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Tag: ukraine

  • Trump looms over EU-Canada summit

    Trump looms over EU-Canada summit

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    When the EU and Canada meet for talks this week, their encounter will be calm, pleasant and even, in the words of one EU diplomat, “just plain boring.” But both sides will be contending with a looming problem — Donald J. Trump.  

    The prospect of another Trump presidency in the U.S. is spooking both Brussels and Ottawa as leaders plan to meet in St. John’s, a remote Canadian harbor city symbolic of their bilateral relationship: historically rooted, pleasant and friendly.

    The U.S. is key to the economies of both sides. As the EU, especially, struggles to cope with the trade legacy of the previous Trump term, the unpredictability of another Trump presidency is sending shivers through Brussels. POLITICO spoke to several officials briefed on the summit who said next year’s U.S. elections will overshadow the talks. 

    After the recent visit of EU leaders to the White House, the bloc’s relationship with the U.S. will be discussed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to officials briefed on the summit. Another four years of antagonism under a Trump White House would be a grave blow to the EU and Canada; both also fear that U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine will disintegrate with a Trump presidency.

    For now, the talks should provide the participants with a break after weeks of navigating both the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.

    European Council President Charles Michel met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv earlier this week, while Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has travelled to the Middle East following initial criticism of her response to the war between Israel and Hamas — geopolitical challenges on which the EU and Canada are cooperating at “unrivaled historic levels,” according to an EU official. In early December, both European leaders are set to travel to Beijing for their EU-China summit, from which they risk returning empty-handed.

    Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval ratings have been in free-fall since the summer. Court rulings and the politics of affordability have dented his record on the climate, casting uncertainty on timelines for major projects. Fallout from the Israel-Hamas war has also hurt morale within his Liberal Party.

    In St. John’s, at least, leaders will be able to reaffirm their bilateral relationship and underscore their “shared commitment to democratic values, multilateralism and the international rules-based order,” which elsewhere are falling apart. The two sides are set to double down on their bilateral commitments in new policy fields with an “impressive list of deliverables,” according to the EU official, including a green alliance, more cooperation on raw materials, and a digital partnership.

    Another EU diplomat said that while there are no mutual irritants, “a few irritants could be a welcome challenge to dynamize the relationship.”

    But while the EU remains on a good footing with Canada, it has struggled with the current U.S. administration of President Joe Biden, most notably with Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act, which will also be discussed on the sidelines of the St. John’s summit. The EU had worried that the $369 billion IRA would hollow out the bloc’s economy as firms decamped across the Atlantic to take advantage of its massive subsidies. Brussels and Washington continue to negotiate a high-stakes agreement on critical minerals to allow electric vehicle batteries made by European companies to qualify for the IRA’s consumer tax credits. 

    EU Ambassador to Canada Melita Gabrič told POLITICO that Ottawa’s relationship with the bloc is “closer than it has ever been.” She declined, however, to say if she saw Trump’s potential return as a catalyst for even closer ties in the year ahead.

    “We will see what happens, but certainly we put a premium on our transatlantic relations,” she said, referring to both the U.S. and Canada.

    Barbara Moens reported from Brussels. Zi-Ann Lum reported from Ottawa. Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels.

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  • They’re talking, but a climate divide between Beijing and Washington remains

    They’re talking, but a climate divide between Beijing and Washington remains

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    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM.

    Last week’s surprise deal between China and the United States may provide a boost to the climate talks in Dubai — but the two powers remain at odds on tough questions such as how quickly to shut down coal and who should provide climate aid to developing nations.

    The world’s top two drivers of climate change are also divided by a thicket of disagreements on trade, security, human rights and economic competition.

    The good news is that Washington and Beijing are talking to each other again and restarting some of their technical cooperation on climate issues, after a yearlong freeze. That may still not be enough to get nearly 200 nations to commit to far greater climate action at the talks that begin Nov. 30.

    The two superpowers’ latest detente creates the right “mood music” for the summit, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate think tank E3G. “But it still is not saying that the world’s two largest economies and two largest emitters are fully committed to the scale and pace of reductions that are needed.”

    The deal, announced after a meeting this month between U.S. climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, produced an agreement to commit to a series of actions to limit climate pollution. Those include accelerating the shift to renewable energy and widening the variety of heat-trapping gases they will address in their next round of climate targets.

    U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping endorsed that type of cooperation after a meeting in California on Wednesday, saying they “welcomed” positive discussions on actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during this decade, as well as “common approaches” toward a successful climate summit. Biden said he would work with China to address climate finance in developing countries, a major source of friction for the U.S.

    “Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed,” said Xi ahead of his bilateral with Biden.

    But the deal leaves some big issues unaddressed, including specific measures for ending their reliance on fossil fuels, the main contributor to global warming. And the two countries are a long way from the days when a surprise U.S.-Chinese agreement to cooperate on climate change had the power to land a landmark global pact.

    That puts the nations in a dramatically different place than in 2014, when Xi and then-President Barack Obama made a historic pledge to jointly cut their planet-warming pollution, paving the way for the landmark Paris Agreement to land in 2015.

    Even a surprise joint deal between the two nations in 2021 failed to ease friction, with China emerging at the last minute to oppose language calling for a phase-out of coal power. The summit ended with a less ambitious “phase-down.”

    A year later, a visit to Taiwan by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi angered Beijing so much that Xi’s government canceled dialogue with the United States on a host of issues, including climate change. China, which claims that Taiwan is part of its territory, alleged that the visit had undermined its sovereignty.

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks after receiving the Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon, Taiwan’s highest civilian honour | Handout/Getty Image

    The two countries’ struggles to find comity have come at the worst possible moment — at a time when rapid action is crucial to preventing climate catastrophe. A growing number of factors has threatened to widen the U.S.-Chinese wedge further, including their competition for supremacy in the market for clean energy.

    Two nations at odds

    While the U.S. has contributed more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than any other nation during the past 150 years, China is now the world’s largest climate polluter — though not on a per capita basis — and it will need to stop building new coal-fired power for the world to stand a chance of limiting rising temperatures.

    The recent agreement hints at that possibility by stating that more renewables would enable reductions in the generation of oil, gas and coal, helping China peak its emissions ahead of its current targets.

    The challenge will be bridging the countries’ diverging approaches to climate issues.

    The Biden administration is urging a rapid end to coal-fired power, which is waning in the U.S., even as it permits more oil drilling and ramps up exports of natural gas — much of it destined for Asia.

    At the same time, it wants the United States to claim a larger role in the clean energy manufacturing industry that China now dominates, and is seeking to loosen China’s stranglehold on supply chains for products such as solar panels, electric cars and the minerals that go into them. It’s also pressuring Beijing to contribute to U.N. climate funds, saying China’s historic status as a developing country no longer shields it from its responsibility to pay.

    China sees the U.S. position as a direct challenge to its economic growth and energy security.

