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As Turkish military dive teams this week safely defused their third floating naval mine in Turkish waters since March 26, some maritime experts said the explosives still pose a threat to Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait.

On March 19, Russia’s FSB intelligence service said 420 naval mines were drifting freely in the Black Sea after breaking loose in a storm. The FSB says Ukrainian forces set the mines, but Ukrainian authorities dismissed that accusation as disinformation.

Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of planting the naval mines in the Black Sea and using them as “uncontrolled drifting ammunition.”

“If these mines were broken loose as claimed, the risk continues even in the Bosphorus [Strait],” Bora Serdar, a retired staff colonel from the Turkish Naval Forces, told VOA. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if at least a few mines went in the strait.”

A regional threat

On March 26, Turkey, a NATO member, detected the first stray mine on the Black Sea coast of Istanbul near its Bosphorus Strait. The second one was found off the coast of Igneada, near the Bulgarian border, on March 28.

Turkish authorities announced Turkish Underwater Defense teams safely detonated both mines.

“Our mine hunter vessels and naval patrolling ships are all vigilant,” Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on March 29, adding that Turkey is working on identifying the source of floating naval mines.

The Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea with the Marmara, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean seas and runs through Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul. It is a major shipping route for Black Sea countries.

Besides Turkey, Romania neutralized a mine on March 28 after fishermen first spotted it and reported it to the naval forces.

On Thursday, defense ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine met virtually at Turkey’s request to discuss the threat.

“The importance of cooperation in the Black Sea for peace, calm, and stability, including the fight against the mines, was emphasized at the meeting,” Turkish Defense Minister Akar said in a statement.

Propaganda wars

Some analysts argue that the stray mines in the Black Sea are part of propaganda wars between Russia and Ukraine.

“I think these stray mines are part of a Russian operation to create some confusion,” said Yoruk Isik, Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst and head of the Bosphorus Observer consultancy.

“Russia may have dropped a few naval mines around the Bosphorus, perhaps from somewhere close to Bulgaria, to reach the strait,” he told VOA.

According to Isik, Russia’s motivations include distracting observers from its actions in Ukraine as several countries, including the United States and Germany, accused Russian forces of committing war crimes.

Isik says that Russia also might have used the naval mines to put Kyiv in “a difficult position in the international arena as the stray mines would appear as [though] Ukraine is hindering international trade” in the Black Sea.

On the other hand, some experts think that Ukraine might have used the naval mines to prevent Russia’s actions and bring more international actors into the war, including Turkey.

Turker Erturk, a former Turkish Naval Academy commander, says that Moscow’s war plans included an amphibious operation near Odesa.

“Russia would never choose anything that would limit this operation,” Erturk told VOA. 

Ukraine’s primary goal of setting mines afloat, he speculated, would be to show that safe navigation in the Black Sea has disappeared.

“The stray mines would create a perception that there is no safe passage in the Bosphorus, an international waterway. What would this perception inevitably trigger? It would trigger an international naval force under the auspices of NATO, EU, or U.N. to go to the Black Sea,” Erturk said.

“This would lead to the ‘de facto’ violation of the Montreux Convention. It looks like a provocation to me,” Erturk added.

NATO’s London-based Shipping Centre — the official link between NATO and international merchant shipping — released an advisory Monday saying, “the threat of additional drifting mines cannot be ruled out.”

A United Kingdom Ministry of Defense intelligence update on April 3 also warned that mines in the Black Sea “pose a serious risk to maritime activity.”

“Though the origin of such mines remains unclear and disputed, their presence is almost certainly due to Russian naval activity in the area and demonstrates how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is affecting neutral and civilian interests,” the UK intelligence update said.

Turkey has control of the passage of naval vessels through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits under the 1936 Montreux Convention.

Fishing

On March 26, Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry banned fishing at night until further notice.

Fishermen say that because they are concerned about the floating mines, they assign one person to the front of their boat for mine control.

“We fear that the stray mine will hit us,” Recep Koc, who has worked as a fisherman for 38 years in Istanbul’s Sariyer district, told VOA.

