УКРОПИ

Russia, Ukraine trade drone attacks

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it destroyed 14 Ukrainian aerial drones in areas along the Ukraine-Russia border as well as four uncrewed Ukrainian boats in the Black Sea.

The ministry said Russian air defenses destroyed 10 drones over Russia-occupied Crimea, and another four over the Rostov region.

Russian forces carried out a second consecutive night of heavy drone attacks targeting the Sumy region in southern Ukraine.

The Sumy regional military administration said Wednesday that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 19 Russian drones, a night after Ukraine downed 25 drones in the same area.

Officials in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions also reported drones being shot down overnight.

North Korean involvement

Ukraine has “information that two units of military personnel from North Korea are being trained — potentially even two brigades of 6,000 people each” — for combat in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday. 

“This is a challenge,” the president said in his daily address. “But we know how to respond to this challenge. And it is important that our partners do not shy away from this challenge, as well.” 

“If North Korea can intervene in the war in Europe, then the pressure on this regime is definitely not strong enough,” Zelenskyy said. “And if Russia is still able to expand and prolong this war, it means that everyone in the world who is still not helping to force Russia into peace is actually helping Putin to wage war.” 

“We expect a firm, concrete response from the world,” he added. “Hopefully, not only in words.” 

Also Tuesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement that Russia is playing with lives beyond Ukraine. 

“Russia’s indiscriminate strikes on ports in the Black Sea underscore that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is willing to gamble on global food security in his attempts to force Ukraine into submission. … In doing so, he is harming millions of vulnerable people across Africa, Asia and the Middle East to try and gain the upper hand in his barbaric war.”  

Starmer said Russia’s conduct in the conflict has shown “no respect for human life or the consequences of their invasion across the world.”

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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Ukraine’s prosecutor general resigns following draft-dodging scandal

Ukraine’s prosecutor general announced his resignation Tuesday amid charges that his office provided exemptions to the military draft for government officials.  

“Many shameful facts of abuse have been established within the system of the prosecutor’s offices of Ukraine,” Andriy Kostin said in a statement.  

Kostin’s resignation followed a meeting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held with senior officials concerning the issuance of disability certificates. The certificates allowed officials throughout the government to avoid military service at a time when the country is struggling to recruit soldiers for its fight against Russia. 

“The prosecutor general must take political responsibility for the situation in the prosecution bodies of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a statement after the meeting.  

“The problem is not only that officials use their connections to obtain disability status,” the president said in his daily address. “The problem is also that people with real disabilities, in particular those disabled in combat, are often unable to get proper status and fair payments.” 

Zelenskyy said a full audit has been conducted on “the pensions and other accruals” that government officials were able to acquire with the faulty disability exemptions.  

Sixty-four officials within the Medical and Social Expert Commission have been notified that they are being investigated for illegally issuing disability certificates, according to the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security service. Nine have been tried and found guilty.  

The president has ordered an overhaul of the disability assessment system. 

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters and Agence France-Presse.  
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VOA interview: US Army General Costanza discusses Russia’s threat to West

The war in Ukraine is reshaping the strategic landscape of Europe. While Western and Eastern European nations within the NATO alliance recognize the Russian threat, each day, NATO nations bordering Belarus and Russia feel the immediacy of the threat.

In an exclusive interview with VOA’s Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze, Lieutenant General Charles Costanza, commander of the U.S. Army’s V Corps (also known as the Fifth Corps) in Poland, discusses how NATO adapts to Russia’s evolving tactics while defending its members’ borders.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Can you explain the different threat assessments from Eastern and Western European partners of NATO regarding Russia?

Charles Costanza, commanding general of the U.S. Army’s V Corps: Clearly, in the eastern flank of Europe, the threat is real. They’re on the border with Belarus and Russia, and so, they see that threat every day differently. You see recent open-source reporting on the Russian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones] coming over Romanian territory and Lithuanian territory. Those incursions have increased. You see the sabotage operations going on throughout eastern flank countries and Eastern European countries. So, Russia is increasing that, short of … challenges and interference [that would trigger the NATO mutual defense clause].

VOA: Do you think Russia is doing it deliberately?

