BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday praised the Serbian president for meeting her and other European Union leaders instead of attending a Russia-organized summit of developing economies held earlier this week.
Serbia has close ties to Russia and has refused to join international sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. In a telephone conversation Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said EU candidate Serbia would maintain its stance on sanctions, notwithstanding EU and other Western pressure.
However, despite Putin’s invitation, Vucic did not attend a three-day summit of the BRICS group of nations, led by Russia and China, which took place in the Russian city of Kazan earlier this week. Leaders or representatives of 36 countries took part in the summit, highlighting the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine.
Vucic sent a high-level delegation to the meeting, but said he could not attend himself because he had scheduled meetings with von der Leyen and Polish and Greek leaders. There are fears in the West that Putin is plotting trouble in the volatile Balkans in part to shift some of the attention from its invasion of Ukraine.
“What I see is that the president of the Republic of Serbia is hosting me here today and just has hosted the prime minister of Greece and the prime minister of Poland. That speaks for itself, I think,” von der Leyen said at a joint press conference with Vucic.
“And for my part, I want to say that my presence here today, in the context of my now fourth trip to the Balkan region since I took office, is a very clear sign that I believe that Serbia’s future is in the European Union,” she said.
Vucic said he knows what the EU is demanding for eventual membership — including compliance with foreign policy goals — but did not pledge further coordination.
“Of course, Ursula asked for much greater compliance with EU’s foreign policy declaration,” he said. “We clearly know what the demands are, what the expectations are.”
Von der Leyen was in Serbia as part of a trip this week to aspiring EU member states in the Western Balkans to assure them that EU enlargement remains a priority for the 27-nation bloc. From Serbia, von der Leyen will travel to neighboring Kosovo and Montenegro.
Serbian media reported that von der Leyen refused to meet with Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic because of his talks Friday with a high-level Russian economic delegation, which was in Belgrade to discuss deepening ties with Serbia. Vucic will meet the Russian officials on Saturday.
In Bosnia on Friday, von der Leyen promised support for the deeply split Balkan country which is struggling with the reforms needed to advance toward EU membership.
The Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages in their applications for EU membership. The countries have been frustrated by the slow pace of the process, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has propelled European leaders to push the six to join the bloc.
Bosnia gained candidate status in 2022. EU leaders in March agreed in principle to open membership negotiations, though Bosnia must still do a lot of work.
“We share the same vision for the future, a future where Bosnia-Herzegovina is a full-fledged member of the European Union,” said von der Leyen at a joint press conference with Bosnian Prime Minister Bojana Kristo. “So, I would say, let’s continue working on that. We’ve gone a long way already, we still have a way ahead of us, but I am confident that you’ll make it.”
Last year EU officials offered a 6-billion-euro (about $6.5 billion) growth plan to the Western Balkan countries in an effort to double the region’s economy over the next decade and accelerate their efforts to join the bloc. That aid is contingent on reforms that would bring their economies in line with EU rules.
The Commission on Wednesday approved the reform agendas of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia following a green light from EU member states. That was a key step to allow payments under the growth plan upon completion of agreed reform steps.
However, Bosnia’s reform agenda has still not been signed off by the Commission.
“The accession process is, as you know, merit-based … we do not look at a rigid data but we look at the merits, the progress that a country is making,” said von der Leyen. “The important thing is that we have an ambitious reform agenda, like the other five Western Balkan countries also have. We stand ready to help you to move forward.”
Long after a 1992-95 ethnic war that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless, Bosnia remains ethnically divided and politically deadlocked. An ethnic Serb entity — one of Bosnia’s two equal parts joined by a common government — has sought to gain as much independence as possible.
Upon arrival in Bosnia, von der Leyen on Thursday first went to Donja Jablanica, a village in central Bosnia that was devastated in recent floods and landslides. The disaster in early October claimed 27 lives and the small village was virtually buried in rocks from a quarry located on a hill above.
Von der Leyen said the EU is sending an immediate aid package of 20 million euros ($21 million) and will also provide support for reconstruction later on.
A SIBERIAN city was almost completely wiped off the map after enduring years of brutality when a mine explosion forced its residents to abandon it.
The ruins of Kadykchan now haunt the landscape of Russia’s Far East – and has eerily been frozen in time since the Cold War.
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This Siberian city has been frozen in time since the Cold WarCredit: Koryo Tours
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Residents were forced to flee after a deadly mine explosionCredit: YouTube / BaikalNature
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What looks to be an abandoned sports hall in KadykchanCredit: Alamy
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The roadsign indicating the Kadykchan coal mine on the Kolyma highwayCredit: Alamy
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What looks like the broken remains of a classroomCredit: Koryo Tours
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Everything was left to rot in the cityCredit: Sometimes Interesting
The dystopian coal-mining town has been completely deserted for decades since its last bus load of residents shipped out.
Chilling footage reveals blackened and crumbling Soviet-era concrete apartment blocks, smashed up classrooms and rusting playgrounds overrun by nature.
Old-fashioned road signs are pictured, indicating the Kadykchan coal mine on the Kolyma highway.
Other images show books laying scattered around the desolate buildings, and windows punched out of buildings.
The remote and abandoned city is found deep into Magadan province, an area also known as “Kolyma” – a name that used to strike fear in the hearts of Russians.
It is only reachable along thousands of miles of a highway, referred to as the “Road of Bones” due to the amount of people that were worked to death or executed in labour camps.
The Soviet-era despot opened up the region in the 1930s in order to extract minerals, metals and gold from its uninhabited lands using forced labour.
Opened by communist Stalin, the dictator looked to access its mineral, metal and gold deposits in order to support the ongoing industrialisation of the USSR.
But the quickest way to exploit the land’s materials was to use forced labour – and it came at a cost.
Throughout the 30s and into World War 2, over a million prisoners suffered in the horrible conditions and -50C temperatures of Kolyma.
An unbelievable 200,000 people horrifically died.
After the war, two coal mines were opened in Kadykchan and prisoners were no longer cruelly kept.
Putin’s Brit ‘Lord Haw Haw’ who interrogated UK PoW is given official sanctuary in Russia after career as Kremlin puppet
Instead, civilians came under the impression they were to receive a good salary and a flat to live.
As the Cold War started and began to drag on, the city truly flourished in the 1970s, transforming into a place for young people to live and work, with music festivals put on and clubs opening.
But in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and the worker’s salary’s were no longer guaranteed.
The coal-mining city fell into depression, one of the mines closed and the future looked bleak.
A past resident, Tatiana Shchepalkin, told the BBC: “Salaries weren’t being paid and people couldn’t even buy basic things like food.
“Imagine your husband comes home from the mine and you’ve got nothing to give him to eat. The children are hungry.”
It didn’t seem like it could get any worse, until tragedy struck on November, 25, 1996.
A methane explosion ripped through the mine during a busy morning shift and six men were killed.
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Books are seen scattered inside ruined buildingsCredit: Alamy
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As the last resident left, the town was set on fireCredit: Koryo Tours
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The spooky remains of a playgroundCredit: Sometimes Interesting
The last mine was closed for good and Kadykchan no longer had a reason to exist. The city was finished.
“Things were terrible…Things were so desperate people were shooting dogs for food,” Tatiana remembered.
Residents quickly began packing up their lives and getting out.
Soon the city had completely emptied. In turn, the local council moved in and torched most of the buildings.
There Kadykchan remains – blackened, crumbling and surrendering to nature.
A man who spent his entire life in the remote, freezing city watched the smoke burn as he left.
“Your soul refuses to believe it,” Vladimir Voskresensky told the BBC.
“But that’s how it is.”
Now the only people to walk amongst the rubble are intrepid explorers gripped by its dark history.
The steel skeletons of dozens of steam locomotives betray a time when the spectre of the mushroom cloud loomed dangerously near.
During the Soviet era it served as a nuclear war base – ready and waiting to whisk Russians to safety if all other transportation failed or was destroyed.
Time progressed, the Iron Curtain lifted, diesel trains took over and the threat of nuclear war waned – leaving a cemetery on rusty tracks.
What was the Cold War?
THE Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension between powers and put the world on the brink of nuclear disaster.
It occurred between the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) – following on from World War II.
A timeframe of the tense war acknowledged by historians ranges from 1947 and either 1989 or 1991.
Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel.
By 1948 the Soviets had installed left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army.
The Americans and the British feared the permanent Soviet domination of eastern Europe and the threat of Soviet-influenced communist parties coming to power in the democracies of western Europe.
The Soviets, on the other hand, were determined to maintain control of eastern Europe in order to safeguard against any possible renewed threat from Germany, and they were intent on spreading communism worldwide, largely for ideological reasons.
The Cold War had solidified by 1947, when US aid provided under the Marshall Plan to Western Europe had brought those countries under American influence and the Soviets had installed openly communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
The Cold War reached its peak between 1948 and 1953.
Throughout the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union avoided direct military confrontation in Europe and engaged in actual combat operations only to keep allies from defecting to the other side or to overthrow them after they had done so.
The Cold War began to break down in the late 1980s during the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
He dismantled the totalitarian aspects of the Soviet system and began efforts to democratise the Soviet political system.
When communist regimes in the Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989–90, Gorbachev acquiesced in their fall.
In late 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and 15 newly independent nations were born from its corpse, including a Russia with a democratically elected, anti-communist leader.
The Cold War had come to an end.
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Snow covering the abandoned cityCredit: Alamy
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The ghost town is on the north east of Siberia, RussiaCredit: Alamy
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Buildings are pictured falling apart with bricks crumblingCredit: Koryo Tours
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The city can be found along the ‘Road of Bones’Credit: Alamy
Kazan, Russia — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday presided at the closing session of a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, praising its role as a counterbalance to what he called the West’s “perverse methods.” The three-day summit in the city of Kazan covered the deepening of financial cooperation, including the development of alternatives to Western-dominated payment systems, efforts to settle regional conflicts and expansion of the BRICS group of nations.
The alliance that initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa when it was founded in 2009 has expanded to embrace Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have formally applied to become members, and several other countries have expressed interest in joining.
