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US, UK top diplomats head to Ukraine with eye on weapons

Przemysl, Poland — The top U.S. and British diplomats headed together into Ukraine on Wednesday to discuss further easing rules on firing Western weapons into Russia, whose alleged acquisition of Iranian missiles has raised new fears.

In a rare joint trip, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was taking the train to Kyiv with Foreign Secretary David Lammy, whose 2-month-old Labor government has vowed to keep up Britain’s role as a key defender of Ukraine.

The pair, who boarded the train early Wednesday at the Polish border town of Przemysl, are expected to meet in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has kept pressing the West for weapons with more firepower and fewer restrictions.

U.S. President Joe Biden, asked in Washington whether he would let Ukraine use longer-range weapons, said: “We’re working that out right now.”

Biden, while strongly supportive of Ukraine, has previously made clear he wants to avoid devolving into direct conflict between the United States and Russia, the world’s two leading nuclear powers.

Blinken, speaking Tuesday in London alongside Lammy, said the United States was committed to providing Ukraine “what they need when they need it to be most effective in dealing with the Russian aggression.”

But Blinken, who is on his fifth trip to Kyiv since the war, said it was also important to see if Ukrainian forces could maintain and operate particular weaponry.

Pressed later in an interview with Sky News on whether the United States would green-light long-range weapons, Blinken said, “We never rule out, but when we rule in, we want to make sure it’s done in such a way that it can advance what the Ukrainians are trying to achieve.”

The renewed talk about long-range weapons comes after the United States said that Iran has sent short-range missiles to Russia, which could strike Ukraine with them within weeks.

The Iranian shipments have raised fears that Moscow would be freed up to use its long-range missiles against comparatively unscathed areas in western Ukraine.

Western powers announced new sanctions against Iran’s clerical state over the sale, which defied repeated warnings.

The United States earlier this year gave its blessing for Ukraine to use Western weapons to hit Russian forces when in direct conflict across the border.

But Ukraine last month launched a surprise, daring offensive directly into Russian territory in Kursk, hoping to restore morale and divert Moscow as Russian troops trudge forward in the front lines of eastern Ukraine.

British media reports said Biden, who meets Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday, was set to end objections to letting Ukraine fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles into Russia.

Britain has repeatedly pushed the United States, by far Ukraine’s biggest military supplier, to be more forward on weapons.

One key ask of Ukraine is to loosen restrictions on U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, which can hit targets up to 300 kilometers away.

In a joint letter to Biden, leading members of Congress from the rival Republican Party asked him to act on ATACMS immediately.

“As long as it is conducting its brutal, full-scale war of aggression, Russia must not be given a sanctuary from which it can execute its war crimes against Ukraine with impunity,” said the letter signed by Representative Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Republicans, however, are deeply divided over Ukraine, and a victory in November by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over Biden’s political heir Kamala Harris could dramatically shift US policy.

Trump aides have suggested that if he wins, he would leverage aid to force Kyiv into territorial concessions to Russia to end the war.
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Biden indicates possible shift on Ukraine using long-range weapons into Russia

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Google, Apple lose court fights against EU, owe billions in fines, taxes

LONDON — Google lost its last bid to overturn a European Union antitrust penalty, after the bloc’s top court ruled against it Tuesday in a case that came with a whopping fine and helped jumpstart an era of intensifying scrutiny for Big Tech companies.

The European Union’s top court rejected Google’s appeal against the $2.7 billion penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, for violating antitrust rules with its comparison shopping service.

Also Tuesday, Apple lost its challenge against an order to repay $14.34 billion in back taxes to Ireland, after the European Court of Justice issued a separate decision siding with the commission in a case targeting unlawful state aid for global corporations.

Both companies have now exhausted their appeals in the cases that date to the previous decade. Together, the court decisions are a victory for European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is expected to step down next month after 10 years as the commission’s top official overseeing competition.