Costanza: Of course, they are. They weaponize immigration — I say “weaponize” deliberately. This weaponized immigration is happening in Poland, it’s all been driven from Russia to interfere in Eastern Europe. Moldova is a near-term example with their elections. Russia is actively interfering in those elections to try and shape them in a pro-Russian way. So, all that is going on right now. So, that’s part of this threat assessment piece that isn’t necessarily impacting the Western European countries as much as Eastern Europe.

VOA: How threatening is Russia’s military?

Costanza: I think there’s a view that Russia is going to take three to 10 years to reconstitute, and I think that we need to look at that a little differently. Russian armed forces, ground forces right now, are actually bigger than they were before the war with Ukraine started 2½ years ago, despite the losses of open-source reporting [of] 600,000 casualties that they’ve incurred during the course of the war.

They may not be as well trained, but they’re bigger. Their industrial base is on a wartime footing. Their mobilization base is on a wartime footing. They know they’re fighting a Western-trained, West-equipped country with Ukraine. They’re learning how to defeat those capabilities and those systems over the last 2½ years. So, they’re modernizing their force based on the lessons that they’re learning, and I think that’s something we should be concerned about. They’re modernizing their equipment. They’re changing the way that they fight based on learning how to fight against Western-trained forces in Ukraine. And I think that should be a concern for all of us. It clearly is to our Eastern European allies.

VOA: How are you preparing to defend and deter?

Costanza: First of all, to maintain a high stance on readiness from a U.S. forces standpoint but also the NATO standpoint. At the Fifth Corps, one of the key things we do as partners with our multinational corps and multinational divisions across the eastern flank of Europe [is] just to help build their war-fighting capability as they field new capabilities. HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System], for example. Apaches [helicopters] — with Poland just purchasing 96 Apaches from the United States. So, we help them to employ those things, those capabilities. But how you employ them at the corps level, and how you employ them at the division level, we can help, and we do.

VOA: General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and now ambassador to the United Kingdom, recently gave a speech at Chatham House in London in which he talked about the technological advancements of this war, and how this is a different war than NATO was prepared to fight. How would you assess NATO’s capabilities today?

Costanza: I think you’re exactly right. And those are some of the comments that were made by our NATO partners in this event. I think that the United States is kind of setting the standard on that with a new program that our chief of staff of the Army [General Randy George] has talked about, which is transformation in contact. So, for the U.S. forces that are rotating over here to Europe, we’re modernizing them with equipment that’s available right now. So, instead of going through our normal four-year acquisition process to get new equipment, we’re taking things that are available based on what we’re watching happen in Ukraine. … So maybe that can be a model for our partners and allies.

VOA: We talked about NATO capabilities. Now I want to go back to Russian capabilities. How advanced do you think they are right now?

Costanza: I think the biggest concern is what I said before: They know they’re fighting Western-trained and -equipped forces. And so, as they modernize based on the lessons that they’re learning — not just their equipment, but how they fight — they’re really sharpening their ability to fight us in the future. And I think that’s something we need to be concerned about.

So, those things I just talked about that we’re trying to rapidly introduce into our brigade to execute the transformation, contact — the UAS [Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or drones], the border, ammunition, the counter UAS, the EW [electronic warfare] capability. And how do you synchronize all of that capability so that you can really, rapidly strike and kill targets? They’ve learned how to do that. And so, we need to be able to do that and do it better than they do.

VOA: Russia is gaining support from China and North Korea right now. Are we ready to face this threat?

Costanza: The lessons that I was talking about, the reasons we should be concerned about Russia — they’re sharing those lessons with China, with Iran, and vice versa, the capabilities that Iran and China are providing. And now you see the North Koreans, as well. North Korea is now providing, I think it’s an initial batch [of] open-source reporting, of 4,000 North Korean soldiers. I think that could potentially just be a starting point for what they provide in terms of manpower to Russia. And I think that’s a problem near-term here in Eastern Europe, because as we talked about before we started, the challenge for Ukrainians is people. It’s the amount of people that they have to put into this fight. And Russia doesn’t care how many losses it takes. I mean, 600,000 [casualties], and they’re still throwing more manpower at it and don’t even blink. Ukrainians can’t afford to take those losses. I think that’s going to be the limiting factor for that as we move forward, watch this war continue into this third period.

VOA: There are different assessments of threats between, let’s say, the political part of the NATO alliance and the military part of the alliance. How are you finding that common ground?

Costanza: Yeah, I think it’s just constant dialogue, right? And so, I know we do that at different levels. So, the combatant commander, the U.S. combat commander, has those discussions at the national levels with our NATO partners and allies. We all live in Eastern Europe, including myself — in Poland. We all see that threat the same way. It can be near term.