The summit was attended by leaders or representatives of 36 countries, highlighting the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine. The Kremlin touted the summit as “the largest foreign policy event ever held” by Russia.
Speaking at what was dubbed the “BRICS Plus” session, which included countries that are considering joining the bloc, Putin accused the West of trying to stem the growing power of the Global South with “illegal unilateral sanctions, blatant protectionism, manipulation of currency and stock markets, and relentless foreign influence ostensibly promoting democracy, human rights, and the climate change agenda.”
“Such perverse methods and approaches — to put it bluntly — lead to the emergence of new conflicts and the aggravation of old disagreements,” Putin said. “One example of this is Ukraine, which is being used to create critical threats to Russia’s security, while ignoring our vital interests, our just concerns, and the infringement of the rights of Russian-speaking people.”
Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine more than two years ago, and Russian forces now occupy an estimated 20% of the country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war, which Putin has claimed at various stages was either a response to NATO’s eastward expansion, or a defense of pro-Russian populations in eastern Ukraine.
Support from the U.S. and its NATO allies has helped Ukraine prevent Russia’s complete takeover, but many in the region fear the November U.S. presidential election could bring a second term for former President Donald Trump, who’s seen as more sympathetic to Putin and less likely to maintain current levels of support for Kyiv.
Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network SWIFT, which would enable Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with its partners — some of which are also heavily sanctioned by the U.S. and its allies — more easily.
In a joint declaration Wednesday, participants voiced concern about “the disruptive effect of unlawful unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions,” and reiterated their commitment to enhancing financial cooperation within BRICS. They noted the benefits of “faster, low-cost, more efficient, transparent, safe and inclusive cross-border payment instruments built upon the principle of minimizing trade barriers and non-discriminatory access.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin stands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as other participants in the outreach/BRICS Plus format meeting pose for a family photo during the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, Oct. 24, 2024.
MAXIM SHIPENKOV/Pool via REUTERS
China’s President Xi Jinping has emphasized the bloc’s role in ensuring global security. Xi noted that China and Brazil have put forward a peace plan for Ukraine and sought to rally broader international support for it. Ukraine has rejected the proposal.
“We should promote the de-escalation of the situation as soon as possible and pave the way for a political settlement,” Xi said Thursday.
Putin and Xi had announced a “no-limits” partnership weeks before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022. Moscow declared its intention at the time to forge a new “democratic world order” with China. Putin and Xi met again twice earlier this year, in Beijing in May and at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kazakhstan in July.
Russia’s cooperation with India also has flourished as New Delhi sees Moscow as a time-tested partner since the Cold War despite Russia’s close ties with India’s rival, China. While Western allies want New Delhi to be more active in persuading Moscow to end the fighting in Ukraine, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has avoided condemning Russia while emphasizing a peaceful settlement.
Putin, who held a series of bilateral meetings on the summit’s sidelines, was set to meet Thursday with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who is making his first visit to Russia in more than two years. Guterres’s trip to Kazan drew an angry reaction from Kyiv.
Addressing the BRICS Plus session, Guterres urged an immediate end to the fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine and Sudan. “We need peace in Ukraine, a just peace in line with the U.N. Charter, international law and General Assembly resolutions,” he said.
Russia’s Kremlin-controlled media touted the summit as a massive policy coup that left the West fearing the loss of its global clout. State TV shows and news bulletins underscored that BRICS countries account for about half the world’s population comprising the “global majority” and challenging Western “hegemony.”
TV hosts elaborately quoted Western media reports saying that the summit highlighted the failure to isolate Moscow. “The West, the U.S., Washington, Brussels, London ended up isolating themselves,” said Yevgeny Popov, host of a popular political talk show on state channel Rossiya 1.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, remains a defiant critic of Vladimir Putin. She understands she risks being kidnapped or poisoned, but says she’s not afraid.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) enters the hall during the meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (not pictured), October 11, 2024, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Contributor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Iran has been one of Russia’s few staunch allies throughout the war against Ukraine, but Tehran now faces the strain of indirectly fighting its nemesis Israel on two fronts.
Under pressure — but still defiant — Iran could start looking to Russia for help, given its need for greater air defense capabilities and military intelligence to detect a highly-anticipated but yet-to-materialize direct Israeli attack on Iran, analysts told CNBC.
Russia is well-positioned to provide Tehran with such capabilities, but the extent to which it will assist the Islamic Republic remains uncertain.
“I fully expect that the Iranians have high expectations of the Russians to provide them with something,” Bilal Y. Saab, associate fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at think tank Chatham House, told CNBC Thursday, noting that reputation is of the utmost importance in international relations — even among authoritarian countries.
“So if the Russians are going to bail on this, it’s going to have consequences with regards not only to its relationship with the Iranians, but to any other partner, such as the Chinese,” he said.
“They’ve got to maintain some kind of reputation that they are good for it, and so I have medium-to-high expectations that they would actually provide them with what they need. Now, whether they provide them with everything they need, this is what nobody knows.”
Russia is unlikely to offer military intervention against Israel on behalf of the Iranians, Saab said, given it is already “too bogged down in Ukraine.”
“It’s also too risky of a game to go against the United States over the Iranians … so I think that [it’s] more likely they would stay on the sidelines and try to help from as far away as possible,” he said.
CNBC has contacted the Kremlin and Iranian foreign ministry for comment and has yet to receive a response.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (L) during their meeting, October 11, 2024, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
Contributor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Arms transfers between the two allies have led the U.S. to describe Iran as Russia’s “top military backer,” although both countries deny drone and missile transfers have taken place. Tehran has conceded that it sent drones to Russia before the war began, however.
Russia also denies using drones to attack Ukrainian infrastructure, although there have been numerous instances of Iranian-made drones damaging Ukrainian infrastructure or being intercepted during the war.
In the meantime, Tehran has turned to Russia to help build up its own military capabilities, looking to procure sophisticated Russia air defense systems and a variety of combat aircraft, according to reports, although the details surrounding the delivery of such hardware remain hazy.
“The provision of Iranian drones and, more recently, missiles to Russia for its campaign in Ukraine marked a significant evolution in the Russia-Iran relationship. In part, the war itself served as an accelerant to the already burgeoning Russia-Iran ties, propelling their cooperation to new heights,” Karim Sadjadpour and Nicole Grajewski from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank noted in analysis earlier this month.
In return for Iran’s support, Russia has bolstered Iran’s military capabilities in several areas, they noted: “Iran has made notable progress in acquiring advanced conventional weaponry from Russia, allowing it to achieve some of its defense officials’ long-standing goals. In November 2023, Tehran secured deals for Su-35 fighter jets, Yak-130 training aircraft, and Mi-28 attack helicopters, though only the Yak-130s have been delivered so far.”
Russia has been offering Iran “an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their relationship into a full-fledged defense partnership,” National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby said in late 2022. “This partnership poses a threat, not just to Ukraine, but to Iran’s neighbors in the region,” he said at the time.
Fast forward to October 2024 and Russia’s appetite to bolster Tehran’s military capabilities might be waning as its war against Ukraine drags on, while Iran’s ability to supply Russia with weaponry could now be limited.
Tehran is indirectly fighting its nemesis Israel on two fronts with its regional proxies, the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, coming under heavy and sustained Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, respectively, and looking severely weakened after the deaths of the militant groups’ leaders.
Iranian protesters shout anti-Israeli slogans while burning an Israeli flag in a celebration for Iran’s missile attack against Israel, in Tehran, Iran, on October 1, 2024.
Morteza Nikoubazl | Nurphoto | Getty Images
The factions, along with Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, make up what Tehran refers to as the “Axis of Resistance,” which Iran backs in order to oppose Israeli and U.S. influence in the region. That shared antipathy toward the U.S. and desire to create a “new world order” are what largely binds Iran and Russia.
This week could bring more clarity on their deepening economic and strategic cooperation, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian meet on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Russia.
Both countries have said they are close to signing a “strategic partnership agreement” — negotiations over which began in early 2022 — and this could be finalized at forum. It remains to be seen what the partnership will entail.
Russia is likely watching the expansion of Israel’s military action in the Gaza enclave and Lebanon carefully given its own military, economic and geopolitical interests in the Middle East.
It has, so far, maintained generally good relations in the region, including with arch rivals Iran and Israel, as well as deepening strategic ties with Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images
As such, the fighting between Israel and Iran’s proxies could be starting to encroach on Russia’s interests in the area.
The most recent example of this is Israel’s Oct. 3 bombing of Iranian forces near Syria’s Khmeimim Air Base, which has been operated by Russia since it propped up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government during the country’s civil war a decade ago.
Analysts say it remains unclear what Russia would do to support Iran in the event of a wider and direct war between Iran and Israel, questioning the depth of the alliance and given the fact that Moscow is already enmeshed in the war in Ukraine, which is a massive draw on manpower and military resources.
“The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran is beginning to impact Russian interests in the Middle East, as well as threaten a whole range of Russian-Iranian projects,” Nikita Smagin, an Iran expert with the Russian International Affairs Council, said in analysis Monday.
“Nevertheless, Moscow prefers to adapt to the evolving situation rather than to get directly involved. Russia cannot — and will not — save Iran in its confrontation with Israel and the United States,” he noted.
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) at Al Yamamah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 06, 2023.
Royal Court of Saudi Arabia | Anadolu | Getty Images
Moscow’s war in Ukraine means it has “no time” for another war, according to Smagin, who added that Russia would only be motivated to involve itself indirectly in the conflict with Israel if the end result were to weaken the U.S.
“Russia could seek to support Iran by supplying weapons to Iranian proxy forces, including Hezbollah and the Houthis,” Smagin said. “However, for the Kremlin, that would be more logical if such deliveries were going to harm the United States, rather than Israel.”
The death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison in the Arctic this February sparked an outcry around the world. He was compared to Nelson Mandela as a prisoner of conscience. While behind bars, he completed a memoir, documenting his three-year battle to survive the unspeakable prison conditions.
This is our third story on Navalny – the first in 2017 when he stood up to Vladimir Putin by running against him for president of Russia. When he was arrested in 2021, Navalny’s popularity as the most prominent leader of the Putin opposition was growing.
