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Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny went on trial Tuesday in a penal colony outside of Moscow, accused of embezzlement and contempt of court. If convicted, he could face up to 15 more years in prison. 

The hearing is taking place inside the maximum-security prison in Moscow’s Lefortovsky district court, where he is being held, 96 kilometers from Moscow. 

The Kremlin critic was arrested in January 2021 and convicted of violating his parole by spending several months in Germany recovering from a poison attack. He was sentenced to 2½ years in prison. 

At his new trial, Russian investigators say Navalny embezzled money donated to his FBK anti-corruption political organization. The contempt of court charge stems from Navalny allegedly insulting a judge during a previous trial. 

“It is just that these people, who ordered this trial, are really scared,” Navalny, 45, said during the hearing. “(Scared) of what I say during this trial, of people seeing that the case is obviously fabricated.” 

Navalny adamantly denies the accusations and calls them politically motivated. 

“I am not afraid of this court, of the penal colony, the F.S.B., of the prosecutors, chemical weapons, Putin and all others,” Navalny said in court, according to a video of his statement. “I am not afraid because I believe it is humiliating and useless to be afraid of it all.” 

Navalny’s allies have denounced the case, and his lawyer says it is an attempt by the Kremlin to silence him. 

“We believe the persecution of Navalny is illegal, is distinctly political in nature, and aimed at discrediting and removing him from political activity,” lawyer Olga Mikhailova said, according to Agence France-Presse. 

A longtime rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny has accused the president of enrichening himself as well as other government officials through corrupt measures. His attempt at running in the 2018 presidential elections only aggravated his relations with the Kremlin. 

As of a few months ago Navalny and his associates have been added to a state registry of extremists and terrorists by Russian officials. 

 
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The European Union and African Union are holding their once every-three-year summit this week, after a two-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leaders from the two continents will meet in Brussels to discuss, among other things, the reaction to the pandemic and helping Africa adapt to climate change.

African countries are not happy with the EU travel bans, vaccine distribution, and unwillingness to lift intellectual property rights on vaccines that can help the continent produce COVID vaccines. 

Tobias Wellner is a senior analyst with Dragonfly Intelligence, a group that studies global security and political risks. He said the summit will focus on mending relations strained by the pandemic.  

“African leaders were very upset about travel restrictions imposed by European states and we can expect that they will also speak out against the unequal distribution of COVID vaccines,” Wellner said. “Overall, the summit is probably going to be much more about reconnecting after troubled pandemic times, rather than a large diplomatic leap forward.” 

French President Emmanuel Macron told journalists his country and the EU will prioritize the relationship with Africa and establish a peace system that can build investments in African economies. 

The EU is facing competition in Africa from China, which has backed huge infrastructure projects across the continent, and also from Russia which is challenging France’s influence in central and western African countries.   

Wellner said the European Union cannot abandon its vision of seeing good governance and respect for people’s rights in Africa. 

“The EU will likely continue conditioning economic and security support for African countries on its principles, democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” Wellner said. “In this regard, the EU is probably going to continue acting more cautiously and differently from — for example — from China. There is unlikely to be a large change of politics at the summit. EU policy change takes a lot of time to change, because there are a lot of different positions within Europe that all need to be brought together. So the change, especially on the institutional levels, tends to be quite long.” 

 The two-day conference will also focus on concerns over how to mitigate the impact of climate change in Africa.  

Wanjira Mathai, the vice-president and regional director at the World Resources Institute, says rich countries need to pay for adaptation programs.  

“The biggest polluters, 80% of all global emissions, sit within the G20 and so those economies have to do the most to reduce their emissions,” Mathai said. “The climate finance agenda there has been for many years. Africa is one of the climate-vulnerable regions but we also have others but the majority of countries that require finance to take care of the adaptation capacity that finance have not been forthcoming. We know there were $100 billion goals that were not met, so there is a very clear agenda to meet the shortfall of that $100 billion.” 

Speaking at a webinar organized by the Europe Africa Foundation last month, Senegalese President Macky Sall said there was a need to develop a climate-friendly strategy and consider the level of development of African countries. 

 
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has arrived in Brussels for talks with NATO leadership and allied defense ministers, as tens of thousands of Russian troops have surrounded Ukraine from the north, south and east.

