УКРОПИ

UK leader condemns ‘poison of antisemitism’ on Auschwitz visit

WARSAW, POLAND — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday condemned what he called “the poison of antisemitism rising around the world” after a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former German Nazi concentration camp.

His visit came as many international delegations are expected to attend the Jan. 27 ceremony commemorating 80 years since the Soviet Red Army liberated the death camp built in occupied Poland.

King Charles III will be among those attending the ceremony, Buckingham Palace said Monday, in his first visit to the former camp.

“Time and again we condemn this hatred, and we boldly say, ‘never again,'” Starmer said in a statement following his visit.

“But where is never again, when we see the poison of antisemitism rising around the world” in the aftermath of October 7th, he said.

The Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas staged the deadliest attack in Israeli history.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has left 46,876 people dead, the majority civilians, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, figures the United Nations has described as reliable.

Last week, the Polish government said it would grant free access to Israeli officials wanting to attend the commemoration, despite a warrant issued in November by the International Criminal Court for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he had information from the Israeli Embassy that the country would be represented by its education minister.

The International Criminal Court issued the warrant in November over the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza, prompting outrage from Israel and its allies.

Auschwitz has become a symbol of Nazi Germany’s genocide of 6 million European Jews, 1 million of whom died at the site between 1940 and 1945, along with more than 100,000 non-Jews.
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Iranian president in Moscow for treaty signing with Putin

MOSCOW — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the signing of a strategic partnership treaty involving closer defense cooperation that is likely to worry the West.

Pezeshkian, on his first Kremlin visit since winning the presidency last July, will hold talks with Putin focusing on bilateral ties and international issues before signing the treaty.

Ahead of the talks, the Kremlin hailed its ever closer ties with Tehran.

“Iran is an important partner for us with which we are developing multifaceted co-operation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Moscow has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other countries hostile towards the U.S., such as North Korea, since the start of the Ukraine war, and already has strategic pacts with Pyongyang and close ally Belarus, as well as a strategic partnership agreement with China.

The 20-year Russia-Iran agreement is not expected to include a mutual defense clause of the kind sealed with Minsk and Pyongyang, but is still likely to concern the West which sees both countries as malign influences on the world stage.

Moscow and Tehran say their increasingly close ties are not directed against other countries.

Russia has made extensive use of Iranian drones during the war in Ukraine and the United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Tehran denies supplying drones or missiles.

The Kremlin has declined to confirm it has received Iranian missiles, but has acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran includes “the most sensitive areas.”

Pezeshkian visit to Moscow also comes at a time when Iranian influence across the Middle East is in retreat after Islamist rebels seized power in Syria, expelling ally Bashar al-Assad, and after Iran-backed Hamas has been pounded by Israel in Gaza.

Israel has also inflicted serious damage on the Tehran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Russia too finds itself on the backfoot in Syria where it maintains two major military facilities crucial to its geopolitical and military influence in the Middle East and Africa but whose fate under Syria’s new rulers is now uncertain.

Putin met Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan in October and at a cultural forum in Turkmenistan the same month.

Pezeshkian, who is holding talks with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin before meeting Putin, is accompanied to Moscow by his oil minister, and Western sanctions on the sector and the subject of how to circumvent them are likely to be discussed.
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Russia upholds jail term for ex-US Consulate worker

MOSCOW — A Russian court on Friday upheld the jail term of Robert Shonov, a former U.S. Consulate worker sentenced to almost five years for “secret collaboration with a foreign state.”

Shonov, a Russian citizen, worked for more than 25 years at the U.S. Consulate in the far eastern city of Vladivostok until 2021, when Moscow imposed restrictions on local staff working for foreign missions.

He was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of passing secret information about Russia’s military offensive against Ukraine to the United States in exchange for money and sentenced to four years and 10 months prison in November 2024.

“The judicial act was upheld,” a court in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk ruled, according to its website, rejecting an appeal Shonov had made against his sentencing.

The United States strongly condemned the conviction last year, calling it an “egregious injustice” based on “meritless allegations.”

In September 2023, Russia expelled two U.S. diplomats it accused of acting as liaison agents for Shonov.

In recent years, several U.S. citizens have been arrested and sentenced to long jail terms in Russia.

Others are being held pending trial.

Washington, which supports Ukraine militarily and financially against Russia’s military offensive, accuses Moscow of arresting Americans on baseless charges to use as bargaining chips in prisoner exchanges.