Alexei Navalny speaking in Russian (English translation): Putin is a thief and the head of the entire corrupt system!
He was defiant, brave for taking on the all-powerful Vladimir Putin out in the open, denouncing him as a gangster. He refused to back down and paid the ultimate price: three years in Russian prisons and then this year, death at age 47.
His wife Yulia, once her husband’s silent partner, is now the leader of his opposition movement. She says Alexei’s memoir, “Patriot,” represents his final act of defiance.
Yulia Navalnaya: It was his life. It was his every-minute job to fight with Putin’s regime.
Lesley Stahl: And now he’s fighting from the grave.
Yulia Navalnaya: I would prefer he would fight not from the grave. And of course, it’s very tough to– for me to say like this. But we can say so.
Yulia Navalnaya
60 Minutes
Over the summer, a Russian court issued an arrest warrant for her.
Lesley Stahl: It’s a dangerous place to be.
Yulia Navalnaya: I don’t care at all.
Lesley Stahl: You’re not afraid?
Yulia Navalnaya: No, not really. Why should I be infra– afraid?
Lesley Stahl: They could kidnap you. They could try to poison you.
Yulia Navalnaya: They could. But I don’t want to live my life and to spend my life everyday thinking about if they kidnap me today or tomorrow, if they are going to poison me today or tomorrow. I’m not thinking about poisoning–
Lesley Stahl: You know who you sound like? You sound like Alexei. (laugh) He would say the same thing.
Yulia Navalnaya: Of course! I’ve been living with him more than 25 years.
In that time, Alexei, trained as a lawyer, became Russia’s most famous anti-corruption activist and investigator, posting his findings online about bribes and kickbacks and evidence of the wealth Putin and his cronies had — as Navalny said — stolen from the Russian people.
Lesley Stahl (in 2017): I mean, you’re goading them.
Alexei Navalny (in 2017): These are people who are trying to steal my country and I’m strongly disagree with it. I’m not going to be, you know, a kind of speechless person right now. I’m not going to keep silent.
He called Putin “a madman” who was “sucking the blood out of Russia,” and more insults as he built a pro-democracy movement, opening offices all across Russia.
It was a time when other Putin opponents were dying in suspicious suicides, a car bombing, dissident Boris Nemtsov was shot out in the open near the Kremlin. And Navalny himself was subjected to multiple arrests and beatings, an attack with green dye laced with a caustic chemical, and in 2020, an assassination attempt that he recounts in the beginning of his book.
He writes that shortly before he boarded a plane in Siberia, he was poisoned with a Soviet-era, military-grade nerve agent.
He collapsed, moaning in agony, as his body began to shut down. While he was in a coma at a Russian hospital, Yulia waged a campaign to pressure Putin to release Alexei so he could fly to Germany for treatment.
We met them in Berlin about two months after the attack.
Lesley Stahl (in 2020): You have said you think that Mr. Putin’s responsible.
Alexei Navalny (in 2020): I don’t think. I’m sure that he is responsible.
He spent five months recovering in Germany — that’s when he started writing the memoir. Then, in January of 2021, the Navalnys returned to Russia.
Alexei Navalny’s memoir
When they landed, they were met by Russian police.
He was arrested, said goodbye to his wife, and was led away.
Lesley Stahl: This is a question you’re going to be asked over and over and over, but it’s, it’s almost the essential question: Why did you decide to go back, the two of you? You knew the danger for sure. And do you regret it now?
Yulia Navalnaya: You ask me about our decision like we were sitting together and discussing if he needs to go back, or he doesn’t need to go back. It, it didn’t work like this. From the first day of when I realized that he could recover after this poisoning, I knew that he would go back as soon as possible.
Lesley Stahl: So, it wasn’t even a debate.
Yulia Navalnaya: No.
Lesley Stahl: It was just “when do we go back?” as opposed to if.
Yulia Navalnaya: We never had any debates and of course, I would love to live all my life with my husband. But at that moment, I knew that there is just one decision which he could take. And it was his decision. And I knew how important it was for him. And I knew that he wouldn’t be happy to live in exile.
His arrest sparked protests across Russia. But far from disappearing in prison, Navalny managed to maintain a presence on social media. How – we’ve been asked not to say – but it enabled him to keep up his attacks on Putin.
Meanwhile, his team of investigators released drone footage of what they said was Putin’s billion dollar palace on the Black Sea. it was viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube.
Lesley Stahl: It must’ve driven Putin insane that he, he locked him up and he’s still getting the anti-Putin message out.
Yulia Navalnaya: That’s why he con— his conditions were worse way— from month to month.
Those conditions, Navalny wrote in his diaries, included “sleep deprivation,” “punitive solitary confinement,” almost no medical care. And when none of that broke him, he was sent repeatedly to “a concrete black hole” called the “punishment cell,” where he would remain for up to 15 days at a time.
Lesley Stahl: Here’s how he described it: he said it was a doghouse and this is the place where prisoners were sent to be tortured, and raped, and sometimes murdered. I wondered how you read those passages. I was thinking of you when I read it and thought, ‘What is she feeling? What is– how are you reading this?’
Yulia Navalnaya: It’s very tough moment to think about all this torturing place and torturing conditions, and about him, how he was laughing at these people, even while he was there.
Yulia Navalnaya
60 Minutes
Navalny thought of his life in prison as his work, surviving and staying positive, his job.
“I know one thing for sure…” he wrote: “…that I’m among the happiest 1 percent of people on the planet—those who absolutely adore their work… I have enormous support from the people. And I met a woman with whom I share not only love but … [who] is just as opposed as I am to what is going on. Maybe we won’t succeed … But we have to try.”
Lesley Stahl: He wrote much of this book while he was in prison. He was under constant surveillance, cameras on him all the time and he managed to get the pages out.
Yulia Navalnaya: Alexei was very smart– smart, very inventive. (LAUGH)
Lesley Stahl: Let me read you what he says in the book, okay, about this–
Yulia Navalnaya: Okay.
Lesley Stahl: He says, “I had to devise a whole clandestine operation to bamboozle the guards, involving the substitution of identical notebooks.” And after that, “[we went to court] where I was able physically to pass items to someone.”
Yulia Navalnaya: It was very difficult. That’s why we have diaries from the first year, much less from the second year, and not from the third year because it wasn’t possible.
These are some of the diaries he smuggled out when he went to court, which was often, as he was tried and convicted several times on various pretexts. After each verdict, he was moved to a different prison with harsher conditions.
Last December, he was transferred to this penal colony north of the Arctic Circle.
This would be his final court appearance. He looked healthy and in good spirits, sharing a laugh with court officials. The very next day, Feb. 16, 2024, he was dead. Russian officials announced later that the cause was, quote, “not criminal in nature” and due to “combined diseases.”
Lesley Stahl: It was at the time that, that the negotiations over a prisoner swap were underway and Alexei might be one of the prisoners who was to be released.
Yulia Navalnaya: Putin realized that Alexei is so big that he’s– he could be the new leader of Russia. He could encourage people to stand against Putin. And all the things just brought Putin to this understanding that it’s not possible to let Navalny be, be free.
Lesley Stahl: You posted a message shortly after his death. You said, bravely I thought, “[Vladimir] Putin killed my husband. By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart, and half of my soul.”
Yulia Navalnaya: That’s true. I can say now the same, nothing has changed.
Lesley Stahl: Here’s something else you said. You posted this on X: “Please do not forget… Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal. His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague in a cozy cell with a TV, but in Russia in the same… two-by-three-meter cell in which he killed Alexei.”
Yulia Navalnaya: For me, it’s very important. I think that for Vladimir Putin, he needs to be in Russian con– prison to feel everything, what not just my husband, but all the prisoners in Russia.
Yulia Navalnaya
60 Minutes
His political network inside Russia has been crushed. Yulia and their two children have been forced to live in exile. Many of his old team now operate out of here in Vilnius, Lithuania, and three of his lawyers are on trial in Russia.
And Yulia is constantly on the road, lobbying Western leaders to stand up to Putin.
Lesley Stahl: So, the question is inevitable. Painful but inevitable. Has Putin won? Has he shut down the opposition to such an extent that it’s over?
Yulia Navalnaya: But it’s not finished. We continue our fight. He still has millions of supporters, we can see it by how many people go still every day to his grave, how many flowers on his grave.
Produced by Richard Bonin. Associate producer, Mirella Brussani. Broadcast associate, Aria Een. Edited by Matthew Lev.
A FEMALE journalist has died after spending more than a year in Russian detention, claim Ukrainian officials.
Victoria Roshchyna, 27, mysteriously disappeared last August while reporting from inside Russian occupied Ukraine with officials now saying she has tragically died as Vladimir Putin’s prisoner of war.
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Ukrainian Journalist Victoria Roshchyna has died after spending more than a year in Russian captivityCredit: Instagram/ victoria_roshchyna
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Roshchyna mysteriously disappeared last AugustCredit: Instagram/ victoria_roshchyna
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Roshchyna was detained last year after reporting about the Ukraine war inside Russian occupied landCredit: Instagram
Roshchyna’s family first reported her missing to Ukrainian officials on August 12 last year after not hearing from her for days.
The journalist last spoke to her sister a week earlier as she said she had made it through routine border checks to get across Russian land but didn’t disclose her location.
An official missing person case was then filed on September 21.
The esteemed Ukrainian reporter was missing for over 6 months with her whereabouts finally revealed in April 2024 when her worried father was sent a letter from Moscow.
Russia‘s defence ministry said Roshchyna was being held at a Russian detention centre, according to Ukraine’s main journalist union.
The reason why she was arrested and subjected to months of imprisonment has never been made public.
The exact location of the jail has also been kept underwraps by Russian officials.
Her death was first announced by Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s prison of war coordination headquarters.
He said: “Unfortunately, information about Victoria’s death has been confirmed.
“It is too early to talk about the circumstances of the death, we are working to establish them.”
Watch moment £16m Russian stash of 400 kamikaze drones are blown to smithereens in crippling blow to Putin’s air power
Press rights group Reporters Without Borders say they are “shocked” over Roshchyna’s death.
