Editor’s Note: Marion Messmer is a senior research fellow in the International Security Programme at think tank Chatham House. Her focus is on arms control, nuclear weapons policy issues and Russia-NATO relations. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.
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Easy to miss in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech to parliament last week was a glancing reference to the possibility of Russia resuming nuclear testing.
In a surprise move, Putin said that Russia was ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the US conducted one first.
It would signify a further step towards escalation in Ukraine by demonstrating Russia’s intent to use nuclear weapons and could begin another, more devastating, nuclear arms race.
Neither Russia nor the US have conducted a nuclear weapons test since the early 1990s – soon after that, they negotiated the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva – and although both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in 1998, only North Korea has continued to test nuclear warheads since.
If Russia were to resume tests, other nuclear armed states might follow. North Korea would certainly take this as carte blanche for further tests and there would be concern in the US about potentially falling behind Russia in the development of new nuclear capabilities. All potentially leading to a new arms racing dynamic.
The US has no reason or intention to resume such tests. But by inserting this into his ‘State of the Nation’ speech, Putin appears to be creating a false narrative that the US is working towards a nuclear weapons test to justify Russia breaking the CTBT and once again conducting its own tests.
Indeed, the Russian news agency TASS reported in early February, days before Putin’s speech, that the Novaya Zemlya nuclear test site is ready to resume if needed.
Firstly, as a signal of intent to ride roughshod over all nuclear agreements, demonstrating its capability and resolve – domestically and internationally – to use nuclear weapons.
Neither reason is comforting. A Russian nuclear weapons test would shatter several decades of international agreements and any sense of certainty in non-proliferation efforts. The CTBT underpins the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by creating a credible premise that states will reduce their nuclear arsenals over time rather than continuing to expand.
It would foment concerns in other nuclear-armed states that Russia can gain valuable insights from test data which they are currently missing out on.
This could lead to more states testing as they modernize their arsenals. In the US, some political figures would be likely to call for nuclear weapons tests, not wanting to be outdone by Russia or fall behind. A new nuclear arms race would emerge with several nuclear powers competing, amid few remaining treaty constraints.
By abandoning the CTBT and expanding its nuclear arsenals, Russia and any other states joining in a new series of tests would seriously damage the NPT. It is hard to see how it could recover from such a drastic departure of its central promise – that the five Nuclear-Weapon States will reduce their reliance on nuclear weapons – resulting in complete and irreversible disarmament.
It would also increase the potential of other states pursuing nuclear weapons again. South Korea has already hinted several times this year at investing in a nuclear program if the threat from North Korea does not diminish. A return to a global nuclear arms race may push them over the edge.
Nuclear testing could also be read as a signal of further escalation, demonstrating Russia’s resolve to use nuclear weapons in war or an escalation of the conflict between Russia and NATO. It would mean a step change from Putin’s rhetorical threats, to a dangerous reality which could easily spin out of control.
A Russian nuclear weapons test would not come out of the blue. Intelligence services would be able to see preparations ahead of time. The US and the UK have been sharing regular defense intelligence updates since before the invasion of Ukraine, to signal to Russia that its motives are transparent and to help allies coordinate. They could use this same mechanism to draw attention to an upcoming test and to try to prevent it.
In such an event, the international community should work together to impress upon Russia its seriousness and coherence against a nuclear weapons test.
The response should be to immediately increase sanctions until Russia reverses any test preparations. The European Union should act more quickly on sanctions than it has previously. Knowing the risks, other states who so far have avoided taking a position might switch and join the transatlantic pressure on Russia.
China and India have a key role to play. So far, they have taken an ambivalent stance on Ukraine, abstaining on UN votes and refusing to condemn Russia outwardly. However, they have criticized its nuclear threats.
China has shown that it is not comfortable with such nuclear brinksmanship and equally does not want to see Russia or the US investing in expansion and development of their arsenals. Seeing such test preparations could see China threaten to withdraw its political and economic support for Russia, which would be a heavy blow to Putin’s military ambitions.
By conducting a nuclear weapons test, Putin may well want to frighten Western states into no longer supporting Ukraine. However, it is far more likely that NATO member-states, worried about escalation, would simply double down on their support.
There are no good options in this scenario: a conventional response from NATO might also be an escalation. A change in nuclear alert levels would send a strong signal to Russia but could also provoke further escalation.
A new nuclear arms race would look different from that of the Cold War. It would no longer be largely a race between Russia and the US and would certainly include China – and have other regional nuclear dynamics implications.
In case of a Russian nuclear test, all other nuclear-armed states (with the exception of North Korea which would be unlikely to join) would need to stand together against nuclear testing and work to bring Russia back into compliance.
History has several examples where the world came close to a devastating nuclear war and was saved by good fortune. Relying on good luck is not a great strategy, especially in such a complex and tense situation.
Adding an increasingly isolated Russia, with a president who makes decisions without the potentially tempering input of other senior officials, is a set up for disaster.
Bangladesh’s foreign minister said companies making “runaway profit” from the war in Ukraine should compensate affected, less developed nations.
“In this war, some companies are making runaway profit… energy companies and the defense companies,” AK Abdul Momen told CNBC’s Tanvir Gill on the sidelines of the G-20 foreign ministers summit in New Delhi.
“Therefore, we will argue that those companies that are making runaway profit, they should dedicate at least 20% of the profit to those countries that are most affected like us,” he added, without naming specific companies.
His comments come a little over a year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The World Bank estimated Ukraine’s economy shrank by as much as 35% in the past year.
The war has also had major global economic ramifications, especially for countries like Bangladesh which imports most of its energy. The foreign minister said about 95% of the country’s energy is imported.
“Naturally, we buy energy from abroad. The cost of energy has shot up, resulting in high inflation. We are trying to control the inflation by providing subsidies and it is costing the government,” said Momen.
“Therefore, we want the end of the war. We believe in peaceful negotiations.”
The foreign minister further noted the G-20 countries should make this compensation “mandatory.”
“This is the G-20 leaders — they’re the leaders of the world … If I ask, they will not give a damn to it,” said Momen. “But G-20 leaders, they can make it mandatory for all those companies to pay a proportion of their runaway profit to the most affected countries.”
Last year, a United Nations report highlighted the fallout from Ukraine’s war could dramatically worsen the economic outlook for developing countries already grappling with debt financing related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Rising commodity prices and trade disruptions are exacerbating inflationary pressures and dampened growth expectations are weighing on the recovery from Covid-19, with severe implications for some of the poorest and most vulnerable countries,” said the report.
“For many developing countries already at high risk of debt distress, the spillover effects of the war may further worsen debt vulnerabilities due to the increasing balance-of-payments and fiscal pressures,” the UN said.
In late January, Bangladesh secured $4.7 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund to help cushion the blow of a looming financial crisis.
It will get $3.3 billion under the IMF’s extended credit facility and related arrangements, with an immediate disbursement of about $476 million. The IMF executive board also approved $1.4 billion under its newly created resilience and sustainability facility for climate investments for Bangladesh, making it the first Asian country to access it.
“Bangladesh’s robust economic recovery from the pandemic has been interrupted by Russia’s war in Ukraine, leading to a sharp widening of Bangladesh’s current account deficit, depreciation of the Taka and a decline in foreign exchange reserves,” the IMF said in a statement.
Bangladesh’s foreign minister also said food security is another problem the country is struggling with that the G-20 leaders need to tackle. He was also critical of the Western sanctions imposed on Russia, saying the measures are hurting the developing countries the most.
“We are really upset also because this war …. has broken the supply chain as well as financial transition mechanism. And these are hurting us, it’s hurting the poor developing countries a lot,” said Momen.
“Next time, when they come up with the sanctions and counter sanctions they should at least consult with people like us — the developing countries — to get some idea as how much it will hurt them. And should create a mechanism so that the countries that would be hurt- that they should be compensated with.”
Russia has been pummelling key infrastructure facilities in Ukraine with missiles and drones for months, disrupting millions of people’s water, heating and electricity supplies.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised Ukrainians for surviving a winter marked by systematic Russian attacks on energy facilities, which plunged millions into darkness and cold.
“We have overcome this winter. It was a very difficult period, and every Ukrainian experienced this difficulty, but we were still able to provide Ukraine with power and heat,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address on Wednesday.
Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba hailed the first day of spring as another “major defeat” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
“We survived the most difficult winter in our history. It was cold and dark, but we were unbreakable,” Kuleba said in a statement.
Aid organisations had warned at the beginning of winter that the targeted campaign would force a new wave of migration to Europe and that Ukraine’s priority would be “survival” through the months of freezing temperatures.
The Kremlin said Kyiv was responsible for civilians’ suffering stemming from the enormous outages because it had refused to capitulate to Moscow’s war demands.
But the grid has been stabilising and Ukrainian energy provider Ukrenergo said on Wednesday there had been “no power deficit” for more than two weeks.
“Engineers are also continuing repairs at all power system facilities that were previously damaged by Russian missile and drone attacks,” it said.
The war in Ukraine has seen Europe shake its deep reliance on Russian oil and gas amid waves of sanctions aimed at stemming Moscow’s ability to fund its military through energy revenues.
“The EU also won, and contrary to Moscow’s laughter, it did not freeze without Russian gas. One piece of advice to Russia: choke on your gas and choke on your missiles,” Kuleba added in the statement.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko – a close ally of Vladimir Putin – vowed to deepen defense and security ties and expressed shared views on the war in Ukraine during a Wednesday meeting in Beijing, as geopolitical tensions around Russia’s war continue to rise.
Lukashenko endorsed China’s recent position on a “political solution” to the conflict, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry readout of the meeting, referring to a statement released by Beijing last week which called for peace talks to end the conflict, but did not push for a Russian withdrawal from Ukraine – drawing skepticism from Western leaders.
Both Xi and Lukashenko expressed “deep concern over the prolonged armed conflict” and looked forward to an “early return to peace in Ukraine,” according to a joint statement following their sit down in the Great Hall of the People, where Xi greeted Lukashenko in a ceremony alongside a phalanx of Chinese troops.
