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Tag: War in Ukraine

  • The awkward lunch: Macron prepares to snub Scholz in Paris

    The awkward lunch: Macron prepares to snub Scholz in Paris

    BERLIN/PARIS — Relations are now so icy between Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the EU’s two economic powerhouses, that they are even struggling to agree on whether to be seen together in front of the press.

    As the French president and German chancellor prepared for a tête-à-tête in Paris on Wednesday, Berlin announced that they would make a joint appearance in front of the cameras, which is normally the driest of routine diplomatic courtesies after bilateral meetings.

    But on Tuesday evening, a statement from the French Elysée Palace contradicted the German announcement, saying there was no press conference planned.

    If confirmed, it would be quite a snub for Scholz, who’s traveling with an entire press corps to Paris, and from there continuing to Athens for another state visit. Denying a press conference to a visiting leader is a political tactic that’s generally applied to deliver a rebuke, as was recently done by Scholz when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited Berlin.

    “Presumably, there has so far been a lack of contact and exchange between the respective new government teams of Scholz and Macron,” said Sandra Weeser from Germany’s liberal Free Democratic Party, who sits on the board of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly. “So, we are certainly also at the beginning of new interpersonal political relations, for which trust must first be built.”

    The tussle over a media show is just the latest episode of a deepening row between the EU’s two biggest powers.

    In recent weeks, Scholz and Macron have clashed over how to tackle the energy crisis, how to overcome Europe’s impotence on defense and the best approach to dealing with China.

    Last week, those tensions spilled into public when a planned Franco-German Cabinet meeting in the French town of Fontainebleau was postponed to January amid major differences on the text of a joint declaration, as well as conflicting holiday plans of some German ministers. Disagreement between the two governments was also broadly visible at last week’s EU summit in Brussels.

    As Scholz and Macron meet in Paris on Wednesday for a “working lunch,” which has been hastily set up as a downgraded replacement for the scrapped Cabinet meeting, politicians and officials across Europe will be closely watching to see whether the bloc’s two heavyweights can find a way back to much-needed unity. The war in Ukraine and the inflation and energy crisis have strained European alliances, just when they are most needed.

    French officials complain that Berlin isn’t sufficiently treating them as a close partner. For example, the French claim they weren’t briefed in advance of Germany’s domestic €200 billion energy price relief package — and they have made sure their counterparts in Berlin are aware of their frustration.

    “In my talks with French parliamentarians, it has become clear that people in Paris want more and closer coordination with Germany,” said Chantal Kopf, a lawmaker from the Greens, one of the three parties in Germany’s ruling coalition, and a board member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly.

    “So far, this cooperation has always worked well in times of crisis — think, for example, of the recovery fund during the coronavirus crisis — and now the French also rightly want the responses to the current energy crisis, or how to deal with China, to be closely coordinated,” Kopf said.

    Late last month, Paris felt snubbed by Berlin when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz found no time to speak to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne | Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images

    A similar conclusion is being drawn by Weeser from the FDP, another coalition partner in the Berlin government. “Paris is irritated by Germany’s go-it-alone on the gas price brake and the lack of support for joint European defense technology projects,” she said. At the same time, she accused the French government of having until recently dragged its feet on a new pipeline connection between the Iberian peninsula and Northern Europe.

    Unprecedented tensions

    Most recently, the French government was irritated by the news that Scholz plans to visit Beijing next week to meet Xi Jinping in what would be the first visit by a foreign leader since the Chinese president got a norm-breaking third term. Germany and China also plan their own show when it comes to planned government consultations in January.

    The thinking at the Elysée is that it would have been better if Macron and Scholz had visited China together — and preferably a bit later rather than straight after China’s Communist Party congress where Xi secured another mandate. According to one French official, a visit shortly after the congress would “legitimize” Xi’s third term and be “too politically costly.”

    Germany and France’s uncoordinated approach to China contrasts with Xi’s last visit to Europe in 2019 when he was welcomed by Macron, who had also invited former Chancellor Angela Merkel and former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to Paris to show European unity.

    Macron has refrained from directly criticizing a controversial Hamburg port deal with Chinese company Cosco, which Scholz is pushing ahead of his Beijing trip. But the French president last week questioned the wisdom of letting China invest in “essential infrastructure” and warned that Europe had been “naive” toward Chinese purchases in the past “because we thought Europe was an open supermarket.”

    Jean-Louis Thiériot, vice president of the defense committee in the French National Assembly, said Germany was increasingly focusing on defense in Eastern Europe at the expense of joint German-French projects. For example, Berlin inked a deal with 13 NATO members, many of them on the Northern and Eastern European flank, to jointly acquire an air and missile defense shield — much to the annoyance of France.

    “The situation is unprecedented,” Thiériot said. “Tensions are now getting worse and quickly. In the last couple of months, Germany decided to end work on the [Franco-German] Tiger helicopter, dropped joint navy patrols … And the signature of the air defense shield is a deathblow [to the defense relationship],” he said.

    Germany’s massive investment through a €100 billion military upgrade fund, as well as Scholz’s commitment to the NATO goal of putting 2 percent of GDP toward defense spending, will likely raise the annual defense budget to above €80 billion and means Berlin will be on course to outgun France’s €44 billion defense budget.

    Sick note

    Last week’s suspension of the joint Franco-German Cabinet meeting wasn’t by far the first clash between Berlin and Paris when it comes to high-level meetings.

    Back in August, the question was whether Scholz and Macron would meet in Ludwigsburg on September 9 for the 60th anniversary of a famous speech by former French President Charles de Gaulle in the palatial southwestern German town. But despite the highly symbolic nature of that ceremony, the leaders’ meeting never happened — with officials presenting conflicting accounts of why that was the case, from appointment conflicts to alleged disagreements over who should shoulder the costs.

    French President Emmanuel Macron has refrained from directly criticizing a controversial Hamburg port deal with Chinese company Cosco | Pool photo by Aurelien Morissard/AFP via Getty Images

    Late last month, Paris felt snubbed by Berlin when Scholz found no time to speak to French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne: A meeting between both leaders in Berlin had been canceled because the chancellor had tested positive for coronavirus. But several French officials told POLITICO that a subsequently arranged videoconference was also canceled, allegedly because the Germans told Borne’s office that Scholz felt too sick.

    Paris was even more surprised — and annoyed — when Scholz then appeared the same day via video at a press conference, in which he didn’t seem to be quite so sick, but instead confidently announced his €200 billion energy relief package. The French say they weren’t even briefed beforehand. A German spokesperson could not be reached for a comment on the incident.

    Yannick Bury, a lawmaker from Germany’s center-right opposition who focuses on Franco-German relations, said Scholz must use his visit to Paris to start rebuilding ties with Macron. “It’s important that France receives a clear signal that Germany has a great interest in a close and trusting exchange,” Bury said. “Trust has been broken.”

    Hans von der Burchard and Clea Caulcutt

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  • Hungary to ratify NATO bids of Sweden, Finland by year end: Minister

    Hungary to ratify NATO bids of Sweden, Finland by year end: Minister

    Hungary’s government supports the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland and has submitted the ratification documents to the National Assembly, Minister Gergely Gulyás told reporters at a briefing on Saturday.

    Gulyás, chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said the expansion of NATO to include the two Nordic countries would be ratified by mid-December at the latest, according to media reports.

    Asked by a reporter if NATO would be getting stronger with Finland and Sweden joining, Gulyás replied that he hoped so. He added that it could be debated whether the expansion is in Hungary’s national security interest, but said that this is irrelevant now, according to the reports.

    Hungary and Turkey are the only NATO countries that have yet to ratify the accession of Sweden and Finland to the alliance — a process that started shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

    Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin told POLITICO on Thursday that she doesn’t expect Hungary and Turkey to block NATO expansion, but warned of the risks of delaying accession.