    Beijing wants to protect the use of coal and defend developing countries’ access to fossil fuels. It has also backed emerging economies’ demands that rich countries pay more to help them deploy clean energy and adapt to the effects of a warmer world. China says it already helps developing countries through South-South cooperation and points to a clause in the 2015 Paris Agreement that says developed countries should lead on climate finance.

    Hanging over the talks is also the prospect of a change of administration in the U.S., and continued efforts by Republicans to vilify Beijing and accuse the Biden administration of supporting Chinese companies through its climate policies and investments. And as China’s response to Pelosi’s trip underscored, climate cooperation remains hostage to other tensions in the two countries’ relationship, a dynamic likely to heighten in the coming year as both Taiwan and the U.S. hold presidential elections.

    One challenge is that China doesn’t seem to see much to gain from offering more ambitious climate actions amid worsening relations with other countries, said Kevin Tu, a non-resident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and an adjunct professor at the School of Environment at Beijing Normal University.

    “In the past several years, China has voluntarily upgraded its climate ambitions a few times amid rising geopolitical tensions,” Tu said, pointing to its 2020 pledge to peak and then zero out its emissions. “So China does not necessarily have very strong incentive to further upgrade its climate ambition.”

    The divide between the two nations has created a dilemma for some small island nations that often walk a fine line between negotiating alongside China at climate talks while pushing for more action to scale back fossil fuels.

    The U.S. and China remain at odds on how quickly to shut down coal and who should provide climate aid to developing nations | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

    “The U.S. is trying to drag everyone to talk about an immediate coal phase-out,” Ralph Regenvanu, climate minister for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, said during a recent call with reporters, calling the effort a “U.S.-versus-China thing.”

    “But we also need to talk about no more oil or gas as well,” he added.

    Operating on its own terms

    The dynamic between China and the U.S. will either drag down or bolster the ambitions of countries updating their national climate pledges, a process that begins at the close of COP28. Nations are already woefully behind cuts needed to hit the goals they laid out in Paris.

    China’s new 10-year targets will be crucial for meeting those marks, given that China accounts for close to 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and that it plans to build dozens of coal-fired power plants in the coming years. The U.S., and many other countries, will be looking for greater commitments from China — whether that’s modifying what it means by phasing down coal or setting more stringent targets.

    China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions before 2030 and zero them out before 2060, a decade later than the United States has promised to reach net-zero. Beijing is unlikely to accelerate that timeline, in part because — analysts say — its philosophy is fundamentally different from that of the U.S.: underpromise and overdeliver.

    Even without committing to more action, China’s massive investments in low-carbon energy installations — twice that of the United States — may inadvertently help the country achieve its peaking target early, some analysts say.

    A complicated picture

    If the Trump years drove China further from America, the global pandemic and resulting economic slowdown that started during his final year didn’t bring it closer. And the energy crunch stemming from Russia’s war with Ukraine cemented China’s drive for reliable energy to meet the rising needs of its 1.4 billion people. That created a coal boom.

    Meanwhile, China heavily subsidized the expansion of wind, solar and electric vehicle production. Its clean energy supply chain dominance has lowered the global costs for those technologies but drawn scorn from the U.S. as it tries to rebuild its own domestic manufacturing base.

    China has turned more combative in response. Rather than work with the U.S. to make joint announcements on climate action, Xi has made clear that China’s climate policy won’t be dictated by others. At G20 meetings, China has aligned with Saudi Arabia and Russia in opposing language aimed at phasing out fossil fuels.

    “At the end of the day, it’s harder to make a claim that China needs the U.S. and it’s harder to make the claim that the U.S. can rely on China,” said Cory Combs, a senior analyst at policy consulting firm Trivium China.

    Wealthy countries’ inability to deliver promised climate aid to vulnerable countries hasn’t helped. While China remains among the bloc of developing nations in calling for more action on climate finance, it also points to the investments it’s making in the Global South through its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative and bilateral aid. 

    A foreign diplomat who asked for anonymity to speak openly said China has resisted pressure to contribute money to a climate fund that would help developing countries rebuild after climate disasters and would likely push back against a focus on its continued build out of coal-fired power plants.

    US climate envoy John Kerry sits next to China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images

    “Anything that would signal that they would need to do more is something that gets blocked,” the person said.

    China did release a plan earlier this month to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse methane, delivering on a promise it had made in a joint declaration with the U.S. at climate talks in 2021. But it has still not signed onto a global methane pledge led by the U.S. and the European Union.

    All that amounts to a complicated picture for the U.S.-Chinese relationship and its broader impact on global climate outcomes.

    “The U.S.-China talks will help stabilize the politics when countries meet in the UAE, but critical issues such as a fossil fuel phase-out still require much [further] political efforts,” said Li Shuo, incoming director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

    “It’s very much about setting a floor,” and the talks in Dubai still need to build out from there, Shuo added.

    He argues in a recent paper that China will subscribe to targets it sees as achievable and will continue to side with developing countries on climate finance. Chinese government officials are cautious about what they’re willing to commit to internationally, which sometimes serves as a disincentive for them to be more ambitious, he said.

    The calculation is likely to be different for Biden’s team, who “want a headline that the world agrees to push China,” said David Waskow, who leads the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative.

    Not impossible

    The power of engagement can’t be completely written off, and in the past it has proven to have a positive effect on the U.S.-China relationship.

    “[Climate] sort of was a positive pillar in the relationship,” said Todd Stern, Obama’s former chief climate negotiator. “And it came to be a thing where when the two sides have come to get together, it was like, ‘What can we get done on climate?’”

    Engagement with China at the state and local level and among academics and research institutes has potential — in large part because it’s less political, said Joanna Lewis, a professor at Georgetown University who closely tracks China’s climate change approach.

    There could also be opportunities to separate climate from broader bilateral tensions.

    “I do feel like there’s that willingness to say, ‘We recognize our roles, we recognize our ability to have that catalytic effect on the international community’s actions,’” said Nate Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability and a former senior adviser to Kerry. “It doesn’t solve all the world’s issues going into the COP, but it gives a really strong boost to international discussions around what we know we need to do.”

    Sara Schonhardt and Zack Colman reported, and Phelim Kine contributed reporting, from Washington, D.C.

    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM. The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.

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    Sara Schonhardt and Zack Colman

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  • Dutch election is wide open as voting begins

    Dutch election is wide open as voting begins

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    ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — As Dutch polling stations open on Wednesday, any one of four rival party leaders could yet win power.

    Volatile polls in the final days of the campaign have left the outcome on a knife-edge, with the big surprise a sudden surge in support for the far-right party of Geert Wilders.

    His anti-Islam and anti-EU Freedom Party (PVV) appears to be making a dramatic comeback — one poll put him level in first place with outgoing premier Mark Rutte’s group, the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). 

    The Labour-Green alliance, led by EU veteran Frans Timmermans, and a new party of centrist outsider Pieter Omtzigt are trailing behind in third and fourth place, according to pollster Maurice de Hond. Other polls put Timmermans’ party tied in first position with Wilders, closely followed by the VVD.