VOA: What do you mean by the near term?

Costanza: I think, one year, two years, three years.

VOA: And you’re trying to be ready for that?

Costanza: U.S. forces are ready, and I can tell you, our NATO partners and allies are ready. And we’re just continuing to build capabilities.
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US warns ramped-up election influence efforts aim to stoke violence

WASHINGTON — Efforts by U.S. adversaries to divide Americans and sow growing distrust in the upcoming presidential election have already begun to intensify, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials, who warn some countries appear to be leaning toward additional measures to spark election-related violence.

The latest declassified assessment, issued Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, comes just two weeks before voters head to the polls November 5 to choose a new president and vote on a series of statewide and local races and initiatives.

“Foreign actors — particularly Russia, Iran and China — remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests,” according to the assessment.

But it warns U.S. intelligence agencies are “increasingly confident” that Russia is starting to engage in plans “aimed at inciting violence.”

It further assesses Iran also “may try to incite violence.”

Post-poll closing concerns

Of particular concern is what appears to be a growing focus on the hours, days and weeks after the polls close, when state and local election officials begin to tally and certify the results.

U.S. adversaries “probably will be quick to create false narratives or amplify content they think will create confusion about the election, such as posting claims of election irregularities,” said a U.S. intelligence official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss the assessment in additional detail.

The official said Russia, Iran and China “may perceive a window of vulnerability to push disinformation or foment or amplify protests and threats” starting with the moment polling centers close and extending to January 6, when the presidential results are certified by a joint session of Congress.

“Foreign driven or amplified violent protests, violence or physical threats to election workers or state and local officials could challenge state and local officials’ ability to conduct elements of the certification and Electoral College process,” the official said. “Particularly if they prevent necessary physical access to facilities or venues.”

U.S. intelligence officials have previously warned that Russia and Iran have been especially active, running a variety of influence operations targeting U.S. voters, with a high likelihood that these efforts would extend beyond the November 5 election.

Russia, they said, has been working to boost the chances of former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump, while Iran has been working to hurt Trump’s reelection bid and instead buoy the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

China, according to U.S. intelligence officials, has so far stayed out of the presidential race, focusing its efforts on congressional and state and local candidates perceived to be promoting policies detrimental to Beijing’s interests, including those voicing support for Taiwan.

Officials said Tuesday that new intelligence streams have raised concerns that Moscow, especially, will try to foment violence once the polls close.

“We expect Russia will be more aggressive in this period if the vice president [Kamala Harris] wins the election,” the intelligence official said. “Russia would prefer the former president to win, and they would seek to more aggressively undermine the presidency of the then-president-elect.”

Russia, China and Iran have all rejected previous U.S. accusations of election meddling.

Russia and Iran have yet to respond to requests from VOA for comment, but China on Tuesday again rejected the latest U.S. intelligence findings.

“The presidential elections are the United States’ own affairs,” Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA in an email. “China has no intention and will not interfere.”

U.S. intelligence officials, though, point to what they describe as growing examples of malign intent, especially by Russia and Iran.

Influence operations

In one example, the officials said Russian-linked actors were responsible for a post on the X social media platform earlier this month that contained false allegations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

“There are several indicators of manipulation that are consistent with the influence, efforts and tactics of Russian influence actors this cycle,” the U.S. intelligence official said.

In another case, U.S. officials said a Russian intelligence unit sought to recruit what they assess to likely be an unwitting American to organize protests.

They also point to actions taken last month by multiple U.S. agencies to counter several Russian influence efforts, including the use of fake websites and the creation of a shell company to funnel $10 million to a U.S. media company to push pro-Russian propaganda.

Also last month, the U.S. placed bounties and lodged criminal charges against three Iranian hackers, all accused of seeking to undermine the Trump reelection campaign.

And there are fears that even these types of ongoing influence operations, which often seek to exploit divisive political issues, could lead to problems.

“Even if these disinformation campaigns are not specifically calling for violence, the tactics used to undermine confidence in the democratic institutions can lead to violence, even if not deliberately called for,” said a senior official with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, who, like the U.S. intelligence official, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

‘Expect disruptions’

And while U.S. officials express confidence that safeguards are in place to prevent U.S. adversaries from attacking or hacking systems used to record and tally votes, there is concern that they will target other U.S. infrastructure to try to induce panic or violence.