During the gathering on Wednesday and Thursday, Austin and his counterparts will discuss how to deter Russia from invading Ukraine while shoring up defenses on the alliance’s eastern flank.

“This really is a decisive moment for NATO, the likes of which we have not really seen potentially since NATO was established in 1949,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “This is where American leadership in NATO matters,” he told VOA.

The “underlying message” from NATO and the United States will be to protect the international rules-based order by calling out “egregious attempts to undermine the rule of law” and “upholding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states,” according to a senior defense official.

“We cannot allow an adversary to try to redraw borders by force without facing significant consequences,” the official added.

Austin will then travel to NATO members Poland and Lithuania, Russian neighbors that have watched the developments surrounding Ukraine with increasing concern.

While in Poland on Friday, Austin will meet with President Andrzej Duda before visiting U.S. troops. The United States will soon have about 9,000 troops in Poland after President Joe Biden earlier this month ordered nearly 5,000 additional troops to deploy there, citing security concerns due to Russia’s recent moves.

In Lithuania, Austin will meet with President Gitanas Nauseda and host a meeting with that country’s defense minister along with those from Estonia and Latvia.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday Russia has 150,000 troops surrounding Ukraine, including in Belarus to the north, the illegally annexed Crimea region to the south, and along the Russian border with Ukraine to the east. Russian ships are also exercising nearby in the Black Sea, which prompted a formal protest from Ukraine’s foreign ministry.

“I think of a boa constrictor that is squeezing Ukraine to force the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky to blink, to make some giant concession,” retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who once commanded U.S. Army forces in Europe, told VOA.

Russia’s defense ministry announced Tuesday that some military units would pull back to their bases, a claim that Biden said the U.S. had not yet verified.

Meanwhile, Russian legislators passed proposals Tuesday calling on President Vladimir Putin to formally recognize the separatist-controlled regions of eastern Ukraine as independent states, in a move that could justify an incursion in an area it no longer recognizes as Ukraine’s territory.

The United States has pushed for a diplomatic solution to the tensions and has said it will not fight Russian forces in Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO.

The U.S. has shipped planeloads of lethal military aid to Ukraine in recent weeks, including Javelin anti-tank weapons and ammunition. A small number of U.S. troops had also trained Ukrainian soldiers through a program that started following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, but those troops were ordered by Austin to leave Ukraine a few days ago, citing concerns that a potential Russian invasion could come at any moment.

NATO allies have made multiple attempts to get Putin to pull his troops away from Ukraine’s border and have threatened severe economic sanctions should Russian troops invade.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Putin. Biden called Putin on Saturday. French President Emanuel Macron spoke face to face with Putin last week.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the other hand, expressed his support for Putin during the heightened tensions over Moscow’s forces surrounding Ukraine.

Current and former U.S. officials have warned that an invasion of Ukraine could embolden other adversaries.

“If the United States with all of our allies, all of our partners and the combined diplomatic and economic power, cannot deter the Kremlin from … another attack on Ukraine, then I think the Chinese Communist Party leadership is not going to be terribly impressed by anything that we say about Taiwan or the South China Sea,” Hodges said.
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Britain’s Prince Andrew has settled a lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was 17.

News of the settlement came in a letter filed with a Manhattan court Tuesday by Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies.

Details of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the letter said Andrew “intends to make a substantial donation to Ms. Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights.”

“Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks,” the letter reads. “It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others.”

Giuffre, now 38, says she was trafficked by Epstein and his longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell, who was recently convicted of sex trafficking.

Giuffre says the two forced her to perform sexual acts with Andrew. Andrew has denied the charges and did not admit to any of the accusations against him in Tuesday’s statement.

In 2019, Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan jail while he awaited another trial for sex trafficking. His death was ruled a suicide.

Last month, Andrew’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, stripped him of all his military and royal duties.
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Russia says it is withdrawing some of its forces from areas close to the Ukrainian border after completing military drills, mocking Western intelligence agencies for naming February 16 as the date a Russian invasion of its neighbor would start.

And the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his senior aides say diplomacy is winning. “We and our allies have managed to prevent Russia from any further escalation. Diplomacy is continuing to work,” tweeted Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, as news broke of the claimed partial withdrawal of Russian forces.