Experts said the rulings illustrate how watchdogs have been emboldened in the years since the cases were first opened.

One of the takeaways from the Apple decision “is the sense that, again, the EU authorities and courts are prepared to flex their [collective] muscles to bring Big Tech to heel where necessary,” Alex Haffner, a competition partner at law firm Fladgate, said by email.

The shopping fine was one of three huge antitrust penalties for Google from the commission, which punished the Silicon Valley giant in 2017 for unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service over competitors.

“We are disappointed with the decision of the Court, which relates to a very specific set of facts,” Google said in a brief statement.

The company said it made changes to comply with the commission’s decision requiring it to treat competitors equally. It started holding auctions for shopping search listings that it would bid for alongside other comparison shopping services.

“Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services,” Google said.

European consumer group BEUC hailed the court’s decision, saying it shows how the bloc’s competition law “remains highly relevant” in digital markets.

“It is a good outcome for all European consumers at the end of the day,” Director General Agustín Reyna said in an interview. “It means that many smaller companies or rivals will be able to go to different comparison shopping sites. They don’t need to depend on Google to reach out to customers.”

Google is still appealing its two other EU antitrust cases: a 2018 fine of $4.55 billion involving its Android operating system and a 2019 penalty of $1.64 billion over its AdSense advertising platform.

Despite the amounts of money involved, the adverse rulings will leave a small financial dent in one of the world’s richest and most profitable companies. The combined bill of $17 billion facing Apple and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, represents 0.3% of their combined market value of $5.2 trillion.

Those three cases foreshadowed expanded efforts by regulators worldwide to crack down on the tech industry. The EU has since opened more investigations into Big Tech companies and drew up a new law to prevent them from cornering online markets, known as the Digital Markets Act.

Google is also now facing pressure over its lucrative digital advertising business from the EU and Britain, which are carrying out separate investigations, and the United States, where the Department of Justice is taking the company to federal court over its alleged dominance in ad tech.

Apple failed in its last bid to avoid repaying its Irish taxes Tuesday after the Court of Justice upheld a lower court ruling against the company, in the dispute that dates back to 2016.

The case drew outrage from Apple, with CEO Tim Cook calling it “total political crap.”
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US sanctions Iran over supply of ballistic missiles to Russia

The United States announced new sanctions on Iran Tuesday, over Tehran’s supplying of missiles to Russia for use in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Russia, China kick off joint military exercises, challenging US-led coalition

Taipei, Taiwan — Russia says it launched massive naval and air drills Tuesday that span a huge swath of oceans and involve more than 400 naval vessels, at least 120 military aircraft and upwards of 90,000 troops.  

The large-scale military exercise, dubbed “Ocean-2024,” includes forces from China and will run until September 16 with at least 15 countries invited to observe the maneuvers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia pays “special attention” to strengthening military cooperation with “friendly states” and warned the United States not to try and outgun Moscow in Asia.  

“Under the pretext of countering the allegedly existing Russian threat and containing the People’s Republic of China, the United States and its satellites are increasing their military presence near Russia’s western borders, in the Arctic, and in the Asia-Pacific region,” Putin said in a televised remark to Russian military officials on Tuesday. He said Washington and its allies are “openly declaring their plans to deploy medium- and shorter-range missiles in the so-called forward zones.”  

Analysts say the joint naval and air drills are an effort by Russia and China to deepen military ties and counter increased security coordination between the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Russia wants to demonstrate that they can engage in a full-scale war with Ukraine while deploying resources to the Indo-Pacific region and China wants to show that they can deepen its relationship with Russia and cause problems in the region, primarily in the South China Sea but also around Japan,” said Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University in Japan.

On Monday, the Chinese defense ministry said both countries would conduct joint naval and aerial exercises aimed at deepening bilateral strategic cooperation and strengthening their ability to respond to security threats in the waters and airspace near the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk.