The visit from the Belarusian leader – who allowed Russian troops to use Belarus to stage their initial incursion into Ukraine last year – comes as tensions between the US and China have intensified in recent weeks, including over concerns from Washington that Beijing is considering sending lethal aid to the Kremlin’s struggling war effort.
Beijing has denied those claims and instead sought to portray itself as an impartial agent of peace – in contrast to the United States, who it has accused of “adding fuel to the fire” in the conflict and damaging the global economy with sanctions targeting Russia.
Speaking about the war in Wednesday’s meeting, Xi called for “relevant countries” to “stop politicizing and instrumentalizing the world economy” and act in a way to help “resolve the crisis peacefully,” in an apparent reference to the US and its allies.
The joint statement underscored the alignment between Minsk and Beijing when it comes to their opposition of what they see as a Western-led global order, with their joint statement including opposition to “all forms of hegemonism and power politics, including the imposition of illegal unilateral sanctions and restrictive measures against other countries.”
China and Belarus, which was also targeted in hefty Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion, would also bolster their cooperation across a range of economic areas, the statement said.
They also pledged to “deepen cooperation” on military personnel training, fighting terrorism, and “jointly preventing ‘color revolution’” – a reference to popular pro-democracy movements autocrats allege are backed by Western governments.
The meeting, which Chinese state media described as “warm and friendly,” was the leaders’ first face-to-face since upgrading ties to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last September in Uzbekistan, which Putin also attended.
“Today we will jointly set out new visions for the development of the bilateral ties … Our long-lasting friendly exchanges will keep our friendship unbreakable,” Xi told Lukashenko during the meeting, according to Chinese state media. He also endorsed Belarus in becoming a full member of the China and Russia-led SCO, where it is currently an observer state.
Speaking the same day from Uzbekistan, which is also a SCO member, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China “can’t have it both ways,” by “putting itself out as a force for peace in public,” while it continues to “fuel the flames of this fire that Vladimir Putin started.”
Blinken said that there are “some positive elements” of China’s peace proposal but accused China of doing the opposite of supporting peace in Ukraine “in terms of its efforts to advance Russian propaganda and misinformation about the war blocking and tackling for Russia.”
He also repeated Western concerns that China is considering providing Russia with lethal aid and later said he had no plans to meet with Russian or Chinese counterparts at a G20 meeting for foreign ministers scheduled to take place in New Delhi in India on March 2.
The tightening of ties between Minsk and Beijing also comes alongside a years-long decline in Belarus’ relations with the West.
The former Soviet state was targeted by sweeping sanctions from the US and its allies in response to Moscow’s aggression after Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to invade Ukraine through the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) Ukrainian-Belarusian border north of Kyiv.
The European Union also does not recognize the results of Lukashenko’s 2020 election win – which sparked mass pro-democracy protests in the country and were followed by a brutal government crackdown. The US has also called the election “fraudulent.”
There have been fears throughout the conflict in Ukraine that Belarus will again be used as a launching ground for another Russian offensive, or that Lukashenko’s own troops would join the war. Before visiting Moscow earlier this month, Lukashenko claimed there is “no way” his country would send troops into Ukraine unless it is attacked.
Like China, Belarus has previously implied that the US does not want to see an end to the conflict.
In comments to reporters earlier this month before heading to Moscow to meet with Putin, Lukashenko maintained he wanted to see “peaceful negotiations” and accused the United States of preventing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from negotiating.
“The US are the only ones who need this slaughter, only they want it,” he said.
Sergiy Korsunsky speaking to the media at the Ukrainian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey on April 22, 2014.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
SINGAPORE — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will likely visit Ukraine’s capital before the G-7 Hiroshima Summit, Ukraine’s ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky told CNBC.
The envoy’s comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended a virtual G-7 leaders’ meeting Friday on Kishida’s invitation as the world marked one year of the war in Ukraine.
When CNBC asked if the ambassador sees Kishida visiting before Japan hosts the summit in May, Korsunsky answered, “for sure,” without elaborating further on the timeline of the potential trip.
“He understands fully that G-7 chair[‘s] responsibility is to go to visit Ukraine before [the] summit in Hiroshima,” Korsunsky said, adding that it is a matter of “when and how.”
Kishida’s office did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
“From my discussions with the political leaders around Kishida[‘s trip], in the parliament and the government, he is very much willing to go,” he said. “They will result, I’m sure in the best possible manner as soon as possible,” he said.
Following U.S. President Joe Biden’s surprise visit, Kishida is the only leader left among the Group of Seven who has not visited Ukraine since Russia invaded last year.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have all visited.
“We want this to happen as soon as possible,” said Korsunsky, adding he cannot make details surrounding the discussions of the trip public.
European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky and European Council President Charles Michel pictured at a Special European council summit, in Brussels, Thursday 09 February 2023.
Nicolas Maeterlinck | AFP | Getty Images
He emphasized logistical issues remain one of the top concerns of a potential trip by Kishida to Ukraine.
The ambassador said security concerns are also a priority in disucssions about Zelenskyy’s potential visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima, home to the site of the world’s first atomic bombing.
If extended an invite from G-7 nations, the ambassador said Zelenskyy would “carefully consider this opportunity, taking into account … issues of logistics and security.”
He added Zelenskyy would have to consider “possible provocations” before making the trip.
“To fly to Japan is different than to fly to the United States. When you fly in the west direction, you fly over friendly territory,” he said. “If you fly into the East, you have to carefully consider every possible provocations,” he said.
Korsunsky noted a potential trip by Zelenskyy to Hiroshima would carry symbolic significance given that Ukraine faces “credible threats” similar to that of the atomic bombings on Japan during World War II.
“Japan experienced as well nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that’s a threat which now exists, with a credible threat against Ukraine,” he said.
“If President Zelenskyy personally will attend summit in Hiroshima, that will be an extremely powerful message to the world, about the intentions of the G-7 to fight against nuclear terrorists in any form,” he said.
When asked about U.S. fears that China could provide lethal weapons to Russia, Korsunsky said, “China must understand this is a red line which cannot be crossed.”
“You shouldn’t open Pandora’s box with nuclear friends,” he said. “I want to hope that China will change its attitude once the clear picture of atrocities committed by Russia becomes more clear,” he said.
The ambassador however remained skeptical of such plans leading to tangible actions.
“Even if such discussions are happening somewhere in Beijing’s political circles, I believe they will go nowhere,” he said.
To mark one year since the start of the war in Ukraine, CBS News camera operative Abdi Cadani, producer Justine Redman and correspondent Charlie D’Agata recount the opening moments of the war and explain those first moments of conflict.
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Kherson, Ukraine, was the only regional capital captured by Russian forces. They held the city until November and now terrorize it with artillery attacks from positions nearby.
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One year ago, when Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine and began Europe’s biggest land war since 1945, it waged another battle at home – intensifying its information blockade in an effort to control the hearts and minds of its own citizens.
Draconian new censorship laws targeted any media still operating outside the controls of the Kremlin and most independent journalists left the country. A digital Iron Curtain was reinforced, shutting Russians off from Western news and social media sites.
And as authorities rounded up thousands in a crackdown on anti-war protests, a culture of fear descended on Russian cities and towns that prevents many people from sharing their true thoughts on the war in public.
One year on, that grip on information remains tight – and support for the conflict seemingly high – but cracks have started to show.
Some Russians are tuning out the relentless jingoism on Kremlin-backed airwaves. Tech-savvy internet users skirt state restrictions to access dispatches and pictures from the frontlines. And, as Russia turns to mobilization to boost its stuttering campaign, it is struggling to contain the personal impact that one year of war is having on its citizens.
“In the beginning I was supporting it,” Natalya, a 53-year-old Moscow resident, told CNN of what the Kremlin and most Russians euphemistically call a “special military operation.” “But now I am completely against it.”
“What made me change my opinion?,” she contemplated aloud. “First, my son is of mobilization age, and I fear for him. And secondly, I have very many friends there, in Ukraine, and I talk to them. That is why I am against it.”
CNN is not using the full names of individuals who were critical of the Kremlin. Public criticism of the war in Ukraine or statements that discredit Russia’s military can potentially mean a fine or a prison sentence.
For Natalya and many of her compatriots, the endless, personal grind of war casts Russian propaganda in a different light. And for those hoping to push the tide of public opinion against Putin, that creates an opening.
“I do not trust our TV,” she said. “I cannot be certain they are not telling the truth, I just don’t know.
“But I have my doubts,” she added. “I think, probably, they’re not.”
Natalya is not the only Russian to turn against the conflict, but she appears to be in the minority.
Gauging public opinion is notoriously difficult in a country where independent pollsters are targeted by the government, and many of the 146 million citizens are reluctant to publicly condemn President Vladimir Putin. But according to the Levada Center, a non-governmental polling organization, support dipped by only 6% among Russians from March to November last year, to 74%.
In many respects, that is unsurprising. There is little room for dissenting voices on Russian airwaves; the propaganda beamed from state-controlled TV stations since the onset of war has at times attracted derision around the world, so overblown are their more fanatical presenters and pundits.
In the days leading up to Friday’s one-year anniversary of war – according to BBC Monitoring’s Francis Scarr, who analyzes Russian media daily – a Russian MP told audiences on state-owned TV channel Russia-1 that “if Kyiv needs to lie in ruins for our flag to fly above it, then so be it!”; radio presenter Sergey Mardan proclaimed: “There’s only one peace formula for Ukraine: the liquidation of Ukraine as a state.”
And, in a farfetched statement that encapsulates the alternate reality in state TV channels exist, another pro-Russian former lawmaker claimed of Moscow’s war progress: “Everything is going to plan and everything is under control.”
Such programming typically appeals to a select group of older, more conservative Russians who pine for the days of the Soviet Union – though its reach spans generations, and it has claimed some converts.
“My opinion on Ukraine has changed,” said Ekaterina, 37, who turns to popular Russian news program “60 Minutes” after getting home from work. “At first my feelings were: what is the point of this war? Why did they take the decision to start it? It makes the lives of the people here in Russia much worse!”
The conflict has taken a personal toll on her. “My life has deteriorated a lot in this year. Thankfully, no one close to me has been mobilized. But I lost my job. And I see radical changes around me everywhere,” she said.