    Bartosz Brzezinski

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  • Russia intensifies airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

    Russia intensifies airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

    Russian missile strikes hit energy infrastructure in central and western parts of Ukraine Saturday morning, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power, Ukrainian officials said.

    Ukraine’s air force said in a statement that Russia launched a “massive missile attack” at 7 a.m. local time, targeting “critical infrastructure in different regions of the country.” The air force said it had managed to shoot down 18 cruise missiles launched by Russian troops.

    Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged foreign capitals to boost Ukraine’s air defense capabilities, tweeting: “There should not be a minute of delay in capitals deciding on air defense systems for Ukraine.”

    According to the Associated Press, the strikes have so far left residents without electricity in parts of Odesa, Cherkasy, Kropyvnitsky, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi and Lutsk.

    The intensified missile attacks come as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears its eighth-month mark.

    Meanwhile, authorities in Russia-occupied Kherson urged residents to “immediately leave the city” Saturday, according to media reports, as Ukrainian forces fight to retake the region.

    For more than a week, the Russian-appointed authorities have been calling on Kherson residents to leave the city and, if possible, head to the annexed Crimea and Russian regions. But this is the first time the authorities have made a categorical demand to evacuate. The Ukrainian authorities accuse Russia of deporting the population. 

    Bartosz Brzezinski

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  • Europe’s looming Ukraine fear: What happens if the US pulls back?

    Europe’s looming Ukraine fear: What happens if the US pulls back?

    Europe is waking up to a troubling reality: It may soon lose its NATO benefactor in Ukraine. 

    With conservatives poised to make gains in the upcoming U.S. elections, NATO’s most generous donor to Ukraine’s war effort may suddenly seem much more parsimonious in 2023.

    The possibility has put the spotlight on the gap between American and European aid.

    Already, it’s been a tough sell to get all of Europe’s NATO members to dedicate 2 percent of their economic output to defense spending. Now, they are under increasing pressure from the U.S. to go even further than that. And that comes amid an already tough conversation across Europe about how to refill its own dwindling military stockpiles while simultaneously funding Ukraine’s rebuild. 

    Still, the mantra among U.S. Republicans — whom polls show are favored to take control of one of two chambers of Congress after the November elections — has been that Europe needs to step up. 

    “Our allies,” said Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “need to start addressing the problem in their own backyard before they ask us for any more involvement.” 

    While European governments have opened their wallets and military stockpiles to Ukraine at record levels, Washington’s military assistance to Kyiv still dwarfs Europe’s efforts. It’s a disparity Republicans are keen to highlight as they argue Russia’s war in Ukraine is a much greater threat to Europe than it is to the U.S.

    The result could be a changing tenor out of Washington if Congress falls into conservative control.

    “It’s horrible what the Russians are doing,” Burchett added, but said he sees China and drug cartels as “more threatening to the United States of America than what’s going on in Ukraine.”

    2 percent becomes the baseline

    Since Moscow launched its assault on Ukraine, European capitals have pledged over €200 billion in new defense spending. 

    NATO allies pledged in 2014 to aim to move towards spending 2 percent of GDP on defense within a decade, and an increasing number of governments are taking this promise seriously. But the Biden administration wants them to go even further.

    The 2 percent benchmark is just “what we would expect” from allies, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month. “We would encourage countries to go above that 2 percent because we’re gonna have to invest more in expanding industrial bases and making sure that we’re doing the right things to replace” some of what was provided to Ukraine.

    Washington’s recently released “National Security Strategy” codified those expectations. 

    “As we step up our own sizable contributions to NATO capabilities and readiness,” the document says, “we will count on our Allies to continue assuming greater responsibility by increasing their spending, capabilities, and contributions.”

    It’s an aspiration that will be hard for many European policymakers, who themselves face economic woes at home. The U.K., for instance, has committed to hitting a 3 percent defense spending target but recently acknowledged the “shape” of its increase could change as recent policy changes roil the economy.

    The Biden administration has taken a path of friendly encouragement toward Europe, rather than haranguing its partners. 

    But Republicans are not as keen to take such a convivial tone. And if they take control of Congress, Republicans will have more of a say over the U.S. pursestrings — and the tone emerging from Washington. 

    “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told Punchbowl news earlier this week. 

    “There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he added. “Not doing the border and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check.”

    US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month that the benchmark of 2 percent of GDP spent on defense is what is expected from allies | Omar Havana/Getty Images

    Republicans are likely eyeing the polls, which show a slim but growing chunk of Americans saying the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine. The figure has risen from 7 percent in March to 20 percent in September, according to a Pew Research Center poll. And it now stands at 32 percent among Republican-leaning voters. 

    So while President Joe Biden continues to ask Congress to approve more Ukraine aid packages, observers say there could be more skepticism in the coming months. 

    “It’s becoming harder because the sense is that we’re doing it all and the Europeans aren’t,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

    And while noting that “in some ways, that’s unfair” due to the economic cost of the war to Europe, he said that on the military side aid for Ukraine and spending on defense industrial capacity is now “the new 2 percent.”

    In European capitals, policymakers are watching Washington closely. 

    “For Europeans, the idea that U.S. politics matters — that what happens in the midterm election will have implications for what will be expected of us from [our] U.S. ally — is something that is taken more and more seriously,” said Martin Quencez, a research fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Paris office. 

    The Brussels view

    But back in Brussels, some officials insist there’s little reason for worry.

    “There is broad, bipartisan support for Ukraine,” said David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. 

    Indeed, while the more Donald Trump-friendly wing of the Republican Party is opposed to continuing aid to Ukraine, more traditional Republicans have actually supported Biden’s aid for Kyiv.

    “If there was a Republican majority in congressional committees, I expect an impact on debates about which weapons to supply to Ukraine, for example,” McAllister said in an email. “Ultimately, though, the president maintains considerable control over foreign policy.”

    McAllister, a member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, said Europe is already increasing its defensive investments and aid to Kyiv, pointing to an EU initiative to train Ukrainian soldiers and a recent bump up for an EU fund that reimburses countries for military supplies sent to Ukraine. 

    Polish MEP Witold Waszczykowski, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s vice chair, also said in an email that he doesn’t expect a Republican-dominated Congress to shift Ukraine policy — while urging Washington to put more pressure on Europe. 

    “Poland and other Eastern flank countries cannot persuade Europeans enough to support Ukraine,” said Waszczykowski, a member of the conservative ruling Law and Justice party.  

    The “smell of appeasement and expectations to come back to business as usual with Russia,” the Polish politician said, “dominates in European capitals and European institutions.” 

    Cristina Gallardo contributed reporting.

    Lili Bayer

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  • France plays bad cop as transatlantic trade tensions ramp up

    France plays bad cop as transatlantic trade tensions ramp up

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    PARIS — U.S. President Joe Biden needs to watch out; France is resuming its traditional role as Europe’s troublemaker on the transatlantic trade front.

    It had seemed like the bad blood between Brussels and Washington was easing on Biden’s watch. Facing a common foe in China, the EU and the U.S. last year struck a truce on the tariffs that former President Donald Trump slapped on European steel and aluminium. Over this year, Russia’s war against Ukraine has meant that America and Europe needed to present a united front, at least politically.

    Cracks are now starting to re-emerge, however. The EU is furious that the U.S. is pouring subsidies into the homegrown electric car industry. Accusing Washington of protectionism, Europe is now threatening to draw up its own defenses.

    Unsurprisingly, French President Emmanuel Macron is leading the charge. “The Americans are buying American and pursuing a very aggressive strategy of state aid. The Chinese are closing their market. We cannot be the only area, the most virtuous in terms of climate, which considers that there is no European preference,” Macron told French daily Les Echos.

    Upping the ante, he called on Brussels to support consumers and companies that buy electric cars produced in the EU, instead of ones from outside the bloc. 

    There are good reasons why the Europeans are fretting about their trade balances.