In addition to the joint exercise near Japan, the Chinese defense ministry said Chinese and Russian naval fleets will conduct their fifth joint patrol in the Pacific Ocean as part of the “Ocean-2024” strategic exercise. 

“Russia hopes to increase pressure on the United States on the Pacific front through the joint military exercise with China, which may force Washington to reduce its military deployment to Europe,” said Lin Ying-yu, a military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

On the other hand, he added that China hopes to divert Japan’s attention from waters near the Taiwan Strait through its closer military partnership with Russia.

“Japan will have to prioritize threats to their security so they won’t have more bandwidth to focus on the situation across the Taiwan Strait,” Lin told VOA in a phone interview.

China and Russia’s increased military cooperation near Japan in recent years has prompted Tokyo to characterize their joint activities as a “grave concern.”

“These repeated joint activities are clearly intended for demonstration of force against Japan and are a grave concern from the perspective of the national security of Japan,” the Japanese defense ministry wrote in its annual defense white paper, which was released in July.

For now, Nagy said Japan is more concerned with how the military cooperation may evolve, adding that there are still limits to what the two can do together when they conduct exercises.

“Japan will be concerned about whether the coordination between China and Russia will be used to destabilize sea lines of communication, to prop up North Korea, or to move towards some kind of forced reunification with Taiwan,” he told VOA in a phone interview. “The Russians and Chinese will sail beside each other, fly next to each other, or coordinate how their boats move around but they haven’t developed interoperability and inter-command.”

Enhancing logistics, communication collaboration

While there are limits to their cooperation, other analysts say Russia and China will still use joint military exercises to enhance their cooperation in logistics, such as exchanging parts, fuel, or services or sharing data or communication channels.

“The ability for the Chinese and Russian armies to better understand one another and better support each other in the field is an important capability to develop for both countries,” Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, told VOA by phone.

In addition to that, Lin in Taipei said China could also enhance its forces’ combat capabilities through joint military exercises with Russia since the Russian forces have accumulated real combat experiences from Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

“Since Russia’s navies have dealt with drone or anti-ship missile attacks launched by Ukraine, the Chinese navy could learn about how to deal with similar attacks in a potential war across the Taiwan Strait from their Russian counterparts,” he told VOA.

Pushing back against NATO

China and Russia’s upcoming military exercise near Japan is part of their growing efforts to push back against the United States and NATO allies. Since July, Beijing and Moscow have held at least three joint military drills in different parts of the world, including the South China Sea, the skies off coastal Alaska, and the Gulf of Finland.

“These increased military drills all over the world are part of Beijing and Moscow’s efforts to counter the deepening defense coordination between the U.S. and its allies, both in Europe and in the Pacific,” Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told VOA in a phone interview.

Despite their attempt to challenge the U.S. and NATO through closer military cooperation, Nagy said China and Russia are unlikely to let their partnership escalate out of proportion.

“Russia and China will continue to reciprocate what the U.S. and its allies are doing, but not escalate since Beijing wants to maintain its narrative to the Global South that they are not a hegemonic power,” he told VOA.

On Tuesday, Chinese authorities said the United States and China held theater-level commander talks for the first time when Admiral Sam Paparo, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, held a video telephone call with his counterpart Wu Yanan of the Southern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army. The Indo-Pacific Command focuses on enhancing security and stability in the Asia Pacific region and hotspots including the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.
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Blinken, Lammy stress importance of Taiwan Strait status quo in US-UK talks

State Department — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy addressed Indo-Pacific security and highlighted the need to maintain the status quo on the Taiwan Strait during their U.S.-U.K. Strategic Dialogue, underscoring its global significance. 

“We also discussed joint efforts to ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and freedom of navigation and overflight of the South China Sea. For both of us, maintaining peace and stability, preserving the status quo is essential,” Blinken told reporters during a joint press conference with Lammy in London. 

“It’s essential not just to us; it’s, again, essential to countries all around the world,” Blinken added.    

