Category: Europe

As Kyiv continues its offensive inside Russia and the Russian army nears a key hub in Ukraine’s Donbas region, leaders of more than 50 nations, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, met in Germany on Friday to help get Kyiv the support it seeks. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports.
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A Russian missile strike on the historic Ukrainian town of Lviv on September 4 killed at least seven people and damaged parts of the city’s historic downtown. On Thursday, rebuilding began, even as the city mourned the dead. Omelyan Oshchudlyak reports. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych.
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washington — Russia, Iran and China are ramping up efforts to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and down-ballot races, targeting American voters with an expanding array of sophisticated influence operations.

The latest assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, shared Friday, warns that Russia remains the preeminent threat, with Russian influence campaigns seeking to boost the chances of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump over Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.

Russian actors, led by networks created by the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, “are supporting Moscow’s efforts to influence voter preferences in favor of the former president and diminish the prospects of the vice president,” a senior intelligence official told reporters, briefing on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

“RT has built and used networks of U.S. and other Western personalities to create and disseminate Russia-friendly narratives while trying to mask the content in authentic Americans’ free speech,” the official said.

And RT, the official added, is just part of a growing Kremlin-directed campaign that is looking to impact not just the race for the White House, but smaller elections across the United States, with an added emphasis on swing states.

“Russia’s influence apparatus is very large and it’s worth highlighting that they have other entities that are active,” the official said. “Russia is working up and down ballot races, as well as spreading divisive issues.”

Tracking the Russian influence efforts has become more difficult, with U.S. officials saying that there is a greater degree of sophistication and an increased emphasis on amplifying American voices with pro-Russian views rather than seeding social media with narratives crafted in the Kremlin.

“It’s not just about Russian bots and trolls and fake social media persona, although that’s part of it,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told VOA Friday.

“We’re not taking anything for granted,” he added. “There’s no question that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has every intent to try to sow discord here in the United States, to try to pump disinformation and Russian propaganda through to the American people, through what he believes were our credible sources, be they online or on television and we have to take that seriously.”

The intelligence officials declined to share additional specifics about Russia’s network of influence operations. But indictments Wednesday from the U.S. Justice Department have shed some light on the scope of the Kremlin’s recent operations.

In one case, the U.S. charged two employees of RT with using fake personas and shell companies to funnel almost $10 million to Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company producing videos and podcasts for a stable of conservative political influencers.

The aim, prosecutors said, was to produce and disseminate content promoting what Moscow viewed as pro-Russian policies.

In a separate action, the U.S. seized 32 internet domains linked to an operation directed by a key aide to Putin. The aim, U.S. officials said, was to mimic legitimate U.S. news sites to spread Russian-created propaganda.

RT publicly ridiculed the allegations while some of the influencers working with Tenet posted statements on the X social media platform saying they were unaware of the company’s links to Moscow.

As for the latest U.S. intelligence allegations, the Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to VOA’s request for comments, though it has described previous accusations as “Russophobic.”

Requests for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns have also, so far, gone unanswered.

But earlier U.S. intelligence assertions of Russian support for Trump have raised the ire of the Trump campaign, which has pointed to public statements by Russia’s Putin supporting Trump’s opponents.

“When President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America’s adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond,” national press secretary for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, told VOA in an email this past July.

U.S. intelligence officials, however, said it would be a mistake to put any faith in Putin’s words, including public comments Thursday expressing support for Harris.

The U.S. intelligence community “does not take Putin’s public statements as representative of Russia’s covert intentions,” the senior official said. “There are many examples over the past several years where Putin’s public statements do not align with Russian actions. For example, his comments that he would not invade Ukraine.”

Experts say Iran, China trying to influence results

U.S. intelligence agencies Friday emphasized Russia is not alone in its effort to shape the outcome of the U.S. elections in November, warning both Tehran and Beijing are sharpening their influence campaigns with just about 60 days until America voters go to the polls.

“Iran is making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year’s elections, even as its tactics and approaches are similar to prior cycles,” the intelligence official said, describing a “multi-pronged approach to stoke internal divisions and undermine voter confidence in the U.S. democratic system.

U.S. intelligence agencies previously assessed that Iran has focused part of its efforts on denigrating the Trump campaign, seeing his election as likely to worsen tensions between Tehran and Washington.

U.S. officials last month also blamed Iran for a hack-and-leak operation targeting the Trump campaign, though they said that Iran-linked actors have also sought to infiltrate the Harris campaign.

As for China, U.S. intelligence officials said it appears Beijing is still content to stay out of the U.S. presidential race, seeing little difference between Trump and Harris.

But there are indications China is accelerating its efforts to impact other political races.