    The war has delivered a huge terms-of-trade shock, with spiraling energy costs hauling the EU into a yawning bloc-wide trade deficit of €65 billion in August, from only €7 billion a year earlier. In one manifestation of those strains, Europe’s growing reliance on American liquefied natural gas to substitute for lost Russian supplies has re-ignited tensions.

    Macron’s comments are a reflection of EU consternation over Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivizes U.S. consumers to “Buy American” when purchasing a greener car. The EU argues that requiring that car needs to be assembled in North America and contain a battery with a certain percentage of local content discriminate against the EU and other trade partners.

    The European Commission hopes to convince Washington to find a diplomatic compromise for European carmakers and their suppliers. If not, that leaves the EU no choice but to challenge Washington at the World Trade Organization, EU officials and diplomats told POLITICO — even if a new transatlantic trade war is the last thing both sides want to spend their time and money on.

    Macron’s comments “are clearly a response against the Inflation Reduction Act,” noted Elvire Fabry, a trade policy expert at the Institut Jacques Delors in Paris. “Macron plays the role of the bad cop, compared to the European Commission, which left Washington some political room to make adjustments,” she noted. 

    ‘American domination’

    The Commission hopes to find a diplomatic compromise with the U.S. for European carmakers and their suppliers | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    France has traditionally been the bloc’s most outspoken country when it came to confronting Washington on a wide range of trade files. Paris, for instance, played a key role in killing a transatlantic trade agreement between the EU and U.S. (the so-called “TTIP”). Its digital tax angered U.S. Big Tech and triggered a trade war with the Trump administration.

    More recently, during its rotating Council of the EU presidency, Paris focused on trade defense measures, which will give Brussels the power to retaliate against unilateral trade measures, including from the U.S.

    New tensions are bad news for the upcoming meeting of the Trade and Tech Council early December, which so far has had trouble to show that it’s more than a glorified talking shop. 

    France won’t be left alone in a possible trade war on electric cars. According to Fabry, these tensions will bring Paris and Berlin closer, as the German car industry is also particularly affected by the U.S. measures.

    But the “Buy American” approach is not the only bone of contention. The fact that Europe is increasingly relying on gas imports from the U.S. brought European discontent to the next level.

    Although gas import prices fell in September from their all-time highs in August, they were still more than 2.5 times higher than they were a year ago. And, taking into account increased purchase volumes, France’s bill for imports of LNG multiplied more than tenfold in August, year on year, by one estimate.

    Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire last week warned that Russia’s war against Ukraine should not result in “American economic domination and a weakening of Europe.” Le Maire criticized the U.S. for selling LNG to Europe “at four times the price at which it sells it to its own companies,” and called on Brussels to take action for a “more balanced economic relationship” between the two continents.

    That very same concern is shared by some Commission officials, POLITICO has learned, but also among French industrialists.

    It is “hardly contestable” that the U.S. had some economic benefits from the war in Ukraine and suffered less than Europe from its economic consequences, said Bernard Spitz, head of international and European affairs at France’s business lobby Medef. 

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  • China’s COVID lockdowns spell relief for Europe’s energy security worries

    China’s COVID lockdowns spell relief for Europe’s energy security worries

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    China’s President Xi Jinping has some good news for Europe — his country’s draconian zero-COVID policies aren’t likely to be dropped.

    That’s a relief for European buyers of liquefied natural gas, as China’s economic slowdown has freed up LNG cargos crucial to replacing the Russian gas that used to supply about 40 percent of European demand.

    “Regardless of what you think about the Chinese zero-COVID policy, simply looking at it only from the perspective of European gas supplies, it would be very helpful if China continued this policy,” said Dennis Hesseling, head of gas at the EU’s energy regulator agency ACER.

    Xi took to the stage Sunday to kick off the week-long 20th Communist Party congress, and he doubled down on the zero-COVID approach, calling it a “people’s war to stop the spread of the virus.” 

    The once-in-five-year summit is “mostly a political meeting for within the party itself” but it does send crucial signals, said Jacob Gunter, a senior analyst at the China-focused MERICS think tank. So far it indicates China plans to “stick with [zero-COVID] for a while,” he said, adding that’s partly because government pandemic messaging has so spooked the population that lifting it would cause “chaos,” while Chinese vaccine hesitancy also remains high.

    Since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020, China has ruthlessly pursued its policy of crushing the coronavirus, involving snap lockdowns of entire cities accompanied by mass testing, surveillance and border closures. The slowdown in growth and depressed demand led to China’s LNG imports sinking by one-fifth, or 14 billion cubic meters, year-on-year for the first eight months of 2022, according to Jörg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.

    China and the EU each imported around 80 million tons of LNG in 2021, but China’s imports will fall to 64 million tons this year, according to data by market intelligence firm ICIS. That’s helping the EU buy gas on the global market and using it to fill the Continent’s storages ahead of the winter heating season.

    “Europe is lucky that China has a severe economic downturn which will last well into 2023,” said Wuttke, adding that the drop in demand from China — historically the world’s largest LNG importer — is “roughly equivalent to the entire annual LNG imports of Britain.”

    2023 worries

    China’s President Xi Jinping | Anthony Wallace/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

    With EU gas storage now over 90 percent full, the conversation in Brussels has already begun to shift to securing enough supplies for next year. At last week’s summit of EU energy ministers, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol warned that “next winter may well be even more difficult.”

    As things stand, Beijing’s LNG imports are likely to rise back to 2021 levels next year, according to senior ICIS gas analyst Tom Marzec-Manser, with deliveries typically increasing around the winter season and then likely to ramp up again next summer.

    China has already ordered its state-owned gas importers to stop reselling LNG to the EU to preserve stocks for the winter season at home.

    But if the zero-COVID policy is scrapped, that could lead “to a step-change in growth again,” said Marzec-Manser.

    European countries are well aware of this risk.

    In a presentation given by ACER during last week’s informal Energy Council, ministers were told that “China’s COVID-driven demand decline in LNG volumes is currently being absorbed” by the bloc. “This raises questions as to when China’s LNG demand may turn back towards normal growth rates,” it added.

    Although Russian shipments have fallen to less than 9 percent of EU demand, some Kremlin gas is still getting through. But “that may not be available at all next year,” said ACER’s Hesseling, adding that if there is no Russian gas and Chinese demand comes roaring back, more radical energy-saving measures would be needed in the EU.

    EU leaders will meet later this week to discuss further measures to tackle sky-high energy prices in Europe, including measures for next year such as joint gas purchasing.

    According to one senior EU diplomat, “competition from Asia [is] mentioned constantly,” adding that “it’s quite evident” a change in Beijing’s lockdown policy “may raise global demand and raise prices.”

    “China is indeed a competitor and that needs to be taken into account whatever we might be doing,” they said.

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  • Russia strikes central Kyiv with ‘kamikaze drones’

    Russia strikes central Kyiv with ‘kamikaze drones’

    Several explosions were reported around Kyiv on Monday morning, a week after Russia last attacked the Ukrainian capital.

    Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said on Telegram that the city was attacked by kamikaze drones. Multiple people in Kyiv said on social media that they heard noises that are characteristic of the unmanned devices before the explosions.

    In a Telegram post, Zelenskyy said: “The enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t be able to break us. The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations. And we will get victory.”

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said buildings in the central Shevchenkivskyi district had been set alight by the explosions. He posted a picture on Telegram of what he said was the wreckage of a drone, which looks like one of the Iranian-made Shaheds reportedly acquired by Russia. EU foreign ministers are on Monday set to discuss potential sanctions against Iran over the transfer of drones to Russia.

    Russia also appears to have targeted “critical infrastructure facilities” in Romny, near the northeastern city of Sumy, according to Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, the regional governor. “There are victims,” he said on Telegram.

    Russia previously hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities last week with strikes, in what were seen as revenge attacks after Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive and a fiery blast on the Kerch Bridge linking Russian-occupied Crimea with mainland Russia.