    However, the differences are small and, most importantly, 63 percent of voters had not yet settled on their final choice one day ahead of the election, according to one report.

    Read more: How to watch the Dutch elections like a pro – POLITICO

    A return for Wilders would be a seismic moment for politics in the Netherlands. For the last 10 years, mainstream party leaders have refused to work with him in power-sharing arrangements.

    But the new leader of Rutte’s party, Dilan Yeşilgöz, said early in the campaign that she would not exclude Wilders’ PVV from coalition negotiations. Wilders has taken a more moderate tone since. 

    He told television current affairs show Nieuwsuur that his views on Islam are taking a back seat because “there are more important priorities” to deal with after the election, citing healthcare and social security. The first thing Wilders said during a televised debate on Monday was that “he was available” as a coalition party. 

    However, his anti-Islam rhetoric is still very much part of the PVV’s election program. Launched 13 years ago, the party has been campaigning to ban mosques and the Koran, as well as Islamic headscarves from government buildings. 

    Wilders is also openly hostile to the European Union. He wants a so-called “Nexit” referendum and on leaving the bloc has called for all weapon supplies to Ukraine to stop. 

    Polling frenzy

    The unexpected surge of public support for Wilders’ party was first signaled by pollster de Hond – who overestimated Wilders’ share by five seats in the last election. In a survey of almost 7,000 people on 17 November, he found that the PVV and VVD were neck and neck in 26 of the 150 seats, thanks to a five-seat surge for Wilders. 

    POLITICO’s Poll of Polls showed Yeşilgöz leading with 18 percent as the campaign drew to its finale, closely followed by the parties of Wilders and Timmermans with 16 percent each. Omtzigt’s party has fallen back a little in recent days, to 15 percent in the Poll of Polls. Once the results are in, he could still emerge as kingmaker in coalition talks.

    NETHERLANDS NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    Even if the poll from de Hond proves to be a reliable prediction, the question is whether, and to what extent, the other parties want to work together with Wilders in government. 

    With his characteristic peroxide platinum hair, Wilders is the most experienced MP in parliament with 25 years under his belt. But his extreme views have kept him out of power-sharing coalitions, apart from in 2010, when he backed a Rutte minority cabinet for two years. 

    On Sunday, Yeşilgöz distanced herself from the PVV. “I refuse to shut out a single voter … [but] the PVV has policies like wanting the Netherlands to leave Europe, it wants a Nexit, it ignores climate problems, which would completely destroy this country,” she said. 

    Omtzigt has firmly ruled out joining forces with Wilders, saying his anti-Islam policies go against freedoms of expression and religion that are enshrined in the Dutch constitution.

    Although Wilders emerging from the election as one of the biggest parties would be a nightmare scenario for supporters of the Green-Left alliance. Team Timmermans hopes that prospect might convince undecided and more progressive people to vote tactically for them to exclude the far right.

    “It’s clear that Yeşilgöz has opened the door for Wilders in the government. This would mean someone participating in running the country who dismisses a million Dutch [Muslims] as second-class citizens,” Timmermans said.

    Beyond the late surge for the far-right, the campaign has been dominated by three core issues: the cost of living, migration and climate change.

    Against a backdrop of rising prices and a housing shortage that have left an estimated 830,000 people in poverty, most of the parties agree on the need to build more homes and spend more on welfare measures. 

    Wilders, Yeşilgöz and Omtzigt want to limit the number of asylum seekers and foreign workers — a plan that might prove difficult with the free movement of people under EU law. Timmermans is against limits but has proposed spreading asylum seekers more fairly across the country and reducing tax incentives for expats.  

    On climate, all main parties agree that the Netherlands needs to be climate neutral by 2050, except for Wilders who wants to leave the Paris agreement. Parties also agree that there is a need to reduce livestock and fertilizer use. The main disagreement has centered on nuclear energy. More rightwing and center parties are in favor of building new nuclear plants, but Timmermans has opposed this idea, saying it is risky, expensive, and challenging. 

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    Eline Schaart

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  • Ukraine marks 10-year anniversary of Maidan ‘Revolution of Dignity’

    Ukraine marks 10-year anniversary of Maidan ‘Revolution of Dignity’

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    Ukraine’s pro-democracy, pro-Europe demonstrations in Maidan square a decade ago marked the “first victory” in its war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared on the anniversary of the popular protest movement.

    Nearly 100 civilians died in violent clashes with security forces when Ukrainians took to the streets of the capital in 2013, demanding to move Ukraine out of the orbit of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and “join” the family of European democracies to which it “historically belongs”.

    The “Revolution of Dignity” protests ultimately led to the ouster of Kremlin-backed President Victor Yanukovych and gave space to the rise of a new generation of anticorruption, pro-democracy movement leaders.

    “The first victory in today’s war took place. A victory against indifference. A victory of courage. The victory of the Revolution of Dignity,” Zelenskyy said in a statement on Tuesday.

    He praised his country’s progress towards gaining membership in the European Union since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February of last year.

    “Year after year, step by step, we do our best to ensure that our star shines in the circle of stars on the EU flag, which symbolises the unity of the peoples of Europe. The star of Ukraine,” he said.

    His comments come as Russian forces chip away at Ukraine’s sovereignty and continue their full-on invasion of their smaller neighbour.

    Show of support

    A number of foreign leaders made trips to Kyiv in a show of solidarity. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius arrived by train for an unannounced visit to reaffirm Berlin’s backing for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s troops.

    “I am here again, firstly to pledge further support, but also to express our solidarity and deep bond and also our admiration for the courageous, brave and costly fight that is being waged here,” he said laying flowers at Maidan square in central Kyiv.

    Also in Kyiv on Tuesday, European Council President Charles Michel, shared a post on the social media platform X, saying it was “Good to be back in Kyiv – among friends”. He posted a picture of himself shaking hands with the EU ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova.

    Moldova’s President Maia Sandu arrived in Kyiv early on Tuesday to join Zelenskyy in honouring the memory of those who died during the Revolution of Dignity, her office said on X.

    United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday “to meet with Ukrainian leaders and reinforce the staunch support of the United States for Ukraine’s fight for freedom”, the Pentagon said in a statement.

    The United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, visited Ukraine last week to underline British support for Kyiv amid its ongoing war with Russia. He told Zelenskyy the UK would support Ukraine for “however long it takes”.

    Bitter rival?

    The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on the anniversary of Maidan protests by blaming Ukraine and the West for the current war in which nearly 10,000 people have lost their lives.

    Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova questioned what the dream of Europe had brought Ukraine.

    “From a prosperous, industrially developed, densely populated ex-Soviet republic, Ukraine has turned into an impoverished, dying territory,” she said, according to comments published on the Foreign Ministry website.

    Ukraine had lost its independence as a result of the Maidan events, she said. “Western colonisers determine its domestic and foreign policy.”

    Russia’s Foreign Ministry also made statements saying Russia cannot coexist with the “regime” in Ukraine.

    “The current regime is absolutely toxic, we do not see any options for co-existence with it at the moment,” Russian ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik said on Tuesday.