U.S. officials have stressed the need to keep open high-level communication between Washington and Beijing to clear up misperceptions and prevent their competition from escalating into conflict. 

Earlier this week, the United States and China held theater-level commander talks for the first time in an effort to stabilize military relations. 

The video teleconference Monday, between Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and General Wu Yanan, commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command, was aimed at preventing misunderstandings, particularly in regional hotspots like the South China Sea.  

According to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Paparo emphasized the Chinese military’s responsibility to adhere to international laws and norms to ensure operational safety.  

“Paparo also urged the PLA to reconsider its use of dangerous, coercive, and potentially escalatory tactics in the South China Sea and beyond.” 

In Beijing, China’s Ministry of National Defense issued a press release Tuesday stating the two commanders exchanged views on matters of mutual concern, but did not provide further details about the discussion. 

Washington has been seeking to establish new channels for regular military communication with Beijing after relations hit a historic low when the U.S. downed a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon last year. 

The theater-level commander talks differ from the broader discussions between U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs, which cover all strategic issues impacting both nations, Ryan Haas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA. 

The theater-level talks provide a platform for more focused discussions on operational issues, crisis management, and deconfliction at an operator-to-operator level, added Haas, a former senior official on the White House National Security Council from 2013 to 2017. 

The virtual meeting between Paparo and Wu followed a meeting last month in Beijing, where U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s top military adviser agreed to the talks.
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US, Britain accuse Iran of sending Russia missiles to use in Ukraine

London — The United States and Britain formally accused Iran on Tuesday of supplying short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to use in the war in Ukraine, and said they will take measures to punish those involved.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during a visit to London, said that sanctions would be announced later Tuesday.

“Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine, against Ukrainians,” Blinken said. “The supply of Iranian missiles enables Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets that are further from the front line.”

It comes as Blinken and Lammy are preparing to make a joint visit Wednesday to Ukraine, where they will meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior officials to discuss bolstering the country’s defenses. The Kremlin is trying to repel Ukraine’s surprise offensive that has claimed hundreds of miles of territory in Russia’s Kursk region.

The accusations about Iranian missiles could embolden Zelenskyy to further ramp up pressure on the U.S. and other allies to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied missiles to strike deep inside Russia and hit sites from which Moscow launches aerial attacks. President Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to fire U.S.-provided missiles across the border into Russia in self-defense but largely limited the distance over concerns about further escalating the conflict.

That has not stopped Ukraine from using its own weapons to hit targets deeper in Russia, launching on Tuesday one of the biggest drone attacks on Russian soil in the 2 1/2-year war that targeted multiple regions including Moscow.

The rare joint visit to Kyiv was, unusually, announced in advance, in a public signal of U.S-.U.K. support for Ukraine ahead of what’s likely to be a brutal winter of Russian attacks. It will be followed by a meeting at the White House on Friday between Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with support for Ukraine’s defense on the agenda.

Asked whether the U.S. would allow weapons it supplied to strike targets in Russia, Blinken said all use of weapons needed to be allied to a strategy.

He said one goal of the joint visit this week “is to hear directly from the Ukrainian leadership, including … President Zelenskyy, about exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives, and what we can do to support those needs.”

“All I can tell you is we will be listening intently to our Ukrainian partners, we will both be reporting back to the prime minister, to President Biden in the coming days and I fully anticipate this is something they will take up when they meet on Friday,” he said.

Word of the alleged transfers from Iran began to emerge over the weekend with reports that U.S. intelligence indicated they were underway, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Lammy called the missile transfers part of “a troubling pattern that we’re seeing. It is definitely a significant escalation.”

Iran has denied providing Russia with weapons for its war in Ukraine.

“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict — which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure, and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations — to be inhumane,” according to a recent statement from Iran’s mission to the United Nations.

The U.S. and its allies have been warning Iran for months not to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia.