Russian news outlet Mediazona have claimed she may have died when she was being transferred to Moscow from a prison in Taganrog, near to the Ukrainian border.
Victoria claimed at the time that Russians fired at her vehicle and forced a group of press to abandon the car and lie down hiding in a field.
After returning to the car some time after and continuing on with the trip across southern Ukraine Roshchyna was allegedly taken by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), her colleagues said.
She was released after 10 days in captivity.
Unfortunately, information about Victoria’s death has been confirmed
Petro YatsenkoUkraine’s prison of war coordination headquarters
Roshchyna worked as a freelancer for various independent news outlets in Eastern Europe.
These included Ukrainska Pravda and the Ukrainian service of US-funded media outlet Radio Free Europe.
In 2022, her frontline reporting was honoured when she received the Courage in Journalism award by the International Women’s Media Foundation.
Roshchyna is just one of thousands of Ukrainians known to be held in Russia after they opposed to Moscow’s iron fist ruling.
Many have been detained in Russian occupied territories since Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Rights groups say some have faced torture and abuse at the hands of their captors.
Back in May, Ukraine claimed more than two dozen media officials are being held in Russian captivity.
The country are in negotiations to free those still locked up.
Many other Russian prisoners jailed on bogus charges have been released this year.
A huge 24 person swap deal between the US and Russia in July saw journalists, military officials and foreign opposers to Putin’s regime freed in exchange for Russian prisoners.
Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was one of eight Russian dissidents freed in the largest international prisoner swap since the Cold War. He says he thought he was going to be executed on the day he was taken from his cell.
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You were never meant to hear the voice of Vladimir Kara-Murza ever again. The Russian opposition leader had warned for years that Vladimir Putin would threaten the peace of the world, and at the U.N. General Assembly in New York this past week, leaders were debating how to stop Putin in Ukraine without a world war. Putin poisoned Kara-Murza twice, then sent him to die in prison. But last month, he was traded for a prize that Putin could not resist. Why does the Russian dictator still fear Vladimir Kara-Murza? Here’s why.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: I think Russia deserves so much better than to live under a corrupt, repressive criminal, archaic KGB-led dictatorship. But change is not gonna happen unless we do something to make it happen.
Scott Pelley: And this is worth your life?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: I mean, look, there were people who stood up to Apartheid in South Africa. There were people who stood up to the Communist regime in the Soviet Union. There were people who stood up to the Nazi regime in Germany. There are causes larger than ourselves. And to me, the cause of a free, peaceful, civilized, and democratic Russia is certainly much larger than I could ever be.
He has fought for that cause from the start of Putin’s 25-years in power. He’s a Pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and Cambridge educated historian. Last year, 43-year-old Kara-Murza was tried for treason after denouncing Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
60 Minutes
Vladimir Kara-Murza:We tried to warn the world. We tried to shout. We tried to get the message out that this regime is dangerous, that this man is dangerous, that even if you don’t care about what happens to us in Russia it’s gonna come to you sooner or later.
Scott Pelley: What is it like living in Russia today?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Anybody who’s a genuine opponent of Putin is either in exile in prison or dead. You have to think about even what you talk to your kids about at home because children whose families are against this war in Ukraine would, for example, draw anti-war images in school and their parents would get visits from the police or they would be put in prison. You have to think about that as well if you live in Russia today.
Vladimir Kara-Murza has been high on Putin’s list since 2012 when he and the late Sen. John McCain fought for the so-called Magnitsky Act. The U.S. law is named for a man murdered by Putin’s police. The Magnitsky Act seized the overseas assets of more than 60 people who abused human rights in Russia. Kara-Murza says this is why he was poisoned by Kremlin assassins.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: I was in was in a coma for about a month the first time this happened in May of 2015 with a multiple organ failure. And as the doctors in Moscow were telling my wife, with about a 5% chance to survive. And after I came out of that coma, despite all the odds, I’ve literally had to learn everything new.
Scott Pelley: You had to learn to walk again.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Yeah–
Scott Pelley: You had to learn to eat again.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: It’s amazing how fast the human body just loses everything, just loses all the strength and you just have to start anew.
Two years later, he was poisoned again. This time, 2017, he rehabbed in the U.S. His wife and three children live in the states and Kara-Murza has permanent resident status. But once he recovered, he returned to Russia.
Scott Pelley: You were safe.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: How could I not go back to Russia? I am a Russian politician. A politician has to be in their own country. How could I call on my fellow citizens and my fellow Russians to stand up and oppose this dictatorship if I myself was too scared to do it? How is that possible?
Vladimir Kara-Murza speaks with Scott Pelley
60 Minutes
Last year, after his treason conviction, he was hit with the longest sentence ever for a political prisoner. The judge in the case had been among the first officials ever sanctioned by the Magnitsky Act.
Scott Pelley: And when you heard the sentence, 25 years, you thought what?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: So, frankly I thought it’s a job well done.
Scott Pelley: A job well done?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Well, on my part, yes. I think that 25 year sentence was frankly, a recognition that what we did over all those years mattered, that the Magnitsky Act mattered, that public opposition to the war in Ukraine mattered.
He was sent to Siberia and solitary confinement.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: In the two and a half years I’ve spent in Russian prison, I was only able to once call my wife on the phone, and only twice I was able to speak on the phone to our three kids. It was a 15-minute call, so five minutes per child. And as my wife later told me, she was standing there with a stopwatch to make sure that each of our kids doesn’t get more than five minutes so that everybody could have an opportunity to speak with Dad.
Scott Pelley: Were you sitting in that cell thinking, “I’m gonna get outta here one day”?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: No, to answer your question honestly, I did not believe I would ever get out. And so, what happened– on August 1st, the only way I can describe that is a miracle.
The miracle was in the making for more than a year. Negotiations beganover Americans held by Putin, which, eventually, included Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. But over the months, the deal grew to involve seven countries.
Jake Sullivan: We don’t trust the Russians on anything. They lied about the war in Ukraine. They make a regular practice of lying and obfuscating. But one thing they have shown over time is when they say they’re gonna do an exchange, they do the exchange.
At the center of the negotiations was Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security advisor.
NSA Jake Sullivan
60 Minutes
Jake Sullivan: None of this happens overnight. None of it’s straightforward. There’s gonna be twists and turns. There’s gonna be false starts. And so, persistence, relentlessness, that’s part of the name of the game of actually securing the release of these Americans.
But there was only one thing Putin wanted and that would be hard, maybe impossible, for the man who held the key, the leader of Germany.
Jake Sullivan: Olaf Scholz was absolutely critical. Without him, this would not have happened. Because a central piece of the puzzle was the release of a Russian agent named Vadim Krasikov. Without Krasikov, there is no deal.
But Krasikov is a notorious assassin and friend of Putin. In 2019, he was sent to Germany to kill an enemy of the Kremlin. The daytime murder, in the middle of Berlin, was infamous.
Scott Pelley: What was Scholz’s dilemma?
Jake Sullivan: Being able to look his people in the eye and say, “We are releasing someone who has committed a grievous crime on German soil. And therefore, I can deliver something for the people of Germany.” And that’s why we ended up thinking through enlarging the problem, not just trying to bring out Americans, but of course bring out some German citizens as well. And then, the critical move of being able to say to the German people, the American people, and the world, “We are also getting Russian Freedom Fighters out,” including people like Vladimir Kara-Murza.
That was the fire-side pitch to the German leader, but Krasikov had served only three years of a life sentence. Scholz’s fractious coalition government faced election challenges. And the easy answer was “no.”
Scott Pelley: In the end, you had to do a deal with the devil.
Olaf Scholz: I made a deal with the Russian president.
In Berlin, Chancellor Scholz told us he was brought to “yes” by a man he considered a friend.
Olaf Scholz: It is not an easy decision. And I discussed with many people in my government, and especially with Joe Biden, who asked me to help. And my view was that this is something which we could do. Well-prepared and if we do it on a large scale.
Olaf Scholz
60 Minutes
Jake Sullivan: He said, and I remember it very vividly, on the phone with President Biden, “For you, Joe, I will do this.”
Vladimir Kara-Murza: A large group of officers burst into my cell. I have no idea what’s happening. It’s the middle of the night. It’s dark. And they tell me I have ten minutes to get up and get ready. And at this moment, I’m absolutely certain that I’m gonna be led out and be executed.
But instead of executed, on August 1st, eight Russian criminals and spies were traded for several Germans, the three Americans, and eight Russian dissidents. As he stepped off the plane in Turkey, Kara-Murza’s captors had parting advice.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: He turned to me and said, “Be careful about what you eat. You know how these things happen.”
Scott Pelley: He was telling you, you might be poisoned again, even though you’re free?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Well, look, we know that attacks on opponents of the Kremlin have happened far beyond the borders of Russia.
The next voice Kara-Murza heard spoke not of fear but of freedom.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: At that moment a lady diplomat came up to me with a cell phone and she says, “Are you Mr. Kara-Murza?” I said, “Yes.” And she gives me the phone and says, “I’m from the American embassy in Ankara. The president of the United States is on the line.”
President Biden (on call): You’ve been wrongfully detained for a long time and we’re glad you’re home.
With President Biden, was Kara-Murza’s family.
Vladimir Kara-Murza (on call): You’ve done a wonderful thing by saving so many people. I think there are 16 of us on the plane. I don’t think there are many things more important than saving human lives.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: It felt surreal, it felt more emotional than I had ever felt at any point in my life.
There had been many emotions for Jake Sullivan who, for years, could tell desperate families only to keep waiting.
Jake Sullivan (in briefing room): And most of the time, as you can imagine, those are tough conversations. But not today. Today, excuse me, today was a very good day.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: It’s one thing to speak about protecting freedom or protecting human rights. But it’s quite another thing to actually do something to protect them. And whatever else President Biden and Chancellor Scholz will be remembered for years from now, they will be remembered for this.
Scott Pelley: Vladimir Kara-Murza told us he quoted a Jewish scripture to you: “He who saves one life saves the entire world.”
