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Norway is rebuilding a dilapidated reindeer fence along its border with Russia in the Artic to stop the animals from wandering into the neighboring country — costly strolls for which Oslo has to compensate Moscow over loss of grassland.

Norwegian officials said Thursday that so far this year, 42 reindeer have crossed into Russia seeking better pastures and grazing land.

The reindeer barrier along the Norway-Russia border spans 150 kilometers (93 miles) and dates back to 1954. The Norwegian Agriculture Agency said a stretch of about 7 kilometers (4 miles) between the Norwegian towns of Hamborgvatnet and Storskog would be replaced.

The construction, with a price tag of 3.7 million kroner ($348,000), is to be completed by Oct. 1, the agency said.

The work is a challenge, however, as the workers have to stay on the Norwegian side of the border “at all times” during construction, “which makes the work extra demanding,” said Magnar Evertsen of the agency. If a worker crossed into Russian territory, without a Russian visa, that would amount to illegal entry. 

The reindeer crossings bring on a lot of additional bureaucracy. Russia has sent two compensation claims, the agency said.

One claims is for nearly 50,000 kroner ($4,700) per reindeer that crossed into Russia to graze in the sprawling Pasvik Zapovednik natural reserve in the Russian Murmansk region. The other claim is asking for a lump sum of nearly 47 million kroner ($4.4 million) in total for the days the animals grazed in the park, which consists mostly of lakes, rivers, forests and marshland.

The agency said that of the 42 animals that entered Russia this year, 40 have been brought back to Norway and the remaining two are expected to come back soon.

The returned animals have since been slaughtered out of fear that they may wander back to Russia, Evertsen said. The Norwegian Food Safety Authority may demand the carcasses be destroyed for safety reasons, the government body said in a statement.

The reindeer are herded by the Indigenous Sami people in central and Arctic Norway. Formerly known as the Lapps, the Sami are believed to have originated in Central Asia and settled with their reindeer herds in Arctic Europe around 9,000 years ago.

They traditionally live in Lapland, which stretches from northern parts of Norway through Sweden and Finland to Russia. Across the Arctic region, the majority live on the Norwegian side of the border. 
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The United States on Friday accused China and Russia of blocking a unified U.N. Security Council response to North Korea’s missile launches, including Thursday’s attempt by Pyongyang to put a spy satellite in space. 

During an emergency Security Council meeting, 13 of the 15 members — all but Moscow and Beijing — condemned Pyongyang’s second spy satellite test in three months, which used ballistic missile technology. 

“This should be an issue that unifies us. … But since the beginning of 2022, this council has failed to live up to its commitments because of China’s and Russia’s obstructionism,” said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield.  

“The DPRK’s nuclear threat is growing, and Russia and China are not living up to their responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” she added, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name.  

Thomas-Greenfield also denounced the presence last month of Russian and Chinese officials at a North Korean military parade that showed off new drones and nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

“They are celebrating — celebrating — violations of Security Council resolutions and continuing to block council action,” Thomas-Greenfield said of Moscow and Beijing. 

In May 2022, China and Russia vetoed a resolution imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang, and no resolution or declaration by the Security Council on North Korea has been adopted since. 

The last unified Security Council action on North Korea took place in 2017. 

Chinese and Russian representatives said Washington was to blame for North Korea’s aggressive stance, pointing to ongoing U.S. military drills with South Korea. 

North Korea has long maintained its nuclear program is pursued in self-defense and said the same applies to its satellite program. 

“Our launch of the reconnaissance satellite is an exercise of the legitimate right to self-defense to deter ever-increasing hostile military acts of the United States,” said North Korean Ambassador Kim Song, adding that his country has never recognized U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea anyway. 

Thomas-Greenfield rejected that position. 

“We all know the truth: The DPRK puts its paranoia and selfish interests over the dire needs of the North Korean people,” she said. 

