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Turkey is deporting thousands of Afghans despite an international outcry about the dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been accused of human rights violations.

In January 2022, Turkey was the second country, following Pakistan, to resume direct flights to Afghanistan months after all international flights to the landlocked country were disrupted once the former Afghan government crumbled on August 15.

In the past six months, 79 Turkish chartered deportation flights have landed at Kabul international airport, carrying more than 18,000 Afghans, according to Turkish officials and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Taliban’s seizure of power last August plunged Afghanistan into one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, prompting the United Nations to launch its largest single-country humanitarian assistance appeal for about $4.4 billion in 2022.

The Taliban acknowledge the humanitarian situation but blame international sanctions as the primary cause of the country’s economic problems.

In the four months following the Taliban’s return to power, nearly 840,000 Afghans crossed international borders without travel documents, almost twice as many as during January-August 2021, according to figures compiled by the IOM.

Turkey is a major transit destination for Afghans who seek migration to Europe. At least 23,000 Afghans sought asylum in Germany last year. Turkey also hosts the largest refugee population in the world, 3.8 million, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a report Thursday.

Most Afghans have to cross neighboring Iran to enter Turkey. In 2021, Iran deported 760,000 Afghans.

Refugees blamed for economic problems

The crisis in Ukraine has also forced 145,000 Ukrainians to seek refuge in Turkey.

Amid the large refugee burden, Turkey is also facing severe economic and financial challenges. The Turkish currency, the lira, has lost half of its value in a year and the inflation rate stands at 61%.

“Most Turks, particularly politicians, blame refugees and migrants for the economic problems here,” Sayed Agha Hashemi, a representative of Afghan refugees in Istanbul, told VOA.

A survey by a Turkish research organization in April found that more than 78% of respondents want refugees to be returned to their home countries.

Turkey will hold presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023, and some politicians have already started blaming refugees for the country’s pressing economic woes.

One right-wing party, the Good Party, has reportedly adopted the slogan, “Victory will come to power; all refugees and illegals will go.”

There are also social media campaigns blaming refugees for stealing jobs and driving up prices.

Stateless

Nearly 10 months since seizing power and declaring Afghanistan an Islamic emirate, the Taliban have failed to establish formal diplomatic relations with any country.

While Ankara has kept its ambassador in Kabul, the Taliban, as the de facto Afghan government, have yet to take charge of Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions in Turkey.

Afghan consular services in Turkey have been disrupted because of a lack of new passports and because the Taliban do not pay the salaries of diplomats appointed by the former Afghan government.

“The embassy and the consulate in Istanbul used to help us in the past, but now we’re officially stateless people and are at the mercy of Turkish authorities,” said Hashemi.

Dost Gul, an Afghan migrant in Istanbul, said he lost his passport last month and cannot obtain a new one. “I’m just waiting for deportation.”

Afghan migrants are sent back to a country where more than 90% of the population suffers from food insecurity and a host of human rights violations.

“We maintain that conditions in Afghanistan right now are not conducive for any type of return,” Safa Msehli, an IOM spokesperson, told VOA.

After Syrians and Venezuelans, Afghans are the third-largest refugee population in the world, with 2.7 million registered in 98 countries, the UNHCR says.
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 Thursday’s visit to Ukraine by four European Union leaders comes ahead of a key decision on Kyiv’s EU candidacy, expected next week — and as tensions grow over Europe’s long-term commitment to the war.

Speaking to reporters from Kyiv’s war-ravaged suburb of Bucha, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said his visit with the leaders of Germany, Italy and Romania underscored the European Union’s strong political support for Ukraine and its respect for its people’s courage.

Macron dismissed controversy within the EU over his remarks that aggressor Russia should not be humiliated in finding an exit to the conflict. He said France had been by Kyiv’s side from the beginning.

Ukraine has also criticized Macron’s call for a so-called interim “European political community” group for non-EU members.

The Ukraine visit by the four EU leaders comes a day before the bloc’s executive arm is expected to recommend granting Ukraine EU candidacy status. The EU’s 27 members are expected to make a decision during a summit next week.

Even if its candidacy is approved, Ukraine will likely wait years to become an EU member — but Kyiv says the move is symbolically important.

But the outcome is uncertain. Members like Poland and the Baltic states strongly support Ukraine’s candidacy; others like Portugal and Denmark have voiced reservations. The biggest EU countries appeared lukewarm, but during a visit to Moldova Wednesday, Macron seemed to back candidate status.

