shipment to international buyers. It was shut down after Russia sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.

    The export of ammonia was not part of the renewal of the U.N.-backed grains corridor deal that restored commercial shipping from Ukraine.

    Last week, Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of U.N. agency UNCTAD, who leads the negotiations on fertiliser, said she was optimistic Russia and Ukraine could agree to the terms for the export of Russian ammonia via the pipeline, without giving details.

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has publicly set several conditions before allowing Russia to resume its ammonia exports via the pipeline, including a prisoner swap and reopening of Mykolaiv port in the Black Sea.

    Neither Russia nor Ukraine have released official figures on how many prisoners of war they have taken since Russia invaded in February. On Oct. 29, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy said that since March, Russia had freed a total of 1,031 prisoners.

    Russia and Ukraine have disclosed few details about direct meetings between representatives from the two countries following the abandonment of ceasefire talks in the first few weeks following Moscow’s invasion on February 24.

    Abu Dhabi’s efforts follow in the footsteps of Saudi Arabia, which scored a diplomatic win by securing freedom for foreign fighters captured in Ukraine in September.

    The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, is a member of the OPEC+ oil alliance that includes Russia and has also maintained good ties with Moscow despite Western pressure to help isolate Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls its “special military operation”.

    UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan visited Moscow last month where he discussed with President Vladimir Putin the possibility of Abu Dhabi mediating for an ammonia deal, two of the sources said.

    Ukraine is a major producer of grains and oilseeds. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter and a major supplier of fertilisers to global markets.

    Since July, Moscow has repeatedly said its shipments of grain and fertilisers, though not directly targeted by sanctions, are constrained because sanctions make it harder for exporters to process payments or to obtain vessels and insurance.

    Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi in Riyadh, Pavel Polityuk in Kiev and Jonathan Saul in London, additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Jon Boyle

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  • Weapons industry booms as Eastern Europe arms Ukraine

    Weapons industry booms as Eastern Europe arms Ukraine

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    • E.Europe arms companies step up production for Ukraine
    • Hope to find new markets as defence spends rise
    • Can produce and service Soviet-era and NATO-standard weaponry Poland, Czechs among big suppliers of military aid to Kyiv
    • Industry’s history stretches from 1800s and through Cold War

    PRAGUE/WARSAW, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Eastern Europe’s arms industry is churning out guns, artillery shells and other military supplies at a pace not seen since the Cold War as governments in the region lead efforts to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia.

    Allies have been supplying Kyiv with weapons and military equipment since Russia invaded its neighbour on Feb. 24, depleting their own inventories along the way.

    The United States and Britain committed the most direct military aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24 and Oct. 3, a Kiel Institute for the World Economy tracker shows, with Poland in third place and the Czech Republic ninth.

    Still wary of Russia, their Soviet-era master, some former Warsaw Pact countries see helping Ukraine as a matter of regional security.

    But nearly a dozen government and company officials and analysts who spoke to Reuters said the conflict also presented new opportunities for the region’s arms industry.

    “Taking into account the realities of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the visible attitude of many countries aimed at increased spending in the field of defence budgets, there is a real chance to enter new markets and increase export revenues in the coming years,” said Sebastian Chwalek, CEO of Poland’s PGZ.

    State-owned PGZ controls more than 50 companies making weapons and ammunition – from armoured transporters to unmanned air systems – and holds stakes in dozens more.

    It now plans to invest up to 8 billion zlotys ($1.8 billion)over the next decade, more than double its pre-war target, Chwalek told Reuters. That includes new facilities located further from the border with Russia’s ally Belarus for security reasons, he said.

    Other manufacturers too are increasing production capacity and racing to hire workers, companies and government officials from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic said.

    Immediately after Russia’s attack some eastern European militaries and manufacturers began emptying their warehouses of Soviet-era weapons and ammunition that Ukrainians were familiar with, as Kyiv waited for NATO-standard equipment from the West.

    As those stocks have dwindled, arms makers have cranked up production of both older and modern equipment to keep supplies flowing. The stream of weapons has helped Ukraine push back Russian forces and reclaim swathes of territory.

    Chwalek said PGZ would now produce 1,000 portable Piorun manpad air-defence systems in 2023 – not all for Ukraine -compared to 600 in 2022 and 300 to 350 in previous years.

    The company, which he said has also delivered artillery and mortar systems, howitzers, bulletproof vests, small arms and ammunition to Ukraine, is likely to surpass a pre-war 2022 revenue target of 6.74 billion zlotys.