“While we were watching our boat so that nothing would wrap around its propeller, we are now trying to pay attention to the mines if they crash or explode,” Koc added.
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Belarusian journalist Catarina Andreeva, who is serving a two-year prison sentence for covering protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko, has now been charged with high treason just ahead of her release.

Andreeva’s husband, Ihor Ilyash, wrote on Facebook on April 7 that it remains unclear what the charge is based on, adding that the investigations into what he called “an absurd” case had been finished and the case will be soon handed to a court.

“Just five months before the end of her prison term, all of a sudden, they charge her again, this time with ‘high treason.’ In a country engulfed with totalitarian insanity, this cannot have anything to do with law and reality. But there is obvious parallel with Stalin’s practices—to extend a political prisoner’s term, when it approaches its end,” Ilyash wrote, adding that his wife “is absolutely innocent.”

“The cynical nature of this probe is a monstrous retaliation against someone for their journalistic activities,” he adds.

Andreeva and her colleague, Darya Chultsova, were both sentenced to two years in prison in February 2021 after a court found them guilty of “organizing public events aimed at disrupting civil order.”

Andreeva, 28, and Chultsova, 24, in their last statement in the courtroom, rejected the charge against them, calling them politically motivated, as they attended the protest to do their job as reporters.

The two journalists were arrested in mid-November 2020 while they were covering a rally in Minsk in memory of Roman Bandarenko.

Bandarenko died from injuries sustained in a vicious beating by a group of masked assailants—who rights activists say were affiliated with the authorities—during one of the weekly rallies demanding Lukashenko’s resignation after he claimed victory in an August 2020 presidential election that the opposition says was rigged.

Belarusian and international human rights organizations have recognized Andreeva and Chultsova as political prisoners and say that all charges should be dropped and they should be released immediately.

Security officials have cracked down hard on any dissent against Lukashenko’s regime, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.

Several protesters have been killed in the violence and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture by security officials of some of those detained.

Lukashenko, who has run the country with a tight grip since 1994, has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding new elections.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenko, 67, as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the “falsification” of the vote and the brutal post-election crackdown.
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Russian citizens are spending on average 40% of their disposable income on food – about twice as much as they did before the Russia-Ukraine war, the director of the U.N. food agency’s Russia liaison office told Reuters.

Russian government data shows annual food inflation hit 18.75% on April 1 as the economy reels from Western sanctions imposed on Moscow following its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Oleg Kobiakov of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said many Russian households are now resorting to crisis coping strategies as much of their income goes towards basic needs like food.

“People are postponing plans like going to college or buying a house. They’re saving in case they lose their job, in case of death,” he said.

The average EU household spends about 12% of its income on food, he said, adding that while hunger is not on the cards in Russia, poorer households will face increased levels of food insecurity.

Western sanctions on Russia have closed its economy off from much of global trade, blocked it from swathes of the global financial system and pushed multi-nationals to cut ties with the country.

Many Russians have been panic buying staples like sugar and buckwheat since the war for fear that prices have further to rise, piling pressure on the government to cool inflation. Read full story

Moscow is considering regulating prices for food, medicines and other goods and has temporarily banned some agricultural exports. It says it could also move to price almost all its commodity exports in roubles.

While the measures have had some impact in capping consumer inflation, it is still expected to accelerate to 23.7% this year, its highest since 1999, according to a Reuters poll.

The poll also has Russia’s economy shrinking 7.3% in 2022 – in its deepest contraction since 2009.

Kobiakov said Russian salaries have stayed roughly the same since the war, but with prices rising, purchasing power has been eroded and people are worried about job security with many Western firms pulling out of the country.

Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country.
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Slovakia has donated its S-300 air defense system to Ukraine to help it defend against Russia’s aggression, Slovakia Prime Minister Eduard Heger said Friday.

Ukraine has appealed to Western nations for air defense equipment to help repel a Russian military onslaught that is now in its second month.

“I would like to confirm that Slovakia has provided Ukraine with an air-defence system S-300. Ukrainian nation is bravely defending its sovereign country and us too,” Heger said in a tweet.

Heger, who was visiting Kyiv Friday, also said that Slovakia’s own defense was secured.