“That is a real possibility,” said the CISA official, adding the U.S. public should “expect disruptions.”

“We’re going to see a voting location lose power,” the official said. “We’re going to see potentially some type of impact on a transportation system. We’re going to see a potential ransomware attack against a local election office.”

CISA officials say they have been working with state and local election officials to make sure they are prepared to handle sudden disruptions. And state officials say they are prepared.

“All states consider their election infrastructure and IT [information technology] systems a potential target for threats,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s secretary of state and the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, during a call with reporters Monday.

“Chief elections officials throughout the United States have worked really tirelessly and consistently to mitigate risks to our election systems and processes,” said Simon.
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Bilingual school in Hungary helps Ukrainian refugee children preserve identity

The United Nations says the war in Ukraine has displaced more than 6 million people and forced many of them to register as refugees across Europe. More than 60,000 of them — mostly women and children — are living in Hungary. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Budapest on a new bilingual school for refugee children from Ukraine. VOA footage and video editing by Daniil Batushchak.
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King Charles III ends first Australian visit by reigning British monarch in 13 years 

MELBOURNE, Australia — King Charles III ends the first visit to Australia by a reigning British monarch in 13 years Tuesday as anti-monarchists hope the debate surrounding his journey is a step toward an Australian citizen becoming head of state.  

Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, watched dancers perform at a Sydney Indigenous community center. The couple used tongs to cook sausages at a community barbecue lunch at the central suburb of Parramatta and later shook the hands of well-wishers for the last time during their visit outside the Sydney Opera House. Their final engagement was an inspection of navy ships on Sydney Harbor in an event known as a fleet review.  

Charles’s trip to Australia was scaled down because he is undergoing cancer treatment. He arrives in Samoa on Wednesday.  

Indigenous activist Wayne Wharton, 60, was arrested outside the opera house early Tuesday afternoon before the royals greeted the crowd.   

“It will be alleged the man was acting in an abusive and threatening manner and had failed to comply with two previous move-on directions,” a police statement said. He was charged with failing to comply with a police direction and will appear in court on Nov. 5.  

Wharton said he intended to serve Charles with a summons to appear in court on war crimes and for genocide but never got close to the couple.  

The royal visit was “a slap in the face to every decent Aboriginal person and fair-minded person in Australia that’s tried to make a go of their lives,” Wharton told the AP after his arrest.  

On Monday, Indigenous independent senator Lidia Thorpe yelled at Charles during a reception that he was not her king and Australia was not his land.  

Wharton said he backed Thorpe “absolutely 100%.” He had protested with a small group of demonstrators outside a Sydney church service the couple attended on Sunday under a banner “Empire Built on Genocide.”  

Esther Anatolitis, co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement, which campaigns for an Australian citizen to replace the British monarch as Australia’s head of state, said while thousands turned out to see the king and Camilla at their public engagements, the numbers were larger when his mother Queen Elizabeth II first visited Australia 70 years ago.  

An estimated 75% of Australia’s population saw the queen in person during the first visit by a reigning British monarch in 1954.  

“It’s understandable that Australians would be welcoming the king and queen, we also welcome them,” Anatolitis said. “But it doesn’t make any sense to continue to have a head of state appointed by birth right from another country.” 

Anatolitis acknowledged that getting a majority of Australians in a majority of states to vote to change the constitution would be difficult. Australians haven’t changed their constitution since 1977.  

Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey said an Australian republic is not something that Charles, 75, need worry about in his lifetime.  

She said the failure of a referendum last year to create an “utterly innocuous” Indigenous representative body to advise government demonstrated the difficulty.   

“It’s just that on the whole people aren’t prepared to change the constitution,” Twomey said.  

“So a republic, which would be a much more complex constitutional question than the one last year, would be far more vulnerable to a scare campaign and to opposition,” she said.  

“So unless you had absolutely unanimous support across the board and a strong reason for doing it, it would fail,” she added.  

Philip Benwell, national chair of the Australian Monarchist League, which wants to maintain Australia’s constitutional link to Britain, said he was standing near Thorpe at the Canberra reception when she started yelling at the king and demanding a treaty with Indigenous Australians.  

“I think she alienated a lot of sympathy. If anything, she’s helped to strengthen our support,” Benwell said.  