CIA Director William Burns, who was in London on Saturday for a joint appearance with his British intelligence counterpart, warned of the growing and “troubling” defense relationship involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea that he said threatens both Ukraine and Western allies in the Middle East.

The White House has repeatedly declassified and publicized intelligence findings that show North Korea has sent ammunition and missiles to Russia to use against Ukraine, while Iran also supplies Moscow with attack drones and has assisted the Kremlin with building a drone-manufacturing factory.

China has held back from providing Russians with weaponry but has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry, according to U.S. officials.
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Turkey aims to become major naval power, alarming neighbors

Turkey is undertaking a massive expansion of its navy to make it one of Europe’s largest naval powers. The buildup is alarming some of its neighbors, but Ankara insists it is purely defensive and meant to meet Turkey’s growing regional commitments. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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 Russia reports shooting down 144 Ukrainian drones

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Poland thanks military dogs for their service, giving them army ranks

NOWY DWOR MAZOWIECKI, Poland — The new privates received their ranks amid military pomp in a town near Warsaw where a Napoleonic fortress attests to a long military history. The group was made up of a German shepherd, a Dutch shepherd and two Belgian Malinois.

The dogs — Einar, Eliot, Enzo and Emi — were bestowed with their ranks Friday as part of a new Polish program aimed at honoring the service of dogs used to detect explosives, a job valued for its role in protecting human life.

General Wiesław Kukuła, chief of the general staff of the Polish army, decided last year that dogs serving in the army would qualify for six military ranks ranging from private through corporal to sergeant.

The change has been welcomed by their loyal human handlers. 

“The rank is meant to honor the hard work of the dog in service,” said Lance Corporal Daniel Kęsicki, who recently completed a five-month training course with Eliot, a 2-year-old Belgian Malinois. “To me it’s a symbolic recognition that the dog is serving the homeland.”

The dogs honored Friday belong to the 2nd Mazovian Engineer Regiment, which in 2007 became the first unit of Poland’s armed forces to introduce dogs into service, according to spokesperson Captain Dominik Płaza. He said none have died in action. 

During the ceremony, each dog’s handler was handed a badge with the animal’s rank, which was attached to the dog’s harness. The ceremony occurred during the commemoration of the regiment’s 80th anniversary. The dogs were given their ranks for having completed basic training and having served for more than a year.

The ranks are a largely symbolic recognition “so that we, too, are aware that such a dog is a member of the armed forces,” Płaza said.

“It is not just a tool for detecting explosives, but it is a living being,” he said. 

The unit was recently deployed to Paris for the Summer Olympic Games and the Paralympics, where the regiment’s soldiers and four of its 16 dogs reinforced French security efforts in scanning facilities for explosives. Everything passed off peacefully. 

Polish army dogs have carried out service elsewhere in international missions, including Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the NATO nation’s support for U.S.-led efforts.

Poland, a close ally and neighbor of Ukraine, earlier this summer also announced that it was sending 12 trained dogs to support the Ukrainian military in clearing mines. 

The soldiers who work with the dogs volunteer for the assignment, and it becomes a commitment that lasts for the rest of the dog’s life.

Soldiers who were with their dogs Friday explained that they select their dogs, train with them, live with them, and care for them even after their four-legged charges retire.

Kęsicki described Eliot as an obedient companion who has become integrated into his family life.

“The dog can already do a lot after the beginning course alone, and we still have a few more years of service ahead of us,” he said.

Płaza, the spokesperson, laughed when asked if a dog could ever outrank his handler — or if a soldier might have to salute a dog. 

“Soldiers do not salute dogs,” Płaza said. “The handler will always be of a higher rank than his dog. It is simply impossible for a service dog to have a higher rank than his handler.”

Though the master-dog hierarchy is preserved, great love and appreciation are clearly shown to creatures in Poland, where pets are everywhere and some even lay their beloved companions to rest in special pet cemeteries. The Polish government has in recent years also ensured retirement benefits to dogs and horses working in the police, border guard and fire departments.