NATO member Slovakia has been operating one battery of the S-300 air defense system, which it inherited after the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993.
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Stores in Istanbul, once filled with Russian and Ukrainian shoppers, are now experiencing hard times because of the war in Ukraine. The conflict is also causing prices for food and fuel in Turkey to rise. VOA’s Behzod Muhammadiy reports from Istanbul.
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Voters in France head to the polls Sunday for the first of a two-round election that could see centrist President Emmanuel Macron become the first French leader to win a second term in nearly two decades. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.
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China’s patience with Russia over the war in Ukraine has set back its prized ties with the European Union despite tentative gains late last year, analysts say.

At the first European Union-China summit in nearly two years, on April 1, the EU warned China against supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine or interfering with international sanctions against Moscow. During the two-hour video event, EU officials asked China, as a U.N. Security Council member, to push Russia to end the war.

China has cast itself as a neutral nation toward the war while sustaining close economic and strategic ties with Russia.

“This contributes to the European Union’s collective irritation at China for supporting what looks like flagrant violation of international law,” said Alan Chong, associate professor at the Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and continues to pound the neighboring country despite talks and economic sanctions against Moscow by Western governments.

In October, Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with two high-level officials in Europe to try to improve relations. Although the two sides reached no substantive agreements, they spoke cordially after the EU froze an investment deal with Beijing in early 2021 and sent a parliamentary delegation to Taiwan. China considers self-ruled Taiwan part of its territory.

China was hoping then to build trade and investment ties with individual European countries as the Asian power grappled with a half-decade of acrimony with its old Cold War rival the United States, analysts told VOA last year.

Sino-European ties “marginally” improved after the October event, and China regarded the EU as the “more acceptable” face of the West compared with the United States, Chong said. He said certain leaders in the 27-nation EU bloc had become more “pragmatic” toward China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has set back China’s search for friends in Europe, said Sean King, senior vice president with the New York-based political consultancy Park Strategies. “It’s a new day in Europe and not a welcome one for authoritarians Putin and Xi,” he said.

China’s trade curbs last year against Lithuania resurfaced as a thorny Sino-EU issue on April 1, as did market access for European companies.

EU member Lithuania offended Beijing by letting Taiwan use its name on a de facto embassy in the European country.

European leaders see Chinese action against Lithuania as undermining their unity as a bloc and “coming at the cost of values” such as democracy, said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo. China had retaliated against the Czech Republic in 2020 over its own close ties with Taiwan.

“The economic coercion against Lithuania and Czech are both examples of China really bullying European member states,” Nagy said.

At the summit, EU leaders again raised issues over China’s treatment of its own ethnic minorities, including the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.

On the economic side, EU leaders talked to China April 1 about making their relationship “fairer,” creating a “level playing field,” and rebalancing “bilateral trade and investment relations,” European Council President Charles Michel said after the summit.

European leaders resent the Chinese government’s ownership stake in major companies and the subsidies offered them, said Jayant Menon, visiting senior fellow with the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s Regional Economic Studies Program in Singapore. They also see China as not “open” enough with data transfers and the digital economy, he added.

“Those are the things [where] I think generally China is often tagged as being problematic in the world trade arena, and I think it would certainly be picked up by the Europeans as well,” Menon said.

China is still the EU’s No. 1 trading partner and the source of billions of dollars per year in direct investment. But their issues have “stalemated” after eight years of talks toward an EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant professor of diplomacy and international relations at Tamkang University in Taiwan. Talks were iced last year.

The agreement would tackle market openness and any forced transfers of technology targeting European investors.

China sounded conciliatory after last week’s summit. The EU and China must “take the lead in defending the international system with the U.N. at its core” and defer to international law, Beijing’s official Xinhua News Agency said Monday. China will “stay committed to deepening reform and further opening up” its markets, Xinhua added, quoting Xi.
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When Brent Renaud was killed covering the impact of the Ukraine war, state media in Cuba described the American photojournalist as a CIA agent.

The state-run news website Cubadebate cited an Iranian news outlet as the source of the story, which it ran on March 13. But it didn’t specify the name of the Iranian outlet.

Renaud, an award-winning photojournalist, was in Ukraine on assignment for TIME Studios, working on a documentary about refugees when he was killed. Fact checkers have debunked the claim about his being a CIA agent.