Although Kuleba cautioned: “On Russian statements regarding withdrawal of some forces from the Ukrainian border. We in Ukraine have a rule: we don’t believe what we hear, we believe what we see. If a real withdrawal follows these statements, we will believe in the beginning of a real de-escalation.”

So, has war been averted? Or is this a feint?

Russia has denied it has been planning another attack on Ukraine and has accused Western leaders of whipping up “hysteria.” Kremlin-directed media have been telling their domestic Russian audiences that NATO has been fomenting alarmism. “February 15, 2022, will go down in history as the day when Western war propaganda failed,” Maria Zakharova, the combative spokesperson of the Russian foreign ministry said on social media.

“They were humiliated and defeated without a single shot,” she added.

But there are other possible interpretations to the announcement of a partial troop withdrawal, say Western leaders and officials. While welcoming talk of de-escalation, they fear this is just a continuation of the Kremlin’s strategy of hybrid warfare, part of an effort to keep opponents wrong-footed and guessing at Russian intentions while at the same time wearing them down.

Cautious optimism

Despite Russia’s defense ministry posting video of tanks, infantry combat vehicles and self-propelled artillery systems being loaded onto trains, NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that evidence of a withdrawal could not yet be seen on the ground, though he expressed qualified optimism.

Britain’s Boris Johnson was also cautious Tuesday about taking the Russian withdrawal statement at face value.

There are signs of a “diplomatic opening” to resolve the Ukraine crisis, but there are also “mixed signals,” he said. Johnson added that the “intelligence that we are seeing today is still not encouraging,” citing the building of Russian field hospitals near to the border with Ukraine in Belarus, a Russian ally.

That could only be “construed as preparation for an invasion,” Britain’s leader told broadcasters following a meeting with his top defense and intelligence officials. “I think what everybody needs to see is a program of de-escalation.”

He added: “We think there is an avenue for diplomacy, we’ve seen some positive signs from conversations between Mr. Ushakov (Putin’s foreign policy adviser) and his American counterpart, between Sergey Lavrov (Russia’s foreign minister) and others. If that’s correct, then let’s build on that.”

Independent military observers are also holding off judging the importance of the claimed Russian military withdrawal. The Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a group of independent Russian researchers, says it has only observed military movements toward and not away from Ukraine.

Additionally, Ukrainian authorities reported a denial-of-service attack Tuesday on both PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest, and state-owned bank Oschad. Defense Ministry websites were affected, as well.

Diplomacy

Tuesday’s drama played out against the backdrop of further diplomatic talks in Moscow, where German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with President Putin after spending Monday in talks in Kyiv with Zelenskiy.

In Kyiv, Scholz said the issue of NATO membership for Ukraine “is practically not on the agenda.” A key Russian demand is that NATO never admit Ukraine as a member, something NATO has been reluctant to do as it would breach the Western alliance’s traditional open-door policy. Zelenskiy also suggested that while Ukraine still would like to join, NATO membership may be nothing more than a “dream.”

Were those remarks enough to prompt the partial withdrawal announcement? As the talks between the German chancellor and Ukraine’s leader unfolded in Kyiv, the Kremlin filmed Putin holding discussions with his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who urged him to continue with diplomacy, suggesting to him there’s a chance of success and that some Russian demands might be met.

Ukrainian officials have long suspected that Putin’s strategy is more about trying to wear the West down rather than gamble by launching an invasion of Ukraine that would likely mire Russia in a long counter-insurgency war. Zelenskiy and his aides have been much more cautious about predicting an invasion, and Monday the Ukrainian leader appeared to mock Western warnings about a firm date for an assault.

Marek Menkiszak of the Center for Eastern Studies, a state think tank based in Warsaw, agrees with Kyiv’s view. “There will be no invasion on 2/16 or later,” he tweeted Tuesday. He reckons Putin will continue to try to scare the West and seek to obtain security concessions but offer nothing in exchange. “Invasion means huge costs and dubious profits,” he added.
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The trial of jailed Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has started inside a penal colony on new charges of embezzlement — which he calls politically motivated — that could see as many as 10 more years tacked on to his prison time.