Even after a landmark prisoner swap in August, several U.S. nationals and dual nationals remain in detention in Russia.
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Britain, Ukraine sign 100-year agreement

Britain and Ukraine signed a 100-year agreement Thursday, with Britain pledging to provide Ukraine with $3.6 billion in military aid this year.

The deal was announced during a joint news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, at the presidential palace where British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Starmer is on his first trip to Ukraine since he took office.

Starmer called the agreement historic and said the new partnership “reflects the huge affection that exists between our two nations.” The partnership will include cooperation in the areas of culture, education, science and technology.

Regarding military assistance for Kyiv’s war against Russia, Starmer said Britain plans to provide Ukraine with a loan of more than $2.6 billion. He said the loan “will be paid back not by Ukraine, but from the interest on frozen Russian assets.” Starmer also announced that Britain was providing Ukraine with 150 artillery gun barrels and a new mobile air defense system.

In his comments, Starmer credited Ukraine’s allies, particularly the United States, for contributing to the success Ukraine has had against “aggression from Russia.” He said he wanted to pay tribute to the U.S. for “the work that the U.S. has done here, the support that they have put in, because it’s been a vital component of what has been quite an incredible achievement by Ukraine.”

The comments came just days before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, a critic of U.S. support for Ukraine, takes office and a day after the new president’s pick to be the U.S. secretary of state, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, told a Senate panel the war must end.

Speaking at his confirmation hearing, Rubio called the conflict a “war of attrition” and a “stalemate” that must be ended. He said the first step should be a ceasefire that halts ground fighting, which has for more than a year mostly occurred in eastern Ukraine.

Rubio called the destruction in Ukraine “extraordinary,” saying it will “take a generation to rebuild.”

“The truth of the matter is that in this conflict, there is no way Russia takes all of Ukraine,” Rubio said. “It’s also unrealistic to believe that somehow, a nation the size of Ukraine … is also going to push these people all the way back to where they were on the eve of the invasion.”

Even as he argued for a negotiated settlement to end the fighting that started with Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Rubio said it was unlikely that there would be much change in the current battle lines. Russia currently holds about a fifth of the internationally recognized Ukrainian land mass.

Democrats, and some Republicans on the committee, continued to voice their support for more military aid to Ukraine, saying it was important to give Kyiv leverage in any eventual peace talks with Moscow.

But Rubio said that one of Ukraine’s key problems was not a shortage of ammunition or money but its inability to train and recruit enough troops.

At Thursday’s news conference in Kyiv, Zelenskyy refused to speculate on what U.S. support for Ukraine will look like under a Trump administration.

“It is too early to talk about the details, because we have not yet had a detailed conversation with the new U.S. administration about security guarantees,” he said.

Trump has voiced skepticism about continued U.S. military support for Kyiv and repeatedly vowed that he would end the war when he assumed the presidency on Monday.

In recent days, his aides have said the new timeline is ending the war in the first 100 days of his administration, which would be by the end of April.

Ken Bredemeier and Chris Hannas contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Putting aside past tensions, Turkey’s Erdogan sees new Trump presidency as opportunity

With Donald Trump returning to the White House, analysts say Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees an opportunity to rekindle what he calls his close working relationship with the president-elect. However, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the incoming Trump presidency poses risks as well as opportunities.
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China reaches out to US allies ahead of Trump’s inauguration

TAIPEI, TAIWAN — China initiated a new round of diplomatic outreach to Japan and the European Union this week as Washington prepares for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

A delegation of Japanese lawmakers traveled to Beijing and a Chinese military delegation went to Japan for the first time in five years. Meanwhile, the European Council’s new president held his first phone call with China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

Analysts say China is trying to test the alliance between Washington and its allies through the diplomatic efforts.

“Senior Chinese officials believe the incoming Trump administration will be more hawkish toward China, so Beijing needs to try to take U.S. allies out of Washington’s orbit,” Chen Yuhua, a China studies professor at Akita International University, told VOA in a video interview.

Other experts, however, say the effectiveness of Beijing’s strategy remains unclear.

While China is “improving relations with everyone, they are not willing to fundamentally change their external behavior. We don’t know how long [this trend] will last,” said Stephen Nagy, a professor of politics and international studies at Tokyo’s International Christian University.

Seafood and soldiers

On Monday, lawmakers from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, and its coalition partner Komeito began a three-day visit to China. During the trip, Japanese lawmakers met with top Chinese leaders, including Premier Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The Japanese side urged China to lift import bans on Japanese seafood “at an early date” and ensure the safety of Japanese nationals living in China.