Olaf Scholz: It was very nice to hear it, to be very honest with you. On the other hand, I don’t feel that great. I did what I thought is the right thing to do.
Scott Pelley: We have traveled quite a bit through Ukraine. We have seen the destroyed hospitals. We have seen the shattered schools. We have seen the mass graves. Vladimir Putin has attacked a country that meant him no harm, and I wonder if you can explain why.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Because that is what dictators do. Once they consolidate, they control domestically. Once they eliminate and destroy all the opposition at home, they start moving against others. This has always happened in Russia. whether under the czars, under the Soviets, or now under Vladimir Putin.
Scott Pelley: Will Putin try to kill you again?
Vladimir Kara-Murza: Look, we know what it entails to be in opposition to Vladimir Putin. He’s not just a dictator. He’s not just an authoritarian leader. He’s not just a strongman. He is a murderer. That man is a murderer.
Vladimir Kara-Murza remains in the U.S. with his family. He told us, in solitary confinement, he learned there’s no life without hope– true for those behind bars and for his imprisoned country.
Vladimir Kara-Murza: The amazing fact and the fact that frankly makes me proud of Russia is that there are thousands of people in Russia who have publicly spoken out against Putin’s regime, who have publicly spoken out against the war in Ukraine even at the cost of personal freedom. And I hope that when people in the West, that when people in the United States, when people in the free world at large think about Russia they will remember not only the aggressors and the war criminals who are sitting in the Kremlin but also those who are standing up to them because we are Russians too.
Produced by Maria Gavrilovic and Alex Ortiz. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by April Wilson.
Scott Pelley, one of the most experienced and awarded journalists today, has been reporting stories for 60 Minutes since 2004. The 2024-25 season is his 21st on the broadcast. Scott has won half of all major awards earned by 60 Minutes during his tenure at the venerable CBS newsmagazine.
RUSSIA has deployed war wolves on the Ukraine front line — because the beasts react early to kamikaze drone sounds.
Troops say the howling animals have a good sense of smell, are sociable and active, and can warn of danger in advance.
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Vladimit Putin has deployed war wolves on the Ukraine front line — because the beasts react early to kamikaze drone soundsCredit: EPA
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Troops say the howling animals have a good sense of smell, are sociable and active, and can warn of danger in advanceCredit: East2West
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Wolf-tamer Aleksandr Konchakov raised two females that were rescued from Siberian region KhakassiaCredit: East2West
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A Ukrainian soldier launches a kamikaze FPV drone on the front lineCredit: Reuters
Two tamed wolves have been sent to serve with Vladimir Putin’s soldiers and more will follow if the experiment is a success.
A Russian news agency reported: “The predators can hear the approach of drones and warn of danger in advance.
“They will help Russian soldiers carry out combat missions in the [war] zone.”
The two females were rescued from Siberian region Khakassia and raised by wolf-tamer Aleksandr Konchakov.
In a video, he can be seen feeding ice cream to one of the wolves, called Vysota.
He said: “The puppies were simply brought to me by hunters without a mother.
“They have excellent intuition and are smart.”
Inside ‘Wolves’ of Ukraine the battalion of volunteer troops defending the ‘Road of Life’ – the last way out of wasteland Bakhmut
Moscow State Circus chief Edgard Zapashny said: “I hope these two female wolves, who will now be with our fighters, will not be harmed, and that the men will surround them with care and ensure their safety.
“In turn, they will save the lives of our soldiers.”
The Democrats’ star-studded, four-day convention drew to a close as Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the party’s nomination for president. The festivities were high on entertainment and praise for Harris and running mate Tim Walz. But while most speakers stuck to the script — and the facts — the convention was not without false information or statements that begged for additional context.
Here’s a look at the facts around some of those claims.
Trump’s views on an abortion ban
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS said Trump would “ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.”
THE FACTS: While Trump has said in the past that he would support a national ban on abortion, he said Thursday morning on Fox & Friends: “I would never. There will not be a federal ban. This is now back in the states where it belongs.”
In April, he said he would leave the issue up to the states in a video on his Truth Social platform.
Days later, asked by a reporter upon arriving in Atlanta whether he would sign a national abortion ban, Trump shook his head and said “no.”
But just a month earlier Trump suggested he’d support a national ban on abortion around 15 weeks of pregnancy. He also often brags about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion.
The Republican presidential nominee advocated for the bill again in 2018, at that year’s annual March for Life festival in Washington. The bill, which included exceptions for saving the life of a pregnant woman, as well as rape or incest, was passed by the House in 2017, but failed to move forward in the Senate.
Trump told CBS News on Monday that he would not enforce the Comstock Act to restrict the sale of abortion medication by mail. The act, originally passed in 1873, was revived in an effort to block the mailing of mifepristone, the pill used in more than half of U.S. abortions.
Trump and Project 2025
COLORADO REP. JASON CROW: “Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would abandon our troops, abandon our veterans, our allies and our principles.”
THE FACTS: Many speakers at the convention have linked Trump to Project 2025. Trump has repeatedly disavowed the conservative initiative, saying on social media he hasn’t read it and doesn’t know anything about it. At a rally in Michigan, he said Project 2025 was written by people on the “severe right” and some of the things in it are “seriously extreme.” He has also denied knowing who is behind the plan.
Project 2025 has also said it is not tied to a specific candidate or campaign. And yet, it is connected in many ways to Trump’s orbit. Some of the people involved in Project 2025 are former senior officials from the Trump administration. The project’s former director is Paul Dans, who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.
Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt was featured in one of Project 2025’s videos. John McEntee, a former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration, is a senior adviser. McEntee told the conservative news site The Daily Wire earlier this year that Project 2025’s team would integrate a lot of its work with the campaign after the summer when Trump would announce his transition team.
What to know about the 2024 Election
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, penned the forward of a yet unreleased book written by Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025.
__ CROW again: “Trump plans to do Putin’s bidding by abandoning Ukraine and walking away from our NATO allies. In chapters two and three, he plans to fire our national security and military professionals and then replace them with MAGA loyalists.”
THE FACTS: In regards to the Russia-Ukraine war, Project 2025 lays out three schools of thought about U.S. involvement, one of them being that it should not continue. However, it does not advocate for any one over the other.
Crow’s claim that national security and military professionals will be replaced with Trump supporters does ring true. Among its recommendations are that senior CIA leaders “must commit to carrying out the President’s agenda and be willing to take calculated risks.” It also states that the National Security Council should be made up of “personnel with technical expertise and experience as well as an alignment to the President’s declared national security policy priorities.”
Trump’s alleged comments about those captured or killed in military service
ARIZONA SEN. MARK KELLY: “Trump thinks that Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice are suckers and losers.”
THE FACTS: Kelly was among many DNC speakers who brought up similar claims. He was referencing allegations first reported in The Atlantic on Sept. 3, 2020, that Trump made disparaging remarks about members of the U.S. military who have been captured or killed, including referring to the American war dead at a World War I cemetery outside Paris in 2018 as “suckers” and “losers.”
But the truth is that it hasn’t been proven definitively, one way or the other, whether Trump actually made these comments.
The Republican presidential nominee said the day the Atlantic story came out that it is “totally false,” calling it “a disgraceful situation” by a “terrible magazine.”
Speaking to reporters after he returned to Washington from a campaign rally in Pennsylvania soon after, Trump said: “I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes. There is nobody that respects them more. No animal — nobody — what animal would say such a thing?”
And yet, a senior Defense Department official with firsthand knowledge of the events and a senior U.S. Marine Corps officer who was told about Trump’s comments confirmed some of his remarks to The Associated Press after the Atlantic story was published, including the ones about “suckers” and “losers.”
Walz’s accomplishments as governor
MINNESOTA SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, touting Tim Walz’s accomplishments as governor of the state: “Tim has delivered — paid leave, school lunches and the biggest tax cut in Minnesota history.”
Walz also signed what his administration and Democratic legislative leaders have touted as the largest tax cut in state history, about $3 billion worth as part of the two-year budget approved last year. It included a one-time refundable tax credit of $260 for single filers and up to $1,300 for a family with three children. It also established a child tax credit of up to $1,750 per child for lower-income families, subject to income limits. In addition, it exempted more people from state taxes on Social Security income, but left the tax in place for higher-income seniors.
But critics take issue with his characterization of it as the biggest tax cut in state history. The Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank, points out that low-income Minnesotans don’t pay the state income tax, so in its view giving them tax credits amounts to income redistribution and welfare — not tax cuts.
Republican legislators tried to hold out for permanent tax cuts for everyone, but Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and went for targeted relief instead.
Bill Clinton’s keeping score
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON on Wednesday: “Since the end of the Cold War in 1989, America has created 51 million new jobs. I swear I checked this three times. Even I couldn’t believe it. What’s the score? Democrats 50, Republicans one.”
THE FACTS: The math shows Clinton is technically right, but the underlying story is more nuanced. There were four recessions since the end of the Cold War — each of them beginning during the Republican presidencies of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump. That’s the simplest explanation for the trend outlined by Clinton.
Let’s get precise: The U.S. economy has added almost 51.6 million jobs since January 1989, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes a net 1.3 million jobs added under Republicans.
It’s worth noting that this simple scoreboard is incomplete. There can be reasons for a recession that have nothing to do necessarily with the president — as market economies can have minds of their own. There can be bad policy choices in previous administrations that led to downturns happening later. And job growth generally comes from the combination of rising populations, improvements in workers’ skills and the actions of private employers. The U.S. economy is big and diverse enough that areas in the industrial Midwest struggled even as parts of the Sunbelt boomed.
After George H.W. Bush endured a brief downturn, the economy recovered and 2.3 million jobs were added during his term. But Americans still felt the economy was poor and elected Clinton.
Growth jumped during Clinton’s eight years as more women entered the labor force and 22.9 million jobs were added. But shortly after he left office, the tech bubble in the stock market burst and the U.S. economy entered into a brief recession. The economy shed jobs for a little over two years, then mounted a comeback only to slam headfirst into the mortgage bust and the 2008 financial crisis that produced the Great Recession and mass layoffs. Still, over eight years, George W. Bush added a little over 2.1 million jobs because the U.S. population was still growing.