And yet, Ekaterina’s initial opposition to the invasion has disappeared. “I arrived at the understanding that this special military operation was inevitable,” she said. “It would have come to this no matter what. And had we not acted first, war would have been unleashed against us,” she added, mirroring the false claims of victimhood at the hands of the West that state media relentlessly communicate.
Reversals like hers will be welcomed in the Kremlin as vindication of their notorious and draconian grip on media reporting.
“I trust the news there completely. Yes, they all belong to the state, (but) why should I not trust them?” Yuliya, a 40-year-old HR director at a marketing firm, told CNN. “I think (the war) is succeeding. Perhaps it is taking longer than one could wish for. But I think it is successful,” said Yuliya, who said her main source of news is the state-owned Channel One.
Around two-thirds of Russians rely primarily on television for their news, according to the Levada Center, a higher proportion than in most Western countries.
But the sentiment of Yuliya and Ekaterina is far from universal. Even among those who generally support the war, Kremlin-controlled TV remains far removed from the reality many Russians live in.
“Everything I hear on state channels I split in half. I don’t trust anyone (entirely),” 55-year-old accountant Tatyana said. “One needs to analyze everything … because certain things they are omitting, (or) not saying,” said Leonid, a 58-year-old engineer.
Several people whom CNN spoke with in Moscow this month relayed similar feelings, stressing that they engaged with state-controlled TV but treated it with skepticism. And many reach different views on Ukraine.
“I think you can trust them all only to an extent. The state channels sometimes reflect the truth, but on other occasions they say things just to calm people down,” 20-year-old Daniil said.
Vocal minorities on each side of the conflict exist in Russia, and some have cut off friendships or left the country as a result. But sociologists tracking Russian opinion say most people in the country fall between those two extremes.
“Quite often we are only talking about these high numbers of support (for the war),” Denis Volkov, the director of the Moscow-based Levada Center, said. “But it’s not that all these people are happy about it. They support their side, (but) would rather have it finished and fighting stopped.”
This group of people tends to pay less attention to the war, according to Natalia Savelyeva, a Future Russia Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) who has interviewed hundreds of Russians since the invasion to trace the levels of public support for the conflict. “We call them ‘doubters,’” she said.
“A lot of doubters don’t go very deep into the news … many of them don’t believe that Russian soldiers kill Ukrainians – they repeat this narrative they see on TV,” she said.
The center ground also includes many Russians who have developed concerns about the war. But if the Kremlin cannot expect all-out support across its populace, sociologists say it can at least rely on apathy.
“I try to avoid watching news on the special military operation because I start feeling bad about what’s going on,” Natalya added. “So I don’t watch.”
She is far from alone. “The major attitude is not to watch (the news) closely, not to discuss it with colleagues or friends. Because what can you do about it?” said Volkov. “Whatever you say, whatever you want, the government will do what they want.”
That feeling of futility means anti-war protests in Russia are rare and noteworthy, a social contract that suits the Kremlin. “People don’t want to go and protest; first, because it might be dangerous, and second, because they see it as a futile enterprise,” Volkov said.
“What are we supposed to do? Our opinion means diddly squat,” a woman told CNN in Moscow in January, anonymously discussing the conflict.
The bulk of the population typically disengages instead. “In general, those people try to distance themselves from what’s going on,” Savelyeva added. “They try to live their lives as though nothing is happening.”
And a culture of silence – re-enforced by heavy-handed authorities – keeps many from sharing skepticism about the conflict. A married couple in the southwestern Russian city of Krasnodar were reportedly arrested in January for professing anti-war sentiments during a private conversation in a restaurant, according to the independent Russian monitoring group OVD-Info.
“I do have an opinion about the special military operation … it remains the same to this day,” Anna told CNN in Moscow. “I can’t tell you which side I support. I am for truth and justice. Let’s leave it like that,” she said.
Keeping the war at arm’s length has, however, become more difficult over the course of the past year. Putin’s chaotic partial mobilization order and Russia’s increasing economic isolation has brought the conflict to the homes of Russians, and communication with friends and relatives in Ukraine often paint a different picture of the war than that reported by state media.
“I have felt anxious ever since this began. It’s affecting (the) availability of products and prices,” a woman who asked to remain anonymous told CNN last month. “There is a lack of public information. People should be explained things. Everyone is listening to Soloviev,” she said, referring to prominent propagandist Vladimir Soloviev.
“It would be good if the experts started expressing their real opinions instead of obeying orders, from the government and Putin,” the woman said.
A film student, who said she hadn’t heard from a friend for two months following his mobilization, added: “I don’t know what’s happened to him. It would be nice if he just responded and said ‘OK, I’m alive.’”
“I just wish this special military operation never started in the first place – this war – and that human life was really valued,” she said.
For those working to break through the Kremlin’s information blockade, Russia’s quiet majority is a key target.
Most Russians see on state media a “perverted picture of Russia battling the possible invasion of their own territory – they don’t see their compatriots dying,” said Kiryl Sukhotski, who oversees Russian-language content at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the US Congress-funded media outlet that broadcasts in countries where information is controlled by state authorities.
“That’s where we come in,” Sukhotski said.
The outlet is one of the most influential platforms bringing uncensored scenes from the Ukrainian frontlines into Russian-speaking homes, primarily through digital platforms still allowed by the Kremlin including YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
And interest has surged throughout the war, the network says. “We saw traffic spikes after the mobilization, and after the Ukrainian counter-offensives, because people started to understand what (the war) means for their own communities and they couldn’t get it from local media.”
Current Time, its 24/7 TV and digital network for Russians, saw a two-and-a-half-fold increase in Facebook views, and more than a three-fold rise in YouTube views, in the 10 months following the invasion, RFE/RL told CNN. Last year, QR codes which directed smartphone users to the outlet’s website started popping up in Russian cities, which RFE/RL believed were stuck on lampposts and street signs by anti-war citizens.
But independent outlets face a challenge reaching beyond internet natives, who tend to be younger and living in cities, and penetrating the media diet of older, poorer and rural Russians, who are typically more conservative and supportive of the war.
“We need to get to the wider audience in Russia,” Sukhotski said. “We see a lot of people indoctrinated by Russian state propaganda … it will be an uphill battle but this is where we shape our strategy.”
Reaching Russians at all has not been easy. Most of RFE/RL’s Russia-based staff made a frantic exit from the country after the invasion, following the Kremlin’s crackdown on independent outlets last year, relocating to the network’s headquarters in Prague.
The same fate befell outlets like BBC Russia and Latvia-based Meduza, which were also targeted by the state.
A new law made it a crime to disseminate “fake” information about the invasion of Ukraine – a definition decided at the whim of the Kremlin – with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted. This month, a Russian court sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison for a Telegram post that the court said spread supposedly “false information” about a Russian airstrike on a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, that killed hundreds, state news agency TASS reported.
“All our staff understand they can’t go back to Russia,” Sukhotski told CNN. “They still have families there. They still have ailing parents there. We have people who were not able to go to their parents’ funerals in the past year.”
His staff are “still coming to terms with that,” Sukhotski admitted. “They are Russian patriots and they wish Russia well … they see how they can help.”
Outlets like RFE/RL have openings across the digital landscape, in spite of Russia’s move to ban Twitter, Facebook and other Western platforms last year.
About a quarter of Russians use VPN services to access blocked sites, according to a Levada Center poll carried out two months after Russia’s invasion.
Searches for such services on Google spiked to record levels in Russia following the invasion, and have remained at their highest rates in over a decade ever since, the search engine’s tracking data shows.
YouTube meanwhile remains one of the few major global sites still accessible, thanks to its huge popularity in Russia and its value in spreading Kremlin propaganda videos.
“YouTube became the television substitute for Russia … the Kremlin fear that if they don’t have YouTube, they won’t be able to control the flow of information to (younger people),” Sukhotski said.
And that allows censored organizations a way in. “I watch YouTube. I watch everything there – I mean everything,” one Moscow resident who passionately opposes the war told CNN, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “These federal channels I never watch,” she said. “I don’t trust a word they say. They lie all the time! You’ve just got to switch on your logic, compare some information and you will see that it’s all a lie.”
Telegram, meanwhile, has spiked in popularity since the war began, becoming a public square for military bloggers to analyze each day on the battlefield.
At first, that analysis tended to mirror the Kremlin’s line. But “starting around September, when Ukraine launched their successful counter-offensives, everything started falling apart,” said Olga Lautman, a US-based Senior Fellow at CEPA who studies the Kremlin’s internal affairs and propaganda tactics. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.
Scores of hawkish bloggers, some of whom boast hundreds of thousands of followers, have strayed angrily from the Kremlin’s line in recent months, lambasting its military tactics and publicly losing faith in the armed forces’ high command.
This month, a debacle in Vuhledar that saw Russian tanks veer wildly into minefields became the latest episode to expose those fissures. The former Defense Minister of the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor Girkin, sometimes known by his nom de guerre Igor Strelkov – now a a strident critic of the campaign – said Russian troops “were shot like turkeys at a shooting range.” In another post, he called Russian forces “morons.” Several Russian commentators called for the dismissal of Lieutenant General Rustam Muradov, the commander of the Eastern Grouping of Forces.
“This public fighting is spilling over,” Lautman told CNN. “Russia has lost control of the narrative … it has normally relied on having a smooth propaganda machine and that no longer exists.”
One year into an invasion that most Russians initially thought would last days, creaks in the Kremlin’s control of information are showing.
The impact of those fractures remains unclear. For now, Putin can rely on a citizenry that is generally either supportive of the conflict or too fatigued to proclaim its opposition.
But some onlookers believe the pendulum of public opinion is slowly swinging away from the Kremlin.
“One family doesn’t know of another family who hasn’t suffered a loss in Ukraine,” Lautman said. “Russians do support the conflict because they do have an imperialistic ambition. But now it is knocking on their door, and you’re starting to see a shift.”
Whatever your view of the U.S. decision to end America’s longest war and withdraw troops from Afghanistan, that country’s fall to the Taliban in August of 2021 has unquestionably plunged that nation once again into a deep crisis. Millions are facing famine, and the economy is in shambles. Those suffering the most are Afghan women and girls. The Taliban has closed girls’ schools beyond 6th grade and, just recently, barred women from universities. That means that girls are banned from anything beyond a grade-school education.
