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The White House said Thursday that Washington is keeping a keen eye on Moscow and remains committed to diplomacy during upcoming high-level talks. This comes amid increasingly heated rhetoric from Russia’s leader, who on Thursday accused U.S. and NATO allies of undermining his country as he continues to mass troops near Russia’s border with Ukraine.

“You expanded NATO to the east,” President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, during his customary marathon end-of-year press conference, where he also accused Western intelligence services of trying to break up the Russian federation by using terrorist groups. “Of course, we asked you not to do it, as you promised you wouldn’t. 

“But we were told: ‘Where is this written on paper? It isn’t, so you can buzz off. We don’t give a damn about your concerns.’ This happened year after year, and every time we pushed back and tried to prevent something or express our concern, [we were told], ‘No, buzz off with your concerns, we’ll do as we please.’ ” 

“Facts are a funny thing,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, responding to reporters’ questions about Putin’s accusations. “And facts make clear that the only aggression we’re seeing at the border of Russia and Ukraine is the military buildup by the Russians and the bellicose rhetoric from the leader of Russia.”

Psaki said the U.S. will hold high-level talks with the Russian government in early January, but she did not give further details on when the talks may happen, where they will take place or who will be involved. Administration officials have declined to respond publicly to Moscow’s demands, which include that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and that the security alliance reduce its deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. 

“However Russia has chosen to handle things, we don’t plan to negotiate in public,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday. “It does not strike us as constructive or the way that progress has been made in such diplomatic conversations in the past. We are not going to respond to every proposal or comment that is made, including from the Russian president.” 

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden held a virtual call with Putin. During that call, the two men discussed the estimated 100,000 troops gathered on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops in the eastern Donetsk region earlier this month and said his forces are capable of fending off a Russian offensive.

Biden hosted Zelenskiy at the White House in September, and he assured him then that the U.S. was “firmly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression.” 

The White House also has made clear there will be “significant consequences” if Russia invades. These include harsh economic sanctions and increased security support for Ukraine.

“All that planning is well underway on our side, and we are ready to act if and when we need to,” the administration official said. 

But does Putin plan to cross that border? Analyst Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute doesn’t think the Russian president does: For one thing, Kagan wrote, it would be “by far the largest, boldest and riskiest military operation Moscow has launched since the 1979 inva­sion of Afghanistan.” 

“It would be a marked departure from the approaches Putin has relied on since 2015, and a major step-change in his willing­ness to use Russian conventional military power overtly,” he wrote, in an assessment published earlier this month. “It would cost Russia enormous sums of money and likely many thousands of casualties and destroyed vehicles and aircraft.” 
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Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found.

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV in the heat of that race, which the ruling party narrowly won. With the hacking revelation, Brejza now questions whether the election was fair. 

It’s the third finding by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that a Polish opposition figure was hacked with Pegasus spyware from the Israeli hacking tools firm NSO Group. Brejza’s phone was digitally broken into 33 times from April 26, 2019, to October 23, 2019, said Citizen Lab researchers, who have been tracking government abuses of NSO malware for years. 

The other two hacks were identified earlier this week after a joint Citizen Lab-Associated Press investigation. All three victims blame Poland’s government, which has refused to confirm or deny whether it ordered the hacks or is a client of NSO Group. State security services spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn insisted Thursday that the government does not wiretap illegally and obtains court orders in “justified cases.” He said any suggestions the Polish government surveils for political ends were false. 

NSO, which was blacklisted by the U.S. government last month, says it sells its spyware only to legitimate government law enforcement and intelligence agencies vetted by Israel’s Defense Ministry for use against terrorists and criminals. It does not name its clients and would not say if Poland is among them.

Citizen Lab said it believes NSO keeps logs of intrusions so an investigation could determine who was behind the Polish hacks.

EU response 

In response to the revelations, European Union lawmakers said they would hasten efforts to investigate allegations that member nations such as Poland have abused Pegasus spyware.

The other two Polish victims are Ewa Wrzosek, an outspoken prosecutor fighting the increasingly hardline government’s undermining of judicial independence, and Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented senior leaders of Brejza’s party, Civic Platform, in sensitive cases. 

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday dismissed revelations that Giertych and Wrzosek were hacked as “fake news.” Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said he had no knowledge of “illegal actions aimed at the surveillance of citizens” but also said Poland was “not helpless” in taking action against people suspected of crimes. 