Democrat Barack Obama inherited the disastrous economy in early 2009 and endured a grindingly slow but successful recovery. The U.S. economy added 11.3 million jobs.
Trump took the presidency and promised an unprecedented economic boom. The job market continued to build on its health during Obama’s final four years, only to get crushed by the coronavirus pandemic as shutdowns for health reasons led to unemployment. As a result, the country had 3.1 million fewer jobs when his term ended.
President Joe Biden oversaw a recovery with additional pandemic aid and other investments that accelerated hiring, but it was accompanied by higher inflation that left much of the public feeling pessimistic about the economy. Still, his presidency — still ongoing — has added more than 15.8 million jobs.
Whether Trump said women should be punished for having abortions
ALEXIS MCGILL JOHNSON, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on Wednesday: “Do we want a president who said women should be punished for having abortions?”
THE FACTS: Asked whether he would be comfortable with states deciding to punish women who access abortions after the procedure is banned, Trump said in an April interview with Time magazine: “The states are going to say. It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.”
Trump said outright during his 2016 campaign that women who get illegal abortions should receive “some form of punishment.” The comment came during a heated exchange with MSNBC host Chris Matthews at a town hall taping in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
But Trump quickly did an about-face. His campaign sought within hours to take back his comment in two separate statements, ultimately saying he believes abortion providers — not their patients — should be the ones punished.
The first statement said he believed the issue should rest with state governments, while the second entirely rejected the idea that a woman should face repercussions for undergoing an illegal abortion.
“If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,” Trump said in the second statement. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb.”
VLADIMIR Putin is telling Russians to start having sex at work in an attempt to counter the plummeting birth rates.
The Kremlin is set to implement a sex-at-work scheme after too many citizens reportedly complained of not having enough time or energy for late night romps.
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Vladimir Putin is telling Russians to start having sex at work in an attempt to counter the plummeting birth ratesCredit: Getty
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The Russian tyrant has called the push for more babies a ‘question of national importance’Credit: Alamy
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Putin kissing a baby during a public visit in RussiaCredit: AFP
The plan has been proposed by a health minister after Putin made an urgent demand to increase the number of people having babies.
It will see staff allowed to get it on during their lunch and coffee breaks in peace.
Bosses have even been told to encourage all midday romps.
Russian doctor Yevgeny Shestopalov is pushing for the scheme to be implemented and sees it as a way to stop “lame excuses”.
He said: “Being very busy at work is not a valid reason, but a lame excuse.
“You can engage in procreation during breaks, because life flies by too quickly.”
Putin has said in the past that “the fate of Russia depends on how many of us there will be”.
Calling the huge push for more babies a “question of national importance”.
Give birth, give birth and give birth again, you need to give birth
Zhanna RyabtsevaRussian MP
Blinkered politician Tatyana Butskaya, 49, has even drawn up a blueprint plan telling Russian employers to coerce women into having babies.
She said:“Large families are becoming the new elite so [regional] governors should report on the birth rate.
“Each employer should look at their workplace, what is your birth rate?
“This is exactly how we should pose this question, we will monitor it.”
Putin is ‘grooming secret son, 9, to be his successor with his daughters ready to act as regents’, claims ex-Russian MP
The sex-at-work scheme is just one of many initiatives in Russia aimed at women and couples.
In Moscow, women aged 18 to 40 are being told to attend free fertility checks to assess their “reproductive potential”.
Several regions are even offering students cash rewards if they give birth.
Chelyabinsk is paying any mum under 24 a whopping £8,500 for the birth of their first child.
Karelia has a similar scheme with them paying £850.
A number of prominent Putin politicians have been ordering their residents to think about having children from a young age.
Anna Kuznetsova has demanded women should have their first born before they reach 21 so they can go on to have multiple other children.
As MP Zhanna Ryabtseva has echoed similar thoughts saying women should already be thinking about having kids by the time they reach 18.
She said: “Give birth, give birth and give birth again, you need to give birth.”
Russia’s current fertility rate is just 1.5 children per woman.
This is far below the typical rate of 2.1 which most researchers agree is vital to keep up a stable population.
The population of Russia is expected to take a worrying nosedive over the next 25 years.
Projections say the 144 million population Putin controls as of today will drop to under 130 million by 2050.
Critics say Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is to blame for the shrivelling birth rate.
Almost 640,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the fighting started in February 2022, according to Ukraine.
This has torn families apart with fathers and husbands yet to return home.
The uncertainties of war are also said to be scaring young couples away from starting a family.
Who are Putin’s children?
THE official number of Vlad’s offspring is two, according to the Kremlin.
These are a pair of daughters, Maria Vorontsova, 39, and Katerina Tikhonova, 37.
Both come from his previous marriage to ex-first lady Lyudmila Putina.
Their marriage lasted 30 years, spanning Mr Putin’s rapid rise to the top of Russia’s political system.
Tikhonova started as an acrobatic dancer in her younger years before she went on to spearhead a major new Russian artificial intelligence initiative.
Vorontsova has built a career in medical research, is an expert on dwarfism and married to a Dutch businessman, Jorrit Faassen.
But, independent journalists recently confirmed Putin has a number of other hidden children.
Two sons, Ivan, nine and Vladimir, five, have reportedly grown up with the tyrant and his longterm lover Alina Kabaeva, 41.
They have already confirmed another daughter, Luiza, 21, born from an extra-marital relationship with a cleaner turned millionaire.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The actor in the viral music video denouncing the 2024 Olympics looks a lot like French President Emmanuel Macron. The images of rats, trash and the sewage, however, were dreamed up by artificial intelligence.
Portraying Paris as a crime-ridden cesspool, the video mocking the Games spread quickly on social media platforms like YouTube and X, helped on its way by 30,000 social media bots linked to a notorious Russian disinformation group that has set its sights on France before. Within days, the video was available in 13 languages, thanks to quick translation by AI.
“Paris, Paris, 1-2-3, go to Seine and make a pee,” taunts an AI-enhanced singer as the faux Macron actor dances in the background, seemingly a reference to water quality concerns in the Seine River where some competitions are taking place.
Moscow is making its presence felt during the Paris Games, with groups linked to Russia’s government using online disinformation and state propaganda to spread incendiary claims and attack the host country — showing how global events like the Olympics are now high-profile targets for online disinformation and propaganda.
Over the weekend, disinformation networks linked to the Kremlin seized on a divide over Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who has faced unsubstantiated questions about her gender. Baseless claims that she is a man or transgender surfaced after a controversial boxing association with Russian ties said she failed an opaque eligibility test before last year’s world boxing championships.
Russian networks amplified the debate, which quickly became a trending topic online. British news outlets, author J.K. Rowling and right-wing politicians like Donald Trump added to the deluge. At its height late last week, X users were posting about the boxer tens of thousands of times per hour, according to an analysis by PeakMetrics, a cyber firm that tracks online narratives.
The boxing group at the root of the claims — the International Boxing Association — has been permanently barred from the Olympics, has a Russian president who is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and its biggest sponsor is the state energy company Gazprom. Questions also have surfaced about its decision to disqualify Khelif last year after she had beaten a Russian boxer.
Approving only a small number of Russian athletes to compete as neutrals and banning them from team sports following the invasion of Ukraine all but guaranteed the Kremlin’s response, said Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of NewsGuard, a firm that analyzes online misinformation. NewsGuard has tracked dozens of examples of disinformation targeting the Paris Games, including the fake music video.
Russia’s disinformation campaign targeting the Olympics stands out for its technical skill, Crovitz said.
“What’s different now is that they are perhaps the most advanced users of generative AI models for malign purposes: fake videos, fake music, fake websites,” he said.
AI can be used to create lifelike images, audio and video, rapidly translate text and generate culturally specific content that sounds and reads like it was created by a human. The once labor-intensive work of creating fake social media accounts or websites and writing conversational posts can now be done quickly and cheaply.
Another video amplified by accounts based in Russia in recent weeks claimed the CIA and U.S. State Department warned Americans not to use the Paris metro. No such warning was issued.
Russian state media has trumpeted some of the same false and misleading content. Instead of covering the athletic competitions, much of the coverage of the Olympics has focused on crime, immigration, litter and pollution.
One article in the state-run Sputnik news service summed it up: “These Paris ‘games’ sure are going swimmingly. Here’s an idea. Stop awarding the Olympics to the decadent, rotting west.”
Russia has used propaganda to disparage past Olympics, as it did when the then-Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. At the time, it distributed printed material to Olympic officials in Africa and Asia suggesting that non-white athletes would be hunted by racists in the U.S., according to an analysis from Microsoft Threat Intelligence, a unit within the technology company that studies malicious online actors.
Russia also has targeted past Olympic Games with cyberattacks.
“If they cannot participate in or win the Games, then they seek to undercut, defame, and degrade the international competition in the minds of participants, spectators, and global audiences,” analysts at Microsoft concluded.
A message left with the Russian government was not immediately returned on Monday.
Authorities in France have been on high alert for sabotage, cyberattacks or disinformation targeting the Games. A 40-year-old Russian man was arrested in France last month and charged with working for a foreign power to destabilize the European country ahead of the Games.
Other nations, criminal groups, extremist organizations and scam artists also are exploiting the Olympics to spread their own disinformation. Any global event like the Olympics — or a climate disaster or big election — that draws a lot of people online is likely to generate similar amounts of false and misleading claims, said Mark Calandra, executive vice president at CSC Digital Brand Services, a firm that tracks fraudulent activity online.
CSC’s researchers noticed a sharp increase in fake website domain names being registered ahead of the Olympics. In many cases, groups set up sites that appear to provide Olympic content, or sell Olympic merchandise.
Instead, they’re designed to collect information on the user. Sometimes it’s a scam artist looking to steal personal financial data. In others, the sites are used by foreign governments to collect information on Americans — or as a way to spread more disinformation.
“Bad actors look for these global events,” Calandra said. “Whether they’re positive events like the Olympics or more concerning ones, these people use everyone’s heightened awareness and interest to try to exploit them.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A fake video that ricocheted across the internet claiming tensions between France and the United Arab Emirates after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s detention in Paris likely came from Russia, an analysis by The Associated Press shows, despite Moscow’s efforts to maintain crucial ties to the UAE.