Tensions with Kyiv have also surfaced over the strength of the EU military, political and financial support for Ukraine, as it battles the Russian invasion.

Meanwhile, European leaders face eroding support at home for the conflict, amid rising prices and supply shortages. A poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations policy institute finds one-third or more of all EU citizens want the war to end as soon as possible.

Macron faces extra pressure, ahead of legislative elections Sunday that may eliminate his majority in France’s lower house.

His far-right rival, Marine Le Pen, accuses Macron of profiting politically from his trip to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, another political rival, Jean-Francois Cope of the center-right, faults Macron for taking his eyes off the elections that may see a far-left win. The house is burning, Cope told French radio, and Macron is looking elsewhere.
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The imprisoned leaders of Greece’s once-powerful neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are seeking to overturn long prison terms in an appeals court trial that began this week in Athens.

Justice officials suggest it is unlikely that the court will show any leniency to the defendants. But while the neo-Nazi grouping, among the most dangerous in Europe, has been dismantled, far-right extremism still stains the birthplace of democracy.

The appeal comes 18 months after Golden Dawn leader Nikos Mihaloliakos and six other senior lawmakers from the party faced sweeping convictions for operating what the Greek Supreme Court then called a criminal organization masquerading as a political organization.

Mihaloliakos and the other convicted lawmakers are serving 13-year jail terms, but the appeals trial now gives them the chance to rechallenge the charges, potentially cutting years off their sentences or even overturning their convictions.

That prospect alone has activists here concerned.

Hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators spilled onto the streets of Athens this week demanding judges hearing the Golden Dawn appeal to “keep the Nazis in jail,” as they chanted ….

Fascism must be eradicated once and for all from our society, says this demonstrator.

Mihaloliakos did not attend the opening of the appeal, citing health reasons. Several other defendants followed suit, a sign political commentators in Athens said showed Golden Dawn’s waning appeal on Greek society.

On the margins for decades, the group took Greece – and Europe — by storm as a debt crisis and brutal 10-year economic recession gripped the country, enabling it to emerge as a potent political force.

Analysts say that not since the restoration of democracy here, with the collapse of military rule in 1974, had a party as brazenly thuggish or ideologically extreme been catapulted into the country’s Parliament, becoming the third-strongest political grouping, threatening democracy in the birthplace of democracy.

A bloody reign of terror existed in Athens for nearly a decade, with Golden Dawn regularly targeting migrants, trade unionists and left-wing sympathizers.

It took the 2013 assassination of Pavlos Fyssas, an anti-fascist rapper, to trigger national outrage, setting in motion the group’s decline.  

On Wednesday, Fyssa’s grieving mother, Magda Fyssa, was the first to return to the courtroom.  

Conviction, she said, that is all that they deserve.

Since the conviction of Golden Dawn’s leaders, the extremist group has all but dismantled amid defections, feuds and infighting.

Far-right extremism, though, is far from finished here.

Kostas Papadakis, a leading lawyer of the prosecution explains.

He says the trial is important because it comes amid a rise in far-right extremism and soaring numbers of attacks reported against migrants and far-left sympathizers.

Activists and judicial officials expect Golden Dawn’s leaders to receive little if any leniency in their appeal.  

But with a new recession looming, an inflation rate hovering at over 10% and tensions with Turkey stoking nationalist sentiments, analysts fear the conditions are ripe for an extremist upsurge here. 
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Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Russia is causing casualties and suffering among civilians in its war against Ukraine by using antipersonnel landmines that have been banned internationally.

In a report published on June 16, HRW says that while both Russia and Ukraine have used anti-vehicle mines, Russia is the only party to the conflict that is documented to have used banned antipersonnel mines that are injuring civilians as well as disrupting food production.

The report, titled Landmine Use in Ukraine, describes seven types of antipersonnel mines documented to have been used by Russian forces in Ukraine since the invasion began on February 24.

The 19-page report says Ukraine appears to be respecting its obligations as a signatory of the international treaty prohibiting antipersonnel mines that Kyiv ratified in 2005.

“Russia’s brazen use of antipersonnel mines in a country that has explicitly prohibited these weapons is unprecedented and deserves strong global condemnation,” said HRW’s Steve Goose.

“Antipersonnel landmines should never be used due to their inevitable and long-term threat to civilian life and livelihoods,” he said.