    He further stated that in order for the war to end, Ukraine must be “de-militarised and de-nazified” so as not to be deemed a threat to Russia.

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  • Moscow puts popular Ukrainian singer on wanted list, accusing her of spreading false information about Russian military

    Moscow puts popular Ukrainian singer on wanted list, accusing her of spreading false information about Russian military

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    Russia has placed a Ukrainian singer who won the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on its wanted list, state news agencies reported Monday.

    The reports said an Interior Ministry database listed singer Susana Jamaladinova as being sought for violating a criminal law.

    The independent news site Mediazona, which covers opposition and human rights issues, said Jamaladinova was charged under a law adopted last year that bans spreading so-called fake information about the Russian military and the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.

    Jamaladinova, who performs under the stage name Jamala, is of Crimean Tatar descent. Jamala, who performed at the Kennedy Center Honors in December, won the 2016 Eurovision contest with the song “1944,” a title that refers to the year the Soviet Union deported Crimean Tatars en masse.

    eurovision.jpg
    Ukraine’s Jamala reacts on winning the Eurovision Song Contest final at the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden, May 14, 2016.

    TT News Agency/Maja Suslin/via REUTERS


    Her winning performance came almost exactly two years after Russia annexed Crimea as political turmoil gripped Ukraine. Most other countries regard the annexation as illegitimate.

    Russia protested “1944” being allowed in the competition, saying it violated rules against political speech in Eurovision. But the song made no specific criticism of Russia or the Soviet Union, although it drew such implications, opening with the lyrics “When strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say ‘We’re not guilty.'”

    Earlier this year Jamaladinova spoke to the BBC about the release of her new folk album, Qirim, saying it was her attempt “to give strong voice to my homeland, to Crimea.”

    “The centuries of the Russian Empire, then Soviet Union, now Russia – they did a lot of propaganda to shut us up. Then they told the whole world we did not exist. But we know the truth. I know the truth. And so that’s why for me, it’s really important to show this truth through the stories behind each of the songs in this album,” she told the BBC. 

    Just last week a Russian court sentenced artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko to seven years in prison for swapping supermarket price tags with antiwar messages. 

    Skochilenko was arrested in her native St. Petersburg in April 2022 and charged with spreading false information about the military after replacing price tags with ones that decried Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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  • Ukrainian moms go undercover in Russian-occupied territory, rescue abducted children

    Ukrainian moms go undercover in Russian-occupied territory, rescue abducted children

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    Ukrainian moms go undercover in Russian-occupied territory, rescue abducted children – CBS News


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    Ukraine’s government says about 20,000 children have been taken by Russia, but adds it could be closer to 300,000. Ukrainian moms are traveling behind enemy lines to rescue their abducted children.

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  • Anti-green backlash hovers over COP climate talks

    Anti-green backlash hovers over COP climate talks

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    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM.

    LONDON — World leaders will touch down in Dubai next week for a climate change conference they’re billing yet again as the final off-ramp before catastrophe. But war, money squabbles and political headaches back home are already crowding the fate of the planet from the agenda.

    The breakdown of the Earth’s climate has for decades been the most important yet somehow least urgent of global crises, shoved to one side the moment politicians face a seemingly more acute problem. Even in 2023 — almost certainly the most scorching year in recorded history, with temperatures spawning catastrophic floods, wildfires and heat waves across the globe — the climate effort faces a bewildering array of distractions, headwinds and dismal prospects.

    “The plans to achieve net zero are increasingly under attack,” former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who set her country’s goal of reaching climate neutrality into law, told POLITICO.

    The best outcome for the climate from the 13-day meeting, which is known as COP28 and opens Nov. 30, would be an unambiguous statement from almost 200 countries on how they intend to hasten their plans to cut fossil fuels, alongside new commitments from the richest nations on the planet to assist the poorest.

    But the odds against that happening are rising. Instead, the U.S. and its European allies are still struggling to cement a fragile deal with developing countries about an international climate-aid fund that had been hailed as the historic accomplishment of last year’s summit. Meanwhile, a populist backlash against the costs of green policies has governments across Europe pulling back — a reverse wave that would become an American-led tsunami if Donald Trump recaptures the White House next year.

    And across the developing world, the rise of energy and food prices stoked by the pandemic and the Ukraine war has caused inflation and debt to spiral, heightening the domestic pressure on climate-minded governments to spend their money on their most acute needs first.

    Even U.S. President Joe Biden, whose 2022 climate law kicked off a boom of clean-energy projects in the U.S., has endorsed fossil fuel drilling and pipeline projects under pressure to ease voter unease about rising fuel costs.

    Add to all that the newest Mideast war that began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

    On the upside, investment in much of the green economy is also surging. Analysts are cautiously opining that China’s emissions may have begun to decline, several years ahead of Beijing’s schedule. And the Paris-based International Energy Agency projects that global fossil fuel demand could peak this decade, with coal use plummeting and oil and gas plateauing afterward. Spurring these trends is a competition among powers such as China, the United States, India and the European Union to build out and dominate clean-energy industries.

    But the fossil fuel industry is betting against a global shift to green, instead investing its profits from the energy crisis into plans for long-term expansion of its core business.

    The air of gloom among many supporters of global climate action is hard to miss, as is the sense that global warming will not be the sole topic on leaders’ minds when they huddle in back rooms.

    “It’s getting away from us,” Tim Benton, director of the Chatham House environment and society center, said during a markedly downbeat discussion among climate experts at the think tank’s lodgings on St James’ Square in London earlier this month. “Where is the political space to drive the ambition that we need?”

    Fog of war

    The most acute distraction from global climate work is the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The conflagration is among many considerations the White House is weighing in Biden’s likely decision not to attend the summit, one senior administration official told POLITICO this month. Other leaders are also reconsidering their schedules, said one senior government official from a European country, who was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive diplomacy of the conference.

    The war is also likely to push its way onto the climate summit’s unofficial agenda: Leaders of big Western powers who are attending will spend at least some of their diplomatically precious face-time with Middle East leaders discussing — not climate — but the regional security situation, said two people familiar with the planning for COP28 who could not be named for similar reasons. According to a preliminary list circulated by the United Arab Emirates, Israeli President Isaac Herzog or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the talks.

    A threat even exists that the conference could be canceled or relocated, should a wider regional conflict develop, Benton said. 

    The UAE’s COP28 presidency isn’t talking about that, at least publicly. “We look forward to hosting a safe, inclusive COP beginning at the end of November,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement. But the strained global relations have already thrown the location of next years’ COP29 talks into doubt because Russia has blocked any EU country from hosting the conference, which is due to be held in eastern or central Europe.

    The upshot is that the bubble of global cooperation that landed the Paris climate agreement in 2015 has burst. “We have a lot of more divisive narratives now,” Laurence Tubiana, the European Climate Foundation CEO who was one of the drafters of the Paris deal, said at the same meeting at Chatham House.