    Companies and officials who spoke to Reuters declined to give specific details of military supplies to Ukraine, and some did not want to be identified, citing security and commercial sensitivities.

    HISTORIC INDUSTRY

    Eastern Europe’s arms industry dates back to the 19th Century, when Czech Emil Skoda began manufacturing weapons for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

    Under Communism, huge factories in Czechoslovakia, the Warsaw Pact’s second-largest weapons producer, Poland and elsewhere in the region kept people employed, turning out weapons for Cold War conflicts Moscow stoked around the world.

    [1/6] GROT C16 FB-M1, modular assault rifles system is seen at PGZ (Polska Grupa Zbrojna) arms factory Fabryka Broni Lucznikin Radom Poland, November 7, 2022. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

    “The Czech Republic was one of the powerhouses of weapons exporters and we have the personnel, material base and production lines needed to increase capacity,” its NATO Ambassador Jakub Landovsky told Reuters.

    “This is a great chance for the Czechs to increase what we need after giving the Ukrainians the old Soviet-era stocks. This can show other countries we can be a reliable partner in the arms industry.”

    The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and NATO’s expansion into the region pushed companies to modernise, but “they can still quickly produce things like ammunition that fits the Soviet systems”, said Siemon Wezeman, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

    Deliveries to Ukraine have included artillery rounds of “Eastern” calibres, such as 152mm howitzer rounds and 122mm rockets not produced by Western companies, officials and companies said.

    They said Ukraine had acquired weapons and equipment via donations from governments and direct commercial contracts between Kyiv and the manufacturers.

    NOT JUST BUSINESS

    “Eastern European countries support Ukraine substantially,” Christoph Trebesch, a professor at the Kiel Institute, said. “At the same time it’s an opportunity for them to build up their military production industry.”

    Ukraine has received nearly 50 billion crowns ($2.1 billion) of weapons and equipment from Czech companies, about 95% of which were commercial deliveries, Czech Deputy Defence Minister Tomas Kopecny told Reuters. Czech arms exports this year will be the highest since 1989, he said, with many companies in the sector adding jobs and capacity.

    “For the Czech defence industry, the conflict in Ukraine, and the assistance it provides is clearly a boost that we have not seen in the last 30 years,” Kopecny said.

    David Hac, chief executive of Czech STV Group, outlined to Reuters plans to add new production lines for small-calibre ammunition and said it is considering expanding its large-calibre capability. In a tight labour market, the company is trying to poach workers from a slowing car industry, he said.

    Defence sales helped the Czechoslovak Group, which owns companies including Excalibur Army, Tatra Trucks and Tatra Defence, nearly double its first-half revenues from a year earlier, to 13.8 billion crowns.

    The company is increasing production of both 155mm NATO and 152mm Eastern calibre rounds and refurbishing infantry fighting vehicles and Soviet-era T-72 tanks, spokesman Andrej Cirtek told Reuters.

    He said supplying Ukraine was more than just good business.

    “After the Russian aggression started, our deliveries for Ukrainian army multiplied,” Cirtek said.

    “The majority of the Czech population still remember times of a Russian occupation of our country before 1990 and we don´t want to have Russian troops closer to our borders.”

    ($1 = 4.5165 zlotys)

    ($1 = 23.3850 Czech crowns)

    Reporting by Michael Kahn and Robert Muller in Prague and Anna Koper in Warsaw; Editing by Catherine Evans

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • EXCLUSIVE Russian software disguised as American finds its way into U.S. Army, CDC apps

    EXCLUSIVE Russian software disguised as American finds its way into U.S. Army, CDC apps

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    LONDON/WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Thousands of smartphone applications in Apple (AAPL.O) and Google’s (GOOGL.O) online stores contain computer code developed by a technology company, Pushwoosh, that presents itself as based in the United States, but is actually Russian, Reuters has found.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States’ main agency for fighting major health threats, said it had been deceived into believing Pushwoosh was based in the U.S. capital. After learning about its Russian roots from Reuters, it removed Pushwoosh software from seven public-facing apps, citing security concerns.

    The U.S. Army said it had removed an app containing Pushwoosh code in March because of the same concerns. That app was used by soldiers at one of the country’s main combat training bases.

    According to company documents publicly filed in Russia and reviewed by Reuters, Pushwoosh is headquartered in the Siberian town of Novosibirsk, where it is registered as a software company that also carries out data processing. It employs around 40 people and reported revenue of 143,270,000 rubles ($2.4 mln) last year. Pushwoosh is registered with the Russian government to pay taxes in Russia.