    Jules Darmanin

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  • Elon Musk balks at funding Ukraine’s Starlink satellites, as envoy tells him to ‘fuck off’

    Elon Musk balks at funding Ukraine’s Starlink satellites, as envoy tells him to ‘fuck off’

    Elon Musk said on Friday he’s “just following the recommendation” of a Ukrainian diplomat who told the SpaceX founder to “fuck off,” by seeking to offload responsibility for funding his Starlink internet terminals in Ukraine.

    Musk’s trolling came after Ukraine’s former Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk and the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted with hostility to Musk last week tweeting a series of Kremlin talking points, which he presented as a plan for peace in Russia’s war on Ukraine. This raised concerns in Kyiv and among its allies as to whether Musk was still on Ukraine’s side in the war.

    Musk’s tweet came in response to a CNN report that SpaceX had warned in a letter, dated September 8 and sent to the U.S. Department of Defense, that it can no longer afford to provide its Starlink terminals, which are crucial for Ukraine’s military communication.

    “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX said in the letter, which was signed by the company’s director of government sales, adding that the Pentagon should take over the funding.

    The Starlink satellite communication system has been crucial not only for Ukraine’s military communication, but also for the government to maintain contact with commanders, for Zelenskyy to conduct interviews with journalists, and for civilian communications, connecting loved ones via the encrypted satellites.

    Funding the systems would cost more than $120 million for the rest of the year and the price tag could reach almost $400 million for the next 12 months, according to SpaceX.

    Ukraine has received around 20,000 Starlink satellite units. Musk said last week that the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

    Musk was initially lauded for providing the Starlink terminals to Ukraine, but according to the SpaceX letter, the vast majority were partially or fully funded by other parties, including the U.S. government, the U.K. and Poland. Poland is the largest single contributor and has paid for almost 9,000 terminals, which cost $1,500 and $2,500 for the two models sent to Ukraine, according to the documents.

    Those governments also paid for a third of the internet connectivity while SpaceX funded the rest, making up the more expensive part of the bill, according to SpaceX.

    Among the documents seen by CNN is also a request from Ukrainian General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi to SpaceX for almost 8,000 more Starlink terminals. SpaceX reportedly responded by recommending the request be sent to the U.S. Department of Defense.

    The spat comes shortly after recent reports of Starlink outages, which have disrupted crucial Ukrainian military communication on the front lines.

    Wilhelmine Preussen

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  • 6 War-Tested Leadership Rules to Follow During a Crisis

    6 War-Tested Leadership Rules to Follow During a Crisis

    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Since Feb. 24, 2022, our usual course of work has changed dramatically. Instead of experimenting with new content formats for fun and easy learning, we had to evacuate our Ukrainian team to safe regions in Ukraine and abroad. This experience has become the most challenging crisis for our company, and the times of Covid-19 now seem only a preparation for the harsh military reality of today. But now, more than half a year after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our team has stabilized; we had zero downtime in operations and even accelerated our growth.

    I believe decisive leadership is the secret to living through a crisis and adapting to a new reality — and my company’s managers, as well as the broader team, fully coped with this challenge. These five rules of crisis leadership have helped our core team and each employee maintain business despite the horrors of war.

    Related: I Run Two Businesses in Ukraine. Here’s How We’re Resilient Enough to Continue Operating During War

    Rule #1: Foster a culture of leadership at all levels

    Lead at all levels — that means each team member must take ownership of their work. But how do you achieve this when most people usually want somebody to tell them what to do? The answer is in the ladder of control principle described in the book Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet.

    Its main point is to push authority to as low a level as possible by encouraging people to take responsibility, and its main secret is a slight language change your team usually uses. If your employees ask a manager what to do, all the burden lies on the manager’s shoulders. It may be easier and faster in the short term, but the team feels less responsible, engaged, and motivated in the long term. We ask people to start their requests with “I intend to…” and add relevant information so that all the manager has to say is, “Very well.” It makes a real difference. People start taking ownership, become more accountable and involved, and turn to the real driving force behind a business. This leadership strategy works at all levels — from top managers to juniors.

    By fostering moving up the ladder of control, you build a culture of leadership where leaders bring up new leaders. This rule is first and foremost; without it, we wouldn’t pass the war test.

    Related: Ownership: The Ultimate Motivator

    Rule #2: Focus on people

    All crucial business decisions and growth are the merits of the people, not a strategy or instrument. That’s why any wise leader should invest in the team, their growth and their feeling of safety to achieve the company’s growth. Research shows that psychological safety at work, when people can act and speak up without fear, is a crucial driver for employee efficiency, healthy relationships at work, and greater motivation. Ultimately, it’s the bottom line for effective decision-making.

    But a severe crisis can mess up all your efforts to build psychological safety at your company, so you must put everything that doesn’t help people stabilize on the back burner for some time and focus on supporting your team. First people, then business. Think about the most critical needs of your employees — health issues, economic challenges or even a life threat — and try to meet them as much as possible.

    That’s why we centered on people’s security during the first day of the war. We evacuated our Ukrainian team with their families to safe places in the west of Ukraine and provided them with temporary accommodation. After a couple of weeks, we relocated part of our team to Poland. After providing security to all our Ukrainian team, we launched a series of meetings with psychologists and team gatherings to share feelings and personal experiences of the war.

    All of that helped us go through and adapt to a challenging period of shock and get back to a stable mode of operation, as far as possible, under the current conditions.

    Related: Why the Ukraine Crisis Should Make You Rethink How You Lead

    Rule #3: Establish priorities and act promptly

    During a crisis, the strategies of having a long-term vision and planning for that future don’t work. You need to come up with a new tactic according to the new reality and be ready to change your plans at any time. However, it’s essential to establish business priorities and keep them focused. Sometimes, it means you need to give up some business directions or cut them down significantly, even if you’ve been working on them passionately for a long time.

    We haven’t stopped providing learning services for our customers for a single day, but our Ukrainian team couldn’t work as usual during the first week of the war. As we directed our resources and efforts toward the safety of our team members and their families, not knowing what would happen next, we held back from investing in new projects. Instead, we decided to focus on actions that would help our business stay afloat during the crisis and continue generating profits.

    Those reactive decisions helped us to go through turbulent times for business, and after a couple of months, when all operations were stable, we picked up new projects again.

    Rule #4: Practice integrative awareness and keep bounded optimism

    In other words, stay confident, don’t give up hope, but remain in touch with reality. How do you implement it in practice when you lead the company in unprecedentedly uncertain conditions and constantly feel anxious? There is no perfect recipe, but carefully observing the fast-changing reality and your feelings about it can help keep you relatively calm and not spread your anxiety to the team. According to McKinsey, this approach is called integrative awareness. It allows leaders of all levels to perceive even the most complicated challenges as issues they can solve and lessons all can learn.

    Another critical term for this rule is bounded optimism. Again, it is about being sensitive to severe crisis circumstances but keeping up a positive vision for the future and giving the team a sense of purpose and hope during the crisis.

    Related: What the War in Ukraine Can Teach Entrepreneurs About Collaboration

    Rule #5: Maintain transparent communication

    A crisis is a period when you have more questions than answers, and the best way to communicate about it is to be candid. Tell your team not only what you know, but also what you don’t know. Be clear about the current situation and your next moves to tackle it, and don’t be afraid to appear vulnerable. Though you hold responsibility for your employees, you’ll give them much more hope and support by acting like an actual human to whom they can relate.

    Eventually, acknowledging problems and openly communicating your concerns is much more effective than suppression; it allows the team to respond to emerging challenges and create fresh and potent ideas to deal with them.

    Rule #6: Adapt rapidly

    You can never completely get ready for a crisis, even if you have undergone it once. That’s why it’s important to develop several plans and be prepared for things to get out of hand. In this case, you need to get a hold of yourself, find strength and stability, and start your new plan to fight the crisis. Accepting that things can go wrong ultimately increases the level of resilience and chances to remain flexible and adaptable.