    The Ukraine war and tensions between the U.S. and China in particular have widened the gap between developed and developing countries, Benton told POLITICO in an email. 

    Now, “the Hamas-Israel war potentially creates significant new fault lines between the Arab world and many Western countries that are perceived to be more pro-Israeli,” he said. “The geopolitical tensions arising from the war could create leverage that enables petrostates (many of which are Muslim) to shore up the status quo.”

    Add to that the as yet unknown impact on already high fossil fuel commodity prices, said Kalee Kreider, president of the Ridgely Walsh public affairs consultancy and a former adviser to U.S. Vice President Al Gore. “Volatility doesn’t usually help raise ambition.”

    The Biden administration’s decisions to approve a tranche of new fossil fuel production and export projects will undermine U.S. diplomacy at COP28, said Ed Markey, a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

    “You can’t preach temperance from a barstool, and the United States is running a long tab,” he said.

    U.N. climate talks veterans have seen this program before. “No year over the past three decades has been free of political, economic or health challenges,” said former U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, who now heads the consulting firm onepoint5. “We simply can’t wait for the perfect conditions to address climate change. Time is a luxury we no longer have — if we ever did.”

    The EU backlash

    Before the Mideast’s newest shock to the global energy system, the war in Ukraine exposed Europe’s energy dependence on Russia — and initially galvanized the EU to accelerate efforts to roll out cleaner alternatives.

    But in the past year, persistent inflation has worn away that zeal. Businesses and citizens worry about anything that might add to the financial strain, and this has frayed a consensus on climate change that had held for the past four years among left, center and center right parties across much of the 27-country bloc.

    In recent months, conservative members of the European Parliament have attacked several EU green proposals as excessive, framing themselves as pragmatic environmentalists ahead of Europe-wide elections next year.  Reinvigorated far-right parties across the bloc are also using the green agenda to attack more mainstream parties, a trend that is spooking the center. 

    Germany’s government was almost brought down this year by a law that sought to ban gas boilers — with the Greens-led economy ministry retreating to a compromise. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has joined a growing chorus agitating for a “regulatory pause” on green legislation.

    If Europe’s struggles emerge at COP28, the ripple effect could be global, said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank. 

    The “EU has established itself as the global laboratory for climate neutrality,” he said. “But now it needs to deliver on the experiment, or the world (which is closely watching) will assume this just does not work. And that would be a disaster for all of us.”

    U.K. retreats

    The world is also watching the former EU member that stakes a claim to be the climate leader of the G7: the U.K.

    London has prided itself on its green credentials ever since former Prime Minister May enacted a 2019 law calling for net zero by 2050 — making her the first leader of a major economy to do so.

    According to May’s successor Boris Johnson, net zero was good for the planet, good for voters, good for the economy. But under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the messaging has transformed. Net zero remains the target — but it comes with a “burden” on working people.

    In a major speech this fall, Sunak rolled back plans to ban new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030, bringing the U.K. into line with the EU’s 2035 date. With half an eye on Germany’s travails, he said millions of households would be exempted from the gas boiler ban expected in 2035.

    In making his arguments for a “pragmatic” approach to net zero, Sunak frequently draws on the talking points of net zero-skeptics. Why should the citizens of the U.K., which within its own borders produces just 1 percent of global emissions, “sacrifice even more than others?” 

    The danger, said one EU climate diplomat — granted anonymity to discuss domestic policy of an allied country — was that other countries around the COP28 negotiating table would hear that kind of rhetoric from a capital that had led the world — and repurpose it to make their own excuses.

    Sunak’s predecessor May sees similar risks.

    “Nearly a third of all global emissions originate from countries with territorial emissions of 1 per cent or less,” May said. “If we all slammed on the brakes, it would make our net zero aspirations impossible to achieve.”

    Trump’s back

    The U.S., the largest producer of industrial carbon pollution in modern history, has been a weathervane on climate depending on who controls its governing branches.

    When Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, it created a major drag on Biden’s promise to provide $11.4 billion in annual global climate finance by 2024.

    Securing this money and much more, developing countries say, is vital to any progress on global climate goals at COP28. Last year, on the back of the pandemic and the energy price spike, global debt soared to a record $92 trillion. This cripples developing countries’ ability to build clean energy and defend themselves against — or recover from — hurricanes, floods, droughts and fires.

    Even when the money is there, the politics can be challenging. Multibillion-dollar clean energy partnerships that the G7 has pursued to shift South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and India off coal power are struggling to gain acceptance from the recipients.

    Yet even more dire consequences await if Trump wins back the presidency next year. 

    A Trump victory would put the world’s largest economy a pen stroke away from quitting the Paris Agreement all over again — or, even more drastically, abandoning the entire international regime of climate pacts and summits. The thought is already sending a chill: Negotiations over a fund for poorer countries’ climate losses and damage, which Republicans oppose, include talks on how to make its language “change-of-government-proof” in light of a potential Trump victory, said Michai Robertson, lead finance negotiator for a bloc of island states.

    More concretely for reining in planet-heating gases, Trump would be in position to approve legislation eliminating all or part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden’s signature climate law included $370 billion in incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles and other carbon-cutting efforts – though the actual spending is likely to soar even higher due to widespread interest in its programs and subsidies – and accounts for a bulk of projected U.S. emissions cuts this decade.

    Trump’s views on this kind of spending are no mystery: His first White House budget director dismissed climate programs as “a waste of your money,” and Trump himself promised last summer to “terminate these Green New Deal atrocities on Day One.”

    House Republicans have attempted to claw back parts of Biden’s climate law several times. That’s merely a political messaging effort for now, thanks to a Democrat-held Senate and a sure veto from Biden, but the prospects flip if the GOP gains full control of Congress and White House.

    Under a plan hatched by Tubiana and backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, countries would in the future log their state and local government climate plans with the U.N., in an attempt to undergird the entire system against a second Republican blitzkrieg.

    The U.S. isn’t the only place where climate action is on the ballot, Benton told the conference at Chatham House on Nov. 1.

    News on Sunday that Argentina had elected as president right-wing populist Javier Milei — a Trump-like libertarian — raised the prospect of a major Latin American economy walking away from the Paris Agreement, either by formally withdrawing or by reneging on its promises.

    Elections are also scheduled in 2024 for the EU, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Russia, and possibly the U.K. 

    “A quarter of the world’s population is facing elections in the next nine months,” he said. “If everyone goes to the right and populism becomes the order of the day … then I won’t hold out high hopes for Paris.”

    Zack Colman reported from Washington, D.C. Suzanne Lynch also contributed reporting from Brussels.

    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM. The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.

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    Karl Mathiesen, Charlie Cooper and Zack Colman

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  • Dutch on brink of electing first female leader

    Dutch on brink of electing first female leader

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    THE HAGUE — Dutch voters may be about to get someone very different from the outgoing veteran prime minister Mark Rutte. 

    A former refugee, Dilan Yeşilgöz, who succeeded Rutte as leader of the VVD party, is now leading the polls ahead of Wednesday’s vote and could become the first female prime minister in Dutch history. 