Independent analysts say efforts to link the journalist to the U.S. intelligence services illustrates the way Havana has adopted the Russian version of events on Ukraine.

The state-aligned media also seek to discredit Western reporting on the invasion.

Across Latin America, the Russian version of events has been promoted through social media and via RT en Español, the Spanish-language version of Russian state television.

VOA spoke to independent journalists and analysts in Cuba to assess why the communist government has replicated the Russian reports, thousands of kilometers from the front line.

The International Press Center, the Cuban government media center in Havana, and the Cuban Embassy in Madrid did not reply to emailed requests for comment.

Conflict downplayed

Juan Manuel Moreno Borrego, who works for the independent outlet Comunitario Amanecer Habanero, said that Cuban official media have downplayed the Ukraine conflict, which has dominated headlines around the rest of the world.

“The reports in the official media in Cuba of what is going on in Ukraine are minimal and superficial,” he told VOA in a telephone interview from his home on the Caribbean island.

“There is no mention that there has been an invasion. Instead it is called a ‘special military operation.’ Of course, there is no mention of the genocide that is going on in Ukraine.”

The terms reflect official directives Moscow issued to Russian media personnel, who can face up to 15 years in prison for not covering the war on Kremlin terms.

The United Nations on Thursday voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council over atrocities and human rights violations related to the war.

Despite limited coverage in state-run media, Moreno believes almost all Cubans are aware of the war.

“I am sure that 90 percent of the Cuban population know the reality of what is happening through access to social media,” he said.

Moreno said RT has an important presence in Cuba because it broadcasts in Spanish and is viewed widely.

“But independent journalists here are doing their best to inform the people of Cuba about the reality of what is occurring in Ukraine,” he said.

UN abstention

Alberto Corzo, director of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), a nongovernmental group that created a network of independent journalists, noted that Cuba had abstained in a recent United Nations vote on the Ukraine war.

“In my personal opinion, the abstention by Cuba shows the conduct of traitors because it shows [the Cuban government’s] fear to define its posture and which side it is on,” he told VOA.

“From the beginning, the Cuban government has said the only reliable source for information [about Ukraine] is Russia Today in Spanish, alleging that CNN and other media are at the service of the West. Official media reports justify the aggression of Russia towards Ukraine,” he said.

RT en Espanol, which reaches throughout Latin America, portrays the United States as a greater threat to world peace than Moscow. “Never forget who is the real threat to the world,” read a RT headline in February, The Associated Press reported this week.

Although many claims reported on RT en Espanol have been discredited, researchers say its Spanish-language content on Ukraine is the third most shared site on Twitter.

Ana Leon, a journalist who writes for the independent news website CubaNet under a pseudonym for her safety, believes Cuba repeats the Russian version of the Ukraine war because it cannot afford to fall out with a close ally on which it depends financially.

“Since the start, the official media in Cuba have been aligned to the Russian version of events. They have talked about the special military operation to protect the people,” she said.

Contrary to revolutionary principles

“The actions of Russia are contrary to all the principles which the Cuban revolution stands for, like the right of the people to determine their own future; however, Cuba has denied the brutality of Russia. Reports [in the state media] talk about the 2014 democratic election [in Ukraine] as a coup d’etat.”

The pro-European Petro Poroshenko won Ukraine’s 2014 presidential election on a platform that included a promise to stop the war in the eastern regions. He was defeated in 2019 by current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Leon said that when Russia softened a debt deal, this ensured Cuban loyalty in its coverage of the Ukraine conflict.

“Two days before the invasion of Ukraine, on 22 February, Russia changed the $2.3 billion debt deal for Cuba to relieve the economic pressure on the communist government,” said Leon.

Russia agreed to postpone the debt payments until 2027.

The loans, provided to Cuba between 2006 and 2019, helped underwrite investments in power generation, metals and transportation infrastructure, the Reuters news agency reported.

Russia’s decision to soften the loan terms came as Havana struggled to cope with a deepening social and economic crisis, which led to food shortages and lack of medicine and sparked widespread protests.

Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, Havana and Moscow have enjoyed strong military and economic ties.

This alliance faded after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 but Russia has continued to deliver humanitarian aid and offer loans.

Normando Hernández, the director general of the ICLEP in Miami, said the Cuban government fed its citizens an alternative reality over events in Ukraine.

“The Cuban state media is following the Russian line on Ukraine exactly. It refers to the invasion of Ukraine as a special military operation and there is no mention of massacres of civilians,” he told VOA in a telephone interview.

“They are trying to stop the people of Cuba from knowing what is really going on in this war, which was started by [Russian President] Vladimir Putin.”
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The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the body’s Human Rights Council over atrocities it has been accused of committing in Ukraine.

In a vote of 93 to 24 with 58 abstentions, the assembly suspended Russia for its “gross and systematic violations of human rights” and violations of international law committed against Ukraine.

The resolution requires a two-thirds majority to be adopted; the abstentions are not counted.

“We view voting to suspend a state’s Human Rights Council rights as a rare and extraordinary action,” Ukrainian envoy Sergiy Kyslytsya said ahead of the vote.

“However, Russia’s actions are beyond the pale — Russia is not only committing human rights violations, it is shaking the underpinnings of international peace and security.”

Forty-seven countries are on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council. They are elected in secret ballot votes by the General Assembly. Russia is currently serving a three-year term that was due to expire on December 31, 2023.

Kyslytsya noted that April 7 is when the Rwandan genocide is commemorated, and said those massacres were due in large part to a lack of international action and failure by the United Nations to respond to warnings from the ground.

“On this day of grievances and bearing its own tragedy of thousands of Ukrainians killed by the Russian invaders, Ukraine stands together with Rwanda and calls to reaffirm our pledge to never forget and to never allow the recurrence of genocide, which was a result of the international community’s indifference,” the Ukrainian envoy said.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admonished the U.N. Security Council in a video address for its inaction in stopping Russia’s war against his country. He called for Moscow to face accountability for crimes it has carried out there.

The United States led the move to suspend Russia and was joined by more than 60 countries in co-sponsoring the resolution.

“The country that’s perpetrating gross and systematic violations of human rights should not sit on a body whose job it is to protect those rights,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Brussels. “Today, a wrong was righted.”

“Unprecedented, historic vote,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told VOA after the vote. “We suspended a permanent member of the Security Council off of the U.N. Human Rights Council. We sent a strong message of support to the Ukrainians. We sent a strong message about human rights.”

She said the suspension is effective immediately.

Russian dismissals

Russia has repeatedly dismissed accusations of abuses and atrocities, saying they are either “fake news” or the Ukrainian side committed them to make them look bad.

Following the vote, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Gennady Kuzmin, said Moscow had taken its own decision to end its membership in the Human Rights Council and did not want to remain with Western states whom he accused of carrying out or abetting human rights abuses of their own.

“The sincere commitment of Russia to promoting and protecting of human rights does not make it possible for us to remain a member of an international mechanism that has become an enabler of the will of the above-mentioned group of countries,” Kuzmin said.

“You do not submit your resignation after you are fired,” Ukraine’s envoy told reporters in discussing Russia’s withdrawal.

This is only the second time the General Assembly has suspended a Human Rights Council member. It last happened in March 2011, when Libya was undergoing a brutal crackdown by then-dictator Moammar Gadhafi in a bid to suppress Arab Spring protests. He was ousted from power and later killed. Libya’s membership was restored eight months after its suspension, after a new government was installed.

Authority to investigate

The Human Rights Council has the authority to set up commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions and investigations into rights abuses and has done so in many countries, including Syria, Myanmar and North Korea.

Last month, the council decided to establish an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged violations and abuses in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Three human rights experts have been appointed to collect and preserve evidence and testimony for any future legal proceedings.

Some countries that either voted against suspending Russia or abstained said they believed the move was premature and prejudges the outcomes of the commission of inquiry.

China, which had abstained in earlier assembly votes condemning Russia’s invasion and on the humanitarian consequences of the war, chose Thursday to side with Moscow and voted against the resolution.