On Friday, as the sun beat down on a hot square in the middle of town, Kukuła interrupted the ceremony and ordered the overheated dogs removed — even as human soldiers continued to stand there in their uniforms and boots. 

Staff Sergeant Michał Młynarczyk served in Afghanistan with a dog named Elvis starting in 2011. Together they checked vehicles arriving at the base of an international force for explosives. Elvis died in 2018.

Now Młynarczyk is paired with Kobalt, a German shepherd who received his private rank in April. 

Private Kobalt goes home with him at night and plays with his children. While he loves the entire family, he never loses sight of who is the master. 

“All of the work the dog does is done for me,” Młynarczyk said. “It’s a bond, it’s a friendship.”
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Experts applaud steps US steps to disrupt Russian disinformation 

washington — The U.S. Justice Department announced September 4 that two Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, had been charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the Southern District of New York.

“The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.”

That same day, the Justice Department announced the seizure of 32 internet domains used in the Russian government-directed “Doppelganger” foreign malign influence campaign, which it said violated U.S. money-laundering and criminal trademark laws.

Experts who study disinformation say disrupting the paid-influencer campaign is an important step in efforts to counter the Kremlin’s broader disinformation strategy of spreading propaganda that undermines support for Ukraine and stokes American political divisions.

Disrupting the Doppelganger campaign

“Persistent efforts to impersonate authoritative news websites and promote their content at scale in a coordinated manner can have a tangible impact, casting propaganda narratives far and wide consistently,” wrote Roman Osadchuk and Eto Buziashvili, researchers at the Disinformation Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

According to an FBI affidavit, Russia’s “Doppelganger” campaign created domains impersonating legitimate media sites, produced fake social media profiles and deployed “influencers” worldwide.

According to the Atlantic Council researchers, the primary method used by those involved in “Doppelganger” is to post, on X and other social media platforms, links to fake news sites in replies to posts by politicians, celebrities, influencers and others with large audiences.

Osadchuk told VOA that while the FBI’s measures are unlikely to stop Russian influence activities, they will make them more costly, noting those involved in the Russian influence campaign will be forced “to rewrite scripts, change the operation’s infrastructure, etc.”

At the same time, according to Osadchuk, the U.S. government’s moves against those involved in the influence campaign, which were widely covered in the U.S. and international media, will educate a broader audience.

“Researchers of the Russian disinformation have known about the Doppelganger campaign for some time,” he said. “Now, Americans and people in other countries have learned about it and maybe will become more aware that not all information they consume is coming from legitimate sources and hopefully will be more attentive to the domain names and other signs that might indicate that the page they are reading is not The Washington Post or Fox News but a fake created by Kremlin-linked entities.”

Influencers will be more aware

In a statement it released after indicting the two RT employees, the Justice Department said that “over at least the past year, RT and its employees, including Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, deployed nearly $10 million to covertly finance and direct a Tennessee-based online content creation company [U.S. Company-1],” and that “U.S. Company-1″ had “published English-language videos on multiple social media channels, including TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.”

While the Justice Department did not specifically identify “U.S. Company-1,” it is thought to refer to Tenet Media, a Tennessee company co-founded by entrepreneur Lauren Chen, who recruited six popular U.S. influencers with a large following.

YouTube subsequently took down Tenet Media’s channel on the platform, along with four other channels that YouTube said were operated by Chen.

Bret Schafer, a disinformation researcher at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a political advocacy group set up under the auspices of the German Marshall Fund, a Washington think tank, told VOA that by financing the U.S. content creation company, Russia was able to create an information channel with a large audience, and to use it for such messages as blaming the U.S. and Ukraine for the March terrorist attack at a Moscow concert hall.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

Shutting down that Russian information channel sent a powerful message to influencers and content creators to do “due diligence about people funding their work and to try to figure out who’s behind these companies and their motives,” Schafer added.