“The DPRK’s war machine is fueled by repression and cruelty,” Thomas-Greenfield added. “It’s shameful, and it’s a grave threat to global peace.” 
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The rescue ship Ocean Viking has saved 438 migrants in distress in the Mediterranean over the last two days, the organization that runs it, SOS Mediterranee, said Friday.

The rescues took place in international waters off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia, the France-based NGO said.

Earlier in the day, the NGO said that Thursday it had “rescued 272 people” of 23 different nationalities from three boats in the central Mediterranean, the most perilous maritime crossing in the world for the migrants.

Those rescued included “32 unaccompanied minors, nine babies and five people with disabilities,” said the organization, which is based in Marseille, on the French Mediterranean.

Later Friday, it said it had rescued another 136 people when it “went to the aid of a number of boats in distress.”

Those onboard were evacuated “in coordination with the Italian coast guards in the search and rescue area between Tunisia and Lampedusa.”

The tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, located around 145 kilometers from Tunisia, is the first port of call for many migrants seeking to make the treacherous sea journey to Europe from North Africa.

In total, “438 rescued people are currently on board,” SOS Mediterranee said.

The Ocean Viking was “heading toward Genoa” in northern Italy because the Italian authorities had ordered them to go to the distant port to disembark the migrants, the group added.

At least 2,013 people have died or gone missing so far this year attempting to cross the central Mediterranean, according to the United Nations migration agency, the International Organization for Migration.

That is significantly higher than its figure for the whole of 2022, which was 1,417.

In June, one sinking alone in the western Mediterranean cost the lives of at least 82 people, one of the deadliest incidents involving migrants in the area.

In July, the Italian authorities detained the Ocean Viking for 10 days at Civitavecchia, after questioning the vessel’s safety standards, before finally releasing it. 
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Google, Facebook, TikTok and other Big Tech companies operating in Europe must comply with one of the most far-reaching efforts to clean up what people see online.

The European Union’s groundbreaking new digital rules took effect Friday for the biggest platforms. The Digital Services Act is part of a suite of tech-focused regulations crafted by the 27-nation bloc, long a global leader in cracking down on tech giants.

The DSA is designed to keep users safe online and stop the spread of harmful content that’s either illegal or violates a platform’s terms of service, such as promotion of genocide or anorexia. It also looks to protect Europeans’ fundamental rights like privacy and free speech.

Some online platforms, which could face billions in fines if they don’t comply, already have made changes.

Here’s a look at what has changed:

Which platforms are affected? 

So far, 19. They include eight social media platforms: Facebook; TikTok; X, formerly known as Twitter; YouTube; Instagram; LinkedIn; Pinterest; and Snapchat.

There are five online marketplaces: Amazon, Booking.com, China’s Alibaba and AliExpress, and Germany’s Zalando.

Mobile app stores Google Play and Apple’s App Store are subject to the new rules, as are Google’s Search and Microsoft’s Bing search engines.

Google Maps and Wikipedia round out the list. 

What about other online companies?

The EU’s list is based on numbers submitted by the platforms. Those with 45 million or more users — or 10% of the EU’s population — face the DSA’s highest level of regulation. 

Brussels insiders, however, have pointed to some notable omissions, like eBay, Airbnb, Netflix and even PornHub. The list isn’t definitive, and it’s possible other platforms may be added later. 

Any business providing digital services to Europeans will eventually have to comply with the DSA. They will face fewer obligations than the biggest platforms, however, and have another six months before they must fall in line.

What’s changing?

Platforms have rolled out new ways for European users to flag illegal online content and dodgy products, which companies will be obligated to take down quickly. 

The DSA “will have a significant impact on the experiences Europeans have when they open their phones or fire up their laptops,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president for global affairs, said in a blog post. 

Facebook’s and Instagram’s existing tools to report content will be easier to access. Amazon opened a new channel for reporting suspect goods. 

TikTok gave users an extra option for flagging videos, such as for hate speech and harassment, or frauds and scams, which will be reviewed by an additional team of experts, according to the app from Chinese parent company ByteDance. 