    On social media and in U.S. regulatory filings, however, it presents itself as a U.S. company, based at various times in California, Maryland and Washington, D.C., Reuters found.

    Pushwoosh provides code and data processing support for software developers, enabling them to profile the online activity of smartphone app users and send tailor-made push notifications from Pushwoosh servers.

    On its website, Pushwoosh says it does not collect sensitive information, and Reuters found no evidence Pushwoosh mishandled user data. Russian authorities, however, have compelled local companies to hand over user data to domestic security agencies.

    Pushwoosh’s founder, Max Konev, told Reuters in a September email that the company had not tried to mask its Russian origins. “I am proud to be Russian and I would never hide this.”

    Pushwoosh published a blog post after the Reuters article was issued, which said: “Pushwoosh Inc. is a privately held C-Corp company incorporated under the state laws of Delaware, USA. Pushwoosh Inc. was never owned by any company registered in the Russian Federation.”

    The company also said in the post, “Pushwoosh Inc. used to outsource development parts of the product to the Russian company in Novosibirsk, mentioned in the article. However, in February 2022, Pushwoosh Inc. terminated the contract.”

    After Pushwoosh published its post, Reuters asked Pushwoosh to provide evidence for its assertions, but the news agency’s requests went unanswered.

    Konev said the company “has no connection with the Russian government of any kind” and stores its data in the United States and Germany.

    Cybersecurity experts said storing data overseas would not prevent Russian intelligence agencies from compelling a Russian firm to cede access to that data, however.

    Russia, whose ties with the West have deteriorated since its takeover of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and its invasion of Ukraine this year, is a global leader in hacking and cyber-espionage, spying on foreign governments and industries to seek competitive advantage, according to Western officials.

    Reuters Graphics

    HUGE DATABASE

    Pushwoosh code was installed in the apps of a wide array of international companies, influential non-profits and government agencies from global consumer goods company Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to the politically powerful U.S. gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and Britain’s Labour Party.

    Pushwoosh’s business with U.S. government agencies and private companies could violate contracting and U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) laws or trigger sanctions, 10 legal experts told Reuters. The FBI, U.S. Treasury and the FTC declined to comment.

    Jessica Rich, former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said “this type of case falls right within the authority of the FTC,” which cracks down on unfair or deceptive practices affecting U.S. consumers.

    Washington could choose to impose sanctions on Pushwoosh and has broad authority to do so, sanctions experts said, including possibly through a 2021 executive order that gives the United States the ability to target Russia’s technology sector over malicious cyber activity.

    Pushwoosh code has been embedded into almost 8,000 apps in the Google and Apple app stores, according to Appfigures, an app intelligence website. Pushwoosh’s website says it has more than 2.3 billion devices listed in its database.

    “Pushwoosh collects user data including precise geolocation, on sensitive and governmental apps, which could allow for invasive tracking at scale,” said Jerome Dangu, co-founder of Confiant, a firm that tracks misuse of data collected in online advertising supply chains.

    “We haven’t found any clear sign of deceptive or malicious intent in Pushwoosh’s activity, which certainly doesn’t diminish the risk of having app data leaking to Russia,” he added.

    Google said privacy was a “huge focus” for the company but did not respond to requests for comment about Pushwoosh. Apple said it takes user trust and safety seriously but similarly declined to answer questions.

    Keir Giles, a Russia expert at London think tank Chatham House, said despite international sanctions on Russia, a “substantial number” of Russian companies were still trading abroad and collecting people’s personal data.

    Given Russia’s domestic security laws, “it shouldn’t be a surprise that with or without direct links to Russian state espionage campaigns, firms that handle data will be keen to play down their Russian roots,” he said.

    ‘SECURITY ISSUES’

    After Reuters raised Pushwoosh’s Russian links with the CDC, the health agency removed the code from its apps because “the company presents a potential security concern,” spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said.

    “CDC believed Pushwoosh was a company based in the Washington, D.C. area,” Nordlund said in a statement. The belief was based on “representations” made by the company, she said, without elaborating.

    The CDC apps that contained Pushwoosh code included the agency’s main app and others set up to share information on a wide range of health concerns. One was for doctors treating sexually transmitted diseases. While the CDC also used the company’s notifications for health matters such as COVID, the agency said it “did not share user data with Pushwoosh.”