Thorpe has been criticized, including by some Indigenous leaders, for shouting at the king and failing to show respect.  

Thorpe was unrepentant. She rejected criticism that her aggressive approach toward the monarch was violent.  

“I think what was unacceptable is the violence in that room, of the King of England praising himself, dripping in stolen wealth, that’s what’s violent,” Thorpe told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “The violence is from the colonizer being in that room asserting his authority, being paid for by every taxpayer in this country.”  

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants Australia to become a republic but has ruled out a referendum during his first three-year term. A vote remains a possibility if his center-left Labor Party wins elections due by May next year.  

Australians decided in a referendum in 1999 to retain Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. That result is widely regarded as having been the consequence of disagreement about how a president would be chosen rather than majority support for a monarch.  

Sydney University royal historian Cindy McCreery suspects Australia is not yet ready to make the change.  

“There’s interest in becoming a republic, but I think what we may forget is that logistically speaking we’re not going to have a referendum on that issue any time soon,” McCreery said.  

“I, as a historian, think that it’s probably not realistic to expect a successful referendum on a republic until we’ve done more work on acknowledging our … complicated history,” she said.  

“Becoming a republic doesn’t mean that we’ve somehow thrown off British colonialism. It hopefully has meant that we’re engaging with our own history in an honest and thoughtful way,” she added. 
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One dead, 15 hurt in Welsh train collision

LONDON — Two passenger trains collided in Wales, killing a man and injuring 15 people, transport police said Tuesday.

The low-speed crash on Monday evening happened near the village of Llanbrynmair in central Wales.

“We can sadly confirm a man has died following this evening’s incident,” said British Transport Police superintendent Andrew Morgan.

Those taken to hospital were not believed to have suffered serious injuries.

Morgan said transport police were working “to understand the circumstances leading up to this collision.”
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Indigenous Australian embraces King Charles at civil rights birthplace

SYDNEY — Britain’s King Charles was embraced by an Indigenous elder after a welcome smoking ceremony on Tuesday in the birthplace of Australia’s urban Aboriginal civil rights movement in Sydney, a day after being heckled by an Indigenous senator in Canberra.

Charles met with Indigenous elders at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in inner-city Redfern, including “bush tucker” – or native food – chef Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo, who served kangaroo pies.

The king was embraced by elder Michael Welsh, and a woman introduced herself as a member of the Stolen Generation – a reference to Aboriginal children systematically removed from their families decades earlier. “Welcome to this country,” she said.

A day earlier, Charles was heckled at Parliament House in Canberra by independent senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe who shouted that she did not accept his sovereignty over Australia, and demanded a treaty for Indigenous people.

While the atmosphere at Redfern on Tuesday was respectful, some people who came to see the king expressed sympathy for Thorpe’s actions.

“We’ve got stories to tell and I think you witnessed that story yesterday,” Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council Chairperson Allan Murray said.

In a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday, Thorpe said she “wanted the world to know the plight of our people.”

Former Olympic athlete Nova Peris, who was the first Indigenous woman elected to federal parliament, wrote in a social media post she was “deeply disappointed” by Thorpe’s actions, which “do not reflect the manners, or approach to reconciliation, of Aboriginal Australians at large.”

Emotions around Indigenous rights and Australia’s colonial history are raw after a national referendum on whether to alter Australia’s constitution to recognize Aboriginal people was rejected last year.

Charles referred to Australia’s “long and sometimes difficult journey towards reconciliation” in a speech on Monday before he was heckled by Thorpe.

Under glorious spring skies, the king later visited a social housing project designed with the support of his King’s Trust Australia charity in the inner suburb of Glebe.

He toured the construction site with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who grew up on a public housing estate, and met Indigenous actor Wes Patten, one of three apprentice construction workers on the project.

Patten played the son of an Indigenous politician in TV political drama “Total Control,” depicting the imagined first Indigenous prime minister of Australia.

Claude Tighe, an Indigenous man in Glebe who saw the Lidia Thorpe protest on social media, said: “I want him to talk to real traditional owners. There’s a lot of us here.”

“She spoke for Aboriginal people,” he added, referring to Thorpe.

Charles and Queen Camilla are visiting Sydney and Canberra over six days before traveling to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.