Russia, which has not responded to the HRW report, is not a party to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty that has been ratified by 164 countries. Besides forbidding the use of such weapons, the treaty also requires the destruction of stock, clearance of mined areas, and assistance to victims.

The report says that Russia even used its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to test in combat several types of landmines newly produced by state-owned manufacturers. One such mine, first produced in 2021, is particularly vicious, HRW said.

The POM-3 antipersonnel mine launches to a height of 1 to 1.5 meters when activated, before detonating midair and spreading shrapnel lethal up to about 16 meters away. Its seismic fuse makes it prone to detonate when approached. The mine has a timer that allows it to self-destruct after a certain period.

Because of the use of landmines by the Russian invaders, agricultural production in Ukraine has also been impacted, as the use of farm vehicles in fields and on rural paths and roads has become risky.

The report quotes statements by local residents in the Kharkiv region as saying that retreating Russian forces failed to clear the mines they had laid, mark the area, or warn locals to avoid the mine fields, prompting at least one incident in which a farm worker was wounded.

HRW said it has also documented the use by Russian forces in Ukraine of victim-activated booby-traps, which are prohibited by international treaties.

The report urges Moscow to immediately stop the use of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine. It also calls on Ukraine to ensure that its forces continue to respect their obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty.

“Developing and producing landmines that most countries have rejected is a morally reprehensible investment,” Goose said.

“Mines set to self-destruct at random intervals only increase the risk of civilian harm, especially for deminers tasked with safely destroying them.”
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Britain announced a new round of sanctions Thursday against Russia, targeting the head of the Russian Orthodox Church for his prominent support for the war in Ukraine as well as Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, who Britain said is responsible for the forced transfer and adoption of hundreds of Ukrainian children into Russia.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has “repeatedly abused his position to justify the war” on Ukraine. Kirill is a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Truss also targeted children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who has been accused of enabling the taking of 2,000 vulnerable children from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions in eastern Ukraine and facilitating their forced adoptions in Russia.

Others on Thursday’s list include four colonels from a brigade known to have killed, raped and tortured civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

Truss also said Britain’s government is “taking all steps we can” regarding two British citizens sentenced to death for fighting Russian forces in Ukraine.

She said officials are in regular talks with the Ukrainian government about Aiden Aslin and Sean Pinner, who were sentenced last week alongside a Moroccan, Brahim Saadoun, for allegedly fighting as mercenaries by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

“These people are prisoners of war. They were fighting legitimately with the Ukrainian army,” Truss said. “What Russia has done is a complete violation of the Geneva Convention. We are taking all steps we can.”
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French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi arrived Thursday in Kyiv in a show of support to Ukraine amid its battle to fend off a Russian invasion. 

“It’s an important moment,” said Macron. “It’s a message of unity we’re sending to the Ukrainians.”  

The trip comes as the European Commission considers whether to recommend Ukraine be granted candidate status for EU membership. 

While in Kyiv, Macron, Scholz and Draghi are expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Military aid 

The United States announced Wednesday it is sending $1 billion more in military aid to Ukraine, Washington’s 12th and biggest tranche yet of weaponry and equipment intended to confront Russia’s slow but relentless advance on Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. 

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House the aid includes $350 million of equipment coming directly from the U.S. military, including 18 high-powered mobile long-range howitzers, 36,000 rounds of ammunition and 18 tactical vehicles to tow the howitzers, along with additional ammunition and other equipment.

Kirby said the remaining $650 million in aid, including coastal defense systems, radios, night vision devices and other equipment, will be purchased by the Pentagon from weapons manufacturers through a funding mechanism known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

Kirby said the United States has provided more than $914 million in humanitarian assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion on Feb. 24, including an additional $225 million announced Wednesday by President Joe Biden. The president said in a statement the new money will fund safe drinking water, critical medical supplies and health care, food, shelter, and cash for families to purchase essential items.

“The bravery, resilience, and determination of the Ukrainian people continues to inspire the world,” Biden said. “And the United States, together with our allies and partners, will not waver in our commitment to the Ukrainian people as they fight for their freedom.”

The aid announcement came as U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met in Brussels with allied defense ministers from more than 45 countries that have been supplying armaments to Ukraine’s forces. Russia is attempting to take full control of eastern Ukraine after failing earlier in the 3½-month invasion to topple Zelenskyy’s government or capture the capital, Kyiv.

Opening the talks with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Austin said Western allies remain “committed to do even more” to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion at what he characterized as a “critical moment on the battlefield.”