It remains unclear why Russian operatives would choose to publish such a video falsely claiming the Emirates halted a French arms sale, which appears to be the first noticeable effort by Moscow to target the UAE with a disinformation campaign. The Emirates remains one of the few locations to still have direct flights to Moscow, while Russian money has flooded into Dubai’s booming real estate market since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
France, however, remains one of the key backers of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the war grinds on. Meanwhile, Russia likely remains highly interested in what happens to Telegram, an app believed to be used widely by its military in the war and one that’s also been used by activists in the past. And the move comes amid concerns in the United States over Russia, Iran and China interfering in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Russia’s Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The fake video began circulating online Aug. 27, bearing the logos of the Qatar-based satellite news network Al Jazeera and attempting to copy the channel’s style. It falsely claimed the Emirati government had halted a previously announced purchase of 80 Rafale fighter jets from France worth 16 billion euros ($18 billion) at the time, the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. It also sought to link Dubai’s ruler and his crown prince son to the decision, as Durov holds an Emirati passport and has lived in Dubai.
Such a decision, however, was never made. The UAE and France maintain close relations, with the French military operating a naval base in the country. French warplanes and personnel also are stationed in a major facility outside the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi.
Reached for comment, Al Jazeera told the AP that the footage was “fake and we refute this attribution to the media network.” The network never aired any such claim when reporting on Durov’s detention as well, according to an AP check. On the social platform X, a note later appended by the company to some posts with the video identified it as “manipulated media.”
The video also appeared to seek to exploit the low-level suspicion still gripping the Gulf Arab states following the yearslong Qatar diplomatic crisis by falsely attributing it to the news network. State-funded Al Jazeera has drawn criticism in the past from Gulf nations over its coverage of the 2011 Arab Spring, from the United States for airing videos from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and most recently in Israel, where authorities closed its operation over its coverage of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The social media account that first spread the video did not respond to questions from the AP and later deleted its post. That account linked to another on the Telegram message app that repeatedly shared graphic images of dead Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian messages.
Such accounts have proliferated since the war began and bear the hallmark of past Russian disinformation campaigns.
In Ukraine, the Center for Countering Disinformation in Kyiv, a government project there focused on countering such Russian campaigns, told the AP that the account engaged in “systematic cross-quoting and reposting of content” associated with Russian state media and its government.
That indicates the account “is aimed at an international audience for the purpose of informational influence,” the center said. It “probably belongs to the Russian network of subversive information activities abroad.”
Other experts assessed the video to be likely Russian disinformation.
The Emirati government declined to comment. The French Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not respond to AP’s request to comment.
Durov is now free on 5 million euros bail after being questioned by French authorities and preliminarily charged for allegedly allowing Telegram to be used for criminal activity. He has disputed the charges and promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app.
Despite the video being flagged as fake online, captions and versions of the video continue to circulate, showing the challenge of trying to refute such messages. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just attended a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Saudi Arabia attended by the UAE. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have mediated prisoner exchanges amid the war.
Given those close ties, the UAE likely will or has reached out quietly to Moscow over the video, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute who has long studied the region.
“It may be that this is a part of the Russian playbook which is to seek to create wedges between political and security partners, in a bid to create divisions and sow uncertainty,” Ulrichsen said.
“The importance of the UAE to Russia post-2022 does make it unusual, but it may be that the campaign is aimed primarily at France and that any impact on the UAE’s image and reputation is a secondary issue as far as those behind the video are concerned.”
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Associated Press writer Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in its most sweeping effort yet to push back against what it says are Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the November presidential election.
The measures, which in addition to indictments also included sanctions and visa restrictions, represented a U.S. government effort just weeks before the November election to disrupt a persistent threat from Russia that American officials have long warned has the potential to sow discord and create confusion among voters.
“The Justice Department’s message is clear: We will have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic systems of government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.
One criminal case disclosed by the Justice Department accuses two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, of covertly funding a Tennessee-based content creation company with nearly $10 million to publish English-language videos on social media platforms including TikTok and YouTube with messages in favor of the Russia government’s interests and agenda, including about the war in Ukraine.
The nearly 2,000 videos posted by the company have gotten more than 16 million views on YouTube alone, prosecutors said.
The two defendants, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They are at large. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers.
The Justice Department says the company did not disclose that it was funded by RT and that neither it nor its founders registered as required by law as an agent of a foreign principal.
Though the indictment does not name the company, it describes it as a Tennessee-based content creation firm with six commentators and with a website identifying itself as “a network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.”
That description exactly matches Tenet Media, an online company that hosts videos made by well-known conservative influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and others.
Johnson and Pool both responded with posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, calling themselves “victims.” Calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “scumbag,” Pool wrote that “should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived.”
In his post, Johnson wrote that he had been asked a year ago to provide content to a “media startup.” He said his lawyers negotiated a “standard, arms length deal, which was later terminated.”
Tenet Media’s shows in recent months have featured high-profile conservative guests, including RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake.
In the other action, officials announced the seizure of 32 internet domains that were used by the Kremlin to spread Russian propaganda and weaken international support for Ukraine. The websites were designed to look like authentic news sites but were actually fake, with bogus social media personas manufactured to appear as if they belonged to American users.
The Justice Department did not identify which candidate in particular the propaganda campaign was meant to boost. But internal strategy notes from participants in the effort released Wednesday by the Justice Department make clear that Trump was the intended beneficiary, even though the names of the candidates were blacked out.
The proposal for one propaganda project, for instance, states that one of its objectives was to secure a victory for a candidate who is currently out of power and to increase the percentage of Americans who believe the U.S. has been doing too much to support Ukraine. President Joe Biden has strongly supported Ukraine during the invasion by Russia.
Intelligence agencies have previously charged that Russia, which during the 2016 election launched a massive campaign of foreign influence and interference on Trump’s behalf, was using disinformation to try to meddle in this year’s election. The new steps show the depth of those concerns.
“Today’s announcement highlights the lengths some foreign governments go to undermine American democratic institutions,” the State Department said. “But these foreign governments should also know that we will not tolerate foreign malign actors intentionally interfering and undermining free and fair elections.”
The State Department announced it was taking action against several employees of Russian state-owned media outlets, designating them as “foreign missions,” and offering a cash reward for information provided to the U.S. government about foreign election interference.
It also said it was adding media company Rossiya Segodnya and its subsidiaries RIA Novosti, RT, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik to its list of foreign missions. That will require them to register with the U.S. government and disclose their properties and personnel in the U.S.
In a speech last month, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Russia remained the biggest threat to election integrity, accusing Putin and his proxies of “targeting specific voter demographics and swing-state voters to in an effort to manipulate presidential and congressional election outcomes.” Russia, she said was “intent on co-opting unwitting Americans on social media to push narratives advancing Russian interests.”
She struck a similar note Thursday, saying at an Aspen Institute event that the foreign influence threat is more diverse and aggressive than in past years.
“More diverse and aggressive because they involve more actors from more countries than we have ever seen before, operating in a more polarized world than we have ever seen before, all fueled by more technology and accelerated by technology, like AI, and that is what we have exposed in the law enforcement actions we took today,” she said.
Much of the concern around Russia centers on cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns designed to influence the November vote.
The tactics include using state media like RT to advance anti-U.S. messages and content, as well as networks of fake websites and social media accounts that amplify the claims and inject them into Americans’ online conversations. Typically, these networks seize on polarizing political topics such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza.
In many cases, Americans may have no idea that the content they see online either originated or was amplified by the Kremlin.
Groups linked to the Kremlin are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms within Russia to outsource some of the work of creating digital propaganda while also covering their tracks, the officials said during the briefing with reporters.
Two such firms were the subject of new U.S. sanctions announced in March. Authorities say the two Russian companies created fake websites and social media profiles to spread Kremlin disinformation.
The ultimate goal, however, is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its origin. People are far more likely to trust and repost information that they believe is coming from a domestic source, officials said. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media profiles are just two methods.
Messages left with the Russian Embassy were not immediately returned.
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Associated Press writers Dan Merica and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, Ali Swenson in New York and Alan Suderman in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting Mongolia on Tuesday with no sign that the host country would bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The trip is Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court since it issued the warrant about 18 months ago. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the European Union expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. A spokesperson for Putin said last week that the Kremlin wasn’t worried.
The warrant puts the Mongolian government in a tough spot. Member countries are required by the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued. But Mongolia, a landlocked country bordering Russia, is highly dependent on its much larger neighbor for fuel and some of its electricity. The court lacks a mechanism to enforce its warrants.
The Russian leader was welcomed in the main square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, by an honor guard dressed in vivid red and blue uniforms styled on those of the personal guard of 13th-century ruler Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire.
He and Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa walked up the red-carpeted steps of the Government Palace and bowed before a statue of Genghis Khan before entering the building for their meetings.
Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh during a welcoming ceremony in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024.
Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
A small group of protesters who tried to unfurl a Ukrainian flag before the welcome ceremony were taken away by police.
Sitting down for talks with Khurelsukh, Putin said that relations between their two countries “are developing in all areas.” He invited the Mongolian president to attend a summit of the BRICS nations – a group that includes Russia and China among others – in the Russian city of Kazan in late October. Khurelsukh accepted, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
The ICC has accused Putin of being responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine, where the fighting has raged for 2 years.
On Monday, the EU expressed concern that the ICC warrant might not be executed and said it has shared its concern with Mongolian authorities.
“Mongolia, like all other countries, has the right to develop its international ties according to its own interests,” European Commission spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said. But she added, “Mongolia is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC since 2002, with the legal obligations that it entails.”
More than 50 Russians outside the country have signed an open letter urging the government of Mongolia to “immediately detain Vladimir Putin upon his arrival.” The signers include Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was freed from a Russian prison in August in the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, denounced the warrant against Putin as “illegal” in an online statement Tuesday and those who would try to carry it out as “madmen.”