Hiroshi Moriyama, the secretary general of the LDP, said during his keynote speech on Tuesday that China and Japan “need to boost mutual understanding between their peoples and strengthen dialogue at various levels to improve their ties.”

Moriyama also reiterated Tokyo’s concern about rising tensions in the East China Sea and Beijing’s detention of several Japanese nationals under espionage charges.

During his meeting with the Japanese delegation Tuesday, Wang said Japan and China “face important opportunities” to improve and develop bilateral relations.

On Wednesday, Li said Beijing and Tokyo should focus on exploring economic cooperation in areas such as the digital economy and green development, while increasing people-to-people exchanges at the sub-national level.

At the same time lawmakers were visiting Beijing, a Chinese military delegation started a five-day visit to Japan. During the trip, the Chinese delegation was expected to meet their Japanese counterparts and visit some military units, according to a statement from China’s Defense Ministry.

Japanese government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi said during a press conference on Tuesday that the Chinese delegation’s visit helped to resume “exchanges among troops” and “contributes to the peace and stability of the region.”

China’s Defense Ministry said the visit “is expected to strengthen mutual understanding and trust while advancing defense exchanges between the two countries.”

The latest bilateral exchanges between Japan and China follow Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya’s trip to Beijing on Dec. 25, during which Tokyo and Beijing agreed to facilitate Wang’s trip to Japan and hold high-level economic and security dialogues.

Despite Japan and China’s attempts to improve bilateral relations, Nagy said the efforts can’t be sustained. “China thinks Japan and other countries’ growing alignment on issues such as the South China Sea dispute, economic security and resilience policy are against its core interests,” he told VOA by phone.

So “while they can have exchanges with Japan, it doesn’t take away their concerns about these issues,” Nagy said.

Driving a wedge

Apart from mending ties with Japan, China has also been trying to improve relations with the European Union amid rising trade tensions in recent months.

During his first phone call with European Council President Antonio Costa on Tuesday, Xi said there are “no clash of fundamental interests or geopolitical conflicts” between China and the EU, “making them partners that can contribute to each other’s success.”

“China remains confident in the EU and hopes the EU will also prove to be a trustworthy cooperation partner for China,” he said, adding that both sides should “expand mutual openness, consolidate existing cooperation mechanisms and foster new growth points in their cooperation.”

Costa said he had a “constructive” phone call with Xi, during which he highlighted how Russia’s war against Ukraine threatens global peace and agreed with Xi that China and the EU should work together to “tackle global challenges.”

“The EU and China are important trading partners. Our relations need to be balanced and based on a level-playing field,” Costa wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

The call between Xi and Costa comes amid rising trade tensions between China and the EU. Last October, the EU decided to impose tariffs of up to 45.3% on imported Chinese electric vehicles. The move prompted Beijing to impose “temporary anti-dumping measures” on brandy imported from the EU.

Experts say China’s outreach to the EU is part of Beijing’s attempt to weaken the alliance between Washington and Brussels ahead of Trump’s return to office.

“China always has this anxiety that the U.S. and EU would work together to deal with China, so the upcoming regime change in Washington presents an opportunity [for Beijing] to exploit the anxiety that European countries have about the second Trump administration,” Matej Simalcik, executive director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, told VOA in an interview in Taipei.

In his view, while China’s approach is unlikely to soften the EU’s tough trade approach against Beijing, it could present challenges to the bloc’s foreign policy agenda by leveraging its influence over certain EU member states.

“There are a lot of policy areas where EU member states have to agree on them unanimously and China could use its friendly relationship with certain member states to veto certain parts of the EU’s foreign policy agenda,” Simalcik said.

While the effectiveness of Beijing’s diplomatic outreach to U.S. allies remains unclear, Chen in Japan said these efforts show China’s foreign policy approach has become “more sophisticated.”

“Compared to their ‘wolf warrior diplomacy’ during the first Trump administration, China’s current diplomatic approach has become more delicate,” he told VOA. 
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Cyprus says US decree on security affirms island’s stabilizing role in region

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus on Thursday hailed a U.S. memorandum allowing military sales, including arms, to the island as a milestone affirming recognition of the island as a pillar of stability in the east Mediterranean region which has been fraught with conflict.

U.S. President Joe Biden boosted security ties with Cyprus on Wednesday by issuing a memorandum that makes the island eligible to receive American defense articles, military sales and training.

Cyprus has over the years played a key role in evacuating people out of conflict zones and established a maritime corridor for aid to war-ravaged Gaza last year.