U.S. intelligence “is aware of PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempts to influence U.S. down-ballot races by focusing on candidates it views as particularly threatening to core PRC security interests,” the official said.

“PRC online influence actors have also continued small scale efforts on social media to engage U.S. audiences on divisive political issues, including protests about the Israel-Gaza conflict and promote negative stories about both political parties,” the official added.

‘Malicious speculations against China’

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, Friday, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment.

“China has no intention and will not interfere in the U.S. election, and we hope that the U.S. side will not make an issue of China in the election,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email.

Liu added that accusations Beijing is using social media to sway U.S. public opinion “are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes.”

While U.S. intelligence officials have identified Russia, Iran and China, as the most prominent purveyors of disinformation, they are not alone.

Officials have said countries like Cuba are also engaging in influence operations, though at a much smaller scale.

And other countries are edging closer to crossing that line.

“We are seeing a number of countries considering activities that, at a minimum, test the boundaries of election influence,” according to the U.S. assessment. “Such activities include lobbying political figures to try to curry favor with them in the event they are elected to office.”

Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report.
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Ukraine has a new foreign minister, one of the latest moves as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy embarks on the largest overhaul of his administration since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports on the appointment of nine new ministers in the Cabinet shakeup. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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Warsaw — A Polish court on Friday ordered the arrest of three Belarusian officials accused of illegally diverting a Ryanair flight in 2021 in order to seize a dissident journalist on board. 

Air traffic control officials forced the plane heading from Greece to Lithuania to land in Minsk after a false bomb alert and arrested journalist Roman Protasevich and his companion Sofia Sapega. 

Following investigations, “the Warsaw regional court announced three arrest orders for three people” involved in the diverting of the Polish-registered plane, the tribunal’s spokeswoman, Anna Ptaszek. 

Poland’s state prosecution service identified them as a former director of the Belarusian aviation agency, a team leader at Minsk air traffic control, and an official from Belarus’s KGB security service. 

The three men are residents outside Poland, but Ptaszek said the court orders “allow prosecutors to seek procedures to pursue them internationally”, Ptaszek said. 

The court said the three face possible sentences of 15 years for diverting an aircraft, on aggravated charges categorizing it as a “terrorist” action. 

Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza cited audio recordings from the Minsk airport control tower on the day of the flight that were leaked by a controller who later fled to Poland. 

In January 2022 a New York federal court charged four Belarusians with “conspiracy to commit aircraft piracy.”

The U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization called the diversion “unlawful.” 

The bomb threat “was deliberately false” and was ordered by “senior government officials of Belarus,” it said in a statement in July 2022. 

Protasevich was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2023 but was later pardoned after recording a “confession” video that his allies said was coerced. 
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Amy Kellogg — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced Wednesday that he is pardoning another 30 political prisoners, the third such prisoner release in the past three months.

The names of those released were not published, but the country’s most famous prisoner of conscience, prominent opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava, is not expected to be included. She was part of the troika of women including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Veronika Tsepkalo who ran a united campaign for change against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election.

Even so, Kalesnikava’s sister Tanya Khomich is hoping the recent pardons are a signal to the world that Lukashenko may be ready to bargain for the freedom of other political prisoners in exchange for some sort of concessions.

Khomich also hopes that Luksashenko, who has held power in Belarus for the last 30 years, may be thinking of his own future, and could be open to appeals from Western countries to release the prisoners.

“Luksashenko doesn’t want to be forgotten once peace happens with Ukraine,” Komich told VOA. “He doesn’t want Belarus to be swallowed altogether by Russia either.”

There is mounting urgency in Kalesnikava’s case, because she and Belarus’ highest-profile prisoners have been held incommunicado for nearly 600 days. People close to them say there is a terrifying total blackout on any official details about their conditions.

Kalesnikava, along with Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and others, have been denied letters, lawyer visits and phone calls, according to supporters and families.

But whispers always manage to escape prison walls, and the latest to reach Khomich is that the1.7 meter tall Kalesnikava now weighs under 45 kilograms and is unsure she will make it out of detention alive.

“Just imagine,” Khomich said. “It is the 21st century, we are in the center of Europe and someone is starving. Maria is kept incommunicado. Please don’t let her die of hunger.”

Kalesnikava, who became critically ill in prison from a perforated ulcer, needs a special diet that is not provided for her, according to her sister.

Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to government-in-exile chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, feels equal urgency about freeing political prisoners.

He said the 30 names on the list were serving short terms and were in for more minor “offenses,” such as commenting or liking anti-regime posts on social media. And while he says he is happy about anyone getting out of prison, he suggested the pardons are not a sign that Lukashenko is softening his stance, but simply attempting to clean up his image.