    The contest is on a knife-edge, with three parties vying to win the most seats, but her nearest rival, Pieter Omtzigt has signalled he may not want the top job for himself. 

    That makes it even likelier that Yeşilgöz, the country’s justice minister, will become premier at the head of the next government. 

    Read more: How to watch the Dutch elections like a pro – POLITICO

    A self-confessed workaholic, Yeşilgöz is media savvy and does not talk much about being a woman in politics. She is invariably good humored and full of energy in public, despite what she says are “tough” demands of her current job. Her liberal-conservative People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy is now in joint first place with 18 points in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, after she took over from Rutte as its leader. 

    Her platform has been a promise to crack down on migration, an issue that has long dogged Dutch politics. 

    But Yeşilgöz told POLITICO it is her own background as a refugee that has shaped her view on migration. 

    “There’s an influx of too many people, not only asylum seekers but also migrant workers and international students, which means that we don’t have the capacity to help real refugees,” Yeşilgöz said. She listed problems in the system, including poor quality reception facilities for asylum seekers and housing shortages as obstacles. 

    Yet Yeşilgöz has a mountain ahead of her to succeed in the election. 

    If the VVD wins, it would be exceptional. There are hardly any examples of governing parties that, during a change in leadership, still remain the largest. 

    Yet the latest POLITICO Poll of Polls shows that VVD is neck and neck with centrist outsider Omtzigt’s new party, New Social Contract. The green-left alliance of Frans Timmermans is also in with a chance, on 15 percent. 

    NETHERLANDS NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    As justice minister in the current caretaker government, she has been described as a tough negotiator and a strong communicator, who only does three things besides work: sleep, exercise and eating healthily. 

    But while Rutte has always been very private about his personal life, Yeşilgöz has been far more open, talking frankly about her marriage, her battles with an immune condition and her hesitation about having children.

    Also unlike Rutte, who was often spotted cycling to appointments, Yeşilgöz is driven everywhere and has to be heavily protected by a personal security detail due to her position as a justice minister. “It is a big part of my life and that is very tough. But I choose to keep going, to not quit, because I will not be intimidated,” she said. 

    The increasingly violent and coarse nature of public discourse in the Netherlands is a growing issue in Dutch politics. Outgoing finance minister Sigrid Kaag announced earlier that she was leaving politics amid concerns over her safety. 

    Fair and strict 

    Brussels is also keeping a close eye on the upcoming election. The Netherlands has positioned itself under the leadership of Rutte as a reliable and dominant partner in the EU. But officials in embassies and institutions in Brussels now wonder if the next government will maintain such a positive role after the November 22 vote.  

    It’s a clear “yes” from Yeşilgöz, if she ends up as premier. “As a small country, we can play a big role. We have always done that, and it’s incredibly important that we will keep doing that,” she said. 

    Playing strict and and playing fair will be the main pillars that underpin her approach to the EU, said Yeşilgöz. That includes no tinkering with the criteria when new countries want to become an EU member — a debate that is already heating up in light of Ukraine’s application to join the 27-country bloc.  

    A man boards a tram next to a People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) campaign poster featuring a picture of party leader Dilan Yeşilgöz | Carl Court/Getty Images

    Traditionally, the Dutch have been hawks-in-chief on EU fiscal policy, criticizing big spenders and demanding a reduction in debt levels. But in more recent times, the Dutch government has favored flexibility, within reason.

    “Just being very strict and not looking at the context at all, I am exaggerating a bit, that’s not going to be our line,” Yeşilgöz said. “But being very flexible and actually making things less clear and more complex is not our line either. Europe must be a stable cooperation, and clear financial agreements are very important to this end.”

    Post-Rutte

    Although the VVD is leading in the polls, the race is far from done. 

    The main challenge for Yeşilgöz during the campaign has been to convince voters that she wants renewal despite her party being in power for more than a decade. 

    The past thirteen years a lot of things have been going well, she said, pointing to the fact that The Netherlands weathered the economic crisis and coronavirus pandemics relatively safely.

    “At the same time, when you zoom in and see that many people with normal jobs and incomes lie awake at night because of their bills … so I can’t say that things are going well for everyone,” she said. 

    “On top of that there have been in the past years some blind spots,” she said. These included the poor handling of compensation claims in relation to earthquake damage in Groningen and a childcare benefits fiasco in which thousands of people, often dual-nationals, were incorrectly labeled fraudsters. “It is evident that we have learned from that and need to prevent new blind spots from appearing.”

    And what of her former lader, Rutte? He was spotted in Brussels earlier this month on a visit to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, after hinting he would like to take over the position at the top of the military alliance himself. 

    Asked whether Rutte was gunning to lead NATO, Yeşilgöz laughed.“Wherever he ends up, that organization is very lucky to have him,” she said. 

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    Eline Schaart and Barbara Moens

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  • Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 635

    Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 635

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    As the war enters its 635th day, these are the main developments.

    Here is the situation on Monday, November 20, 2023.

    Fighting

    • The Ukrainian army said it has pushed Russian forces back as far as 8km (5 miles) from the banks of Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region. Ukrainian and Russian forces have been entrenched on opposite sides of the Dnipro for more than a year after Russia withdrew its troops from the western bank last November. Ukraine said last week it had made a breakthrough. “Preliminary figures vary from 3 to 8 kilometres (2 to 5 miles), depending on the specifics, geography and landscape of the left bank,” army spokeswoman Natalia Gumenyuk told Ukrainian television when asked how much progress Kyiv had made. She added that there remained a “lot of work to do”.
    • The United Kingdom’s defence ministry said that there were “few immediate prospects of major changes in the front line,” saying neither Russia nor Ukraine had made meaningful progress on the battlefield. In a statement, it said that intense fighting was concentrated near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, Avdiivka in the Dontesk region, and on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
    • Russia launched several waves of drone attacks on Kyiv for the second successive night, triggering air raid warnings. Ukraine’s Air Force said its air defence systems destroyed 15 of the 20 Shahed kamikaze drones targeting the Kyiv, Poltava and Cherkasy regions. There were no initial reports of “critical damage” or casualties. On Saturday, Russian drone attacks caused power outages in more than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast and north of Ukraine.
    • Five people, including a three-year-old girl who was outside with her grandmother, were injured in Russian artillery shelling of Kherson, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. One person was killed by shelling in the northeastern Sumy region.
    Ukrainian teenager Bohdan Yermokhin (right) finally returned home after being taken by Russia last year [Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP Photo]
    • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded swift changes in the operations of Ukraine’s military as he met Defence Minister Rustem Umerov. Zelenskyy said “priorities were set” noting there was “little time left to wait for results”. Zelenskyy said he had also replaced Major-General Tetiana Ostashchenko as commander of the Armed Forces Medical Forces, saying the armed forces needed a “fundamentally new level of medical support”.