    In Ukraine, we have ascertained the truth of these words in our own experience. A couple of months before Feb. 24, the information field in Ukraine and worldwide was tense with news of a possible Russian attack. In response, our team prepared several contingency plans and various scenarios — from the most positive to the absolute worst.

    Going through a crisis with your team is a crush test and a game-changing experience for your company. And the best you can do to meet it prepared is to start cultivating leadership in your team at all levels, invest in people’s growth, and, of course, work on your awareness, adaptability, and resilience. Take such learning as a priority, and you’ll be prepared practically for anything. As Nelson Mandela put it: “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”

    Anton Pavlovsky

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  • Ukraine bats away Lukashenko’s border threats

    Ukraine bats away Lukashenko’s border threats

    KYIV — Ukraine is giving short shrift to increased posturing from Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who this week pledged to conduct joint deployments with Russian forces and triggered fears that Minsk could be seeking to engineer a false flag operation on the border.

    Belarus’ chief strategic significance in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is that its territory — and importantly its airfields — are a springboard for attacks against northern Ukraine, most significantly Kyiv. Indeed, Putin used Belarus in exactly this way in the opening phases of the war.

    Crucially, however, Lukashenko has avoided sending his own forces into the conflict, sensing it would be a political disaster.

    Just two years ago, Lukashenko survived massive street protests against his rule by using brutal force, and the heavy casualties that the Belarusian army would probably sustain in the war against Ukraine could reignite popular anger against his rule. His direct involvement in the war would also mean more Western sanctions against a nation that has already been seriously hit by restrictions over the rigged 2020 presidential election.

    Law enforcement officers respond to a protest against President Lukashenko’s rule in 2020 | AFP via Getty Images

    Attention swung back to Lukashenko’s motives this week when he said on Monday that he had agreed with Putin to deploy a joint regional military group. He added that this order had been given two days before, apparently after the explosion of the Russia-Crimea bridge, which Moscow blamed on Ukraine. Lukashenko said that the Belarusian army would form the base of this group.

    Lukashenko also made fake claims about a potential Ukrainian attack against Belarus. He issued a warning to the Ukrainian leadership in the light of supposed information on “strikes on Belarus from the territory of Ukraine.” Think tankers and independent Belarusian journalists considered this to be Minsk laying the ground for a possible false-flag operation.

    “This information was immediately brought to my attention. My answer was simple: Tell the president of Ukraine and other insane people … that the Crimea bridge will be just the thin end of the wedge to them, if only they touch a single meter of our territory with their dirty hands.”

    He made his statement as Russia was hitting Ukraine with barrages of missiles on Monday, and Lukashenko’s reference to the Crimea bridge was most likely a hint at Moscow’s retaliation.

    Despite this escalation in rhetoric, Ukraine’s military is remaining cool-headed about potential risks from Belarus.

    “The units of the Defence Forces are monitoring the situation, there are no signs of the formation of offensive groups on the territory of Belarus,” the general staff said in a statement on Tuesday.

    The Ukrainian political leadership also played down Lukashenko’s provocative talk of the past days. 

    “Lukashenko continues to sell [Belarus’] sovereignty to Russia. The request to deploy Russian contingent in Belarus under false pretenses is the formalization of occupation,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, tweeted on Monday.

    Ukraine assesses risks and is ready for any threat from the Belarusian territory, he added. “The situation is under control, currently there is no sign of repeated invasion from Belarus.”

    Ukrainian forces have also added context about how much help they think Belarus is really offering Putin.

    Belarus is “involved in the repair” of Russian military equipment damaged during the war in the Ukrainian territory, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Wednesday.

    Perhaps more significantly, the general staff added the first batch of 20 T-72 tanks was removed from storage in Belarus and sent to Russia’s Belgorod region, apparently with the aim of beefing up the army’s depleted reserves in eastern Ukraine.

    Meanwhile, the leader of the Belarusian opposition Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020’s fraudulent presidential election and now lives in exile in Lithuania, urged Kyiv on Tuesday to build a joint “alliance against Russian aggression.”

    So far, the relationship between the Ukrainian authorities and Tikhanovskaya’s team has been limited. Unlike many Western leaders, Zelenskyy, as well as other senior Ukrainian officials, has never officially met Tikhanovskaya, much less recognized her as the legitimate leader of Belarus.

    Kyiv has always tried to distance itself from expressing direct sympathy for Tikhanovskaya, one of Lukashenko’s main political rivals, seeking not to provoke the authoritarian leader, who might then refrain from holding back and join Russia’s ground war in Ukraine.

    Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • Putin, Erdoğan to meet in Kazakhstan

    Putin, Erdoğan to meet in Kazakhstan

    Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana on Wednesday on the sidelines of a regional summit, a Turkish official told AFP Tuesday.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that potential talks between Russia and the West might be discussed during the meeting. The leaders are both attending the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

    Last month, the two leaders met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan.

    NATO member Turkey has so far refrained from joining Western sanctions against Russia and instead attempted to play the role of a mediator, hosting talks with officials from Moscow and Kyiv and arbitrating a grain deal alongside the U.N. to ensure safe food exports out of blockaded Ukrainian ports. It has also supplied drones to Ukrainian forces. But it is also accused of war profiteering, helping others in the evasion of international embargoes for its own benefit.

    Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday called for a cease-fire “as soon as possible,” after the Russian strikes across Ukraine on Monday, which killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100.

    Putin will also meet with UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday, according to Kremlin spokesman Peskov.

    Wilhelmine Preussen

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  • Kyiv calls for air defenses as Putin brings his Syria tactics to Ukraine

    Kyiv calls for air defenses as Putin brings his Syria tactics to Ukraine

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin turned back to his bloody, destructive playbook from Syria with a barrage of rocket attacks against civilian targets across Ukraine on Monday, ramping up pressure on Western allies to supply Kyiv with the air defenses it has long sought.

    Monday’s rush-hour bombardment on the streets of Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and other regions came as little surprise, given that Putin had already signaled his willingness to switch to ever more brutal tactics by appointing Sergey Surovikin, the general who oversaw Russian forces in Syria on-and-off from 2017 to 2020, as commander of his struggling war effort in Ukraine.

    In a speech at an emergency meeting of his National Security Council on Monday, Putin claimed the strikes came in response to this weekend’s attack on the Kerch Bridge linking illegally occupied Crimea to Russia. Putin said Russia had deployed “high-precision, long-range weapons from the air, sea and land” to deliver “massive attacks on targets of Ukraine’s energy, military command and communications facilities.” He added that Russia would continue to dole out retribution if Ukraine continued to strike so-called “Russian” territory.

    Ukraine’s defense ministry said 75 missiles were launched, 41 of which were shot down.

    Moscow’s claims to precision attacks on strategic targets seemed to mask the fact that the aim was clearly to kill civilians, as the missiles struck the Shevchenkivskyi district in the heart of Kyiv during peak morning traffic. Pictures and footage taken by reporters and from security cameras show cars on fire; a crater beside a children’s playground in the Shevchenko Park and a pedestrian bridge destroyed.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that Russia appeared to have two targets in its assault: energy facilities throughout the country — and Ukrainians going about their daily lives.

    “They want panic and chaos,” Zelenskyy said, in a video that appeared to have been shot on his cell phone on the streets of Kyiv. Monday’s attacks came at a time “especially chosen to cause as much damage as possible … Why such strikes exactly? The enemy wants us to be afraid, wants to make people run. But we can only run forward — and we demonstrate this on the battlefield. It will continue to be so.”

    Zelenskyy also renewed his appeals to the West to provide Ukraine with additional air defenses. Kyiv has been seeking this additional firepower for weeks, arguing that Russia is likely to try to knock out Ukraine’s energy and industrial infrastructure over the winter, and it has been disappointed by the slow response.