“Such a hasty move at the General Assembly, which forces countries to choose sides, will aggravate the division among member states and intensify the contradictions between the parties concerned,” Ambassador Zhang Jun said. “It is like adding fuel to the fire, which is not conducive to the de-escalation of conflicts, and even less so to advancing the peace talks.”

Reluctance on suspension

Even some countries that have been vocal in condemning the war were not comfortable suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council, such as Mexico, which abstained.

“Yes, there is a commission of inquiry. We want to see the result of that commission of inquiry, but do we have to sit and continue to watch the carnage, watch the horror of Bucha happen over and over again, while Russia is sitting on the Human Rights Council?” Thomas-Greenfield told VOA.

Since its creation in 2006, the Human Rights Council has come in for frequent criticism because of the abhorrent rights records of some of its members. Currently, China, Eritrea, Pakistan and Venezuela are among its members.

The council has also been criticized for its focus on Israel. In 2018, the Trump administration left the body, calling it a “cesspool of political bias.” The Biden administration returned last year. Blinken said at the time that when the council works well, it shines a spotlight on countries with the worst human rights records.
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German intelligence officials say they have intercepted radio communications in which Russian troops discussed indiscriminately killing civilians in Ukraine, undercutting claims by Moscow that atrocities were only committed after its military left occupied suburbs near the capital of Kyiv.

The officials, who briefed members of parliament Wednesday, described two separate communications in which Russian soldiers described how they questioned Ukrainian soldiers and civilians before shooting them. 

Der Spiegel reported a Russian soldier could be heard describing how he shot someone on a bicycle.

Earlier this week, aerial footage verified independently by The New York Times shows a Russian armored vehicle shooting at a civilian on a bicycle in Bucha. It is not clear whether the person in the video was the same as the one referred to in the radio messages.

Even as Moscow denies targeting civilians, world opinion has galvanized against Russia in the last week as pictures and video footage have emerged from the scenes of carnage in Bucha. The bodies of civilians have been found lying in the streets after Russian for forces were pushed back from a string of villages north of Kyiv.

Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk told VOA’s Russian Service he was shocked to see the bodies left behind and the destruction in his town.

“As a historian, I thought that even during the war some rules are followed,” he said, adding that it will take much time to rebuild the infrastructure of the city and that it is too soon to think about coming back for those who ran from the occupation at the beginning of the war.  

The United States and its Western allies have launched war crimes investigations of the killings in Bucha and other Ukrainian towns, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin should face a war crimes trial.

One German intelligence official said that Berlin has satellite images that show Russia’s involvement in the Bucha killings, although the radio transmissions have yet to be linked to that location. Germany’s foreign intelligence service, known as the BND, may be able to tie the satellite images to the radio intercepts.

Officials said the radio traffic appears to suggest that the Wagner Group, a private military unit with close ties to Putin and his allies, or another private contractor, may have played a role in attacking the civilians.

As Russia’s attack on Ukraine has played out over the last six weeks, Western defense and intelligence analysts say that Russian troop reliance on unsecured communication devices, including smartphones and push-to-talk radios, has left them vulnerable to targeting.

VOA Russian Service contributed to this report.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday dismissed the reluctance of some countries fulfill Ukrainian requests for arms due to fears of being drawn into the conflict with Russia, saying that by giving Ukraine what it needs, Ukrainians will do the fighting so no one else has to.

“I think the deal that Ukraine is offering is fair: You give us weapons, we sacrifice our lives, and the war is contained in Ukraine,” Kuleba said.

He spoke in Brussels alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg ahead of a meeting with NATO foreign ministers where Stoltenberg said allies would address Ukraine’s need for air defense systems, anti-tank weapons and other support.

“The more weapons we get, and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved, the more cities and villages will not be destructed, and there will be no more Buchas,” Kuleba said, citing the area outside the capital where retreating Russian soldiers are accused of killing civilians.

Kuleba welcomed new Western sanctions against Russia, but called for further measures, including a full embargo on Russian oil and gas, blocking all Russian banks from the SWIFT banking system and closing ports to Russian vessels and goods.