“State propaganda advertises this as a big humanitarian gesture by the regime,” Viacorka said. “It’s Lukashenko’s act before so-called elections next year to show how human he is and that he cares about people, because even his supporters are not happy about the cruel repressions that are taking place.”

Viacorka also said international diplomatic pressure was involved in Lukashenko’s move to pardon the 30 political prisoners, but that domestic public opinion also played a role. He noted that those pardoned will not be entirely “free,” but released from prison and monitored via secret services, with some possibly blocked from leaving the country.

“Most of them were forced to write a pardon letter to Lukashenko and confess to crimes they never committed,” he said. “This is also a form of humiliation for the people, but it also shows Lukashenko very well. He wants people to recognize his power. To humiliate them and make them recognize his power.”

Despite the pardons, Viacorka says the human rights situation in Belarus has deteriorated lately, with jail terms increasing from a few to 10 or 15 years. Political prisoners are forced to wear yellow badges so that other detainees know not to talk to them in the event of a chance encounter.

“They want to break them emotionally,” Tanya Khomich said, noting that her imprisoned sister alternates between an “isolation cell” and a “punishment cell,” describing each as small fetid rooms with hole-in-the-floor toilets. A major difference, Khomich said, is that in the isolation cell, Maria Kalesnikava can have her toothbrush and soap, while in the punishment cell, she is not allowed any personal items.

With repression this intense and the Belarusian KGB vigorously and effectively monitoring electronic communications, Viacorka said, opposition activity is now happening “offline.”

“People meet in private apartments, they distribute samizdat,” he said, describing clandestinely self-published material. “There are plenty of cyber partisans too. Belarus has good hackers.”

According to Viacorka, many of these “cyber partisans” are state employees that secretly help the opposition, which provides Western countries information about what and whom in Belarus to sanction. There are also groups trying to assist Ukrainians and to keep Belarus officially out of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Still, Viacorka said the opposition in exile is actively discouraging people inside Belarus from engaging in any open political activity at this moment of chaos, with war ongoing in Ukraine.

“We shouldn’t sacrifice people lightly while we don’t have clarity,” he said. “Lukashenko makes mistakes. We want to be ready when the moment is right. Right now, we are at the peak of terror.”

And while Lukashenko’s regime has silenced Maria Kalesnikava and other opposition activists by jailing them, the Belarusian people have not forgotten these prisoners, Viacorka said.

Noting the prominent role that women play in the opposition, he added: “I see what they say about woman power. The toxic masculinity of Lukashenko versus the female empathy of our leaders is what makes our movement so sustainable.”
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RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Friday with top United States military leaders and more than 50 partner nations in Germany to press for more weapons support as Washington announced it would provide another $250 million in security assistance to Kyiv.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the meeting of the leaders was taking place during a dynamic moment in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, as it conducts its first offensive operations of the war while facing a significant threat from Russian forces near a key hub in the Donbas.

So far, the surprise assault inside Russia’s Kursk territory has not drawn away President Vladimir Putin’s focus from taking the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, which provides critical rail and supply links for the Ukrainian army. Losing Pokrovsk could put additional Ukrainian cities at risk.

While Kursk has put Russia on the defensive, “we know Putin’s malice runs deep,” Austin cautioned in prepared remarks to the media before the Ukraine Defense Contact Group met. Moscow is pressing on, especially around Pokrovsk, Austin said.

Recent deadly airstrikes by Russia have renewed Zelenskyy’s calls for the U.S. to further loosen restrictions and obtain even greater Western capabilities to strike deeper inside Russia. However, the meeting Friday was expected to focus on resourcing more air defense and artillery supplies and shoring up gains on expanding Ukraine’s own defense industrial base, to put it on more solid footing as the final days of Joe Biden’s U.S. presidency wind down.

Zelenskyy said he would continue to press for the long-range strike capability. “Strong long-range decisions by partners are needed to bring the just peace we seek closer,” Zelenskyy said Friday on Telegram.

Western partner nations were working with Ukraine to source a substitute missile for its Soviet-era S-300 air defense systems, Austin said.

The U.S. is also focused on resourcing a variety of air-to-ground missiles that the newly delivered F-16 fighter jets can carry, including the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, which could give Ukraine a longer-range cruise missile option, said Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer, who spoke to reporters traveling with Austin.

No decisions on the munition have been made, LaPlante said, noting that policymakers would still have to decide whether to give Ukraine the longer-range capability.

“I would just put JASSM in that category, it’s something that is always being looked at,” LaPlante said. “Anything that’s an air-to-ground weapon is always being looked at.”

