Month: November 2023

Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, was assaulted by a fellow inmate, his family said Tuesday, adding they fear he is a target because of his nationality.   The 53-year-old has been behind bars since 2018, serving a 16-year sentence that the U.S. government says is without merit.  On Tuesday afternoon …

U.S. lawmakers are racing to reach a deal on billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine and Israel before the holiday break. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. …

The foreign ministers of the three Baltic states and Ukraine said Tuesday they will boycott this week’s meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in North Macedonia to object to the participation of Russia’s foreign minister. The top diplomats of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania issued a joint statement saying they “deeply regret …

The wife of Ukraine’s intelligence chief has been diagnosed with heavy metals poisoning and is undergoing treatment in a hospital, a spokesperson for the agency said Tuesday as the country’s war with Russia stretched into its 22nd month. Marianna Budanova is the wife of Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the military intelligence agency …

A new America House is celebrating its opening in Odesa, making it the third major cultural and educational center in Ukraine supported and financed by the U.S. Embassy. America House Odesa was supposed to open in early 2022, but Russia’s invasion changed those plans. Anna Kosstutschenko visited the center and found out how the war altered its program. Camera — Pavel Suhodolskiy. …

Greek officials said Tuesday that they will continue talks with the British Museum about bringing the Parthenon Marbles back to Athens, despite U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak abruptly canceling a meeting with his Greek counterpart where the contested antiquities were due to be discussed.  But the U.K. government said ownership of the marbles is “settled” …

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday he is confident the United States will continue to provide support for Ukraine amid divisions among U.S. lawmakers about approving more funding for the Ukraine war effort. Speaking to reporters before the start of two days of talks with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Stoltenberg lauded what he called …

Ukraine’s military said Tuesday that Russian forces carried out aerial attacks overnight, including firing a missile that struck the Zaporizhzhia region. Zaporizhzhia’s regional military administration said on Telegram that according to preliminary reports, the missile damaged a shop and injured one person. The Ukrainian military also said Tuesday its air defenses destroyed a Russian attack …

Grain thunders into rail cars and trucks zip around a storage facility in central Ukraine, a place that growing numbers of companies turned to as they struggled to export their food to people facing hunger around the world. Now, more of the grain is getting unloaded from overcrammed silos and heading to ports on the …

A Russian court has extended the detention of U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich until Jan. 30, 2024. The two-month extension was announced after a closed-door hearing Tuesday. Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was arrested on espionage charges in March while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg. Gershkovich and the newspaper have denied the allegations, and …

Finland is ready to close its last border crossing with Russia if Moscow keeps pushing migrants across, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Monday as migrants continued to make the treacherous journey through the Arctic. “We have closed all our border stations on the eastern border except for one and we are ready to close the …

Niger’s junta said Monday that it had revoked an anti-migration law that helped reduce the flow of West Africans to Europe, but that was reviled by desert dwellers whose economies had long relied on the traffic.  The law, which made it illegal to transport migrants through Niger, was passed in May 2015 as the number …

A senior International Criminal Court prosecutor on Monday announced that she was dropping all further investigations into crimes committed in Kenya relating to violence that erupted following elections in 2007. The decision by the ICC’s deputy chief prosecutor Nazhat Shameen Khan ends a 13-year legal saga which involved senior Kenyan politicians. In 2010, the Hague-based …