“I hope we will never face a situation again when to step up the sanctions pressure we need atrocities like at Bucha to be revealed and to impress and to shock other partners to the extent that they sit down and say, ‘OK, fine, we will introduce new sanctions,’” Kuleba said. “I don’t believe that Ukrainians have to pay with their lives, hells and sufferings for the political will of partners to impose sanctions.”

New sanctions

The United States and its Western allies said Wednesday they imposed “new, severe and immediate economic sanctions” against Russia, banning American investment there, fully blocking the country’s largest financial institutions and targeting assets held by President Vladimir Putin’s adult children.

“Together with our allies and our partners, we’re going to keep raising economic costs, to ratchet up the pain for Putin and further increase Russia’s economic isolation,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday during remarks at a North America’s Building Trades Unions event.

The new measures, according to the White House, are in retribution for atrocities against Ukrainian civilians allegedly committed by Russian troops, including those discovered in recent days in Bucha.

Biden said horrific images from Bucha, where dead civilians were left on the street, imparted “a sense of brutality and inhumanity left for all the world to see,” as he outlined the steps his administration is taking to punish those responsible. Russia has denied killing civilians in Bucha.

The most punishing of the new measures are the “full blocking sanctions” on Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, and the country’s largest private bank, Alfa Bank.

Applying full blocking sanctions against Russia’s largest bank takes U.S. measures against the Russian financial sector to their maximum level, said Andrew Lohsen, a fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Until now, the Biden administration had refrained from applying the same restrictions on Sberbank as it had on other Russian banks because Sberbank is one of the main institutions handling energy payments.

“That seems to have changed as images from Bucha are circulating around the world,” Lohsen told VOA. “The aversion to carve-outs is eroding, as evidence of Russian atrocities in Ukraine comes to light.”

In a move to add psychological pressure on Putin’s inner circle, the White House said it is also sanctioning Putin’s adult children — daughters Mariya Putina and Katerina Tikhonova — as well as the wife and daughter of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and members of Russia’s Security Council. New sanctions were also applied to “critical, major Russian state-owned enterprises.”

“We’ve seen attempts and efforts to stash assets in the accounts and resources of his (Putin’s) children,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a briefing to reporters Wednesday.

The U.S. is also blocking Russia from making debt payments with money subject to U.S. jurisdiction. This follows action earlier this week to make Russia’s frozen funds in the United States unavailable for debt payments. Psaki said Moscow will have to decide whether they are going to spend the dollars they have to avoid default or continue to fund military operations in Ukraine.

“Part of our objective is to force them into a place where they are making that decision,” Psaki said.

The move makes it more costly for Russia to remain current on foreign debt, which may eventually push it to default and lead to further consequences, Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told VOA.

“There will be investor lawsuits. They will go after Russian government assets in Western jurisdictions. So, this could potentially be a further isolation of the Russian economy in general,” he added.

Without access to its dollars held in American banks, Russia’s Finance Ministry announced Wednesday that it had used rubles to pay about $650 million in dollar-denominated debt obligations. Payments are usually required to be made in the currency the debt was sold in.

In his remarks, Biden said that the steps already taken to punish Russia are expected to shrink the country’s gross domestic product by double digits this year alone and wipe out the last 15 years of Russia’s economic gains.

“Because we’ve cut Russia off from importing technologies like semiconductors and encryption security and critical components of quantum technology that they need to compete in the 21st century, we’re going to stifle Russia’s ability in its economy to grow for years to come,” he added.

The steps announced Wednesday were sweeping and hard-hitting, but they also mean the West is running out of levers to stop Russian aggression, unless they are willing to apply direct pressure on the Russian oil and gas sector.

“The remaining large category of unused tools would likely focus on both direct sanctions on Russian energy exports and importantly, secondary sanctions on any non-Western entities that take or facilitate such trade,” said Daniel Ahn, global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, to VOA.

Alleged war crimes

Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department is assisting Ukrainian and European partners and the State Department to collect evidence of alleged war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Federal criminal prosecutors met with prosecutors from Eurojust and Europol on Monday “to work out a plan for gathering evidence.” On Tuesday, the top Justice Department prosecutor in Paris met with French prosecutors, Garland said at a news conference. He also announced the indictment of a Russian oligarch.

VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara and Masood Farivar contributed to this report. 
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