For the past two years, members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group have met to resource Ukraine’s mammoth artillery and air defense needs, ranging from hundreds of millions of rounds of small arms ammunition to some of the West’s most sophisticated air defense systems, and now fighter jets. The ask this month was more of the same — but different in that it was in person, and followed a similar in-person visit Thursday in Kyiv by Biden’s Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer as Zelenskyy shores up U.S. support before the administration changes.

Since 2022, the member nations together have provided about $106 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. The U.S. has provided more than $56 billion of that total.

The German government said Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to meet Zelenskyy in Frankfurt on Friday afternoon.
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Russia appears to be struggling to find buyers for its liquefied natural gas from a flagship Arctic development after the West imposed sanctions, forcing Moscow to store the gas in a huge container vessel in the Arctic Sea. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Washington — The United States has charged five Russian intelligence officers and one Russian civilian in connection with a major cyberattack, described by U.S. prosecutors as the first shot in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

The Justice Department unsealed the superseding indictment Thursday, accusing the Russians of carrying out the January 2022 “WhisperGate” malware attack that sought to debilitate Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure ahead of the Russian invasion the following month.

“The WhisperGate campaign included the targeting of civilian infrastructure and Ukrainian computer systems wholly unrelated to the military or national defense, that include government agencies responsible for emergency services in Ukraine, the judiciary, food safety and education, seeking to sap the morale of the Ukrainian public,” said U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.

The attack “could be considered the first shot of the war,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Bill DelBagno, speaking alongside Olsen during a news conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

DelBagno said the WhisperGate campaign also targeted the United States and dozens of NATO allies, going as far as to infiltrate a U.S. government agency based in Maryland while simultaneously accessing U.S. bank accounts.

“The FBI, along with our law enforcement partners and allies, will relentlessly hunt down and counter these threats,” he said. “This type of cyber warfare will not be tolerated. The scope of Russia’s crimes cannot be ignored.”

Thursday’s superseding indictment, the result of an FBI operation named “Toy Soldier,” builds on charges first filed in June against 22-year-old Russian Amin Stigal, a civilian accused of leveraging malware to aid Russian intelligence ahead of the invasion of Ukraine.

As part of the attack, Stigal and the agents with Unit 21955 of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, or GRU, used the cyberinfrastructure of some U.S.-based companies to launch what first appeared to be ransomware attacks, but which were actually designed to wipe out critical data.

The new indictment names Stigal’s Russian GRU accomplices as Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Yuriy Denisov, Dmitriy Goloshubov and Nikolay Korchagin.

FBI officials said the GRU unit has also operated under the names Cadet Blizzard, Ember Bear and Dev-0586, carrying out cyberattacks on critical infrastructure across Europe, Central America and Asia.

In addition to the new charges, U.S. officials said they are offering a reward of up to $10 million for each of the Russians named in the criminal complaint.

The officials said they are also working with Interpol to serve notices that could help lead to the arrest of the six Russians.

“They are marked people,” Olsen said. “We know who they are. There’s a reward on their head, and we’re going to pursue them relentlessly.”

“The message is clear,” he said. “To the GRU, to the Russians, we are onto you.”

In addition to the charges, the FBI and its partners on Thursday issued a cybersecurity advisory telling organizations and companies to fix known vulnerabilities that could be exploited by the GRU’s Unit 21955.

The Russian Embassy in Washington has yet to respond to a VOA request for comment.

Meanwhile, some U.S. allies announced their own plans to crack down on Russian intelligence.

Estonia on Thursday announced it has attributed a 2020 cyberattack on three of its government ministries and is seeking the arrest of three members of the GRU’s Unit 21955.

“Russia’s aim was to damage national computer systems, obtain sensitive information and strike a blow against our sense of security,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in a statement.

“Estonia condemns any malign activity, including cyberactivity that threatens our institutions, our citizens and our security,” Tsahkna said.

Thursday’s charges by the U.S. against Russian agents are the latest in a series of measures by Washington to crack down on what it describes as Moscow’s malign activity.

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department charged a U.S. television presenter for Channel One Russia and his wife with sanctions evasion.

On Wednesday, the U.S. charged two Russian nationals employed by the Kremlin-backed RT media outlet with funneling almost $10 million to a U.S.-based media company to spread pro-Russian disinformation.

The Justice Department on Wednesday also announced the takedown of 32 internet domains linked to what officials described as a separate Russian operation aimed at influencing the U.S. presidential election.

VOA’s United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
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A new conscription law has been in force in Ukraine for more than three months, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the mobilization has been going according to plan. But studies suggest Ukrainians are ambivalent about the law. Lesia Bakalets in Kyiv looks at the reasons. Videographer: Vladyslav Smilianets
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