    In tweets, Zelenskyy said he had spoken with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in the wake of the strikes on the capital and other cities. With Macron, Zelenskyy said: “We discussed the strengthening of our air defense, the need for a tough European and international reaction, as well as increased pressure on the Russian Federation.”

    Those discussions on air defense batteries are now likely to loom large at the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group — also known as the Ramstein format — where senior defense officials from across the globe will gather in Brussels later this week.

    Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Monday: “The best response to Russian missile terror is the supply of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to Ukraine — protect the sky over Ukraine! This will protect our cities and our people. This will protect the future of Europe. Evil must be punished.”

    The butcher of Syria takes over

    Surovikin was only announced as the new Russian commander for Ukraine on Saturday.

    The 55-year-old general, who before his promotion had been charged with leading Russia’s Southern Military District and Russian troops in Syria, has long been an infamous figure with a reputation for being ruthless.

    He was linked to the violent suppression of the anti-Soviet 1990 Dushanbe riots in Tajikistan, and was reportedly imprisoned (before being freed without charge) after soldiers under his command killed three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. In 1995, Surovikin received a suspended sentence (which was later overturned) for participating in the illegal arms trade. Surovikin also played a role in Russia’s second Chechen war, commanding the 42nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division.

    But Surovikin is best known — and most feared — for his command of Russian forces in Syria, where Moscow intervened to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization, listed Surovikin as one of the commanders “who may bear command responsibility” for human rights violations during the 2019-2020 offensive in Syria’s Idlib province, when Syrian and Russian forces launched dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure, striking homes, schools, health care facilities and markets.

    It was not the first time Russian forces were accused of war crimes in Syria. The Kremlin’s troops, working with Syrians, undertook a month-long bombing campaign of opposition-controlled territory in Aleppo in 2016, killing hundreds of civilians, including 90 children, with indiscriminate airstrikes, cluster munitions and incendiary weapons hitting civilian targets including medical facilities.

    Now, with Russian forces on the back foot in Ukraine and Putin’s full-throated rhetoric out of step with the situation on the ground in his war, Surovikin appears to be turning to his old tactic of inflicting massive damage on civilians in an attempt to turn the tide of the war.

    Zoya Sheftalovich

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  • Multiple explosions reported in heart of Kyiv

    Multiple explosions reported in heart of Kyiv

    Multiple explosions have struck Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday morning, according to local officials and footage. This is the first time Ukraine’s capital has been under attack since June 26.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that “several explosions” had taken place in the Shevchenkivskyi district in the heart of the city. Pictures and footage taken by reporters show rubble and vehicles on fire amid rush hour. More blasts were heard later in the morning.

    “Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram, although it’s still unclear how many victims there are.

    All Kyiv underground stations have started working as shelters, the capital’s administration announced on Twitter.

    Local media reported explosions in other cities, including Lviv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia earlier in the night. Energy infrastructure has been struck in the Lviv region in Western Ukraine, a local military official said.

    “The aggressor launched 75 rockets. 41 of them were destroyed by our air defense,”  Ukraine’s top general, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said.

    “They are trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth,” Zelenskyy said. “Kill our people who are sleeping at home in Zaporizhzhia. Kill people who go to work in Dnipro and Kyiv.”

    Mykhailo Podolyak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s adviser, denounced “Deliberate attacks on the center of Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro — yet another proof of Kremlin’s terrorist inadequacy.”

    “Russia is not capable of fighting on battlefield, but capable of murdering civilians. Instead of talking we need air defense, MLRS, longer-range projectiles,” he added.

    The blasts come two days after a strategic bridge linking Crimea to Russia was blown up. Ukraine did not claim responsibility for that attack but many officials celebrated it as a humiliating blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    This article was updated.

    Jules Darmanin and Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • Putin summons security council after Crimean bridge blast

    Putin summons security council after Crimean bridge blast

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting of his national security council on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state-owned news agency TASS on Sunday, following a fiery explosion on a strategic Crimean bridge on Saturday.

    Although Peskov declined to say whether they would discuss the explosion on the Kerch Bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea to Russia, the blast that partially destroyed Putin’s pet infrastructure project — which is key to supply Russia’s military fighting in Ukraine — is bound to be on the security council’s agenda.

    Over the past weeks, the Kremlin has been making thinly veiled threats to use its nuclear arsenal against Ukraine as Kyiv regains territory Russia has occupied in its invasion of the country.

    The latest Russian official to sabre-rattle was Col. Gen. Andrey Kartapolov, who heads the defense committee of the State Duma.

    “There will be an answer” that “all [Ukrainians] will feel” from the Russian side if Ukraine is found to be responsible for the blast that blew damaged the Kerch Bridge, Kartapolov told Russian news outlet Vedomosti on Sunday. “What the answer will be, we will find out. Our President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief never does what ‘partners’ expect from him. He does what is not expected of him,” Kartapolov said.

    The Ukrainian government so far hasn’t been commenting about the origins of the apparent bombing. The country’s security service posted a cryptic message on Telegram Saturday after the blast, which reads: “Dawn, The bridge is well ablaze; Nightingale in Crimea, The SBU [Ukrainian security service] meets,” with a picture of the damaged bridge.

    Russia opened an investigation into the explosion, and Russia’s Foreign Ministry is pointing the finger at Ukraine. “The reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure testifies to its terrorist nature,” ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, according to Russian news outlet Kommersant.

    Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to say whether they would discuss the explosion on the Kerch Bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea to Russia | AFP via Getty Images

    Fear is mounting that Russia might resort to a nuclear response. Pope Francis on Sunday said that “we should not forget the danger of nuclear war,” asking “Why don’t we learn from history?”

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the Russian army killed some 17 civilians in the Ukrainian area of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday.

    “A missile attack on the civilian population of Zaporizhzhia destroyed residential houses, where people slept at night, lived, didn’t attack anyone,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

    Sarah Anne Aarup

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  • OPEC output cut ‘unhelpful and unwise,’ US Treasury chief says

    OPEC output cut ‘unhelpful and unwise,’ US Treasury chief says

    The oil cartel OPEC’s choice to pare back oil supply will harm the global economy and especially developing countries, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Financial Times in an interview published Sunday.

    “I think OPEC’s decision is unhelpful and unwise — it’s uncertain what impact it will end up having, but certainly, it’s something that, to me, did not seem appropriate, under the circumstances we face,” Yellen said, adding that “we’re very worried about developing countries and the problems they face.”

    The cartel of 13 oil-producing countries on Wednesday agreed to reduce production by 2 million barrels a day as of November, in the context of an already tight market and rising world inflation in part caused by high energy prices.

    OPEC’s move marks a victory for Russia against the EU and the U.S. — Russia’s a major oil producer and an OPEC+ country that cooperates with the cartel. Ever since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the West has been imposing economic sanctions against Russia, including on its oil sector, and encouraging other countries around the world to follow suit. Despite this effort, Moscow continues to sell its oil to countries like India, China and Turkey.

    OPEC took the decision despite a flurry of trips by EU and U.S. leaders to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks to try to convince the country’s crown prince and new Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman to ramp up oil production to fight inflation.

    The world oil price already started to rise after the announcement on Wednesday, moving from around $86 to over $93 per barrel.

    Meanwhile, Moscow congratulated “the truly balanced, thoughtful and planned work” of OPEC countries which served to “oppose the actions of the United States,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a TV interview broadcasted on Sunday.

    Sarah Anne Aarup

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  • Putin backers urge strong retaliation for Kerch Bridge blast

    Putin backers urge strong retaliation for Kerch Bridge blast

    KYIV — The fiery blast on the Kerch Bridge on Saturday triggered a chorus of calls for brutal retaliation against Ukraine among Russian public figures who support President Vladimir Putin. 

    The calls increase political pressure on Putin, who said in September that Moscow is ready to use “all available means” to protect the country and its people “if our country is threatened.”  
     