Moscow’s Lefortovo district court started the trial on February 15 inside Correctional Colony No. 2 in the town of Pokrov, some 200 kilometers east of Moscow in the Vladimir region, where the anti-corruption campaigner has spent the last year on a different charge after returning from abroad where he was recovering from a near-fatal poison attack that he blames on the Kremlin.

The new case against Navalny, launched in December 2020, alleges that the 45-year-old lawyer embezzled money from his now defunct and banned Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and for contempt of a Moscow court.

Initially, investigators said Navalny was accused of taking more than $4.7 million in donations that were given to his organizations and using them for his own personal use.

However, on February 14, Navalny associate Leonid Volkov said that after obtaining case materials the allegedly “embezzled” sum is now shown as $33,770

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, while Navalny also faces up to six months in prison for a contempt of court charge stemming from one of his hearings last year.

Navalny has rejected all of the charges, calling them politically motivated.

Yulia Navalnaya was allowed to enter the penal colony’s territory to attend her husband’s trial a day after she demanded access and accused authorities of holding an “illegal and shameful” court proceeding.

Within weeks of returning from his convalescence in Germany in January 2021, Navalny was handed a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for violating the terms of an earlier parole. His conviction is widely regarded as the result of a trumped-up, politically motivated case.

The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning, which along with his arrest sparked widespread condemnation and sanctions from the West.
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Tennis star Novak Djokovic says he is prepared to skip the next two major championships if it means he will have to take a COVID-19 vaccine to enter the host countries.

During an interview with the BBC Tuesday, the world’s number one male tennis player said he remains opposed to taking the vaccine, and says “it is the price I am willing to pay” if it means missing the French Open in May and Britain’s Wimbledon tournament the following month.

The 34-year-old Serbian’s stance comes just weeks after a dramatic standoff with Australian immigration officials cost him a chance to win a record 21 Grand Slam titles when he was deported before the start of the Australian Open in Melbourne, the first major championship of 2022.

Two independent health panels set up by the Victoria state government and Australian tennis authorities initially granted Djokovic a medical waiver to enter the country, as he had been infected with the coronavirus back in December. However, immigration officials canceled his visa, and he was sent to an immigration detention hotel in Melbourne. His visa was reinstated by an Australian judge, but later revoked a second time by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, who said Djokovic’s presence in the country would stir anti-vaccination sentiment.

Djokovic defended his decision to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine during his BBC interview, saying “the principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else.” But he said he does not support any anti-vaccination campaign, saying merely that he believes in “the freedom to choose what you put in your body.”

“I understand that globally, everyone is trying to put a big effort into handling this virus and seeing, hopefully, an end soon to this virus,” Djokovic said.

Cook Islands detects first case

In other COVID-19 developments, the Cook Islands has announced its first-ever COVID-19 infection. Prime Minister Mark Brown told reporters Sunday that a visitor tested positive after arriving last Thursday on the island of Rarotonga, the largest of the 15 islands that make up the remote South Pacific nation.

Prime Minister Brown says the person was a close contact of a family member in New Zealand who tested positive for COVID-19. The person is in isolation at a private holiday accommodation along with two companions.

The newly detected case ends the Cook Islands’ status as one of the few places in the world that had been COVID-19 free over the course of the two-year-old pandemic. The island had just reopened its borders to air travel last month after maintaining strict limits, and had boasted of its high vaccination rates.

Hong Kong

Meanwhile, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam told reporters Tuesday there were no plans to impose a complete lockdown on the financial hub to combat a new surge of coronavirus infections. Health authorities announced more than 1,600 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, one day after posting a record-setting 2,071 new infections.

Lam said Monday that “the onslaught of the fifth wave of the epidemic has dealt a heavy blow to Hong Kong.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France- Presse and Reuters.

 
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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Russia, Ukraine and the West on Monday to de-escalate tensions, saying “there is no alternative to diplomacy.” 

“The price in human suffering, destruction and damage to European and global security is too high to contemplate,” he said of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, which the West says could happen as soon as Wednesday. 

“We simply cannot accept even the possibility of such a disastrous confrontation,” he said at United Nations headquarters.  