Google is offering more “visibility” into content moderation decisions and different ways for users to contact the company. It didn’t offer specifics. Under the DSA, Google and other platforms have to provide more information behind why posts are taken down. 

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat also are giving people the option to turn off automated systems that recommend videos and posts based on their profiles. Such systems have been blamed for leading social media users to increasingly extreme posts. 

The DSA also prohibits targeting vulnerable categories of people, including children, with ads. Platforms like Snapchat and TikTok will stop allowing teen users to be targeted by ads based on their online activities. 

Google will provide more information about targeted ads shown to people in the EU and give researchers more access to data on how its products work. 

Is there pushback?

Zalando, a German online fashion retailer, has filed a legal challenge over its inclusion on the DSA’s list of the largest online platforms, arguing it’s being treated unfairly. 

Nevertheless, Zalando is launching content-flagging systems for its website, even though there’s little risk of illegal material showing up among its highly curated collection of clothes, bags and shoes. 

Amazon has filed a similar case with a top EU court.

What if companies don’t follow the rules?

Officials have warned tech companies that violations could bring fines worth up to 6% of their global revenue — which could amount to billions — or even a ban from the EU. 

“The real test begins now,” said European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who oversees digital policy. He vowed to “thoroughly enforce the DSA and fully use our new powers to investigate and sanction platforms where warranted.” 

But don’t expect penalties to come right away for individual breaches, such as failing to take down a specific video promoting hate speech. 

Instead, the DSA is more about whether tech companies have the right processes in place to reduce the harm that their algorithm-based recommendation systems can inflict on users. Essentially, they’ll have to let the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and top digital enforcer, look under the hood to see how their algorithms work. 

EU officials “are concerned with user behavior on the one hand, like bullying and spreading illegal content, but they’re also concerned about the way that platforms work and how they contribute to the negative effects,” said Sally Broughton Micova, an associate professor at the University of East Anglia. 

That includes looking at how the platforms work with digital advertising systems, which could be used to profile users for harmful material like disinformation, or how their livestreaming systems function, which could be used to instantly spread terrorist content, said Broughton Micova, who’s also academic co-director at the Centre on Regulation in Europe, a Brussels think tank. 

Big platforms have to identify and assess potential systemic risks and whether they’re doing enough to reduce them. These assessments are due by the end of August and then they will be independently audited. 

The audits are expected to be the main tool to verify compliance — though the EU’s plan has faced criticism for lacking details that leave it unclear how the process will work. 

What about the rest of the world? 

Europe’s changes could have global impact. Wikipedia is tweaking some policies and modifying its terms of use to provide more information on “problematic users and content.” Those alterations won’t be limited to Europe and “will be implemented globally,” said the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the community-powered encyclopedia. 

Snapchat said its new reporting and appeal process for flagging illegal content or accounts that break its rules will be rolled out first in the EU and then globally in the coming months. 

It’s going to be hard for tech companies to limit DSA-related changes, said Broughton Micova, adding that digital ad networks aren’t isolated to Europe and that social media influencers can have global reach.
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A three-year probe of Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and his family over corruption allegations has been closed by Monaco’s judicial authorities for lack of evidence, the premier’s office said Friday. 

Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s office said that Morgan Raymond, the deputy public prosecutor in Monaco, told the Lebanese premier’s legal team of the closure of the case, which was raised by unspecified Lebanese plaintiffs on allegations of illicit enrichment and money laundering. 

Mikati’s office said Monaco’s decision showed that the case was “fake” and meant “for political purposes.” It added that Mikati and his family would take legal action against those who were behind these “lies and rumors.” 

In 2021, a trove of leaked documents named the “Pandora Papers,” that were examined by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Daraj, a Beirut-based independent digital media platform, showed that for years, Lebanon’s politicians and bankers have stowed wealth in offshore tax havens and used it to buy expensive properties. 

Mikati has owned a Panama-based offshore company since the 1990s. He used it in 2008 to buy property in Monaco worth more than $10 million, Daraj reported from the documents. 