    The Army told Reuters it removed an app containing Pushwoosh in March, citing “security issues.” It did not say how widely the app, which was an information portal for use at its National Training Center (NTC) in California, had been used by troops.

    The NTC is a major battle training center in the Mojave Desert for pre-deployment soldiers, meaning a data breach there could reveal upcoming overseas troop movements.

    U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee said the Army had suffered no “operational loss of data,” adding that the app did not connect to the Army network.

    Some large companies and organizations including UEFA and Unilever said third parties set up the apps for them, or they thought they were hiring a U.S. company.

    “We don’t have a direct relationship with Pushwoosh,” Unilever said in a statement, adding that Pushwoosh was removed from one of its apps “some time ago.”

    UEFA said its contract with Pushwoosh was “with a U.S. company.” UEFA declined to say if it knew of Pushwoosh’s Russian ties but said it was reviewing its relationship with the company after being contacted by Reuters.

    The NRA said its contract with the company ended last year, and it was “not aware of any issues.”

    Britain’s Labour Party did not respond to requests for comment.

    “The data Pushwoosh collects is similar to data that could be collected by Facebook, Google or Amazon, but the difference is that all the Pushwoosh data in the U.S. is sent to servers controlled by a company (Pushwoosh) in Russia,” said Zach Edwards, a security researcher, who first spotted the prevalence of Pushwoosh code while working for Internet Safety Labs, a nonprofit organization.

    Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state communications regulator, did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

    FAKE ADDRESS, FAKE PROFILES

    In U.S. regulatory filings and on social media, Pushwoosh never mentions its Russian links. The company lists “Washington, D.C.” as its location on Twitter and claims its office address as a house in the suburb of Kensington, Maryland, according to its latest U.S. corporation filings submitted to Delaware’s secretary of state. It also lists the Maryland address on its Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

    The Kensington house is the home of a Russian friend of Konev’s who spoke to a Reuters journalist on condition of anonymity. He said he had nothing to do with Pushwoosh and had only agreed to allow Konev to use his address to receive mail.

    Konev said Pushwoosh had begun using the Maryland address to “receive business correspondence” during the coronavirus pandemic.

    He said he now operates Pushwoosh from Thailand but provided no evidence that it is registered there. Reuters could not find a company by that name in the Thai company registry.

    Pushwoosh never mentioned it was Russian-based in eight annual filings in the U.S. state of Delaware, where it is registered, an omission which could violate state law.

    Instead, Pushwoosh listed an address in Union City, California as its principal place of business from 2014 to 2016. That address does not exist, according to Union City officials.

    Pushwoosh used LinkedIn accounts purportedly belonging to two Washington, D.C.-based executives named Mary Brown and Noah O’Shea to solicit sales. But neither Brown nor O’Shea are real people, Reuters found.

    The one belonging to Brown was actually of an Austria-based dance teacher, taken by a photographer in Moscow, who told Reuters she had no idea how it ended up on the site.

    Konev acknowledged the accounts were not genuine. He said Pushwoosh hired a marketing agency in 2018 to create them in an attempt to use social media to sell Pushwoosh, not to mask the company’s Russian origins.

    LinkedIn said it had removed the accounts after being alerted by Reuters.

    Reporting by James Pearson in London and Marisa Taylor in Washington
    Additional reporting by Chris Bing in Washington, editing by Chris Sanders and Ross Colvin

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Analysis: Sanctions fail to halt North Korea’s accelerating weapons programs

    Analysis: Sanctions fail to halt North Korea’s accelerating weapons programs

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    WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Economic sanctions, the primary means the United States has used for years to try to exert pressure on North Korea, have abjectly failed to halt its nuclear and missile programs or to bring the reclusive northeast Asian state back to the negotiating table.

    Instead, North Korea’s ballistic missile program has become stronger and it has carried out a record-breaking testing regime of multiple types of weapons this year – including of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland. Expectations are that it may soon end a self-imposed five-year moratorium on nuclear bomb testing.

    Now, U.S. policy makers and their predecessors can do little more than pick through the wreckage and seek to determine what went wrong, and who might be to blame.

    “We’ve had a policy failure. It’s a generational policy failure,” said Joseph DeThomas, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on North Korea and Iran sanctions and served in the administrations of Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

    “An entire generation of people worked on this. It’s failed … so alright, now we have to go to the next step, figure out what we do about it.”

    Biden administration officials concede that sanctions have failed to stop North Korea’s weapons programs – but they maintain they have at least been effective in slowing North Korea’s nuclear program.