    Politics and diplomacy

    • Bohdan Yermokhin, an orphaned Ukrainian teenager who was taken to Russia from the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol during the war and prevented from leaving in March, has returned to Ukraine. Yermokhin, now 18, told the Reuters news agency his return was a “very pleasant gift”. Ukraine estimates about 20,000 children have been taken illegally by Russia. Zelenskyy welcomed Yermokhin’s return and thanked Ukrainian officials, international organisations, and particularly UNICEF, and authorities in Qatar for help in mediation.
    • Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on 37 Russian groups and 108 people including two former Ukrainian top officials now in Russia for their alleged involvement “in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territory” and individuals who “in various ways help Russian terror against Ukraine”.
    • Pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, said he wanted to run for president. Also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, the former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer has repeatedly said Russia will face a revolution and even a civil war unless President Vladimir Putin’s military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively. Girkin helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.

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  • Ukrainians accuse Russia of kidnapping, indoctrinating Ukrainian children

    Ukrainians accuse Russia of kidnapping, indoctrinating Ukrainian children

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    It’s impossible for Ukrainian families to shield their children from the constant violence of Russia’s war… but tonight we will tell you about a lesser known and perhaps more sinister danger they face… the Russian abduction of Ukrainian children. In the chaos of war, exact numbers are hard to come by. Officially, the Ukrainian government has documented more than 19,000 children taken by Russia, but told us they worry the actual number could be closer to 300,000 children. The International Criminal Court has charged Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights with the war crimes of unlawful deportation and transfer of children. This summer we followed one Ukrainian grandmother on an undercover mission, deep into enemy territory, to find her grandson before he completely disappeared. 

    Polina packed what little she could and caught a 20-hour train from Poland to Kyiv to meet with a nonprofit called “Save Ukraine”… they promised to help her find 9-year-old Nikita. She traveled light but carried the weight of a grandmother’s worry.

    Polina (translated): He means everything to me – he is my air, my sky, my water. I live for him, he’s my life. I love him very much.

    Polina – who asked us not to use her last name – is in the process of filing for guardianship of her grandson. She left Ukraine so she could work to support Nikita, who has special needs.

    Polina (translated): The Russian Federation stole him. They abducted him.

    Polina said her grandson was taken
    Polina said her grandson was taken

    60 Minutes


    Cecilia Vega: Did the Russians ask anyone for permission to move Nikita? Did they tell anyone they were moving him?

    Polina (translated): No, they didn’t tell anyone anything. They simply removed him and hid him.

    Last October, Nikita was living in a boarding school for disabled children when the Russian authorities ordered all 86 kids there to be transferred deeper into Russian-controlled territory.

    Polina (translated): I came home after work, I opened Instagram and there was a picture of my child– Nikita. With a caption, Russia is taking children.

    Polina says the Russians played a cruel game of hide and seek – moving Nikita at least three times in eight months – including to an orphanage in Russia.

    Cecilia Vega: What were those eight months like for you?

    Polina (translated): Really bad, really bad. I wouldn’t sleep at night. I didn’t want to go to work, I didn’t even want to live because I had no one to live for. And then I found this website, Save Ukraine, on Facebook. And I called them.

    The phones never seem to stop ringing at the Save Ukraine headquarters in Kyiv.

    So far, they’ve rescued more than 200 kids, from kindergarteners to teenagers. 

    We met the founder, Mykola Kuleba, at one of Save Ukraine’s shelters for reunited families.

    Cecilia Vega: How long do the families stay here?

    Mykola Kuleba: Up to three months.

    Kuleba served as Ukraine’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights for nearly eight years.

    Mykola Kuleba at a shelter
    Mykola Kuleba at a shelter

    60 Minutes


    Now, he runs these secret rescue missions, which rely on an underground network of safe houses and volunteers… including Russians who oppose the war.

    Mykola Kuleba: I can’t tell you how many organization involved and volunteers.

    Cecilia Vega: Dozens? 

    Mykola Kuleba: Maybe hundreds.

    Cecilia Vega: Hundreds. Is there one piece of advice that every mother must know before she starts this journey?

    Mykola Kuleba: We explaining them that Russians will intimidate you. They will be doing everything to stop you, to provoke you. That’s why you should focus on your child. Your goal is to take your child and not be afraid.

    But it’s hard not to be afraid. These women have to travel alone while the men stay behind to fight. Just before the mothers leave, they get a safety briefing where they learn how to craft cover stories for when, inevitably, they are interrogated by Russian forces.

    When they return, their stories become evidence that save Ukraine sends to the International Criminal Court.

    Russia’s goal, Kuelba says, is to steal the Ukrainian kids’ future by erasing their past.

    Mykola Kuleba: Their plans to destroy Ukrainian identity. They brainwash them, indoctrinate them, Russify them. They have special classes for Ukrainian children when they teach them what is the Russian empire, what future they can have in Russia ’cause about Ukraine, it’s only bad things.

    Cecilia Vega: What risk do these children pose to Russia if they come back home into Ukraine?

    Mykola Kuleba: Every child is a war crime witness.

    Cecilia Vega: Every child is a war crime witness.

    Mykola Kuleba: Every child. Yeah. Every child.

    Vlad Rudenko was 16 when he was taken last October. He says armed men showed up at his door while his mother, Tetiana Bodak was out.

    Vlad Rudenko (translated): They told me ‘you need to pack your things.’ I said, ‘I will call my mom.’ They said, ‘don’t bother- you are coming with us anyway.’

    Cecilia Vega, Tetiana Bodak, Vlad Rudenko
    Cecilia Vega with Tetiana Bodak and Vlad Rudenko

    60 Minutes


    After that, Vlad says he was ordered to board a bus – part of a 16-vehicle convoy full of kids that drove to a camp in Russian-controlled Crimea.

    Moscow claims it’s evacuating kids from the fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine. 

    But we’ve learned Russia often pressures poor Ukrainian parents to send their children to schools and these camps, where the kids spend their days with Russian children. Images of happy kids are the propaganda Russia wants the world to see.

    But, several Ukrainian kids told us what happens in these camps is less about recreation and more about indoctrination…they are told repeated lies – like “Ukraine lost the war” and “their parents don’t want them.”

    Vlad secretly sent his mother this video and said speaking Ukrainian, talking about Ukraine or even wearing Ukraine’s colors was forbidden.

    Every morning, at a camp like this, Vlad told us the Ukrainian children were forced to sing the Russian national anthem. Vlad refused to fall in line. One night, he decided to take down the Russian flag.

    Cecilia Vega: And then what happened?

    Vlad Rudenko (translated): They came over and told me to pack up. They said we’re going to the detention ward. So, we went to the ward and I said, I’m not staying here, I’ll break everything in here. They told me, we’ll call a psychiatric hospital for you then. But in the end, they locked me up anyway in the detention ward for five days.

    Cecilia Vega: You were in isolation for five days?

    Vlad Rudenko (translated): Yes. One more day and I probably would have hanged myself. 

    Cecilia Vega: Tetiana, what do you think when you hear that?