Tonight, though, we’re going to tell you a story of hope. About a group of Afghan girls who are in school. They’re at a school called SOLA, the Afghan word for peace and also short for School of Leadership Afghanistan. It was started by a young Afghan woman named Shabana Basij-Rasikh, who knows firsthand the power of an education. And though they had to flee Afghanistan in a harrowing escape, we found the girls of SOLA back in the classroom, half a world away.
These are the busy streets of Kigali, Rwanda — a land-locked African nation that was once the site of a horrific genocide that killed nearly a million and left 2 million refugees. Rwanda is now at peace, and has become an unlikely place of refuge for the last year and a half to the girls of SOLA. And they seem to be settling in.
The evening we arrived at SOLA’s temporary campus here. The 6th and 7th grades were holding a geography competition. Classes here are taught in English. The girls were racing to identify nearly 200 countries all around the globe. They’re wearing masks not to protect against COVID, but to hide their identities to protect their families still in Afghanistan. Zahra’s family has left the country, so she can show her face. Suraya’s and Najia’s are still there.
Zahra, Suraya and Najia
Lesley Stahl: You knew every country in the world.
Girls: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: You like contests?
Girls: Yes. [LAUGH]
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: They’re so passionate. They’re so active. They’re so eager. They’re so interested.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh is SOLA’s founder and single-minded leader.
At 32, and just over 5 feet tall, Shabana started creating SOLA when she was still a student herself. Her story — and her commitment to educating girls — goes back to 1996, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban the first time. She was 6 years old and all girls’ schools were closed. But Shabana’s parents, a former general and an educator, refused to keep their daughters locked up at home. They heard about a secret school run out of a former principal’s living room and saw an opportunity, despite the danger, for Shabana and her older sister to be educated.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: The Taliban did not allow women to go outside alone. So my parents dressed me up as a boy so that I could accompany my sister to and from that secret school.
Lesley Stahl: Whoa–
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: That was the best way that both of us could receive an education.
Lesley Stahl: Oh my God, so they dressed you as a boy–
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: My mom cut– cut my hair. I wore boys’ clothes.
Lesley Stahl: Pants.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Pants and t-shirt, and yeah, buzz cut.
And the family carefully mapped out their routes.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: You know, you take different streets every day so you don’t create a routine. The same shopkeeper at a certain– convenience store should not notice you every day.
Lesley Stahl: So you were always afraid, or they were always afraid, you’d get caught.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: They never knew when or if we would return home.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh
But even after a close call where Shabana and her sister were followed and begged their parents to stop sending them to school, her mom and dad said no.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: They told us things like, “You could be forced to leave your home. You could be forced to become a refugee. You could lose any material possessions that you have. But the one thing that can never be taken away from you is your education.”
When the Taliban fell after the U.S. invasion in 2001, Shabana went to a real school for the first time, and she excelled, winning a place in a State Department program to spend a year of high school in the U.S.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: I was randomly placed with this lovely host family in Wisconsin– where I gained 40 pounds. [LAUGH]
But that wasn’t the only way the year changed her.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: What struck me the most, was living in a society for the first time in my life where girls had no concerns whatsoever that their freedom to attend school could be taken away from them any time, which is something that every single Afghan girl who’s lucky enough to go to school lives with, and you can’t blame them, can you?
Lesley Stahl: No, I can’t because Afghanistan is the only country in the world that won’t let girls go to school.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Yeah, so um– [SIGHS, TEARS UP]
Lesley Stahl: Why are you tearing up? That Afghanistan’s the only country?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: [NODS, TEAR RUNS DOWN HER FACE]
Shabana’s commitment to her homeland runs deep. When she got a scholarship to attend Middlebury College in Vermont, she started working not on building a great life for herself in the U.S., but what she could do for Afghanistan. Her answer, start a school — and by the time she graduated in 2011, an early version of SOLA was already up and running in Kabul.
Fatima: I heard that it’s different. It’s a leadership program.
Fatima was an early SOLA student.
Lesley Stahl: You were encouraged to speak up?
Fatima: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: You liked that?
Fatima: Yeah, yeah. (LAUGHTER)
Aydin: I was, like, “Wow.” I– I thought, like, it’s– it’s such an awesome school..
Fatima
Fatima’s two younger sisters, Aydin and Sajia, took notice. Sajia got in next.
Aydin: And I was, like, “Well, next year it’s my turn. [LAUGH]
Aydin remembers trying to impress Shabana, the school’s founder, in her interview.
Aydin: I was, like, reading a lot of books, and I was writing their summaries down. And I was, like, “You know what? I should take this and show her like I’m a smart kid, you should accept me here.” [LAUGH]
It worked. Aydin started as a 6th grader in 2016, the year SOLA expanded to become a full-fledged 6-12th grade girls boarding school — the only one in afghanistan, funded as a U.S. nonprofit through grants and donations. There were daily assemblies, and the school’s own special pledge of allegiance.
Aydin: “We all are Afghans, we love Afghanistan, we will try our best and work hard to improve this beautiful country.”
Shabana’s goal was both to educate her students. And serve the nation by training a generation of leaders from Afghanistan’s various regions and religious sects.
Aydin: My roommate was Shia, and I was Sunni. And it was my first time to talk to a Shia girl. And it was so interesting to hear from her.
Aydin and Sajia
Lesley Stahl: Do you deliberately want the children of conservative families?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: We certainly create an environment in which even the most conservative families in Afghanistan would feel comfortable sending their daughters.
Lesley Stahl: Do they?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: They do.
Lesley Stahl: Do you teach the Quran?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: We do. For these young women to be effective leaders of Afghanistan, they have to be great Muslims, great Afghans, and highly educated.
At the start of 2021, SOLA was thriving. Shabana had secured land in Kabul and construction was underway on a new campus. There were a record number of applications, with students enrolled from all over the country. And SOLA graduates were doing just what Shabana had envisioned. Fatima had finished college and was working at the Afghan Ministry of Finance.
Fatima: I was a professional woman. I was contributing. I also had all my friends who were educated women and men as well.
Lesley Stahl: So there was a little community.
Fatima: Yes.
But the Trump administration had been negotiating with a newly emboldened Taliban, promising a withdrawal of U.S. troops. And then in April of 2021, President Biden announced an unconditional exit.
President Biden address: I’ve concluded that it’s time to end America’s longest war. It’s time for American troops to come home.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: I knew then that it was a matter of time before it was going to be irresponsible of me to run an all-girls boarding school in Kabul.
She came up with the idea of taking the whole SOLA community — students and staff — abroad for a semester while the American withdrawal played out. So she started searching for a country, ideally one nearby, that would accept them. But the warmest response she got by far was from Rwanda, and she grabbed it.
Lesley Stahl: You were gonna go to a place called Rwanda–
Aydin: Rwanda–
Lesley Stahl: Did you know anything?
Aydin: We all went and searched, and then we found out that it was in Africa, and I was, like, “Wow. [LAUGH] Oh my God, I’m so excited.” [SMILE]
Some of SOLA’s alums, including Sajia and Fatima, were asked to come as well.
Lesley Stahl: So was the idea at that moment that you were escaping and that you weren’t gonna come back for a while?
Sajia: No. The idea was that the security is getting worse. We would leave for– for a, you know, semester. And then if the security gets better, we would come back. If not, we would stay there for a year or more.
Lesley Stahl: What was the atmosphere in Kabul at that point?
Sajia: The provinces were, you know, falling one after another, but then we were not hoping for Kabul to fall this soon.
The U.S. government wasn’t expecting Kabul to fall soon either. As American soldiers prepared for an anounced end-of-August departure, SOLA brought in passport officials on August 14th to process the girls’ paperwork for flights a few days later. They worked into the night, but unbeknownst to all of them, it was too late. The Taliban were closing in and would enter Kabul in just a few hours.
Aydin: It was 5:00 a.m. in the morning when I– got a knock on my door.
Najia: One of my teachers came and said that, “You guys have to leave SOLA in five minutes.” And I said that, “Why?” And she said, “If the Taliban come, they will know that here is a school, and they will kill all of us.”
Suraya: All of the girls was shouting, and all– all of us crying, “What should we do?” Taliban came to the Kabul and took all of Kabul.
In the chaos of the Taliban takeover and government collapse, SOLA quickly sent students home with teachers and staff. Shabana scrambled to transform what was to be an orderly departure into a sudden, life-threatening escape. But first, she had to keep a promise, one she’d made years earlier to a student’s father.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: He said, “Promise me, when the Taliban come to Kabul, that you will burn my daughter’s records. If they find out that she’s a student here, they will kill me and my family.”
So Shabana did something heartbreaking. Set fire, in the school’s furnace and courtyard, to the hard-earned records of all of SOLA’s students.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: It was incredibly painful. It felt like making them disappear.
Most of us remember the desperate, frantic crowds trying to get out of Kabul after the Taliban takeover in August, 2021. Among them were the students, teachers, staff and staff families of SOLA — 256 people in all. SOLA’s founder, Shabana Basij-Rasik, managed to get all of them on U.S.-approved lists to leave the country, but getting them into the airport was another matter altogether. There were a series of Taliban checkpoints, so arriving together as a girls’ school was out of the question. SOLA divided the students into groups, with many posing as the children of staff members. The call went out for all the groups to head to the airport on the morning of August 17th.
The previous day had been chaos. People had been clinging to airplanes, and crowds had descended on the airport. Sisters Fatima, Sajia, and Aydin prepared to go there together.
Fatima: We had our masks, we made sure our scarfs are put tightly, and we were wearing very long dresses.
Sajia: When we left, my mom was telling us that, “Make sure that you don’t do eye contact with– with Talibs. So we were just really scared. And then I was just, like.. [LOOKS DOWN]
Lesley Stahl: If I look down, they won’t look at me.
Sajia: Yes.
Fatima: By the time we got closer to the airport, it was so crowded.
Aydin: The weather is hot, and I have this black scarf and black mask. And it’s suffocating.
Suraya: People was pushing each other and shouting. And all of the babies crying–
Zahra: I saw Taliban that they were– they were shooting the guns. And also the–
Lesley Stahl: They were shooting guns?