    “I would disagree with the idea that sanctions have failed. Sanctions have failed to stop their programs – that’s absolutely true,” a senior administration official told Reuters. “But I think that if the sanctions didn’t exist, (North Korea) would be much, much further along, and much more of a threat to its neighbors to the region and to the world.”

    The State Department, U.S. Treasury and White House’s National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Former officials and experts say sanctions were never imposed robustly enough for long enough and blame faltering U.S. overtures to North Korea as well as pressures like Russia’s war in Ukraine and U.S-China tensions over Taiwan for making them ineffective and easy for North Korea to circumvent.

    North Korea has long been forbidden to conduct nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by the U.N. Security Council.

    The Security Council has imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 to choke off funding for it nuclear and ballistic missile programs. They now include exports bans coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

    However U.N. experts regularly report that North Korea is evading sanctions and continuing to develop its programs.

    Russia and China backed toughened sanctions after North Korea’s last nuclear test in 2017, but it is not clear what U.N action – if any – they might agree to if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear test.

    CHINESE AND RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

    The senior Biden administration official told Reuters Washington believes China and Russia have leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear bomb testing. But the Biden administration has accused China and Russia of enabling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

    Anthony Ruggiero, who headed North Korea sanctions efforts under former President Donald Trump, said they were only pursued vigorously enough from the last year of the Obama administration to early in Trump’s second year. They then dropped off in the ultimately vain hope of progress in summit negotiations between Trump and Kim.

    Some critics like sanctions expert Joshua Stanton fault both the Trump and Biden administrations for failing to exert maximum pressure to stop China allowing North Korea’s sanctions evasion. They point to the powerful option of imposing sanctions on big Chinese banks that have facilitated this.

    “The sanctions we don’t enforce don’t work, and we haven’t been enforcing them since mid-2018,” Stanton said, noting that history had shown a correlation between stronger enforcement and North Korea willingness to engage diplomatically.

    “The Biden administration’s most significant failure is its failure to prosecute or penalize the Chinese banks we know are laundering Kim Jong Un’s money,” he said.

    Some experts like DeThomas argue that taking what some call the “nuclear option” of going after Chinese banks could exclude huge Chinese institutions from the international financial system and have catastrophic consequences not just for the Chinese, but for the U.S. and global economies – something Stanton considers unfounded.

    “Going full bore against the Chinese over North Korea is always a possibility, but it’s a high-risk option,” said DeThomas, arguing that such a measure should be reserved for an even more pressing scenario, such as deterring any move by China to all-out support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    “You want them to be thinking about that. And you can’t fire that gun twice,” he said. “And even if you sanctioned the Chinese banks, you wouldn’t get the North Koreans to change.”

    Some U.S. academic experts argue that Washington should recognize North Korea for what it is – a nuclear power that is never going to disarm – and use sanctions relief to incentivize better behavior.

    “I do think we can buy things other than disarmament with our economic leverage,” Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told a conference in Ottawa this week.

    “I do think we can buy things other than disarmament with our economic leverage,” Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told a conference in Ottawa this week.

    The senior Biden administration official said maintaining sanctions was not just punitive, but about the international community showing it is united.

    He rejected the idea that Washington should recognize North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

    “There is an extraordinarily strong global consensus … that the DPRK should not, and must not, be a nuclear nation,” he said. “No country is calling for this … the consequences of changing policy, I think would be profoundly negative.”

    Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Michelle Nichols
    Editing by Alistair Bell

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

    EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

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    WASHINGTON/LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The Group of Seven rich nations and Australia have agreed to set a fixed price when they finalize a price cap on Russian oil later this month, rather than adopting a floating rate, sources said on Thursday.

    U.S. officials and G7 countries have been in intense negotiations in recent weeks over the unprecedented plan to put a price cap on sea-borne oil shipments, which is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 5 – to ensure EU and U.S. sanctions aimed at limiting Moscow’s ability to fund its invasion of Ukraine do not throttle the global oil market.

    “The Coalition has agreed the price cap will be a fixed price that will be reviewed regularly rather than a discount to an index,” said a coalition source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “This will increase market stability and simplify compliance to minimize the burden on market participants.”

    The initial price itself has not been set, but should be in coming weeks, multiple sources said. Coalition partners agreed to regularly review the fixed price and revise it as needed, the source said, without disclosing further details.

    Pegging the price as a discount to some index would have resulted in too much volatility and potential price swings, the source added.