The public will have an opportunity to meet the royal couple at the Opera House later on Tuesday.
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World Uyghur Congress faces harassment ahead of general assembly

washington — The General Assembly of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is set to begin Thursday, following months of ongoing harassment from the Chinese government that the top Uyghur organization has described as “unprecedented.”

In the months leading up to the group’s eighth general assembly, which takes place this year in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Uyghur organization has endured numerous efforts to derail or even cancel the event, the group said. The harassment included threats of physical harm, arrest and sabotage.

Groups that advocate for Uyghur human rights have long faced harassment from the Chinese government, but this recent harassment was particularly extreme, according to Zumretay Arkin, the WUC’s spokesperson and director of global advocacy.

“It’s reached another level this time,” Arkin told VOA from Sarajevo. “The World Uyghur Congress is among the most important organizations in our movement, in the diaspora, and they want to destroy it completely.”

In one of the most severe examples, the email account of a WUC employee was hacked, Arkin told VOA. The unidentified hackers on Monday sent out emails, which VOA has reviewed, to all attendees, including WUC delegates and candidates, as well as foreign lawmakers, falsely claiming that the general assembly had been postponed.

The WUC holds its general assembly every three years. At each assembly, the organization elects its leadership and sets strategic priorities in response to human rights abuses in the Chinese region Xinjiang, where most Uyghurs live.

“We are advocating for not only the human rights of Uyghur people, but also self-determination of Uyghurs. And that’s considered a threat to the Chinese government,” said Arkin, who is running to be the WUC’s next vice president.

The Germany-based WUC has condemned the harassment.

“It is a clear effort to intimidate the Uyghur community and silence their voices,” the organization said in a Friday statement.

In other cases of harassment, the Chinese Embassy in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has exerted pressure to cancel the general assembly entirely and indicated it would encourage local authorities to arrest former WUC President Dolkun Isa, who is a German citizen.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has an extradition treaty with China. When Isa and Arkin arrived in Sarajevo on Monday, Arkin said they didn’t have any issues in entering the country.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and embassy in Sarajevo did not immediately reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment.

In another example, an informant with knowledge of the situation told the Norway-based Uyghur activist Abduweli Ayup that Chinese authorities were considering various ways to disrupt the general assembly, including staging a car accident or cutting electricity.

“He told me that they might make [a] car accident and cut the electricity, or protest in front of the World Uyghur Congress,” Ayup told VOA.

Chinese authorities have also directly targeted WUC delegates from countries including Australia, Germany, Ireland and Turkey, Arkin said. Those authorities have pressured delegates not to participate in the general assembly, including by making threats against family members who are still in Xinjiang, according to Arkin.

And in the case of Uzbekistan, local Uzbek authorities pressured WUC delegates who live in Uzbekistan to not participate in the general assembly, according to Arkin, who said no delegates from Uzbekistan will be attending as a result.

Uzbekistan’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

Beijing has long targeted Uyghur rights groups and activists around the world to silence criticism, according to Sophie Richardson, a visiting scholar at Stanford and the former China director at Human Rights Watch. This recent bout of harassment is just the latest example.

“It’s the ultimate expression of how desperate it [Beijing] is to keep people from talking about genocide and crimes against humanity,” Richardson told VOA.

The Chinese government stands accused by rights groups and multiple Western governments of perpetrating genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, which many Uyghurs prefer to call the Uyghur Region or East Turkestan. Beijing denies any wrongdoing in the region.

Part of why the Chinese government is so brazen in its perpetration of transnational repression is that Beijing has long done so with almost complete impunity, according to Richardson.

“They’ve now been doing so for decades and accelerated it significantly over the last decade — and not really had to pay a price for doing so,” Richardson said.

With the general assembly set to begin in just a few days, there are a lot of things on Arkin’s mind — the most pressing of which is the safety of WUC members, her family members still inside Xinjiang and herself.

Nevertheless, Arkin thinks the extreme lengths the Chinese government is going to in order to derail the general assembly may also underscore Beijing’s own fears.

“We’re building a system that is our own. We’re building something totally opposite to what the Chinese government has, and so they’re scared of that. They’re scared of democracy and human rights,” Arkin said.
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Spain sees opportunity in African migrant influx, bucking EU trend

Many European Union countries are calling for the bloc to clamp down on migration amid a surge in support for right-wing political parties. But Spain is bucking the trend — and insists Europe’s aging population needs controlled migration to boost its economy. Henry Ridgwell reports. Camera: Alfonso Beato.
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