He pledged to remain engaged with the parties, offering his offices to help find a solution.  

Guterres spoke to reporters after returning from a regular monthly luncheon held with the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council. Russia holds the rotating presidency of the council this month and hosted the luncheon at their U.N. mission.   

Earlier Monday, Guterres had a virtual meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that lasted about 20 minutes. He then spoke separately with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.   

Guterres did not divulge details of his discussions, but he welcomed recent diplomatic contacts, including among heads of state. But he cautioned that incendiary rhetoric is not helpful.  

“Public statements should aim to reduce tensions, not inflame them,” the U.N. chief said.   

He also quoted from the U.N. Charter, emphasizing its call on members to settle their international disputes peacefully and refrain “from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”   

“Abandoning diplomacy for confrontation is not a step over a line, it is a dive over a cliff,” Guterres warned. “In short, my appeal is this: Do not fail the cause of peace.”   
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Despite their popularity in recent years, Azerbaijan’s Valentine’s Day celebrations are somewhat muted this year. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, as well as poverty, are blamed by some shopkeepers for the gloomy attitude.

“During the pandemic, our business has been weak. Can’t sell much,” street vendor Tamkin Nagiyev told VOA. “People ask the price, then citing the high prices, they do not purchase. They just celebrate it with one flower.”

Ruslan Abdullayev, a flower shop owner, confirmed the pandemic’s impact, saying consumers’ ability to cope has been severely weakened.

“Previously, we sold each flower for 20 Manats ($11.75). Now, they don’t even want to buy it for 10,” said Abdullayev, who noted that while food prices have risen, flower prices have decreased.

Valentine’s Day is not an official holiday in Azerbaijan. It gained popularity in recent years through Western influence and has special appeal to younger generations. The day offers yet another occasion for those seeking to demonstrate their appreciation for love, fueled by commercial interests, social media and possibly a love of chocolate.

Many people in Baku, Azerbaijan’s largely Muslim capital, told VOA they approve of the day.

“We are not opposed to its celebration,” Ilhama Mammadova said. “Every woman would want to love and be loved. To be loved is the right of each woman.”

Another Baku resident, Orkhan Dadashov, agreed.

“Love doesn’t have a day. But speaking materially, at least once a year we can buy a flower and celebrate it. Everyone can do so according to his or her means,” Dadashov said.

But Elkhan Arifli, who celebrates Islamic religious holidays, said he does not consider Valentine’s Day to be a national holiday for Azerbaijanis.

“Actually, this is not our holiday. This is a Christian holiday. Lovers don’t have a day. For those who love, every day is a holiday,” he told VOA.

In recent months, several Azerbaijanis proposed moving Valentine’s Day from February 14 to June 30, the wedding day of Ilham and Fariza Allahverdiyeva, who came to symbolize Azerbaijan’s struggle for independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Ilham was among dozens killed by gunfire while protesting for independence. Fariza committed suicide soon after. Their love story is still remembered.

Many, like Baku resident Farida Mehdiyeva, still consider Valentine’s Day a positive cultural addition for those who attach significance to romance.

“True, some people do not want us to celebrate this day,” Mehdiyeva said. “But I do. I personally feel the mood of celebration.”

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijan Service with contributions from Asgar Asgarov.

 
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Polish ministers say they are drafting plans with the country’s regional governors to cope with the possible arrival of up to a million refugees from neighboring Ukraine in the event Russia decides to invade — an action U.S. and British officials have warned could come as early as this week.

Mariusz Kamiński, the country’s interior minister, sought to reassure Poles the country is ready for what could be the biggest refugee crisis to roil Europe since 2015, when the influx into the European Union of more than a million refugees and migrants from the Middle East and the sub-Sahara roiled the continent’s politics.

“It is obvious that in connection with the situation in Ukraine we have been preparing for different scenarios,” the interior minister said in a posting on Twitter. “One of them includes activities by provincial governors related to the potential influx of refugees from Ukraine, who may be looking for shelter in our country as a result of the potential conflict,” he added.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned Poles that a “military conflict is no longer an unlikely scenario” and, echoing the warnings of officials in Washington and London, said Europe is “on the verge of war.” On Sunday, he accused Russia of trying once again to violate Ukraine’s territorial integrity, which he dubbed “an assault on European stability and security” and a “threat to the peace of the entire continent.”