    Tetiana Bodak (translated): I can’t… I just can’t find the words because there’s a lot of things he didn’t tell me. And maybe I am scared to find out something that I’d better not know. 

    By the time Tetiana rescued Vlad with Save Ukraine’s help, she had lost eight months with her son.

    Cecilia Vega: Did he look different to you?

    Tetiana Bodak
    Tetiana Bodak

    60 Minutes


    Tetiana Bodak (translated): Yes. I remember he left as a kid, but then when I met him again, I saw a man with an adult vision of life. His eyes just gave him up.

    Polina couldn’t risk losing any more time with Nikita. The night before she left, she gathered gifts for her grandson.

    This bus station was as far as our cameras could go… but nine days in, she managed to call while we were with the Save Ukraine team. A translator relayed her harrowing trip. 

    Translator: I was moving there in a car throughout that minefield. There was a heavy smell of dead bodies there.

    What Polina couldn’t tell us over the phone was that she and Save Ukraine hatched a plan to get past a border checkpoint near the school in occupied territory where Nikita was held: she pretended to be an aid worker. Her driver recorded as she walked into the building.

    Polina (translated): The director asked me, how did you get here? I told him, I’m a volunteer. I came here from Poland and brought you some humanitarian aid. I needed to say something, to be able to see Nikita and figure out a way to get him out of there. This was the only way to do it.

    And then she finally identified herself as Nikita’s grandmother and gave the school director a Ukrainian document authorizing her to take Nikita home. He refused.

    Polina (translated): The director said to me, he’s mine. I am his guardian. And I said, but I am his grandmother. You have no right because he has a biological grandmother who will take him back. This is my child.

    Last year, Vladimir Putin changed the law to make it easier for some Ukrainian children to receive Russian citizenship, allowing them to be adopted by Russian families. And Putin’s top deputy in charge of children’s rights – Maria lvova-Belova – posted these videos of what she described as Ukrainian orphans with their adoptive parents. 

    lvova-Helova– herself says she adopted a 15-year-old Ukrainian boy from the occupied city of Mariupol.

    Polina showed us the documents that led her to believe Nikita was also about to be adopted.

    Cecilia Vega: So, this is the Ukrainian birth certificate: born in Ukraine, Ukrainian child. And this is what Russia made – what does this say?

    Polina (translated): It says that he is a citizen of the Russian Federation.

    Cecilia Vega: It’s almost hard for me to get my head around this. Your grandson is a Ukrainian citizen, and you’re telling me, you believe the Russians were on the verge of giving him to a Russian family, of adopting him out to another family.

    Polina: Yes, yes.

    She says the school called her Ukrainian documentation fake and demanded a DNA test. They kept Polina waiting for the results.

    For 70 days, she refused to back down… 

    Until finally, Polina was led into a room where she heard this:

    Nikita (in reunion video): “Babushka!”

    There to personally oversee the reunion- Maria lvova-Belova. Russian cameras recorded as the accused war criminal handed Nikita gifts.

    Polina and Nikita Save Ukraine reunion
    Polina and Nikita were reunited with the help of Save Ukraine

    60 Minutes


    She also made them an offer:

    Polina (translated): Lvova-Belova said to me, would you like to stay with us in the Russian Federation maybe? We will give you some money. We will give you a car.

    Cecilia Vega: They tried to get you to stay with Nikita?

    Polina (translated): Yes, yes. I said: I don’t need anything. I have everything.

    Maria lvova-Belova insists Russia does not put Ukrainian children up for adoption and that it makes every effort to return them. On social media, she called Polina and Nikita’s reunion a joy and wished them a quote “happy life.”

    Finally reunited– Polina and Nikita began the long trip back to safety, driving day and night for a week.

    We were with the Save Ukraine team when they arrived in Poland. 

    They plan to live here until the war is over.

    Cecilia Vega: What do you wanna do with your grandmother now?

    Nikita told me he wants to play toys with her.

    And with a smile, he proudly said: this is mother, my grandmother.

    Produced by Nichole Marks. Associate producer, John Gallen. Broadcast associate, Katie Jahns. Edited by Sean Kelly. 

    Cecilia Vega


    Cecilia Vega

    Cecilia Vega is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and “60 Minutes” correspondent who joined the CBS newsmagazine in 2023.

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  • Russia loses 1,190 troops, 18 artillery systems in a day: Kyiv

    Russia loses 1,190 troops, 18 artillery systems in a day: Kyiv

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    Russian forces in Ukraine have lost 1,190 troops and 18 artillery systems in the past day, Kyiv’s military said on Sunday, as losses pile up at the start of the grueling winter effort.

    Moscow’s forces have lost a total of 318,570 soldiers and 7,744 artillery systems since the start of all-out war in the country in February 2022, the General Staff of Ukraine’s military said on Sunday.

    It is impossible to independently verify battlefield losses, and Newsweek has reached out to Russia’s Defense Ministry for comment via email.

    In an update also published on Sunday, Moscow said 605 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed over the past 24 hours, but did not provide a Russian estimate for total Ukrainian losses in the almost 21-month-long war. The Ukrainian military has been contacted for comment.

    A Russian soldier collects weapons on April 12, 2022, in Mariupol, Ukraine. Moscow’s forces in Ukraine have lost 1,190 troops and 18 artillery systems in the past day, Kyiv’s military said on Sunday.
    ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images

    On Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said its air-defense systems had destroyed 15 out of 20 Iranian-designed Shahed drones used by Moscow. A total of 38 strike drones were launched overnight on Ukrainian territory, Kyiv’s military said.

    Over the previous 24 hours, Russia also launched five missiles and 76 airstrikes against Ukraine, according to Kyiv. Moscow has maintained a campaign of missile, drone and artillery strikes on the country since the Kremlin began its invasion effort.

    But as the tougher, muddier and freezing winter conditions influence battlefield tactics, Russia is expected to launch a renewed campaign of missile strikes against Ukrainian targets, including on the country’s energy infrastructure.

    “As winter approaches, there will be more Russian attempts to make the strikes more powerful,” Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in his daily evening address on Saturday. “It is crucial for all of us in Ukraine to be 100 percent effective,” he added.

    More than 150 Ukrainian settlements in the north, east and south of the country came under artillery fire over the past day, Kyiv said on Sunday.

    Fighting is continuing around the embattled Donetsk town of Avdiivka, the Ukrainian military also said. “Our warriors are steadily holding the defense, causing the enemy significant losses,” the General Staff continued.

    In its daily update, Russia did not mention the fortified, but hard-hit town that has spent months on the front lines, but said its southern grouping of forces had stopped six Ukrainian attacks around the Donetsk town Marinka and the villages of Klishchiivka and Shumy.

    Kyiv’s fighters recorded 22 attacks around Marinka, Ukraine said.

    More than 100 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and three armored vehicles were destroyed in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said. The Kremlin has annexed the region, but this is not internationally recognized and it does not control the entirety of territory. The southern swathe of Ukraine has also seen some of the heaviest fighting of Kyiv’s counteroffensive, which began in early June.