    The coalition worried that a floating price pegged below the Brent international benchmark might enable Russian President Vladimir Putin to game the mechanism by reducing supply, a second source with knowledge of the discussions said.

    Putin could benefit from a floating price system because the price for his country’s oil would also rise if Brent spiked due to a cut in oil from Russia, one of the world’s largest petroleum producers. The downside of the agreed fixed price system is that it will require more meetings of the coalition and bureaucracy to review it regularly, the source said.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other G7 officials argue the price cap, set to begin Dec. 5 on crude and Feb. 5 on oil products, will squeeze funding to Russia without cutting supply to consumers. Russia has said it will refuse to ship oil to countries that set price caps.

    Shipping services are eager to see more details about the G7 plan which is due to take effect in a month.

    A steady price cap could enable insurers to more confidently roll over contracts and initiate new ones without fear that the price could be adjusted by the countries buying Russian oil, which could have potentially exposed insurers to sanctions.

    No immediate comment was available from Treasury or the embassies of coalition members, which include the G7 rich nations, the European Union and Australia.

    Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the United States and its allies had agreed on further details on which sales of Russian oil will face the price cap.

    Each load of seaborne Russian oil will only be subject to the price cap when first sold to a buyer on land, the countries determined. Reuters could not immediately verify the report which cited people familiar with the matter.

    Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Timothy Gardner in Washington and Noah Browning in London; editing by Heather Timmons and Matthew Lewis

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  • Exclusive: U.S. hopes to soon relocate Afghan pilots who fled to Tajikistan, official says

    Exclusive: U.S. hopes to soon relocate Afghan pilots who fled to Tajikistan, official says

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    WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The United States hopes to soon relocate around 150 U.S.-trained Afghan Air Force pilots and other personnel detained in Tajikistan for more than two months after they flew there at the end of the Afghan war, a U.S. official said.

    The State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to offer a timeline for the transfer but said the United States wanted to move all of those held at the same time. The details of the U.S. plan have not been previously reported.

    Reuters exclusively reported first-person accounts from 143 U.S.-trained Afghan personnel being held at a sanatorium in a mountainous, rural area outside of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, waiting for a U.S. flight out to a third country and eventual U.S. resettlement.

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    Speaking on smuggled cell phones kept hidden from guards, they say they have had their phones and identity documents confiscated.

    There are also 13 Afghan personnel in Dushanbe, enjoying much more relaxed conditions, who told Reuters they are also awaiting a U.S. transfer. They flew into the country separately.

    The Afghan personnel in Tajikistan represent the last major group of U.S.-trained pilots still believed to be in limbo after dozens of advanced military aircraft were flown across the Afghan border to Tajikistan and to Uzbekistan in August during the final moments of the war with the Taliban.

    In September, a U.S.-brokered deal allowed a larger group of Afghan pilots and other military personnel to be flown out of Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.

    Two detained Afghan pilots in Tajikistan said their hopes were lifted in recent days after visits by officials from the U.S. embassy in Dushanbe.

    Although they said they had not yet been given a date for their departure, the pilots said U.S. officials obtained the biometric data needed to complete the process of identifying the Afghans. That was the last step before departure for the Afghan pilots in Uzbekistan.

    PREGNANT AFGHAN PILOT

    U.S. lawmakers and military veterans who have advocated for the pilots have expressed deep frustration over the time it has taken for President Joe Biden’s administration to evacuate Afghan personnel.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was pressed on the matter in Congress last month, expressing concern at a hearing for the pilots and other personnel.

    Reuters had previously reported U.S. difficulties gaining Tajik access to all of the Afghans, which include an Afghan Air Force pilot who is eight months pregnant.

    In an interview with Reuters, the 29-year-old pilot had voiced her concerns to Reuters about the risks to her and her child at the remote sanatorium. She was subsequently moved to a maternity hospital.

    “We are like prisoners here. Not even like refugees, not even like immigrants. We have no legal documents or way to buy something for ourselves,” she said.

    The pregnant pilot would be included in the relocation from Tajikistan, the U.S. State Department official said.

    Even before the Taliban’s takeover, the U.S.-trained, English-speaking pilots had become prime targets of the Taliban because of the damage they inflicted during the war. The Talibantracked down the pilotsand assassinated them off-base.

    Afghanistan’s new rulers have said they will invite former military personnel to join the revamped security forces and that they will come to no harm.

    Afghan pilots who spoke with Reuters say they believe they will be killed if they return to Afghanistan.

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    Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Grant McCool

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