The leaked documents also showed that Mikati’s son Maher was a director of at least two British Virgin Islands-based companies, which his father’s Monaco-based company, M1 Group, used to obtain an office in central London. 

Mikati at the time released a statement saying his family fortune was amassed prior to his involvement in politics and was “compliant with global standards” and regularly scrutinized by auditors. 
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The attacks range from the exotic — poisoned by drinking polonium-laced tea or touching a deadly nerve agent — to the more mundane of getting shot at close range. Some take a fatal plunge from an open window.

Over the years, Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways.

None, however, has been known to perish in an air accident. But on Wednesday, a private plane carrying a mercenary chief who staged a brief rebellion in Russia plummeted into a field from tens of thousands of feet after breaking apart.

Assassination attempts against foes of President Vladimir Putin have been common during his nearly quarter century in power. Those close to the victims and the few survivors have blamed Russian authorities, but the Kremlin has routinely denied involvement — as it did on Friday by saying it was “a complete lie” it had anything to do with the jet crash.

There also have been reports of prominent Russian executives dying under mysterious circumstances, including falling from windows, although whether they were deliberate killings or suicides is sometimes difficult to determine.

Some prominent cases of documented killings or attempted killings:

Political opponents

In August 2020, opposition leader Alexei Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane landed in the city of Omsk, where Navalny was hospitalized in a coma. Two days later, he was airlifted to Berlin, where he recovered.

His allies almost immediately said he was poisoned, but Russian officials denied it. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden confirmed Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, which he reported had been applied to his underwear. Navalny returned to Russia and was convicted this month of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison, his third conviction with a prison sentence in two years on charges he says are politically motivated.

In 2018, Pyotr Verzilov, a founder of the protest group Pussy Riot, fell severely ill and also was flown to Berlin, where doctors said poisoning was “highly plausible.” He eventually recovered. Earlier that year, Verzilov embarrassed the Kremlin by running onto the field during soccer’s World Cup final in Moscow with three other activists to protest police brutality. His allies said he could have been targeted because of his activism.

Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza survived what he believes were attempts to poison him in 2015 and 2017. He nearly died from kidney failure in the first instance and suspects poisoning, but no cause was determined. He was hospitalized with a similar illness in 2017 and put into a medically induced coma. His wife said doctors confirmed he was poisoned. Kara-Murza survived, and his lawyer says police have refused to investigate. This year, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The highest-profile killing of a political opponent in recent years was that of Boris Nemtsov. Once deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, Nemtsov was a popular politician and harsh critic of Putin. On a cold February night in 2015, he was gunned down by assailants on a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin as he walked with his girlfriend. His death shocked the country. Five men from the Russian region of Chechnya were convicted, with the gunman receiving up to 20 years, but Nemtsov’s allies said their involvement was an attempt to shift blame from the government.

Former intelligence operatives

In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency, the FSB, felt violently ill in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210, dying three weeks later. He had been investigating the shooting death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya as well as the Russian intelligence service’s alleged links to organized crime. Before dying, Litvinenko told journalists the FSB was still operating a poisons laboratory dating from the Soviet era.

A British inquiry found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Putin’s approval, but the Kremlin denied any involvement.

Another former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned in Britain in 2018. He and his adult daughter Yulia fell ill in the city of Salisbury and spent weeks in critical condition. They survived, but the attack later claimed the life of a British woman and left a man and a police officer seriously ill.

Authorities said they both were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent Novichok. Britain blamed Russian intelligence, but Moscow denied any role. Putin called Skripal, a double agent for Britain during his espionage career, a “scumbag” of no interest to the Kremlin because he was tried in Russia and exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.

Journalists

Numerous journalists critical of authorities in Russia have been killed or suffered mysterious deaths, which their colleagues in some cases blamed on someone in the political hierarchy. In other cases, the reported reluctance by authorities to investigate raised suspicions.

Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta whose death Litvinenko was investigating, was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006 — Putin’s birthday. She had won international acclaim for her reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The gunman, from Chechnya, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Four other Chechens were given shorter prison terms for their involvement in the murder.

Yuri Shchekochikhin, another Novaya Gazeta reporter, died of a sudden and violent illness in 2003. Shchekochikhin was investigating corrupt business deals and the possible role of Russian security services in the 1999 apartment house bombings blamed on Chechen insurgents. His colleagues insisted that he was poisoned and accused the authorities of deliberately hindering the investigation.

Yevgeny Prigozhin and his lieutenants

Wednesday’s plane crash that is presumed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin and top lieutenants of his Wagner Group private military company came two months to the day after he launched an armed rebellion that Putin labeled “a stab in the back” and “treason.” While not critical of Putin, Prigozhin slammed the Russian military leadership and questioned the motives for going to war in Ukraine.

On Thursday, a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment found that the crash that killed all 10 people aboard was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to U.S. and Western officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. One said the explosion fell in line with Putin’s “long history of trying to silence his critics.”

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, rejected allegations the Kremlin was behind the crash. “Of course, in the West those speculations are put out under a certain angle, and all of it is a complete lie,” he told reporters Friday.

In his first public comments on the crash, Putin appeared to hint there was no bad blood between him and Prigozhin. But former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said: “Putin has demonstrated that if you fail to obey him without question, he will dispose of you without mercy, like an enemy, even if you are formally a patriot.”
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Ukrainian soldier Ilya Mikhalchuk was wounded near Bakhmut and captured by Wagner Group mercenaries in February. He had both arms amputated while in captivity and was released in April. Thanks to volunteers, he is now in the U.S. getting prostheses. Iryna Shynkarenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Kostiantyn Golubchyk.
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Russia said early Friday that it has downed dozens of drones launched from Ukraine.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 42 drones were destroyed over Crimea – nine shot down by air defense forces, 33 by electronic warfare. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities.

The U.S. Defense Department said Thursday that it will train Ukrainians to fly and maintain F-16 fighter jets.

The Defense Department said in a statement that the training will be held at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona, and will be facilitated by the Air National Guard’s 162nd Wing.

The U.S. training is “in support of the international effort to develop and strengthen Ukraine’s long-term defenses,” Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said.

The training will begin in October, after the Ukrainians complete an English-language course set to begin in September.

Meanwhile, Norway is donating F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on a visit to Kyiv on Thursday.

The exact number of the donated jets was not immediately clear, but Gahr Stoere said that it would probably be fewer than 10.

Norway is the third European country, after the Netherlands and Denmark, to announce donations of fighter jets to Ukraine for use in Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

Also Thursday, the U.S. announced sanctions on 11 individuals and two entities involved with the deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the sanctions were imposed “for their roles in the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children to camps promoting indoctrination in Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea and who have imposed Russian indoctrination curriculums in those regions of Ukraine.”

Speaking at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: “The United States will not stand by as Russia carries out these war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Ukraine believes more than 19,500 children have been deported since Russia’s invasion.

Thursday also marked Ukraine’s Independence Day.

“Today we are all celebrating the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. Thirty-two years of uninterrupted independence, which will endure. Which we will not allow to be torn apart. And which Ukrainians will not lose grip on,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address.
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The president of the Spanish football federation faces an emergency meeting of its general assembly on Friday amid media reports that he will hand in his resignation following an uproar for kissing a Women’s World Cup champion.

Luis Rubiales is expected to stand before representatives of Spain’s regional federations, clubs, players, coaches and referees in Madrid at noon local time, and local media say he is stepping down.

The federation has refused to comment on repeated requests from The Associated Press for confirmation of Rubiales’ decision to go that was reported late Thursday.

Rubiales, 46, is under immense pressure to leave his post since he grabbed player Jenni Hermoso and kissed her on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony following Spain’s 1-0 victory over England on Sunday in Sydney.