Zahra: Like, the bullets–
Suraya: –into the sky.
Najia: Someone took my scarf. It was in my head, and then someone… [GESTURES] And the Talib saw me, and I shouted, and I said that, “They will kill me now.”
As a teacher quickly handed Najia a scarf, Fatima and her sisters were being jostled by the crowd.
Fatima: Everybody was pushing and in a moment, I noticed that my sisters aren’t there.
Sajia: At one point, she was gone.
Lesley Stahl: So now it’s just the two of you?
Sajia: I remember sitting there and then crying. And I was, like, “Aydin, I don’t want to go. Can we just stop here? You know, let’s just go back.”
Lesley Stahl: Honestly, I understand. I– I probably would have done just what you did.
Sajia: It was a tragedy, you know, with women having, like, their very young kids. I was, like, “I just can’t take this anymore.”
Aydin: I really didn’t know what to do ’cause she was not listening to me, and then one of SOLA teachers, came and told her that, “You gotta stand up, go or stay here forever.” And then– I took her hand, and then we went.
The three sisters were among more than a hundred SOLA students and staff — including Shabana — who made it into the U.S. military-controlled airport to safety that day and were processed to leave on waiting jets. Shabana was told her name was on a taliban hit list, so she should get out right away with them. But all the other students and teachers were still stuck in the crowds outside. Shabana refused to go.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: I knew if I– if I left, it was game over. Those who were stuck at different checkpoints had no way of getting through.
Zahra: People were pushing us..
One of them was Zahra.
Zahra: Taliban was saying, “Sit,” and there was no place to sit.
Zahra’s group and others had to turn back, while Shabana spent a first sleepless night inside the airport. After two more days of waiting in these throngs, one last group of 52 was still stuck. Shabana asked a U.S. Marine captain to accompany her out of the safety of the airport and back to the Taliban checkpoint. Captain Nicholas Grey grabbed two members of his team and said, “let’s do this.”
Lesley Stahl: You were in the airport and went out–
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: –and then went back. This is what you do. You have 10-year-old girls, 11-year-old girls, 15-year-old girls stuck on the other side. You do anything you can, to get them to safety.
Suraya: And she shouted, “Suraya, Suraya, come this way.” And I pushed, I pushed, I pushed, and I get her hand, and–
Lesley Stahl: And she pulled you?
Suraya: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: Oh my goodness.
Evacuation from Afghanistan
These pictures were taken as the very last group of students and Shabana, after three days and two nights in that airport, boarded the military transport plane that would at last fly them away. She had managed to get everyone out — 256 people.
Lesley Stahl: You have to say to yourself, “I did it. It’s over. I got everybody out.”
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: It was finally having a moment to think about– Oh, my God, this is it.
Lesley Stahl: Oh.. oh my God this is it. So now you’re looking to the future
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: [TEARY] We’re leaving, you know? And– I was taking with me from Afghanistan some of the best educated girls, women leaders in the making. I felt so heartbroken for our people, for Afghanistan. I felt heartbroken for the very people who are leaving. They are some of the most wanted talent in Afghanistan. And as soon as they step outside of this airport, they are going to be seen as unwanted refugees wherever they end up.
Lesley Stahl: Hello.
Girls: Good morning.
But her students are having a completely different experience. In Rwanda, they have been welcomed.
Lesley Stahl: Good morning! How are you today?
We found them dressed in new school uniforms, since each of them had fled with just a backpack.
Lesley Stahl: I love what you’re wearing.
Girls: Thank you.
They’re hand sewn with rwandan patterns to honor their adopted home.
Lesley Stahl: You like it here?
Girls: Yes!
You wouldn’t know they’ve been away from their families for more than a year. SOLA’s temporary campus here feels like a haven. It’s a former hotel complex. Its restaurant now a dining hall, with classrooms converted from hotel suites.
Girls: Division!
They’re getting on with the business of learning, mastering math terms.
Girls: Numerator
In English.
Girls: Denominator.
SOLA students in Rwanda
With many of their Afghan teachers now resettled as refugees in other countries, SOLA has brought in new teachers from abroad.
Teacher: That was great. Good job.
Lesley Stahl: This is a school for leadership.
Girls: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: You think that you’ll become leaders?
Girls: Yeah.
Girl: Yes, of course.
Girl: I want to be a surgeon.
Girl: I want to help poor people in Afghanistan.
Girl: I want to be a politician woman.
Lesley Stahl: A politician?
Girl: Yeah.
Suraya wants to be an astronaut.
Suraya: Spacewoman.
And finally, from Zahra..
Zahra: I want to be a spy.
Lesley Stahl: A spy?
Zahra: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: [LAUGH] That came out of nowhere.
Lesley Stahl: How are the girls doing?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Our students, our girls have been consistently and remarkably focused. It is beyond inspiring to see these young girls who know they have no idea when they are going to be able to reunite with their families.
But though they’re more than 3,000 miles away, it is the 21st century. One of the most striking scenes we saw here was the daily hour, after classes end, when girls can call their families. Watching them scattered around the room is to feel the tremendous separation. But Shabana also sees the closeness.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Yesterday I was watching swimming practice, [and] one of them said, “I’ve been wanting to learn how to float for such a long time and I can finally do it today.” And I asked her, I said, “Do you share these kinds of moments with your family?” She said, “I share every single thing with my family. And they are so happy for me. They tell me that they are happy because I’m happy.”
Lesley Stahl: What’s the reception been like in Rwanda?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Remarkable doesn’t quite capture it. I’ve had this conversation with so many Rwandans saying, “Please don’t forget, we were also once refugees. Here we are back in Rwanda. You will go back home, but for the time being, welcome home to Rwanda.”
Lesley Stahl: Wow.
Watching these girls learn, we were struck by the realization that they are among the only Afghan middle and high school girls — out of a country of 40 million — who are getting a formal education. But knowing how fortunate they are, has made hearing the news from Afghanistan that much more painful. Fatima’s female co-workers at the ministry of finance have all been replaced.
Fatima: My female colleagues received phone calls saying that they should send one of their male family members to work instead of them.
Lesley Stahl: So wait a minute. They were being told to send male relatives to take their job– their jobs?
Fatima: As long as they can do the job, they should send them.
Last March, the Taliban announced that girls’ schools would reopen. Girls flocked in, only to be told hours later to go home and stay there.
Sajia: All over social media were videos of these young girls crying. And then I was so mad on everybody for– for not doing anything.
Lesley Stahl: You mean the rest of the world?
Sajia: This bunch of men has taken the control of an entire country, and they are doing whatever they want.
Women have been ordered to cover themselves head to toe again. They’re banned from public parks and, just months ago, banned from universities as well. History repeating itself. And if there’s one member of the SOLA community who understands what Afghan girls today are facing, it’s Maryam, the school’s longtime cleaning woman, and now seamstress. She knows the power of an education.. Because she never got one.
Maryam (Translated): The Taliban were in power at that time. I mean the first time the Taliban were in power. I was not allowed to go to school. Girls could not study.
Lesley Stahl: Maryam, can you read or write?
Maryam (Translated): I would really like to, but I can’t. If I could’ve gone to school, I would have been very happy. It was very hard for me.
But there is something that makes her happy these days, watching her 9th grade daughter Zarmina, who is now a student at SOLA. Talking about Zarmina’s future, we finally saw Maryam’s smile.
Lesley Stahl: Are you proud of your daughter?
Maryam: Yes, yes. Yes. [SMILING]
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: We cannot under any circumstances submit to Taliban’s vision for Afghanistan. And what does that mean for us? It means continue to educate more Afghan girls.
But how? Well, she’s recruiting them. Over Zoom, from Afghan refugee communities and camps in countries around the world, to bring them here to Rwanda.
Lesley Stahl: What should the U.S. government be doing, in your view?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: The one thing that the U.S. policy makers cannot– cannot afford to do is to forget about Afghanistan. Do not look away. Do not look away from Afghanistan. I cannot emphasize that enough.
And what she wants them to see, alongside the ongoing tragedy in that country, is SOLA’s vision. Educated girls committed to one day being leaders of a different Afghanistan.
“We all are Afghans,” they say. “We love Afghanistan. We will try our best and work hard to improve our beautiful country.”
Lesley Stahl: You say this every day?
Girls: Yeah.
Zahra: We repeat it every day that it– it’s stuck in our heart.
Lesley Stahl: Do you all think you’ll go back?
Girls: Yeah. Of course. Of course we will go. [LAUGH]
Lesley Stahl: Is it possible that you won’t go back to Afghanistan? Is it possible?
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: I spend every waking hour preparing for a return.
Lesley Stahl: It will happen–
Shabana Basij-Rasikh: I’ve borrowed a stone from the airport. I need to return.
Produced by Shari Finkelstein. Associate producer, Collette Richards. Broadcast associate, Wren Woodson. Edited by April Wilson.
Kherson, Ukraine, is the only regional capital Russia has captured since Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine a year ago. The city was liberated in November after eight months of occupation, but now the city’s residents are under fire almost every day as the Russians launch artillery attacks from their position across the Dnipro River, less than a mile away.
Holly Williams and a 60 Minutes crew reported from Kherson for this week’s broadcast. They found Halyna Luhova, who was put in charge by Ukraine’s president to rebuild Kherson, managing aid distribution, power outages and an avalanche of problems caused by Russian shelling. Kherson has been shelled more than 2,000 times in the last three months.
Luhova said the Russians are targeting schools, humanitarian aid points and critical infrastructure with knowledge they gathered during their occupation of the city.
“During a long period of occupation for eight months, they know all the information as for our infrastructure,” Luhova said. “So they know everything.”
“Would you prefer it if all civilians left the city?” Williams asked.
“It will be better for them I think,” Luhova said. “You know, our people go to bed every day, and they don’t know exactly if will be awake in the morning. It’s really terrible.”
About 60,000 of Kherson’s 300,000 pre-war population remain. More than 80 people have been killed by the shelling. A fire station and 19 medical facilities have been hit. Nothing, it seems, is sacred. There’s a bomb crater right outside the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Kherson’s defiance was obvious as the Kremlin’s troops rolled into town last March. Thousands demonstrated, but within days Russian soldiers opened fire and began arresting protestors. Residents were ordered to use Russian currency and schools were told to adopt a Russian curriculum.