Giertych was hacked 18 times, also in the run-up to 2019 parliamentary elections that the ruling Law and Justice party won by a razor-thin margin. That victory has continued an erosion of democracy in the nation where the popular 1980s protest movement Solidarity presaged the eventual collapse of the Soviet empire. 

The intense tempo of the hacks of Brejza and Giertych “indicates an extreme level of monitoring” that raises pressing questions about abuses of power, Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton said. Pegasus gives its operators complete access to a mobile device: They can extract passwords, photos, messages, contacts and browsing history, and activate the microphone and camera for real-time eavesdropping. 

“My heart sinks with each case we find,” Scott-Railton added. “This seems to be confirming our worst fear: Even when used in a democracy, this kind of spyware has an almost immutable abuse potential.”

Other confirmed victims have included Mexican and Saudi journalists, British attorneys, Palestinian human rights activists, heads of state and Uganda-based U.S. diplomats. 

An NSO spokesperson said Thursday that “the company does not and cannot know who the targets of its customers are, yet implements measures to ensure that these systems are used solely for the authorized uses.” The spokesperson said there is zero tolerance for governments that abuse the software; NSO says it has terminated multiple contracts of governments that have abused Pegasus, although it has not named any publicly. 

Despite any measures NSO might be taking, Citizen Lab notes, the list of abuse cases continues to grow. 

Doctored texts

Brejza, a 38-year-old attorney, told the AP that he has no doubt data stolen from his phone while he was chief of staff of the opposition coalition’s parliamentary campaign provided critical strategy insights. Combined with the smear effort against him, he said, it prevented “a fair electoral process.”

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored to make it appear as if he created an online group that spread hateful anti-government propaganda; reports in state-controlled media cited the altered texts. But the group didn’t exist. 

Brejza says he now understands where TVP state television got them. 

“This operation wrecked the work of staff and destabilized my campaign,” he said. “I don’t know how many votes it took from me and the entire coalition.” 

Brejza won his Senate seat in that October 2019 race. But since the ruling party held on to the more powerful lower house of parliament, it has steered Poland further away from EU standards of liberal democracy. 

Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said at the time that control of state media gave the ruling party an unfair advantage but called the elections essentially free. They were unaware of the hacking. 

Brejza has been a Law and Justice party critic since it won power in 2015. For example, he has exposed large bonuses paid to senior government officials. In another case, he revealed that the postal service sent tens of thousands of dollars to a company tied to ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Brejza fears the hacking could have compromised whistleblowers who had reached out to him with evidence. 

NSO Group is facing daunting financial and legal challenges — including the threat of default on more than $300 million in debt — after governments used Pegasus spyware to spy on dissidents, journalists, diplomats and human rights activists from countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and the United States. The U.S. blacklisting of NSO has effectively barred U.S. companies from supplying technology to the Israeli firm.
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More than a dozen Western powers on Thursday expressed anger that Russian mercenaries working for the controversial Wagner Group have started to deploy in Mali, accusing Moscow of providing material backing for the fighters. 

The powers involved in the fight against an insurgency in Mali, including Canada, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, said they “firmly condemn the deployment of mercenary troops on Malian territory.” 

It was one of the first official acknowledgements by Western capitals that the deployment of fighters has begun in Mali after months of warnings to the Bamako government. But the statement did not say that the presence of the Wagner Group in Mali would result in a pullout of foreign forces. 

“This deployment can only further deteriorate the security situation in West Africa, lead to an aggravation of the human rights situation in Mali (and) threaten the agreement for peace and reconciliation in Mali,” the 15 powers said. 

They said they “deeply regret” the choice of the Malian authorities to use “already scarce public funds” to pay foreign mercenaries instead of supporting the Malian armed forces. 

In a message to Moscow, the statement added: “We are aware of the involvement of the Russian Federation government in providing material support to the deployment of the Wagner group in Mali and call on Russia to revert to a responsible and constructive behaviour in the region.” 

Wagner presence 

A French government source who asked not to be named said intense activity had been noted as the deployment went ahead. 

“We are seeing repeated air rotations with military transport planes belonging to the Russian army and installations at Bamako airport to allow the arrival of a significant number of mercenaries,” the source said. 

Also noted had been frequent visits by Wagner executives to Bamako and the activities by Russian geologists known for their association with Wagner, according to the source. 