“This (memorandum) is a clear recognition of the Republic of Cyprus as a pillar of stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean, with the potential to further contribute to peace and the management of humanitarian challenges,” the Cypriot presidency said in a statement.

The foreign ministry of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot administration in northern Cyprus said the U.S. decision showed Cyprus’ internationally recognized Greek government would “continue its arms race as if it were preparing for war.”

“We call on the countries that support the warmongering of the Greek Cypriot side to act by calculating the consequences of these actions and to be sensible,” the statement said, adding it would keep taking steps with Turkey to protect the security of its citizens.

Cyprus was close to Russia for decades, but there has been a marked shift in allegiances in recent years.

Many in Cyprus have drawn parallels between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and EU-member Cyprus has followed its peers in adopting sanctions on Moscow. It is now getting FBI expertise in countering illicit finance.

The U.S. embassy in Nicosia said access to U.S. programs would enable greater interoperability to respond to regional humanitarian crises, counter malign influence, and combat terrorism and transnational organized crime.

The deepening in ties between the U.S. and Cyprus has been closely followed by Turkey, which in September criticized the pair’s signing of a roadmap to boost defense co-operation.

The 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus followed a brief Greek-inspired coup after years of sporadic violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots that had led to the collapse of a power-sharing administration in 1963.
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VOA Russian: Victims of Russian torture in Ukraine speak at UN 

Ukrainians formerly imprisoned by Russia testified at the United Nations this week about the torture they were subjected to in captivity. Ukrainian journalist and activist Maxym Butkevych, who spent more than two years in a Russian prison in an occupied Ukrainian town, described how he was deprived of fresh air and sunlight, subjected to beatings and electric shocks, denied medical assistance and forced to appear in recorded videos under duress.

Click here for the full story in Russian.
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White House says Biden leaving Ukraine in strongest position possible

While U.S. President Joe Biden views his response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a cornerstone of his foreign policy legacy, critics argue he missed a historic opportunity to help Ukraine win the war. 

Michael Carpenter, director for Europe at the National Security Council, spoke with VOA, defending the administration’s policies on Ukraine, stating they were undeterred by Russia’s nuclear threats, and attributing Ukraine’s lack of success in regaining lost territories to manpower shortages. 

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.  

VOA: Is President Biden leaving Ukraine in the strongest position possible?  

Michael Carpenter, Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council: He is. Look, the United States has given Ukraine every capability militarily that they have asked for. We have secured through painstaking diplomacy with our G7 partners a $50 billion loan. We have lifted all restrictions on rules of engagement for our military systems, for our weapons that we have provided to Ukraine. And we have worked with the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian leadership to devise a strategy for them to be able to defend themselves and ideally negotiate from a position of strength where they can achieve their aims to maintain a sovereign, independent, democratic Ukraine. That’s always been our goal and it remains our goal. I fail to mention the sanctions and the costs that we have levied on the Russian Federation. Unprecedented sanctions in the energy sector and in the financial sector over the course of the last three months. So were handing things off, I think, on very good terms.  

VOA: Does it mean that Ukraine, in your view, is ready to enter any possible negotiations with Russia next year from the position of strength?  

Carpenter: Well, look, I think it’s very important that Ukraine’s leaders, that President Zelensky in particular, decide when he wants to negotiate with the Russians. And what I will say is, at this point in time, I do not assess the President Putin wants to enter into a negotiation on good faith on anything other than the terms for the capitulation of Ukraine. So Ukraine has to decide when it feels that it is empowered to enter into this negotiation. And it’ll be up to the next administration to hold the Russians’ feet to the fire and ensure that they have the appropriate leverage to ensure that this is not a sellout of Ukraine’s sovereignty, but that this is a negotiation that leads to a just, durable, lasting peace, that preserves Ukraine as a sovereign, democratic, independent state. 

VOA: But is Ukraine in the strongest possible position for that? Because that was one of the goals.  

Carpenter: It is, under the circumstances. Look, war is messy. War involves all kinds of suffering. And Ukraine has certainly suffered over the course of the more than 1000 days of Russia’s brutal aggression against it. At the end of the day, Russia has occupied parts of Ukraine that I wish had not come to pass. But there are also realities in this war. And one of those realities has to do with manpower on the two sides of the front lines of this battle space. And Ukraine simply has fewer people on the battle space than Russia is able to muster. And that has resulted in the situation that we’re in today. I think Ukraine is in a strong position. I think it’s in a strong position financially. I think the capabilities that we have given, the investments we’ve made in things like Ukrainian production of unmanned aerial vehicles, in terms of the capabilities, the armored vehicles that we’ve provided, the HIMARS systems that have been highly effective, the air defense systems, including the Patriot, all of that has been, I think, incredibly useful for Ukraine. Of course, the situation remains tenuous in certain parts of the Donbass, and that is simply a reality of this war.  