Austin said Kyiv’s forces have “inspired us all and need us all” to supply more weaponry as battles rage in the Donbas region.

He said Russia is continuing to “indiscriminately bombard Ukraine,” and is a “menace to European security” that continues to draw “global outrage.”

Even before Biden’s announcement of new military assistance, the United States and its allies supporting Ukraine had sent billions of dollars of weaponry and ammunition to assist Ukraine’s fighters.

“We’ve got a lot done,” Austin said, but now need to “deepen our support for Ukraine” to prove to Moscow “that might does not make right.”

“We must intensify our shared commitment to Ukraine’s self-defense, and we must push ourselves even harder to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself, its citizens and its territory,” he said.

U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided a grim assessment of the current battlefield situation on the sidelines of the Brussels conference, telling reporters that the Ukrainian military is suffering as many as 300 casualties a day, including 100 soldiers killed in action and between 100 to 300 wounded.

“For Ukraine, this is an existential threat,” Milley said. “They’re fighting for the very life of their country. So, your ability to endure suffering, your ability to endure casualties is directly proportional to the object to be obtained.”

Ukraine has continued to push for more military aid and to get it to the front lines more quickly, as its forces face daunting odds in the Donbas region.

Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, told members of the Defense Writers Group, “We need to be giving more sophisticated systems, particularly when it comes to drones and long-range artillery. I don’t think we have been fast enough to get the Ukrainians the drones we have available.”

He added, “The way the fight is playing out right now, certainly, the Russians have more artillery. The Russians right now have better ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). They have better drones going out and seeing Ukrainian artillery positions. The Ukrainians don’t have that same visibility.”

Despite Russian claims of targeting and hitting Western weapon deliveries, Smith said, “We are still capable of getting a lot of weapons into Ukraine, and we’re seeing them being used in the battlefield.”

Other U.S. officials also downplayed the Russian assertions.

“We have not seen a lot of evidence of the Russian claims,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters late Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive details.

But while the official dismissed concerns about recent Russian gains, he expressed confidence that the badly needed assistance would reach Ukraine in time to make “a significant difference.”

“We’re likely to be in this phase for a while. The Russian gains continue to be incremental.”

A virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group last month drew representatives from nearly 50 nations and pledges of new aid packages. Ukrainian officials, who joined the talks in Brussels, continue to urge international partners to send more weapons, especially heavy artillery, to help Ukrainian forces match up against Russia.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that alliance defense ministers would meet late Wednesday with Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and get an update on “what Ukraine urgently needs.”

Amid comments by Ukrainian officials that not enough military aid has come and it has not come quickly enough, Stoltenberg said such efforts take time. He said NATO leaders realize the urgency and are working with Ukraine to overcome hurdles.

Russian forces are pushing to gain full control of the eastern industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, located in the Donbas region that Russia has declared to be the main focus of its operation in Ukraine.

National security correspondent Jeff Seldin and White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. Some material came from Reuters, The Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse.
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Two U.S. veterans from Alabama who were in Ukraine assisting in the war against Russia haven’t been heard from in days and are missing, members of the state’s congressional delegation said Wednesday.

Relatives of Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, of Trinity and Alexander Drueke, 39, of Tuscaloosa have been in contact with both Senate and House offices seeking information about the men’s whereabouts, press aides said.

Rep. Robert Aderholt said Huynh had volunteered to fight with the Ukrainian army against Russia, but relatives haven’t heard from him since June 8, when he was in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, which is near the Russian border. Huynh and Drueke were together, an aide to Aderholt said.

“As you can imagine, his loved ones are very concerned about him,” Aderholt said in a statement. “My office has placed inquires with both the United States Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation trying to get any information possible.”

Rep. Terri Sewell said Drueke’s mother reached out to her office earlier this week after she lost contact with her son.

The U.S. State Department said it was looking into reports that Russian or Russian-backed separatist forces in Ukraine had captured at least two American citizens. If confirmed, they would be the first Americans fighting for Ukraine known to have been captured since the war began Feb. 24.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with Ukrainian authorities,” the department said in a statement emailed to reporters. It declined further comment, citing privacy considerations.

John Kirby, a national security spokesman at the White House, said Wednesday that the administration wasn’t able to confirm the reports about missing Americans.

“We’ll do the best we can to monitor this and see what we can learn about it,” he said.

However, he reiterated his warnings against Americans going to Ukraine.