Washington was not a signatory of the statement, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week warned Mali not to accept Wagner mercenaries, saying a deal would divert needed funds and further destabilize the country. 

There has been growing concern over the situation in Mali under transitional leader Colonel Assimi Goita, who took office in June after the country’s second coup in less than a year, and over fears a commitment to hold elections in February is slipping. 

The French source said the deployment of the Wagner troops was a “symptom” of the attitude of the current authorities toward transition and showed that rather than paving the way for civilian rule, they wanted to “stay in place.” 

Controversial actions 

The Wagner Group has caused controversy through its involvement in Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and the conflict in eastern Ukraine. European Union ministers have agreed to draw up more sanctions against Wagner. 

Russia denies any government link with the group, but the unit has been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to President Vladimir Putin who has been hit by separate sanctions over meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. 

Prigozhin, who has been dubbed “Putin’s chef” because of Kremlin catering contracts, denies any association with Wagner. 

Mali is the epicenter of an insurgency that began in the north of the country in 2012 and spread three years later to neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso. 

France intervened in 2013 and now has roughly 5,000 troops in the region, but it plans to lower that number to 2,500-3,000 by 2023. 

French President Emmanuel Macron was due to raise concerns about the Wagner deployment on a visit to Mali this week to meet Goita for the first time. 

His trip was scrapped, however, with Paris blaming the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paris has said that any deployment of Wagner militia would be incompatible with the presence of French troops.

The statement from the 15 powers indicated they planned to remain engaged in Mali, saying “we will not give up our efforts to address the needs of the Malian population.” 
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Belarus’s Interior Ministry has added RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, to its registry of extremist organizations, in a continued clampdown on independent media and civil society sparked by an eruption of protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko’s claim he won a presidential election last year that the opposition says was rigged.

According to the statement issued by the ministry on December 23, “a group of citizens associated via Radio Svaboda’s internet resources were determined to be an extremist group.”

The move means that Belarusians who subscribe to Radio Svaboda online could face up to six years in prison.

The move comes almost three weeks after a court in Minsk designated Radio Svaboda’s official Telegram channel and some of the broadcaster’s social media accounts as extremist.

Authorities in Belarus have declared hundreds of Telegram channels, blogs and chatrooms as “extremist” since the country was engulfed by protests since the August 2020 presidential election, which handed Lukashenko a sixth consecutive term.

In response, the government has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement, arresting thousands of people and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

Dozens of news websites have been blocked in Belarus and independent media shuttered as part of a sweeping crackdown on information in the wake of the unprecedented protests.

The website of RFE/RL’s Belarus Service has been blocked within Belarus since August 21, 2020, while the accreditation of all locally based journalists working for foreign media, including RFE/RL, were annulled by the Belarusian authorities in October 2020.

Lukashenko, who has run the country since 1994, has denied any fraud in the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on a political transition and new elections.

The West has refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus and in response has imposed several waves of sanctions against the government and other officials accused of aiding and benefiting from the crackdown.
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A freelance journalist, who has worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service, remains in jail on unspecified charges, despite serving two 10-day sentences on controversial hooliganism charges, his relatives said Thursday.

Andrey Kuznechyk’s family told RFE/RL that they were officially informed that the journalist was being transferred from the notorious Akrestsina detention center, where many inmates have said they were tortured, to another facility in Minsk. 

The family was also told that a criminal case on unspecified charges had been launched against Kuznechyk.

Kuznechyk has been held by authorities since late November.

After going for a bike ride on the 25th of last month, Kuznechyk returned to his apartment, accompanied by four men in civilian clothes, according to his wife, Alesya Rak. 

The men, who did not show any identification, then searched their apartment, Rak said, only avoiding the rooms of their two young children.

Kuznechyk was then led away by the group, who did not give a reason for his detention.

The journalist was sentenced to 10 days in jail the following day, after a trial in which he refused to accept a guilty verdict on hooliganism charges.

On December 6, when his initial sentence ended, he was not released, but handed another 10-day jail term, also on a hooliganism charge.

Kuznechyk’s relatives told RFE/RL at the time that the journalist continues to maintain his innocence.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has said the extension of Kuznechyk’s sentence “on absurdly fabricated charges” should be considered a crime in itself.

“Andrey’s state-sponsored kidnapping continues, all in furtherance of the Lukashenko regime’s efforts to block independent information from reaching the Belarusian people. Andrey should be allowed to return to his family immediately,” Fly said in a statement on December 6, referring to authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko.