FIFA, football’s global governing body and organizer of the Women’s World Cup, opened a disciplinary case against him on Thursday. Its disciplinary committee was tasked with weighing whether Rubiales violated its code relating to “the basic rules of decent conduct” and “behaving in a way that brings the sport of football and/or FIFA into disrepute.”

That move by FIFA came after Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that Rubiales’ attempt to apologize, which came after he initially insulted his critics, was unconvincing and that “he must continue taking further steps” to be held accountable.

Spain’s Higher Council of Sports, the nation’s governing sports body, pledged it would act quickly to consider various formal complaints filed against Rubiales to see if he had broken Spain’s sports law or the federation’s own code of conduct that sanction sexist acts. If so, Rubiales would face being declared unfit to hold his office by Spain’s Administrative Court for Sports.

As if the forced kiss was not enough, Rubiales had shortly before grabbed his crotch in a lewd victory gesture from the section of dignitaries with Spain’s Queen Letizia and the 16-year-old Princess Infanta Sofía nearby.

The combination of the gesture and the unsolicited kiss has made Rubiales a national embarrassment after his conduct was broadcast to a global audience, marring the enormous accomplishment of the women who played for Spain.

Hermoso, a 33-year-old forward and key contributor to Spain’s title, said on a social media stream “I did not like it, but what could I do?” about the kiss during a locker-room celebration immediately after the incident.

The first attempt to respond to the scandal was a statement it released in the name of Hermoso in which she downplayed the incident. Later, a local media report by sports website Relevo.com said that the federation had coerced her into making the statement. The federation has denied this to The AP.

On Wednesday, Hermoso issued a statement through her players’ union saying it would speak on her behalf. The union said it would do all it could to ensure that the kiss does “not go unpunished.”

Rubiales has received no public support from any major sports figure and united political parties from both the left and right are calling for him to resign.
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The Pentagon says the military will start training Ukrainian pilots to fly U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets inside the United States beginning in October.

Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that the training would involve “several” Ukrainian pilots and dozens of Ukrainian ground staff who will provide maintenance of the aircraft given to Kyiv.

The training is part of a U.S. and European effort to provide advanced fighter jets to Ukraine for long-term defense.

Ryder stressed that the F-16s are not intended for the current counteroffensive underway against Russian forces.

The flight training will be conducted at Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson, Arizona. Prior to this training, the pilots will conduct English-language training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, “given the complexities and specialized English that’s required to fly these aircraft,” Ryder said.

Training typically lasts about eight months for a new F-16 pilot in the United States, but an experienced pilot could complete the training within about five months, according to Ryder.

Courses include centrifuge training to learn how to cope with gravitational forces, basic fighter maneuvers and weapons employments.

Ukraine has repeatedly asked for advanced fighter jets to help defend its cities from Russian forces. Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have announced they will supply the F-16s to Ukraine.

The U.S. military’s top general warned in May that F-16s won’t act as a “magic weapon” for Ukraine, but the U.S. fully supports those leading the F-16 training and transfer process.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also warned the cost to get these aircraft to Ukraine and sustain them would be high.

“Ten F-16s is a billion dollars. You add the sustainment costs, that’s another billion dollars. So, you’re talking about $2 billion for 10 aircraft [while] the Russians have 1,000 fourth- and fifth-generation fighters,” he said.
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On Thursday, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the chief of the Russian mercenary organization known as the Wagner Group. Prigozhin was on the passenger manifest of the plane that crashed northwest of Moscow on Wednesday. Anna Rice has the story. Contributor: Lilily Anisimova.
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The United States announced new sanctions Thursday against several Russian entities and individuals for their roles in the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and for human rights abuses against minors in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

“Children are literally being ripped from their homes. In the year 2023. By a country sitting in this very chamber. By a permanent member of this council,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “This is straight out of a dystopian novel. But this is not fiction. Colleagues, this is not fiction. This is real life.”