Katya Fateeva would have none of it. Fateeva and her 9-year-old son, Max, refused to leave despite offers of a place to stay from friends outside Ukraine,
“We continued studying in our Ukrainian school by Zoom online with our teachers, with our programs,” Fateeva told Williams. “Of course it was illegal from their side, but they tried to… take our children there.”
“The Russians wanted to control what your children were thinking,” Williams said, “what they learned.”
“Yes,” Fateeva said. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. They really want to control our people’s mind, what to do, what not to do and so on.”
Fateeva’s father, Vladimir Sagayak, manages a foster home just outside the city. After hearing reports that Ukrainian children were being deported to Russia, Sagayak decided to hide 46 kids in his care.
He placed some of the children with their distant relatives. The rest were sent off with foster home staff. Fake documents helped them get past Russian checkpoints.
“We had a young kindergarten teacher who took in five kids from 5 to 16 years of age,” Sagayak said. “And we worked out a story for her that her sister was in her last month of pregnancy and she was looking after her sister’s kids. With the help of Photoshop, we created a doctor’s note. That’s how they got through.”
More than 6,000 Ukrainian children have been taken into Russian custody since the war began, according to research by Yale University. Last June, when Russian soldiers came to Sagayak’s foster home, he told them he’d sent the children back to their families.
“If the Russians had found out exactly what you did, that you hid 46 children,” Williams asked Sagayak, “what do you think they might have done to you?”
“I think I would not be talking to you today,” Sagayak said.
Hundreds of others who resisted were brought to a place known as “the pit.” Andriy Andryushchenko said he was tortured there with electric shocks to his head and genitals. People he knew were being beaten in adjoining cells.
His crime was painting pro-Ukrainian graffiti.
By November, the occupiers lost their grip on Kherson. Squeezed between the advancing Ukrainian army and the river. They withdrew, but the shelling began soon after and Halyna Luhova, Kherson’s mayor, believes Russian collaborators still lurk in the city.
“They phone them to the left bank of the river and say where I am, where our team is, what we are doing. They say everything,” Luhova told Williams.
“And what should happen to those collaborators now?” Williams asked.
“We have to kill them,” Luhova said. “I think that they have no right to live.”
In the year since Russia invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s army has succeeded in capturing just one regional capital – the city of Kherson. It was a key objective in the Kremlin’s attempt to seize Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. The eight-month occupation of Kherson ended in November, when Ukraine’s army forced the Russians to retreat back across the Dnipro River. But the city’s residents are now under fire almost every day from enemy artillery positioned less than a mile away. We visited Kherson this month and, from what we witnessed, Russia’s goal appears to be the destruction of what it cannot control.
When we drove alongside the river, we didn’t let the speedometer dip below 70 miles an hour. On one bank is the city, on the other – russian tanks, artillery and snipers. A fast-moving target is hard to hit.
Halyna Luhova: People in our city, they are the target. The enemy is crazy.
Halyna Luhova used to be a school teacher and a city council member.
Ukraine’s president put Luhova in charge of rebuilding Kherson, effectively its mayor. We watched as she managed aid distribution, power outages and an avalanche of problems caused by Russian shelling.
Kherson has been shelled more than 2,000 times in the last three months.
Holly Williams: Is there a pattern to what the Russians are hitting with the shelling, or is it random?
Halyna Luhova: During a long period of occupation for eight months they know all the information as for our infrastructure. So they know everything.
Holly Williams: Because they occupied the city, they know where the schools are, they know where the humanitarian aid points are.
Halyna Luhova: Yes, they know.
Holly Williams: Would you prefer it if all civilians left the city?
Halyna Luhova: It will be better for them I think. You know, our people go to bed every day, and they don’t know exactly if will be awake in the morning. It’s really terrible.
Halyna Luhova
Before the war, 300,000 people lived in Kherson. Now, about 60,000 remain. more than 80 people have been killed by the shelling. This fire station and 19 medical facilities have been hit. Nothing, it seems, is sacred. There’s a bomb crater right outside the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross.
Inside, it was below freezing. Eighty-four-year-old Valentina Syryk told us she was asking god to give the Russians common sense.
Holly Williams: It is very dangerous in Kherson now. Why are you still here?
“If you were this old, where would you go?” She asked us.
It’s the elderly and those without the means to leave who have stayed.
We pulled up to this apartment building just hours after it took a direct hit. Iryna Barandych was cleaning up the damage to her sister’s apartment up on the fourth floor.
Nobody was hurt. Elena lives in one of only three apartments still occupied.
Holly Williams: Why would they hit your building?
“Because they simply want to annihilate Ukrainians,” she said, “what other reason could there be?”
They’ve grown used to cleaning up the debris in Kherson.
But so much more has been shattered.
Katya Fateeva: And it was the war. It is almost– no people here.
Holly Williams: In English we would call it a ghost town.
Katya Fateeva
Katya Fateeva has refused to leave Kherson despite offers of a place to stay from friends outside Ukraine.
Her son, Max, who’s 9 years old, started piano lessons last summer. Fateeva told us it’s been a good distraction because it’s unsafe to go outside and play.
Katya Fateeva: We still believe that everything will be good soon and– our victory will come and our life will return to our ordinary way.
Holly Williams: Why are you so certain that things will go back to normal?
Katya Fateeva: We are on our land and we believe we are Ukrainians. And we want to live in Ukraine. And nothing– will (DETONATION) change this, you see?
Holly Williams: So–
Katya Fateeva: Nothing.
Holly Williams: –you heard that, right?
Katya Fateeva: Yes.
Holly Williams: It’s as if nothing happened. You don’t—shake, you don’t even turn your head.
Katya Fateeva: No.
Holly Williams: You’ve got used to it?
Katya Fateeva: Yes. We have got used to this, all this. Because every bomb, every attack will– take us to our victory.
Kherson’s defiance was obvious as the Kremlin’s troops rolled into town last March. Thousands demonstrated.
Within days, Russian soldiers opened fire and began arresting protestors. Residents were ordered to use Russian currency and schools were told to adopt a Russian curriculum. Fateeva would have none of it.
Katya Fateeva: We continued studying in our Ukrainian school by Zoom online with our teachers, with our programs.
Holly Williams: That was illegal.
Katya Fateeva: Yes of course it was illegal from their side…but they tried to do take our children there.
Holly Williams: The Russians wanted to control what your children were thinking, what they learned–
Katya Fateeva: Yes. Yes, you’re absolutely right. They really want to control our people’s mind, what to do, what not to do and so on.
Vladimir Sagayak
We realized where Fateeva’s courage came from when we met her father. Vladimir Sagayak manages a foster home just outside the city. After hearing reports that Ukrainian children were being deported to Russia. Sagayak decided to hide 46 kids in his care.
He placed some of the children with their distant relatives. The rest were sent off with foster home staff. Fake documents helped them get past Russian checkpoints.
Holly Williams: What are these stories you came up with to explain new children appearing in families?
Vladimir Sagayak (Translated): We had a young kindergarten teacher who took in five kids from five to sixteen years of age. And we worked out a story for her that her sister was in her last month of pregnancy and she was looking after her sister’s kids. With the help of Photoshop, we created a doctor’s note. That’s how they got through.
More than 6,000 Ukrainian children have been taken into Russian custody since the war began, according to research by Yale University. There is security camera video from the day last June when Russian soldiers came to Vladimir Sagayak’s foster home. He told them he’d sent the children back to their families.
Holly Williams: If the Russians had found out exactly what you did, that you hid 46 children, what do you think they might have done to you?
Vladimir Sagayak (Translated): I think I would not be talking to you today.
Hundreds of others who resisted were brought to this place, known as “the pit.”
Holly Williams: And then what’s this to the right here?
Andriy Andryushchenko told us he was tortured here with electric shocks to his head and genitals.
Holly Williams: Tied you to the chair…
People he knew were being beaten in adjoining cells.
Holly Williams: You could hear the screams of your friends-
Andriy Andryushchenko: Every time.
Holly Williams: While they were being tortured.
Andriy Andryushchenko: Ev– every time, yes.
Andriy Andryushchenko
His crime was painting pro-Ukrainian graffiti.
But by November, the occupiers lost their grip on Kherson. Squeezed between the advancing Ukrainian army and the river, they withdrew.
The sounds of celebration were soon replaced by this, the new tyranny of Russian artillery.
Holly Williams: The whole thing is underground
Halyna Luhova: [affirms]
It’s too risky for Mayor Halyna Luhova and her team to work in the town hall. So the administration of a city the size of St. Louis has been crammed into this basement.
Halyna Luhova: There are a lot problems we have and you see the people who solve them.
Holly Williams: And I’m just noticing, its nearly all women.
Halyna Luhova: There are a lot of women here. Also, yes, it’s right.
They’ve had to improvise. To keep the buses running, parts have been salvaged from those hit by shells. And the heat at this hospital is off most days so that wisps of steam don’t catch the attention of Russian artillery spotters.
Holly Williams: I’ve heard that you like to describe Kherson as invincible – “Neslame”
Halyna Luhova: “Neslame”
Holly Williams: Why did you choose that word?
Halyna Luhova: We are unbreakable. All the people of Ukraine are unbreakable.
But Luhova believes Russian collaborators still lurk in the city.
Halyna Luhova: They phone them to the left bank of the river and say where I am, where our team is, what we are doing. They say everything.
Holly Williams: Feeding information to the Russians.
Halyna Luhova: Yes, yes.
Holly Williams: And telling them what to hit?
Halyna Luhova: Yes, yes. It’s true.
Holly Williams: And what should happen to those collaborators now?
Halyna Luhova: We have– to kill them. I think that they have no right to live.
Holly Williams: No right to live.
Halyna Luhova: No right to live.
It was the bluntness of a person who has been targeted by Russian artillery seven times.
Correspondent Holly Williams and Halyna Luhova inside Luhova’s destroyed house.
Halyna Luhova: The enemy is– in front to us on the left bank of the river. And so this place is very dangerous.
Holly Williams: They’re a few hundred yards away–
Halyna Luhova: This is my house.