Tensions have been running high in Belarus since Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of an August 2020 presidential election that opponents and the West say was rigged.

Many Western nations have since refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus, leaving him more reliant than ever on Russia, which analysts say is using his weakened position to strengthen its hold over its smaller neighbor.

Tens of thousands of people have been detained, and human rights activists say more than 800 people are now in jail as political prisoners.

Independent media and opposition social media channels have been targeted as well.

The group Reporters Without Borders has described Belarus as the most dangerous country in Europe for media personnel. 
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French schoolchildren clung nervously to their parents as they entered a vast vaccine center west of Paris on Wednesday — then walked excitedly away with a decorated “vaccination diploma,” as France kicked off mass COVID-19 inoculations for children age 5 to 11.

It’s not a moment too soon for the French government, which is facing the highest recorded infection rates since the pandemic began but trying to avoid a new lockdown.

The health minister said Wednesday that the swiftly-spreading omicron variant is expected to be dominant in France by next week, but ruled out additional restrictions on public life for now. Officials are hoping that a surge in vaccinations will be enough to limit the mounting pressure on hospitals, where COVID-19 patients occupy more than 60% of beds.

At a “vaccinodrome” in the Paris suburb of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, children lined up for first-day jabs Wednesday wearing masks adorned with puppies, flowers or Marvel superheros. 

One worked out his nerves by rolling his toy car on any surface he could find. Another played games on his mom’s phone. Eight-year-old Alvin Yin cried, while his 9-year-old sister Noemie tried to comfort him. 

Dimitri Marck, 8, admitted, “It’s a little weird. I heard about this on TV, and now I’m here.” But he said he’s glad to get vaccinated so he can see grandparents for the holidays.

France started vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds with health risks earlier this month and expanded it to all children in that age group Wednesday as part of accelerated vaccination efforts. Children need the consent of at least one parent, and one parent has to be present when they get a shot.

As of early December, more than 1,000 in every 100,000 children in France aged 6-10 were infected with coronavirus, according to government figures. Currently, 145 children are hospitalized for severe illness due to COVID-19 and 27 children are receiving medical treatment in intensive care units, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Wednesday on BFM television.

France registered 72,832 new cases Tuesday and has 16,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, among the highest numbers in Europe.

In a radio interview Wednesday, Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne asked companies to let employees work remotely wherever possible for at least three if not four days a week. French businesses largely returned to in-person work in 2020.

France has shut down nightclubs and banned New Year’s Eve fireworks and other mass end-of-year celebrations, including concerts.

“It’s an evening sacrificed for a good cause,” Veran said.

But his main message was to urge more vaccination. More than 89% of people 12 and over in France have had two doses, and about a third have had a booster shot.

Hugo, 8, was the last member of his family to get the shot and felt left out. His father, Benoit Chappaz, said they got him vaccinated “not because the government wants us to,” but for their family’s peace of mind and for general public health.

Nearby, American-born Evan, 7, squirmed in his chair. His great-uncle died with COVID-19, and his family knows several people who have been hospitalized with the virus.

Asked how he would face the injection, he said, “I’m going to scream. And then maybe if Mommy agrees, I can get an ice cream or something sweet, because I got a vaccine.”

As the doctor glided the needle into his arm, Evan didn’t scream. Instead, he wrapped himself around his mother and buried his head in her jacket.

Then as he left, he proudly held up his “diplome de vaccination.”
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Russian and U.S. negotiators will hold talks in January to discuss Moscow’s demand that NATO halt its eastward expansion into the countries of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said Wednesday.

“We don’t want a war,” Lavrov said. “We don’t want to take the path of confrontation. But we will firmly ensure our security using the means we consider necessary,” he said in an interview with Russian RT television.

The foreign minister’s remarks came as Russian energy giant Gazprom continued to restrict natural gas supplies to Europe, prompting renewed accusations the Kremlin is using energy exports as a political weapon.

Lavrov also said Russia would hold separate discussions with NATO, but that talks should not be dragged out. “I hope that they will take us seriously given the moves we take to ensure our defense capability,” he added.

Amid soaring geopolitical tensions over Ukraine, Russia last week presented the United States with draft treaties outlining a set of “security guarantees” the Kremlin is demanding, including a halt to any further enlargement of NATO and a commitment by the alliance not to deploy additional troops to countries that did not already have NATO ground forces present before 1997. That includes Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, which are all NATO members.