“Ukraine is not the place for Americans to be traveling,” he said. “If you feel passionate about supporting Ukraine, there’s any number of ways to do that that that are safer and just as effective.”

A court in Donetsk, under separatist control, sentenced two Britons and a Moroccan man to death last week.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted that the Americans “have enlisted in the Ukrainian army, and thus are afforded legal combatant protections. As such, we expect members of the Legion to be treated in accordance with the Geneva convention.” It was unclear whether Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, had any further information about the men.

He was commenting on a tweet sent earlier Wednesday by Task Force Baguette, a group of former U.S. and French servicemen, saying that two Americans fighting with them were captured a week ago. The group said Ukrainian intelligence confirmed the information.

Early in the war, Ukraine created the International Legion for foreign citizens who wanted to help defend against the Russian invasion.
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The truck driver had the radio on, his daughter’s stuffed toy keeping him company, and was bouncing his lumbering vehicle down one of the innumerable dirt tracks in Ukraine that are vital thoroughfares in the country’s vast agricultural heartlands. 

Then the right rear wheel hit a Soviet-era TM-62 anti-tank mine. The explosion blew Vadym Schvydchenko and his daughter’s toy clean out of the cabin. The truck, and his livelihood, went up in flames. 

Astoundingly, the 40-year-old escaped with just minor leg and head wounds. Others haven’t been so lucky. Russia’s war in Ukraine is spreading a deadly litter of mines, bombs and other explosives. They are killing civilians, disrupting planting, complicating the rebuilding of homes and villages, and will continue taking lives and limbs long after the fighting stops. 

Often, blast victims are farmers and other rural workers with little choice but to use mined roads and plow mined fields, in a country relied on for grain and other crops that feed the world. 

Schvydchenko said he’ll steer clear of dirt tracks for the foreseeable future, although they’re sometimes the only route to fields and rural settlements. Mushroom-picking in the woods has also lost its appeal to him. 

“I’m afraid something like this can happen again,” he said. 

Ukraine is now one of the most mined countries in Europe. The east of the country, fought over with Russia-backed separatists since 2014, was contaminated by mines even before the February 24 invasion multiplied the dangers there and elsewhere. 

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said last week that 300,000 square kilometers — the size of Arizona or Italy — need to be cleared. The ongoing fighting will only expand the area. 

The war’s deadly remnants will “continue to be a hidden threat for many years to come,” said Mairi Cunningham, who leads clearance efforts in Ukraine for The Halo Trust, a de=mining NGO that got $4 million in U.S. government funding in May for its work in the country. 

There’s no complete government count of mine deaths since the invasion, but every week authorities have reported cases of civilians killed and wounded. Cunningham said her group has counted 52 civilian deaths and 65 injuries since February and “that’s likely underreported.” The majority were from anti-tank mines, in agricultural areas, she said. 

On a mobile app called “Demining Ukraine” that officials launched last month, people can send photos, video and the geolocation of explosive objects they come across, for subsequent removal. The app got more than 2,000 tip-offs in its first week. 

The track where Schvydchenko had his brush with death is still used, despite now being marked with bright red warning signs bearing a white skull and crossbones. It scythes through corn fields on the outskirts of Makariv — a once comely town west of Kyiv that bears the battle scars of Russia’s failed assault on the capital in the war’s early weeks. 

Even with the Russian soldiers gone, danger lurks in the surrounding poppy meadows, fields and woodlands. Deminers found another explosive charge — undetonated — just meters away from Schvydchenko’s blown-up truck. On another track outside the nearby village of Andriivka, three people were killed in March by a mine that ripped open their minivan, spewing its cargo of food jars and tin cans now rusting in the dirt. 

In a field close by, a tractor driver was wounded in May by an anti-tank mine that hurled the wreckage onto another mine, which also detonated. Halo Trust workers are now methodically scouring that site — where Russian troops dug foxholes — for any other devices. 

Cunningham said the chaotic way the battle for Kyiv unfolded complicates the task of finding mines. Russian forces thrust toward the capital but were repelled by Ukrainian defenders. 

“Often it was Russians held an area, put some anti-vehicle mines nearby — a few in and around their position — and then left,” she said. “It’s scattered.” 

Mines are still being laid on the battlefields, now concentrated to the east and south where Russia has focused its offensive since its soldiers withdrew from around Kyiv and the north, badly bloodied. 