Holly Williams: This was your house?
Halyna Luhova: Yes.
Luhova left Kherson for six months during the occupation because she feared she’d be killed. While she was gone her house was burned down. She blames the collaborators.
Halyna Luhova: All I had during my life. This is my house. We together build this house with the family. With my husband and with my two sons. It’s tragedy.
Holly Williams: A tragedy.
Halyna Luhova: For me and for people.
Halyna Luhova told us she tries not to sleep in the same place two nights in a row and travels in an armored van.
Halyna Luhova: It’s dangerous but I have to do my work. I have to help people. I have to be with them with humanitarian aids. It’s my duty, so I do it.
This city will remain under fire, so long as the Russians are on the opposite side of the river.
Only if Ukraine’s military can push them back will Katya Fateeva’s son enjoy a walk outside with his grandfather.
Holly Williams: Do you think Kherson will ever go back to what it was like before?
Katya Fateeva: I am sure it will become much, much better because people have changed. Our minds have changed. Maybe sometimes we didn’t understand, really, that we are Ukrainians. And now with the help of this war, we understand who we are, what we want, and– that most important, we understand what we don’t want.
Produced by Erin Lyall and Guy Campanile. Associate producer, Lucy Hatcher. Field producer, Oleksandr Churkin. Broadcast associate, Eliza Costas. Edited by Craig Crawford.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday vowed there would be “real costs” for China if the country went forward with providing lethal aid to Russia in its war on Ukraine.
“From our perspective, actually, this war presents real complications for Beijing. And Beijing will have to make its own decisions about how it proceeds, whether it provides military assistance. But, if it goes down that road, it will come at real costs to China. And I think China’s leaders are weighing that as they make their decisions,” Sullivan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
In diplomatic conversations with China, he added, the US is “not just making direct threats. We’re just laying out both the stakes and the consequences, how things would unfold. And we are doing that clearly and specifically behind closed doors.”
Sullivan’s comments come at a critical juncture in the war in Ukraine. The US has intelligence that the Chinese government is considering providing Russia with drones and ammunition for use in the war, three sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN.
It does not appear that Beijing has made a final decision yet, the sources said, as negotiations between Russia and China about the price and scope of the equipment are ongoing.
Since invading Ukraine, Russia has repeatedly requested drones and ammunition from China, the sources familiar with the intelligence said, and Chinese leadership has been actively debating over the last several months whether or not to send the lethal aid, the sources added.
“I can level with the American people in saying that war is unpredictable,” Sullivan said Sunday when asked if the US could continue supporting Ukraine at current levels a year from now. “One year ago, we were all bracing for the fall of Kyiv in a matter – in a matter of days. One year later, Joe Biden was standing with President Zelensky in Kyiv declaring that Kyiv stands.”
“So, I cannot predict the future, and nor can anyone else. And anyone who is suggesting they can define for you how and when this war will end is not leveling with the American people or anyone else,” he said.
Sullivan also reiterated Biden’s Friday remarks that the administration was ruling out providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine “for now.”
“This phase of the war requires tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, artillery, tactical air defense systems, so that Ukrainian fighters can retake territory that Russia currently occupies,” Sullivan said. “F-16s are a question for a later time.”
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul said Sunday that Congress “can certainly write into our appropriations bills, prioritizing weapons systems” for Ukraine.
“We intend to do that,” the Texas Republican said on ABC when asked what Congress could do to push the Biden administration to provide longer-range missile systems, such as ATACMS, or F-16s to Ukraine.
“I know the administration says, ‘As long as it takes.’ I think with the right weapons, it shouldn’t take so long,” McCaul said. “This whole thing is taking too long. And it really didn’t have to happen this way.”
“The United States does not and never will recognize Russia’s purported annexation of the peninsula,” department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement, calling Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea “a clear violation of international law and of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Sullivan, however, would not say whether the Biden administration would support Ukraine deciding that victory would mean retaking Crimea.
“What ultimately happens with Crimea, in the context of this war and a settlement of this war, is something for the Ukrainians to determine with the support of the United States,” he said to Bash.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Tensions are mounting in Moldova, a small country on Ukraine’s southwestern border, where Russia has been accused of laying the groundwork for a coup that could drag the nation into the Kremlin’s war.
Moldova’s President, Maia Sandu, has accused Russia of using “saboteurs” disguised as civilians to stoke unrest amid a period of political instability, echoing similar warnings from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has meanwhile baselessly accused Kyiv of planning its own assault on a pro-Russian territory in Moldova where Moscow has a military foothold, heightening fears that he is creating a pretext for a Crimea-style annexation.
US President Joe Biden met President Sandu on the sidelines of his trip to Warsaw last week, marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Although there is no sign he has accepted her invite to visit, the White House did say he reaffirmed support for Moldova’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Here’s what you need to know.
Earlier this month, Zelensky warned that Ukrainian intelligence intercepted a Russian plan to destabilize an already volatile political situation in Moldova.
The recent resignation of the country’s prime minister followed an ongoing period of crises, headlined by soaring gas prices and sky-high inflation. Moldova’s new prime minister has continued the government’s pro-EU drive, but pro-Russian protests have since taken place in the capital, Chisinau, backed by a fringe, pro-Moscow political party.
Amid the tensions, Moldova’s President Sandu issued a direct accusation that Russia was seeking to take advantage of the situation.
Sandu said the government last fall had planned for “a series of actions involving saboteurs who have undergone military training and are disguised as civilians to carry out violent actions, attacks on government buildings and hostage-taking.”
Sandu also claimed individuals disguised as “the so-called opposition” were going to try forcing a change of power in Chisinau through “violent actions.” CNN is unable to independently verify those claims.
“It’s clear that these threats from Russia and the appetite to escalate the war towards us is very high,” Iulian Groza, Moldova’s former deputy foreign minister and now the director of the Chisinau-based Institute for European Policies and Reforms, told CNN.
“Moldova is the most affected country after Ukraine (by) the war,” he said. “We are still a small country, which has still an under-developed economy, and that creates a lot of pressure.”
Despite Moscow’s pleas of innocence, its actions regarding Moldova bear a striking resemblance to moves it made ahead of its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
On Tuesday, Putin revoked a 2012 foreign policy decree that in part recognized Moldova’s independence, according to Reuters.
Then on Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense accused Ukraine of “preparing an armed provocation” against Moldova’s pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria “in the near future,” state-media TASS reported.
No evidence or further details were offered to support the ministry’s accusation, and it has been rubbished by Moldova.
But the claim has put Western leaders on alert, coming almost exactly a year after Putin made similar, unsubstantiated claims that Russians were being targeted in the Donbas – the eastern flank of Ukraine where Moscow had supported militant separatists since 2014 – allowing him to cast his invasion of the country as an issue of self-defense.
“It was the case before – we have seen constant activities of Russia trying to explore and exploit the information space in Moldova using propaganda,” Groza said.
“With the war, all these instruments that Russia was using before have been multiplied and intensified,” he said. “What we see is a reactivation of Russian political proxies in Moldova.”
“I do see lots of fingerprints of Russian forces, Russian services in Moldova,” Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told CBS last Sunday. “This is a very weak country, and we all need to help them.”
Central to Russia’s interests in Moldova is Transnistria, a breakaway territory that slithers along the eastern flank of the country and has housed Russian troops for decades.
The territory – a 1,300 square mile enclave on the eastern bank of the Dniester River – was the site of a Russian military outpost during the last years of the Cold War. It declared itself a Soviet republic in 1990, opposing any attempt by Moldova to become an independent state or to merge with Romania after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
When Moldova became independent the following year, Russia quickly inserted itself as a so-called “peacekeeping force” in Transnistria, sending troops in to back pro-Moscow separatists there.
War with Moldovan forces ensued, and the conflict ended in deadlock in 1992. Transnistria was not recognized internationally, even by Russia, but Moldovan forces left it a de facto breakaway state. That deadlock has left the territory and its estimated 500,000 inhabitants trapped in limbo, with Chisinau holding virtually no control over it to this day.
Moldova is a country at a crossroads between east and west. Its government and most of its citizens want closer ties to the EU, and the country achieved candidacy status last year. But it’s also home to a breakaway faction whose sentiment Moscow has eagerly sought to rile up.
It has been a flashpoint on the periphery of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the past year, with Russian missiles crossing into Moldovan airspace on several occasions, including earlier this month.
A series of explosions in Transnistria last April spiked concerns that Putin was looking to drag the territory into his invasion.
Russia’s stuttering military progress since then had temporarily allayed those fears. But officials in Moldova have been warning the West that their country could be next on Putin’s list.
Last month, the head of Moldova’s Security Service warned there is a “very high” risk that Russia will launch a new offensive in Moldova’s east in 2023. Moldova is not a NATO member, making it more vulnerable to Putin’s agenda.
Should Russia launch a Spring offensive that centers on Ukraine’s south, it may seek again to creep towards Odesa and then link up with Transnistria, essentially creating a land bridge that sweeps through southern Ukraine and inches even closer to NATO territory.
In an exclusive interview with CBS News, CIA Director Bill Burns confirmed the possibility that China may send lethal aid to Russia in its war against Ukraine.
“We’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment,” Burns told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan on Friday.
The revelation that China’s President Xi Jinping is mulling this escalation is a dramatic change from past Biden administration assessments. Earlier this month, Burns told students at Georgetown University that Xi had been “very reluctant to provide the kind of lethal weapons to Russia to use in Ukraine that the Russians are very much interested in.”
Burns emphasized that China has not yet made the decision to transfer lethal aid to Russia, and shed light on the logic behind the Biden administration’s decision to make this intelligence public.
CIA Director William Burn during an event as part of the Trainor Award ceremony at the Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center on Feb. 2, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
Getty Images
“We also don’t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment,” Burns said. “And that’s why, I think, Secretary Blinken and the president have thought it important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be as well.”
Brennan asked if the administration’s goal — by sharing the CIA’s intelligence — is to deter China from making the decision to transfer lethal aid. Burns confirmed that this is the plan, adding that for Xi to provide it, “would be a very risky and unwise bet.”
Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Face the Nationthat China is actively considering providing lethal support, including weapons and ammunition, to aid Moscow in its war against Ukraine. Weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi reaffirmed their partnership. The US has already sanctioned Chinese companies that have provided non-lethal support to Russian mercenaries, including satellite imagery to help target weapons in combat.
“I think the Chinese are also trying to weigh the consequences of, you know, what the concerns we’ve expressed are, you know, about providing lethal equipment,” Burns said, when asked if the CIA knew where Xi stands. “Where’s the point at which, you know, they would run into some pretty serious consequences. And that’s what we’ve tried to make clear.”
Burns noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ensuing worldwide response, has been of particular interest to Xi.
“There’s no foreign leader who’s watched more carefully Vladimir Putin’s experience in Ukraine, the evolution of the war, than Xi Jinping has,” said Burns. “I think, in many ways, he’s been unsettled and sobered by what he’s seen.”
Last month, Taiwan’s top envoy to the U.S. said that the island nation is learning important lessons from Russia’s invasion. Burns said the CIA does not believe that Xi has yet made a decision on whether to invade Taiwan.
“I think we need to take very seriously Xi’s ambitions with regard to ultimately controlling Taiwan. That doesn’t, however, in our view, mean that a military conflict is inevitable,” Burns said. “I think our judgment at least is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion.”
President Biden has repeatedly dispatched Burns, a Russian-speaker and former ambassador to Russia, to speak with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as Russia’s top spy chief. He described to Brennan a secret trip he took to Kyiv in the days prior to the Russian invasion.
“President Biden had asked me to go to Kyiv to lay out for President Zelenskyy the most recent intelligence we had, which suggested that what Vladimir Putin was planning was what he thought would be a lightning strike from the Belarus border to seize Kyiv in a matter of a few days,” Burns said. “I think President Zelenskyy understood what was at stake and what he was up against.”
Burns made particular note of how the intelligence provided by the U.S. helped Ukraine to strengthen its resolve.
“Our Ukrainian intelligence partners also had good intelligence about what was coming as well. But I do think that the role of intelligence in this instance, what we’re able to provide to President Zelenskyy, not just on that trip, but you know, throughout the course of the war, have helped him to defend his country with such courage and tenacity,” Burns said. “And I think that made a contribution early, you know, just before the war started.”
Three months ago, Mr. Biden sent Burns to meet with Sergey Naryshkin, his Russian counterpart, and to deliver a warning not to use nuclear weapons. Burns described the meeting as “pretty dispiriting.”
“There was a very defiant attitude on the part of Mr. Naryshkin as well. A sense of cockiness and hubris,” Burns said. “A sense, I think, reflecting Putin’s own view, his own belief today, that he can make time work for him, that he believes he can grind down the Ukrainians, that he can wear down our European allies, that political fatigue will eventually set in.”
As the war in Ukraine reaches the one-year mark, one soldier opened up about his experience fighting against Russian forces in an early battle. He and his compatriots were overwhelmed and unprepared, but held off elite forces. Charlie D’Agata reports from Kyiv.
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People help to clean up debris at a bus station damaged after a shelling, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine February 21, 2023.
Lisi Niesner | Reuters
One year since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure are in tatters, with the government and its allies planning the largest rebuilding effort since World War II.
The World Bank estimates that Ukrainian GDP shrank by 35% in 2022, and projected in October that the population share with income below the national poverty line would rise to almost 60% by the end of last year — up from 18% in 2021.
The World Bank has so far mobilized $13 billion in emergency financing to Ukraine since the war began, including grants, guarantees and linked parallel financing from the U.S., U.K., Europe and Japan.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that the Ukrainian economy contracted by 30%, a less severe decline than previously projected. Inflation has also begun to decelerate, but ended 2022 at 26.6% year-on-year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
In a statement Tuesday, Georgieva said she saw “an economy that is functioning, despite the tremendous challenges,” commending the government’s vision to move from recovery to a “transformational period of reconstruction and EU accession.”
“Shops are open, services are being delivered and people are going to work. This is remarkable testament to the spirit of the Ukrainian people,” Georgieva said, also noting that government agencies, economic institutions and the banking system are fully operational.
“Notwithstanding the attacks on critical infrastructure, the economy is adjusting, and a gradual economic recovery is expected over the course of this year,” she added.
This handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian President press-service in Kyiv on May 16, 2022 shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva (on the screen) holding a video conference.
STR | AFP | Getty Images
Georgieva reiterated the IMF’s commitment to supporting Ukraine, and the Washington-based institution has provided $2.7 billion in emergency loans over the past year. However, it is also working with Ukraine under an economic policy monitoring program, a precursor to establishing a fully-fledged IMF lending program, as Kyiv seeks a $15 billion multi-year support package.
“The international community will continue to have a vital role in supporting Ukraine, including to help address the large financing needs in 2023 and beyond,” Georgieva concluded.
“The war in Ukraine has had far-reaching consequences for the local, regional, and global economy. Only if we work together as a global community will we be able to build a better future.”
Massive infrastructure rebuild
At a G-20 meeting on Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on the IMF to “move swiftly” toward the fully financed loan program, with Washington readying economic assistance to the tune of $10 billion in the coming weeks.
The U.S. has provided a cumulative $76.8 billion in bilateral military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, 2022, and Jan. 15, 2023, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
This includes $46.6 billion in military grants and loans, weapons and security assistance, by far outstripping the rest of the world. The U.K. has been the second-largest military contributor at $5.1 billion, followed by the European Union at $3.3 billion.
As the conflict enters its second year and shows no sign of abating, with Russia increasingly attacking critical infrastructure and power shortages persisting, the Ukrainian economy is expected to contract again this year, albeit at a low single-digit rate.
Destruction seen through a broken car window in Lyman, Ukraine, on Feb. 20, 2023.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
“Since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, at least 64 large and medium-sized enterprises, 84.3 thousand units of agricultural machinery, 44 social centers, almost 3 thousand shops, 593 pharmacies, almost 195 thousand private cars, 14.4 thousand public transport, 330 hospitals, 595 administrative buildings of state and local administration have been damaged, destroyed or seized,” the KSE report highlighted.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s budget deficit has risen to a record $38 billion and is expected to remain elevated, though strong external support from Western governments and the IMF is likely, according to Razan Nasser, emerging market sovereign analyst at T. Rowe Price.
“This should help to plug the financing gap, which in turn should help to reduce reliance on monetary financing this year,” Nasser said.
External creditors in August agreed to a two-year standstill on sovereign debt, acknowledging the immense pressure being exerted by the war on the country’s public finances.
“This will likely be the first step of the restructuring, with a deep haircut on the debt likely. It is difficult to predict the size of this debt reduction as it depends on the state of the Ukrainian economy at the time the restructuring is agreed,” Nasser said.
He added that a “political decision” will be needed on how much private creditors should contribute to the reconstruction costs in light of the colossal damage inflicted on infrastructure so far.
A worker inspects the damage near a railway yard of the freight railway station in Kharkiv, which was partially destroyed by a missile strike, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine on September 28, 2022.
Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images
“When this war does eventually end, the scale of the reconstruction and recovery effort is likely to eclipse anything Europe has seen since World War II,” he said.
This sentiment was echoed on Wednesday by Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who told Politico during an interview in Brussels that the reconstruction should start this year, despite there being no immediate end to the conflict in sight.
“It’s going to be the biggest reconstruction [since] World War II,” she said. “We need to start now.”
Although beginning the rebuild while the war is still ongoing and Russia continues to target civilian infrastructure might seem counterintuitive, Daniela Schwarzer, executive director of Open Society, told CNBC on Thursday that it was essential.
“Ukrainians very clearly make the case that actually, reconstruction has to begin in some parts of the country while the war is still ongoing because for the country, the destruction of infrastructure — which really happens every day — needs to be handled otherwise people can’t live, the economy can’t pick up, and so there’s a huge task,” she said.
“We will see over the next few months how international financial institutions, including the European ones such as the International Bank of Reconstruction and the European Investment Bank along with governments and the EU, plus the United States, but the next important question is how can private investments eventually be brought back to Ukraine because governments alone can’t rebuild the country.”
Below is our weekly Saturday Six, a recap of half a dozen news stories — in no particular order — ranging from the heartfelt to the weird to the tragic, and everything in between.
Climate change is making winter weather warmer and “weirder.”From the story: “What we are experiencing, as whole, in aggregate, is what we expect from climate change,” she says. “That volatility, that unpredictability, that weirdness, if you will, is climate change,” said Heidi Roop, a climatologist at the University of Minnesota. Watch the video above.
After Heinz learned that a man survived almost a month at sea without nothing but ketchup and seasonings, the company is on a hunt to find him and help him purchase a new boat. From the story: “To whoever finds this message, we need your help tracking down an amazing man with an amazing story. You may remember Elvis Francois as the brave sailor who survived on nothing but ketchup and spices while adrift at sea for 24 days. Well, Heinz wants to celebrate his safe return home and help him buy a new boat…but we can’t seem to find him,” the company said.
A year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we looked at the devastation as the war continues. From the story: Neither Russia nor Ukraine has officially released casualty figures, but both countries are believed to have suffered huge losses on the battlefield since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
A pizza shop in Columbus, Ohio, raised eyebrows in its advertising attempt to find “non-stupid” people. From the story: The family-owned Santino’s Pizzeria has posted a sign reading, “Now Hiring Non-Stupid People.” The job ad has garnered social media buzz for the tiny shop on the city’s southwest side.
We learned about the eight colleges producing the most multimillionaires. From the story: More than one-third of the wealthiest people in the U.S. attended one of just eight elite universities, according to a new study from wealth consultancy Henley & Partners. There are about 9,600 so-called centimillionaires living in the U.S., or people whose net worth is greater than $100 million, the report noted. About 35% of them attended one of eight U.S. universities.
Finally, we found out that the estimated animal death toll from the Ohio train derailment is about 43,700. From the story: Last week, officials said they believed that the Ohio train derailment had killed 3,500 aquatic animals. On Thursday, they provided a new estimate, pushing the total to more than 43,700 animals within a 5-mile area.
Ukrainians marked one year at war with a mixture of remembrance and defiance. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that Ukraine would be victorious if its allies remain united. Charlie D’Agata has the latest.
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