Ben Dubow, a disinformation researcher affiliated with the Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington-based research group, believes that influencers contracted by Tenet Media are unlikely to lose their existing followers, but that they might have difficulty attracting new ones.

“Hopefully, people who might otherwise explore those influencers will recognize their names and understand them as untrustworthy now,” he told VOA.

The Justice Department’s indictment quotes RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonian, as saying in an interview on Russian television that RT built “an enormous network, an entire empire of covert projects,” to influence Western audiences.

The FBI affidavit also revealed that one of the sanctioned Russian companies had a list of 2,800 people active on social media in the U.S. and 80 other countries, including “television and radio hosts, politicians, bloggers, journalists, businessmen, professors, think-tank analysts, veterans, professors and comedians,” whom the company refers to as “influencers.”

Concrete steps and good timing

Several experts commended the U.S. government for taking concrete steps.

“They are sanctioning individuals and disrupting the supply chain of influence available to these threat actors,” noted Olga Belogolova, director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

“Punitive measures absolutely have to be part of the package,” said Jakub Kalenský, a senior analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki. “Otherwise, the aggressors have a free hand to continue their aggression unopposed. And in order to identify those who deserve to be punished, a proper investigation from the authorities is necessary.”

Experts also said that the Justice Department’s actions were taken early enough to prevent influence in the November U.S. elections and to signal to Russia and other foreign actors that the U.S. government is monitoring their actions and will respond aggressively.

“Of course, that was what the Obama administration was concerned about in 2016 and led to them not being as transparent as they probably should have been with the American public about what they knew about Russian interference,” Schafer said.

In announcing their actions against the Russian disinformation campaign, U.S. government representatives did not mention which political party or candidate they thought that the Russians were trying to assist.

“I know that the U.S. government, including agencies and the Foreign Malign Influence Center at ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence], have been doing a lot of thinking over the last few years about how to strategically communicate these actions without unintentionally amplifying the very campaigns they are trying to thwart or politicizing the topic. And I think they’ve actually done a good job of striking that balance, at least from what I’ve seen thus far,” Belogolova said.

Ihor Solovey, who heads the Ukrainian government’s Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security, welcomed the U.S. government’s actions but told VOA that more steps are needed to thwart Russian activities on social media.

“X, TikTok or even more so the Russian Telegram – they are unlikely to want to spend on the fight against bots, troll farms or planned disinformation,” he said, adding that only pressure by a state, or even a coalition of states, will be able to force these social media platforms to block intruders and malicious content.

Andrei Dziarkach of VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
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Blinken arrives in London on week of US-UK diplomacy

London — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived late Monday in London at the start of a week of diplomacy with the new U.K. government expected to touch on Ukraine and the Middle East. 

Blinken’s visit comes ahead of a trip to Washington on Friday by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his second meeting at the White House since his Labour Party won July elections, sweeping out the Conservatives after 14 years. 

Blinken — the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit London since Labour’s triumph — is expected to meet Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy during his talks Tuesday. 

The top U.S. diplomat will discuss Asia, the Middle East and “our collective efforts to support Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement announcing Blinken’s trip. 

The United States and Britain cooperate in lockstep on most global issues, and Starmer has made clear that he will maintain the U.K. role as one of the most assertive defenders of Ukraine as it pushes back against the Russian invasion. 

Former human rights lawyer Starmer, however, has taken a harder line on Israel since taking office, with his government announcing a suspension of some arms shipments, citing the risk that they could be used to violate humanitarian law. 

The Labour government has also dropped its Conservative predecessor’s plans to challenge the right of the International Criminal Court to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

The United States is not a member of the ICC and has opposed the bid to target Netanyahu, arguing that Israel has its own systems for accountability. 

But the United States, Israel’s primary weapons supplier, did not criticize the U.K. arms decision, saying that Britain had its own process to make assessments. 
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