    “This is not a bluff,” Putin added, speaking during the announcement of the mobilization of 300,000 reservists for the war on Ukraine. 

    His statement triggered speculation among Ukraine’s Western backers about a possible deployment of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainian troops in case Kyiv is successful in its counteroffensive in four Ukrainian territories formally annexed by the Kremlin, or if Ukraine attempts to win Crimea back. Kyiv hasn’t claimed responsibility for the bridge explosion. 

    Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected politician and former parliamentarian with Putin’s United Russia party, believes that “the terrorist attack” on the Kerch Bridge is evidence that “the U.S. and its Ukrainian proxy regime will move the red line further and further.”  

    “No response from Russia? Even further. And again? Even further,” he wrote on social media, demanding a tough response from Moscow. 

    Konstantin Dolgov, a member of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, also branded the explosion “a terrorist attack” and “another sinister manifestation of the terrorist nature of the puppet Kyiv regime.”

    Referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Dolgov said: “Terrorists must be treated unequivocally!” 

    Rodion Miroshnik, who represented in Moscow until recently the Russia-backed Luhansk People’s Republic, wrote on social media that “undamaged Ukrainian bridges across the Dnieper river look ridiculous against the backdrop of a blazing Crimean bridge.” 

    The damage to the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia with Crimea, the peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, not only poses a problem to Russia’s supplies of manpower and weapons to its units in southern Ukraine. It is also a serious humiliation for Putin personally, having happened on the morning after his 70th birthday. 

    The explosion was also a slap in the face to propagandists in Russia’s state-controlled media, who have regularly used the bridge as a symbol of Russia’s successful annexation of Ukrainian territory. 

    Television journalist Vladimir Solovyov, sanctioned earlier this year by the EU for his propaganda activities, wrote in his Telegram channel: “It’s time to respond. By all means available.”  

    He said that Ukraine “must be immersed in dark times,” and urged Russia to destroy bridges, dams, railways, thermal power plants and other infrastructure facilities in Ukraine. According to international law, such deliberate destruction would be a war crime. The U.N. already said last month that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine including the bombings of civil areas and summary executions.

    Andrei Medvedev, a prominent television journalist and a vice speaker of the Moscow city council, said that “what will happen to us [Russia] depends, among other things, on the reaction [of the authorities] to today’s events.” 

    Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • Blast on Russia bridge to Crimea threatens Moscow supply route

    Blast on Russia bridge to Crimea threatens Moscow supply route

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    KYIV — The Kerch bridge in Crimea was partially destroyed by an explosion Saturday morning, in a strategic and symbolic blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign against Ukraine.

    The damage to the bridge, which comes as Ukrainian advances continue to reclaim occupied territories from Moscow’s forces, endangers a crucial route for Russian military supplies to support its forces in southern Ukraine.

    Two spans of the road portion of the bridge collapsed as a result of “an accident,” according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed head of the Crimea administration. “Fuel tanks have also caught fire,” Aksyonov said in a post on social media. 

    Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said that a truck was blown up on the bridge, according to Russian media. As a result of the blast, “a partial collapse” of two spans occurred, it said. Russia’s Investigative Committee said three people were killed in the explosion, according to media reports.

    According to videos and photos posted Saturday morning by eyewitnesses, several fuel tankers were on fire on the rail part of the bridge, while at least one road span had partially collapsed into the waters of the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. 

    “As soon as the fire is extinguished, it will be possible to assess damage to the bridge and pillars, and it will be possible to talk about the timing of the restoration of traffic,” Aksyonov said. 

    The head of the Russian-installed regional parliament in Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, blamed the damage to the bridge on “Ukrainian vandals,” according to Russian media.

    Kyiv hasn’t claim responsibility for the damage to the bridge, but Ukrainian officials celebrated the blast on social media. Referring to a flagship Russian vessel sunk by Kyiv earlier this year, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense tweeted: “The guided missile cruiser Moskva and the Kerch Bridge – two notorious symbols of Russian power in Ukrainian Crimea – have gone down. What’s next in line, russkies?”

    The Kerch bridge, which connects Crimea with the Russian mainland, was opened personally by Putin with much fanfare in 2018, after Moscow seized the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. The construction of the bridge was slammed by both Kyiv and its Western backers as illegal at the time. 

    Since the start of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine in late February, the bridge has been crucially important for the transfer of manpower, weapons and fuel to Russian units fighting Ukrainian troops in southern Ukraine. 

    Putin on Saturday ordered a government commission to investigate “the emergency on the Crimean bridge” and officials have been dispatched to the scene, Russian media reported, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    According to Aksyonov, ferry service will start operating on Saturday in place of the damaged bridge.

    Over the past months, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly declared Kyiv’s plans to target the Crimea bridge. In April, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said in a radio interview that the bridge will “definitely” be hit, if Kyiv gets an opportunity. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded Danilov’s statement as “announcing a possible terrorist attack.” 

    After the partial collapse of the Kerch bridge Saturday morning, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said in a tweet that “everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.”

    Zelenskyy, in an address Friday night, said Ukraine has taken back more than 2,400 square kilometers of its territory occupied by Russia. “This week alone, our soldiers liberated 776 square kilometers of territory in the east of our country and 29 settlements,” Zelenskyy said.

    Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • How the far-right got out of the doghouse

    How the far-right got out of the doghouse

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    European far-right politicians just stormed to victory in Italy, after achieving historic results in France and Sweden.

    “Everywhere in Europe, people aspire to take their destiny back into their own hands!” said Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally Party. 

    But if you think there is a new wave of right-wing radicalism sweeping Europe, you’d be wrong. Something else is going on.

    Analysis by POLITICO’s Poll of Polls suggests far-right parties in the region on average did not increase their support by even one percentage point between the start of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine in February and today.

    POLITICO looked at the median and average increase of all parties organized in right-wing European Parliament groups of Identity and Democracy, the European Conservatives and Reformists or unaffiliated parties with political far-right positions.

    Overall, the results indicate that if an increase in support occurred for far-right parties, it happened several years ago.

    The Sweden Democrats’ first surge happened after the 2014 election, when the party grew from around 10 percent to 20 percent, the same one-fifth share of the vote they received in this year’s election. The far-right Alternative for Germany AfD in Germany grew fast in 2015 and 2016 reaching 14 percent in POLITICO’s polling tracker. In Italy, the Northern League overtook Forza Italia for the first time in early 2015, and peaked in 2019 at 37 percent before starting a downward trend ending on 9 percent in last month’s election. In the Italian election, voters mostly switched between rival right-wing camps.

    The far-right has moved from the fringes of politics into the mainstream, not only influencing the political center but also entering the arena of power. 

    “There is a normalization of far-right parties as an integral part of the political landscape,” said Cathrine Thorleifsson, who researches extremism at the University of Oslo. “They have been accepted by the electorate and also by other, conventional parties.”

    Cooperation between the center-right and the extreme-right has become less taboo. 

    “The rise of far-right parties is only part of the story. The facilitating and mainstreaming of far-right parties as well as the adoption of far-right frames and positions by other parties is at least as important,” tweeted Cas Mudde, a leading scholar on the issue. 

    This may risk destabilizing Europe even more than winning a couple of percentage points in the polls.

    Italy’s far-right firebrand Giorgia Meloni is a clear-cut example. While her party draws its origin from groups founded by former fascists, she’ll now lead the EU’s third-largest economy.

    Leader of Italian far-right party “Fratelli d’Italia” (Brothers of Italy), Giorgia Meloni | Pitro Cruciatti/AFP via Getty Images

    In Sweden, the center-right party has started coalition talks for a minority government which would have to draw on opposition support, most likely from the far-right Swedish Democrats. Far-right parties have also entered governments in Austria, Finland, Estonia and Italy. Other countries are likely to follow. 