She said the human rights violations are being orchestrated at all levels of the Russian government and noted that the International Criminal Court at The Hague has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights. Those warrants were issued on March 17, for their involvement in the alleged deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

At a meeting held on the 32nd anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union, focusing on the protection of children, Thomas-Greenfield said the United States would not stand by “as Russia carries out these war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“And today, the United States is imposing sanctions on two entities and 11 individuals – including individuals who reportedly have facilitated the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children to camps,” Thomas-Greenfield announced. “Additionally, we are taking steps to impose visa restrictions on three Russia-installed purported authorities for their involvement in human rights abuses of Ukrainian minors.”

Among the sanctioned individuals are the commissioners for children’s rights in several Russian regions, as well as a Russian government-owned “summer camp” and its director, located in Russia-occupied Crimea. Washington says the camp conducts “extensive ‘patriotic’ re-education programs” and prevents the children from returning to their families.

A human rights briefer from Ukraine told the council that according to the Ukrainian National Information Bureau, Russian agents have taken at least 19,546 children to 57 regions of Russia since February 2022, and only 386 have returned home. But Ukrainian officials say the real number could be much higher.

“After deportation to Russia or to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, our children are exposed to aggressive brainwashing aimed at changing their consciousness, erasing their Ukrainian identity and preparing obedient soldiers for the Russian army in the future,” Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the council.

He thanked Washington for imposing sanctions on Russia and urged other countries to do the same.

The Russian envoy dismissed the accusations as lies.

“The lie about our alleged abductions of Ukrainian children, who we are actually saving,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

UN reporting

In its annual report on violations against children in conflict zones, the United Nations said in June it had verified the abduction of 91 children by Russian armed forces, all of whom were released. The U.N. also verified the transfer of 46 children to Russia from occupied areas of Ukraine, “including children forcibly separated from parents, children removed from schools and institutions without the consent of guardians, and a child who was given Russian citizenship.”

Verification is difficult and the U.N. has criticized Russia for its lack of cooperation and access. The secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, included Moscow in his annual blacklist of perpetrators of grave violations against children, citing the high number of attacks on schools and numbers of children killed and maimed by Russia’s military and affiliated armed groups.

“I am troubled by reports, some of which were verified by the United Nations, of children transferred to the Russian Federation from areas of Ukraine that, in part, are or have been under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation,” Guterres wrote in the report. “I urge the Russian Federation to ensure that no changes are made to the personal status of Ukrainian children, including their nationality.”

Russia is listed in Annex II, Section B of the report, which is for parties to conflicts that have put in place measures during the reporting period aimed at improving the protection of children. Ukraine’s ambassador criticized Moscow, however, for not implementing them.

On Friday, Kyiv signed its own action plan with the United Nations to strengthen the protection of children in Ukraine.
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The death toll from an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Rzeszow, southeast Poland, has risen to five, local authorities said Thursday as they tried to detect the contamination source. 

The fifth victim was a woman, 79, admitted to the hospital a few days ago. 

“She was a patient with multiple long-term conditions, including cancer, and had been in the anesthesiology and intensive care ward,” the director of the Rzeszow municipal hospital, Grzegorz Materna, told state news agency PAP. 

In all, at least 71 people have been hospitalized in the outbreak.

Legionnaires’ disease, caused by Legionella bacteria, is not contagious and cannot be spread directly from person to person, but can multiply in water and air-conditioning systems. It causes pulmonary issues, especially for people with weak immune systems. 

“The hypothesis of the municipal water supply network as the source of infection is being verified,” the Polish health ministry said Thursday on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, after an overnight emergency meeting in Rzeszow. 

But the test results of samples taken from the water system are not expected until Monday. 

In the meantime, the authorities in Rzeszow, a city of nearly 200,000 residents, vowed to carry out additional disinfection work. 

According to the local authorities, all five victims in the Rzeszow outbreak were elderly people.
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Slower than expected but still moving forward, frontline soldiers say the Russian defenses are fierce in southern Ukraine as they take villages after brutal fights. From Makarivka, a recently re-captured village in Ukraine, VOA’s Heather Murdock reports with Videographer Yan Boechat.
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