A Ukrainian unit that buried TM-62 mines on a forest track in the eastern Donbas region this week, in holes scooped out with spades, told The Associated Press that the aim was to prevent Russian troops from advancing toward their trenches. 

Russian booby-trapping has sometimes had no clear military rhyme or reason, Ukrainian officials say. In towns around Kyiv, explosive experts found devices in unpredictable places. 

When Tetiana Kutsenko, 71, got back her home near Makariv that Russian troops had occupied, she found bloodstains and an apparent bullet hole on the bathroom floor and tripwires in her back yard. 

The thin strands of copper wire had been rigged to explosive detonators. 

“I’m afraid to go to the woods now,” she said. “Now, I’m looking down every time I take a step.”
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Egypt, Israel and the European Union signed a gas deal Wednesday in which Egypt will export Israeli liquified natural gas to Europe via two Egyptian LNG plants.

The memorandum of understanding was inked at the East Mediterranean Gas Forum in Cairo, expanding upon gas cooperation among the three partners.

Representatives of participants at the gas forum applauded announcement of the deal. Egypt is the only country in the gas forum to have plants that can produce liquified natural gas. 

Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek told VOA that the announcement of the deal formalized cooperation among the EU, Egypt and Israel that has been going on for several months.

“This is a memo of understanding between Egypt, Israel and the EU that they will increase the gas production from Israel and Egypt, will process it and make it liquified, and export it to the EU,” Sadek said. “Already this is going on. A lot of things have been going on in the last few months in the gas field between Egypt, Israel and the EU. Now, this is just to add more.”

Sadek also said the U.S. “is currently trying to negotiate a settlement to the maritime territorial dispute between Israel and Lebanon so that the gas in the disputed sector can be used as part of the current deal with the EU.”

Al Jazeera TV reported that Russia cut exports of its natural gas to Europe on Wednesday “as a sign of displeasure at the deal signed in Cairo.”

Paul Sullivan, a Washington-based energy analyst at the Atlantic Council, told VOA that “the deal between the EU, Egypt and Israel to export LNG to the EU is one way the European Union can continue to extract itself from” what he called “over-reliance on Russian gas,” and that this “could benefit both Egypt and Israel economically and strategically.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told a joint press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that the agreement signed in Cairo was part of what he called “increasing cooperation between Egypt and the EU in numerous fields,” amid a difficult global political and economic period.

Sissi also thanked Egypt’s political partners, including the EU, for helping to “mitigate the effects of increasing food prices and the current crisis that is affecting many developing countries.”

Von der Leyen said during the press conference that the EU would contribute financially and technologically to help Egypt with food production.

“These investments will support food systems in your region and elsewhere so that we can together discuss how to develop solutions and technologies … modern technologies of precision farming … new crops adapted to climate change, because it is important for us that the production of food in the region is increased and the dependency on other regions is decreased,” she said.
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Phil and Kristie Graves are a U.S.couple from Maryland and parents of three biological children and an adopted girl with special needs from Armenia. Recently, they decided to adopt a six-year-old girl with special needs from Ukraine. But that was before the Russian invasion. Anush Avetisyan has the story.
Videographer: Dmytri Shakhov  
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The United States imposed sanctions Wednesday on two backers of an “ethnically motivated violent extremist group” called the Russian Imperial Movement, or RIM, one of whom visited the United States to make connections with far-right and white nationalist groups.

The U.S. Treasury Department named the two as Stanislav Shevchuk, a Europe-based representative of RIM, who traveled to the United States in 2017 seeking connections with “extremist” groups, and Alexander Zhuchkovsky, a Russia-based supporter of RIM, who has used his Russia-based social media platform to fundraise and recruit for the group.

Since 2014, Zhuchkovsky has raised more than $3.4 million to purchase weapons and military equipment for RIM and other pro-Russian fighters in the Donbas region in Ukraine and facilitated the travel of RIM fighters to the region, the Treasury said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Zhuchkovsky has continued using his social media accounts and online payment methods to purchase military equipment and supplies for Russian fighters carrying out the invasion and fighting in the Donbas, it added.

“The Russian Imperial Movement has sought to raise and move funds using the international financial system with the intent of building a global network of violent groups that foster extremist views and subvert democratic processes,” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement.

The Treasury said it also imposed sanctions on Swede Anton Thulin for his pursuit of terrorist training even after serving his prison sentence for his 2017 attacks in Sweden, which it said showed he continues to be a terrorism threat.
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