U.S. and Western officials fear Russian President Vladimir Putin is contemplating a repeat of 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and Russia used armed proxies to seize a large part of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The White House believes it only has a “four-week window” to stave off a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Monday dismissed claims Moscow is planning to attack Ukraine. But Russian officials have sounded increasingly belligerent. Putin on Tuesday used some of his most direct language so far about the escalating Ukraine standoff with the U.S. and NATO, telling top military officers in Moscow that if NATO does not stop what he says is aggressive behavior in Ukraine, Russia would respond in a “retaliatory military” manner.

“If the obviously aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate, retaliatory military-technical measures [and] react toughly to unfriendly steps,” Putin said in comments broadcast by Russian media.

While the United States and its NATO allies have said they’re willing to enter talks with Russia, Western diplomats have warned the Russian proposals aren’t acceptable in their current form. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried said talks would have better prospects if Russia deescalated its military buildup along its border with Ukraine.

“Any dialogue with Russia must address NATO’s and others’ concerns about Russia’s continued threatening behavior and be based on the core principles and foundational documents of European security. We will not compromise the key principles on which European security is built, including that all countries have the right to decide their own foreign and security policy course free from outside interference,” she said.

U.S. and NATO officials have been adamant that it is unreasonable for Moscow to seek a veto over the foreign policy direction chosen by Kyiv.   

Lavrov’s remarks Wednesday came after the Kremlin denied restricting natural gas exports to Europe and using energy supplies as a tool of coercive diplomacy.

Already high gas prices in Europe climbed once again midweek when flows through the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Germany stopped on Tuesday. The halt came after days of restricted supplies, which Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant, said had been necessary because of cold weather and high demand in Russia. The wholesale Dutch gas price, the benchmark for European prices, rose more than 20 percent midweek.

Gas supplies from Russia have fallen far short of pre-pandemic levels for months and this year have been almost a quarter below those in 2019. Western politicians have accused the Kremlin of using Russia’s vast gas reserves as a political weapon, aimed at cajoling the Europeans to accept Russian security demands.

In September, Gazprom also cut supplies by one-third to the former Soviet republic of Moldova, sparking a state of emergency in the country. Moldova aspires to join the European Union and has told Moscow it should not interfere in its efforts to do so.

The White House has said it will discuss Russia’s proposed “security guarantees” with European allies but has emphasized for days that Moscow would not be allowed to interfere in the foreign policy and security decisions of sovereign states. U.S. officials have also emphasized that there can be no separate bilateral deals made between Washington and Moscow over European security arrangements. NATO allies have to be fully involved, they say.

The unusual decision of the Russian Foreign Ministry to publish their draft treaties shortly after handing them to American officials has added to questions about the Kremlin’s sincerity in negotiating.

“The substance of the drafts and the way the Russians publicized them do not suggest a serious negotiating bid,” says Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based research group.

“The unacceptable provisions in the two draft agreements, their quick publication by the Russian government, and the peremptory terms used by Russian officials to describe Moscow’s demands raise concern that the Kremlin may want rejection. With large forces near Ukraine, Moscow could then cite that as another pretext for military action against its neighbor,” he said in a Brookings commentary.

Pifer added that if the draft agreements are part of “an opening bid,” and Moscow is seeking a serious exchange, some draft provisions, including a proposed ban on the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and consultative mechanisms, could offer a basis for negotiation.
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Turkish authorities arrested a U.S. diplomat in Turkey last month for allegedly selling a bogus passport to a Syrian national, according to Istanbul police.

Authorities identified the diplomat Wednesday by his initials, D.J.K. Officials also said they had video of the envoy handing the passport to a person they described as suspicious at Istanbul airport

The police said the diplomat, who works at the U.S. embassy in Beirut, remains in detention after they arrested him on November 11 with $10,000 in his possession. He was later charged with suspicion of selling the document, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

The news agency reported the Syrian was detained and questioned after trying to fly to Germany with the use of the passport that was in D.J.K.’s name. The news outlet said the Syrian was released pending possible proceedings for falsifying documents.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately comment on the matter.

U.S.-Turkey relations have been strained in recent years, in part by Ankara’s detention of U.S. diplomatic staff members accused of being associated with a network Turkey blames for a failed coup in 2016.

Some information in this report also came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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