Poland is already home to around one million Ukrainians, who arrived over the years as economic migrants. Poland is not the only central European nation readying for a refugee surge. Latvia has said it is preparing to accept 10,000 Ukrainian refugees, if Russian President Vladimir Putin orders an invasion of Ukraine.

Estonian President Alar Karis is warning that a similar migrant crisis could occur between Estonia and Russia as happened between Poland and Belarus, when migrants were pushed toward the border last year in an apparent attempt to create chaos by Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian leader and Putin ally.

“Tensions are very high,” Karis told the BBC.

Moscow denials

The Kremlin denies Western accusations that it is planning to invade Ukraine, despite deploying along Ukrainian borders the biggest ground force amassed since 1945. Russia’s foreign ministry says Western media are colluding in a smear campaign against Moscow with the goal of “discrediting Russia’s fair demands on security guarantees and justifying the West’s geopolitical aspirations and militarization of the territory of Ukraine.”

Russia has demanded Ukraine never join NATO. And the Kremlin wants any NATO military presence removed from the former Communist countries of central Europe, once members of the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact and now participants in the Western alliance.

U.S. and British officials remain unconvinced by Russia’s denials.

“There are 130,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine; thousands more in amphibious vehicles on the Black Sea and the Azov Sea,” Britain’s armed forces minister, James Heappey, said Monday. “If all of this were for show, to win leverage in diplomacy, that doesn’t need the logistics, the fuel, the medical supplies, the bridging assets, the unglamorous stuff that makes an invasion force credible but doesn’t attract headlines. All of that is now in place too,” he added.

Flights

According to reports, some wealthy Ukrainians are not waiting to see whether a Russian offensive is launched. Ukrainska Pravda, a Kyiv-based newspaper, reported there has been an increase in private executive jets leaving Ukraine.

The paper said more than 20 private jets flew out of Kyiv on February 13 and over the last two weeks aircraft owned by some of the country’s richest oligarchs and businessmen, including Rinat Akhmetov, Victor Pinchuk, Borys Kolesnikov and Vadym Stolar, left the country, with many carrying family members and business associates and most heading to Vienna.

While the wealthy apparently are departing, the Ukrainian government is scrambling to ensure commercial carriers continue to fly in and out of Ukraine. Last week, Dutch airline KLM announced it was suspending Ukraine operations because of safety concerns. And the flights of Ukrainian budget airline SkyUp have been disrupted because a leasing company is demanding the return of its aircraft.

Other airlines, including German carrier Lufthansa, are weighing their options, partly because their insurers are becoming jittery. Ukraine’s transport ministry said Sunday that Ukrainian skies remain open. “Information about the closure of Ukraine’s airspace is not true. Closure of airspace is a sovereign right of Ukraine; no decision has been made,” it said in a statement.

The ministry announced a $590 million fund to be used for “guaranteeing the safety of flights through Ukraine for insurance companies, reinsurers, leasing companies and airlines.” The move came amid reports that British reinsurance giant Lloyd’s of London is considering suspending war insurance provisions for carriers flying into or over Ukraine.

Urging calm

As the transport ministry made its announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy downplayed reports of an imminent invasion, and complained of media reports stoking panic.

Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian leaders have been trying to talk down the prospects of an all-out war because of the damaging effect it is having on the country’s economy and are worried about the impact on public morale.

While trying to calm fears, his government has called formally for a meeting with Russia and other members of a European security group over the military buildup. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia has so far ignored requests to explain the deployment. Ukraine made a request for an explanation via the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE. Russia “must fulfill its commitment to military transparency in order to de-escalate tensions and enhance security for all,” Kuleba said.

On Sunday, President Zelenskiy spoke for nearly an hour by phone with U.S. President Joe Biden. The White House said President Biden reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine, and that both leaders had agreed on “the importance of continuing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence.”

In the latest attempt to find a diplomatic solution, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was scheduled to hold meetings with President Zelenskiy in Kyiv later Monday, and with President Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. The chancellor has warned of severe economic consequences for Russia should it launch any invasion, echoing statements by other Western leaders.
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