    George Simion, the leader of Romania’s far-right party, Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), celebrated Meloni’s win in Italy, saying his party is likely to follow in their footsteps.

    Spain heads to the ballot box next year and socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez may have a tough time winning re-election. The conservative People’s Party is between five and seven points ahead of the Spanish socialists in all the published polls, but it is unlikely to garner enough votes to secure a governing majority outright.

    That means it may have to come to an agreement with far-right party Vox, whose leader, Santiago Abascal, is an ally of Meloni’s. While the People’s Party previously refused to govern with Vox, last spring its newly elected leader, Alberto Núnez-Feijóo, greenlit a coalition agreement with the ultranationalist group in Spain’s central Castilla y León region. 

    Tom Van Grieken, the right-wing Belgian politician, also pointed to Spain as the next likely example, especially because of the possible cooperation with the PP. “All over Europe, we see conservative parties who are considering breaking the cordon sanitaire,” he said, referring to the refusal of other parties to work with the far-right. “They are tired of compromising with their ideological counterparts, the parties at the left end of the spectrum.”

    Chairman of Vlaams Belang party Tom Van Grieken | Stephanie Le Coqc/EFE via EPA

    This didn’t happen overnight. The far-right worked hard to shrug off their extremist, neo-Nazi image.

    “In some of the reporting on the Swedish Democrats, you’d think they’ll deport people on trains as soon as they’re in power. Come on, these parties have changed,” said one EU official with right-wing affiliations. 

    The far-right invested in “image adjustment and trying to tread carefully with some issues, while unashamedly catering to others,” said Nina Wiesehomeier, a political scientist at the IE University of Madrid.  “This is particularly obvious in Italy right now, with Meloni sticking to the slogan of ‘God, homeland, family,’ as a continuation, while having tried to purge the party from more radical elements.”

    In Belgium’s northern region of Flanders, the right-wing Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) explicitly dismisses the label “extreme-right.” Just like his counterparts in Italy, Sweden and France, Van Grieken, the party’s president, denounced the more extremist positions of his group’s founding fathers and moderated his political message to make voting for the far-right socially acceptable. 

    Overt racism is taboo. Instead, the rhetoric changes to criticizing an open-door migration policy. By carefully catering to centrist voters, the far-right aims for a bigger slice of the cake, while still riding on the anti-establishment discontent.

    “There is a clear fault line between the winners of globalization and the nationalists,” Van Grieken told POLITICO. “This comes on top on the concerns about mass migration, whether it’s in Malmö, Rome or other European cities.”

    Perfect storm

    Now, the time is right to capitalize on that transformation.

    As Europe is battling record inflation and Europeans fear exorbitant heating bills, governments warn about the political implications of a “winter of discontent.” 

    “It’s a massive drainage of European prosperity,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told POLITICO recently. “In the current situation, it’s hard to believe in progress, it’s very hard to make progress. So there’s a very pessimistic feeling.”

    The current war in Ukraine is the latest in a succession of crises — in global finance, migration and the pandemic. Experts argue that this is key to understanding the rising support for the far-right. 

    “Such existential crises have a destabilizing effect and lead to fear,” said Carl Devos, a professor in political science at Ghent University. “Fear is the breeding ground for the far-right. People tend to translate that fear and outrage into radical voting behaviour.”

    Migration and identity politics are less prominent in the media because of the Ukraine war and rising energy prices, but they’re still key issues in right-wing debate.

    In Austria, the coalition parties fought over whether or not asylum seekers should receive climate bonuses. In the Netherlands, the death of a baby at the asylum center Ter Apel led to a renewed debate over the overcrowded migration centers. 

    The combination of those issues is likely to feed into more right-wing wins across the continent. “The far-right offers nationalist, protectionist solutions to the globalized crises, said Thorleifsson. “We see how the migration issue was momentarily off the agenda during the pandemic, but now it’s back.”

    Aitor Hernández-Morales, Camille Gijs and Ana Fota contributed reporting.

    Barbara Moens and Cornelius Hirsch

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  • 9 Central, East Europe NATO countries condemn Russia annexations

    9 Central, East Europe NATO countries condemn Russia annexations

    The presidents of nine NATO countries in central and eastern Europe declared on Sunday that they would never recognize the annexation by Russia of several Ukrainian regions. Hungary and Bulgaria were conspicuously absent from the signatories.

    In a joint statement, the leaders also supported a path to NATO membership for Ukraine.

    The nine leaders demanded that “Russia immediately withdraw from all occupied territories” and encouraged “all allies to substantially increase their military aid to Ukraine,” according to the statement.

    “We reiterate our support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” they wrote. 

    The statement comes two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he was annexing four Ukrainian regions, a move the West has described as an illegal land-grab. It was signed by the presidents of Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

    The signatories also wrote that they “firmly stand behind” a NATO decision in 2008 over Ukraine’s future membership to the alliance. At the time, NATO allies pledged that Ukraine would eventually become a member. But as that process stalled over the years, it seemed increasingly unlikely that Ukraine’s bid would become a reality.

    In the wake of the annexations, Ukraine formally applied for a fast-track accession to NATO, with hopes to jump-start its membership bid.

    On Sunday, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that 10 NATO countries supported Ukraine’s membership to the alliance — including many countries that used to belong to the former Soviet bloc.

    NATO countries however have hesitated at including a new member that is at war — and by treaty they would be forced to defend. In recent months, NATO has also welcomed the application of two new countries in Europe – Finland and Sweden, spurred by security concerns after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Clea Caulcutt

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  • Zelenskyy vows to retake more areas after pushing Russia out of key Donetsk city

    Zelenskyy vows to retake more areas after pushing Russia out of key Donetsk city

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to recapture more territory in eastern Ukraine after Kyiv’s forces pushed Russia out of the key city of Lyman.

    “Now a Ukrainian flag is there” in Lyman, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Saturday. “During this week, there were more Ukrainian flags in Donbas. It will be even more in a week.”

    Ukraine pushed Moscow’s forces out of Lyman on Saturday, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the annexation of Donetsk, which includes the strategic city. The Defense Ministry in Moscow on Saturday cited “a threat of encirclement” in withdrawing its troops from Lyman “to more advantageous lines,” it said in a Telegram post.

    The retreat from Lyman represents a big setback for Putin, as Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion makes further advances in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian push has seen the recapture of a vast amount of Russian-occupied territory as Moscow’s soldiers have abandoned the front lines. 

    “Operationally, Lyman is important because it commands a key road crossing over the Siversky Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defenses,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.

    “Russia’s withdrawal from Lyman also represents a significant political setback” after Putin’s proclamation of the annexation of the region on Friday, the ministry said. Putin hailed the annexation of Donetsk and three other regions following referendums that Western countries declared a “sham.”

    “Russia has staged a farce in Donbas. An absolute farce, which it wanted to present as an alleged referendum,” Zelenskyy said late Saturday.

    “Ukraine will return its own,” the president pledged. “Both in the east and in the south. And what they tried to annex now, and Crimea, which has been called annexed since 2014.”

    “Our flag will be everywhere,” he said.

    Lyman has been a key supply and logistics hub for Russian troops fighting in eastern Ukraine. The loss of the city will further hamper Moscow’s supply lines and impede Russia’s ability to maneuver against a stepped-up Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east that also has pushed Russian forces from the Kharkiv area.

    The recapture of Lyman is “significant” for Ukraine, as it creates more problems for Russia’s military on its supply routes, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. “And without those routes, it will be more difficult. So it presents a sort of a dilemma for the Russians going forward,” Austin told reporters in Hawaii on Saturday, Reuters reported.

    “And we think the Ukrainians have done great work to get there and to begin to occupy the city,” Austin said.

    “Lyman is important because it is the next step towards the liberation of the Ukrainian Donbas,” Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern forces, said on Saturday. “It is an opportunity to go further to Kreminna and Sievierodonetsk, and it is psychologically very important,” he said.

    Jones Hayden

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