VOA: You said that the Biden administration achieved its goals towards Ukraine, but wasn’t, at some point, the goal a victory of Ukraine? 

Carpenter: Ideally, Ukraine would have been able to liberate its territory. I think there’s still hope that Ukraine can continue to work towards not just defense but also liberating some of its land. But at the end of the day, this boils down to what I said earlier. This is a fundamentally a physics and a math problem in terms of the number of people on both sides of the front lines. And Russia is able to bring more soldiers to bear in this war than Ukraine has been able to. And we can give all the capabilities: from F-16s to Abrams tanks to HIMARS systems, ATACMS missiles, you name it. But without the manpower on the front lines, it’s impossible to achieve what you have just outlined, which is complete liberation of all of Ukraine’s territory. And so, look, it’s up to Ukrainians again to decide when and under what circumstances they want to negotiate. But we have set them up for success, given the capabilities that we have provided, which I just want to remind your viewers, is close to $70 billion in security assistance. That is a significant amount of capability that the United States has provided.  

VOA: You mentioned the assistance. In December, you assured us that the United States and the Biden administration will use all of that approved funds to provide Ukraine military assistance. But now there is $3.8 billion that this administration is leaving for the next. Why didn’t the Biden administration use those funds? And do you have any concern that the next administration might not want to use these funds to support Ukraine?  

Carpenter: Well, you know, I don’t want to get into a complex discussion of the way our budgetary process works, but there is a difference between authorized funds and obligated funds. So we have provided all of the funds that Congress has obligated for Ukraine. That’s not all the funds that have been authorized. But it takes coordination between the administration and Congress to be able to move all of that money. We have moved all of it that we had available to us. Yes, the next administration will now have the option to use some of that authorized money to continue to provide assistance to Ukraine. And some of what we have obligated is on contract, or is en route, and will arrive in the coming weeks. But all of that is available to the next administration to continue to support Ukraine.

VOA: Before leaving office, Biden’s administration, as you said, imposed major energy sanctions against Russia. Do you think that these measures might be something that pushes Russia economy closer to a collapse and something that can actually stop Russia’s war machine? 

Carpenter: Well, our hope is that this additional pressure, which is extraordinary because we have imposed full blocking sanctions on two of the largest Russian oil companies. Surgutneftegas and Gazprom Neft, together with over 180 vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet. We hope that additional cost in position will bring Putin closer to a realistic and durable solution to this conflict when he sits down at the negotiating table eventually, whenever that happens. I think, of course, any type of sanctions that reduce the revenues available to the Russian Federation is less money in the hands of those who fuel Russia’s war machine and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. And it provides more space for Ukraine to be able to negotiate from a position of strength.  

VOA: In his foreign policy speech yesterday, President Biden mentioned as one of his accomplishments that he was able to prevent a direct confrontation between two nuclear powers, the United States and Russia. Many analysts that we’re talking to say that fears of nuclear escalation prevented President Biden from helping Ukraine win the war. Why was the United States deterred by Russia’s “red lines,” but not vice versa? 

Carpenter: Nobody was deterred. The United States provided every capability that Ukraine asked for. It is only logical that as the world’s largest nuclear superpower, that the United States has to factor in escalation management. 

Anyone who says to the contrary is being irresponsible about foreign policy and does not sit in the Oval Office and have to make those weighty decisions.  

VOA: But does it send a signal that Russia’s “nuclear card” will always beat everything else?  

Carpenter: No, it does not, because the Ukrainians have done extraordinarily well at certain points on the battlefield. But this fundamentally gets back to what the question you raised earlier, which is manpower. And that’s not a variable that the United States controls. 

VOA: How do you hope the next administration approaches the policy towards Ukraine? And how does President Biden feel about the fact that his legacy towards Ukraine will be largely defined by the policies of the next administration? 

Carpenter: I’m not going to speak to what the next administration will do or won’t do. I will just say that, again, this administration, we have tried to hand off a situation where Russia is both on its back foot, thanks to our sanctions in the energy and financial spheres; [and] Ukraine is in a solid macro financial state thanks to the $50 billion loan that we negotiated together with our G-7 partners, and that Ukraine has the capabilities militarily to be able to continue to maintain the defense of its territory.  
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