Putin, on his first visit to Mongolia in five years, will join a ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of a joint Soviet and Mongolian victory over Japan’s army that controlled Manchuria in northeast China. Thousands of soldiers on both sides died in 1939 in months of fighting over the border’s location between Manchuria and Mongolia.
“I am very delighted about Putin’s visit to Mongolia,” said Yansanjav Demdendorj, a retired economist, citing Russia’s role against Japan. “If we think of the … battle, it’s Russians who helped free Mongolia.”
Putin has made a series of overseas trips in recent months to try to counter the international isolation he faces over the invasion of Ukraine. He visited China in May, made a trip to North Korea and Vietnam in June and went to Kazhakstan in July for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Last year, he joined a meeting in Johannesburg by video link after the South African government lobbied against him showing up for the BRICS summit. South Africa, an ICC member, was condemned by activists and its main opposition party in 2015 when it didn’t arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a visit.
Enkhgerel Seded, who studies at a university in Moscow, said that historically, countries with friendly relations don’t arrest heads of state on official visits.
“Our country has obligations toward the international community,” she said. “But … I think in this case as well, it would not be appropriate to conduct an arrest.”
Trip would be Russian president’s first to a member of International Criminal Court since warrant over ‘war crimes’.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Mongolia next week despite the country being a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued a warrant for his arrest last year.
The visit, scheduled for September 3, will be Putin’s first trip to an ICC member state since The Hague-based court issued the arrest warrant in March 2023 accusing the president of the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-controlled territory.
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were “no worries” over the visit, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
The visit is taking place on the invitation of Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh. “We have a wonderful dialogue with our friends from Mongolia,” Peskov said.
Under the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty, ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued if they set foot on their soil. However, the court does not have any enforcement mechanism.
The ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin was its first against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Putin has avoided travel to ICC member states ever since the warrant, which he deems “null and void”, was issued. Last year, he skipped a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in Johannesburg.
ICC member South Africa lobbied Moscow for months for Putin not to attend to avoid the diplomatic fallout, announcing that the countries had reached a “mutual agreement” that the BRICS regular not attend the meeting.
Putin took part by videolink, during which he launched a tirade against the West.
Armenia vexed Russia last year over its decision to join the ICC, adding to growing tensions between the old allies.
Armenian officials, however, quickly sought to assure Russia that Putin would not be arrested if he entered the country.
Mongolia signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and ratified it in 2002.
The Kremlin said Putin will hold talks with Khurelsukh and other top Mongolian officials, participating in “ceremonial events dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of the Soviet and Mongolian armed forces over the Japanese militarists on the Khalkhin Gol River”.
INCREDIBLE footage illustrates how Ukraine has captured a huge slice of Russian territory in a week-long rapid blitz.
It’s taken Kyiv’s troops just several days to claim 400 square miles of enemy soil as Vlad grapples with being the first Russian leader to surrender home turf since the Second World War.
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Ukraine is blasting its way into Russia as the war enters a fiery new chapterCredit: Reuters
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A Russian man reacts to missile debris, with many of his fellow residents evacuatingCredit: Kommersant Photo/Anatoliy Zhdanov via REUTERS RUSSIA
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A Ukrainian soldier holds up the peace sign as he goes into battleCredit: Reuters
The advance then spills into the rival country in multiple directions, with troops speeding straight ahead in a sharp incision as others take wider territory to the northwest and southeast.
Ukraine’s territory takeover then broadens out in all directions, leading to the huge 400,000 square mile coup in only seven days, according to the country’s top commander.
Thousands of troops have piled in with beefed up convoys including tanks and aircraft.
Read more on Russia-Ukraine
Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi claimed Ukraine now controlled the massive chunk of Russian territory as it continued to “conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region”.
He said:“The troops are fulfilling their tasks. Fighting continues along the entire front line. The situation is under our control.”
President Volodomyr Zelensky on Monday night warned adversary Vladimir Putin that war was “coming home” to Russia.
He said: “Russia brought war to others, now it’s coming home.
“Ukraine has always wanted only peace, and we will certainly ensure peace.”
Tens of thousands of Kursk citizens were forced to evacuate last week with locals in the neighbouring Belgorod region now also given orders to leave.
‘Rattled’ Putin’s body language reveals deep fear over Ukraine invasion as he nervously twitches & rubs hands
As many as 130,000 Russians are now displaced.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov warned the entire region was under missile alert.
He told residents: “Go down to the basement and stay there until you receive the all-clear”.
The warring nations traded air attacks overnight, with 14 Ukraine drones launched into the Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions taken out by air defence, according to Russian media.
Kremlin forces fired 38 attack drones and two ballistic missiles into Ukraine, sending the entire country on air-raid alert as fighting intensifies.
On the ground, Zelensky’s men tried to push further into Vlad’s territory.
The Kursk town of Sudzha is expected to be hotly fought over given the flow of Russian gas that runs through it.
As much as half of Russian natural gas sent into Europe travelled through Sudzha in 2023, making up five per cent of EU consumption.
Russian war bloggers and Ukrainian telegram channels claimed it was under Kyiv’s control, according to Reuters, although those assertions are yet to be verified.
Putin’s illegal invasion in 2022 has led to the Kremlin currently controlling nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory after two-and-a-half years of fighting.
Ukraine’s surprise push into Russia has been widely seen as an attempt to divert fighting away from its own turf.
Why has Ukraine invaded Russia?
By Ellie Doughty
UKRAINE’S daring invasion into Russia has been launched for two key reasons – with one aimed at Putin and one at the West.
A high-ranking Ukrainian official told AFP that the idea behind the attack is to stretch Putin’s armies as much as possible, spreading them thinly over different areas.
The security brass told AFP on condition of anonymity that “the aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border”.
As well as acting as a huge morale-boosting win for Ukraine – the invasion also has a second key purpose in Kyiv’s masterplan.
It is a message to allies in the West who have closely monitored Putin’s war.
Military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady told The Washington Post: “This is definitely one consideration that it is really a signal to the West and to Ukrainian allies and partners that Ukraine is still capable of launching offensive operations.
“That Ukraine is capable of conducting fairly complex operations into enemy territory.”
Vlad on the other hand claims Ukraine are simply trying to gain leverage for peace talk negotiations.
Vlad has speculated the surge was driven “with the help of Western masters” to gain leverage at the negotiating table for potential peace talks.
Although Kremlin chiefs and state media are insisting Ukraine is losing masses of troops in what will be a botched invasion, reports from the ground aren’t as glowing as Moscow might hope.
Speculation is swirling that Russian troops are even looting their own citizens’ evacuated homes.
Footage posted to X purports to show soldiers searching through a Kursk home before complaining that it had already been ransacked.
Retired general Andrei Gurulev, a member of Putin’s United Russia party, hit out at the military for failing to stave off Ukraine’s offensive, The Times reported.
He said: “Regrettably, the group of forces protecting the border didn’t have its own intelligence assets.
“No one likes to see the truth in reports, everybody just wants to hear that all is good.”
According to state news agency RIA, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service called Zelensky’s attacking move “insane”.
They claim the Ukrainian chief has sparked a threat of escalation that could expand beyond the two nations’ conflict.
US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal meanwhile jetted into Kyiv to meet with Zelensky and praised the “bold and brilliant” move.
Graham said: “Taking this war to Putin and making him understand and pay a price is the right thing
“So two-and-a-half years later you’re still standing and you’re in Russia. Remind me not to invade Ukraine.
“I’m so proud of you, your people, your military, your leadership, your country.”
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Zelensky says he’s bringing the war home to RussiaCredit: Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
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Tanks and troops rumble further into RussiaCredit: REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi
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Vlad insists Ukraine will lose masses of troops in their offensiveCredit: Reuters
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Ukraine claims tanks and troops have taken a huge slice of territoryCredit: AFP
HMS Richmond (foreground) monitoring the Chinese destroyer JiaozuoCredit: PA
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The HMS Richmond monitored the task force as it headed to RussiaCredit: PA
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The Jiaozuo, a 7500-tonne destroyer, and Honghu, a 23,400-tonne supply ship were headed to St Petersburg to participate in Russian Navy Days.
Richmond used her helicopter ‘Brigand’, cutting-edge sensors, and old fashioned visual contact to watch the two boats pass through the channel.
A French warship and a patrol ship from the Belgian navy as part of a NATO task force also helped watch the Chinese vessels past their countries.
UK Minister for the Armed Forces, Luke Pollard, said: “These escorts are a clear demonstration of how the Royal Navy continues to protect the sovereignty of UK waters.
“Working closely with our allies to support Euro-Atlantic security is a top priority for this government.
“I thank the crew of HMS Richmond for conducting a safe and professional transit and all they do in keeping our nation secure at home and strong abroad.”
HMS Richmond’s Commanding Officer, Commander Richard Kemp, said: “Close monitoring of foreign vessels in UK waters is routine business for the Royal Navy and ensures their compliance with maritime law and respect for UK sovereignty.
“By maintaining a visible and persistent presence, the Royal Navy demonstrates our commitment to the NATO alliance and in maintaining maritime security which is crucial to our national interests.”
A Royal Navy spokesperson said it was not a common occurrence that Chinese warships passed through the English Channel.
The operation involved following the Russian frigate through stormy seas during Storm Ciaran – which brought 104mph hurricane winds and an amber warning of danger to life.
In 2019, HMS St Albans and Westminster monitored another Chinese destroyer that was making the same trip.
HMS Richmond has recently seen action in the Red Sea, when it destroyed two attack Houthi drones with powerful Sea Ceptor missiles.
The Type 23 frigate set sail from Plymouth armed with 32 Sea Captor missiles and a Wildcat helicopter in January.
HMS Richmond joined the destroyer HMS Diamond, frigate HMS Lancaster, a squadron of three mine hunting vessels HMS Bangor, HMS Chiddingfold and HMS Middleton and the support ship RFA Cardigan Bay.
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The Chinese destroyer Jiaozuo (front) and support vessel Honghu (centre) passed through the English ChannelCredit: PA
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HMS Richmond has been active in the Red Sea battling Houthi drones
