VALENCIA, SPAIN — Spain will deploy 10,000 more troops and police officers to the eastern Valencia region devastated by floods that have killed 211 people, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday.

Sanchez said in a televised address that he accepted the regional leader’s request for 5,000 more troops and informed him of a further deployment of 5,000 police officers and civil guards. 

Meanwhile, rescuers resumed a grim search for bodies as the nation scrambled to organize aid to stricken citizens.

Hopes of finding survivors more than three days after torrents of mud-filled water submerged towns and wrecked infrastructure were slim in the European country’s deadliest such disaster in decades.

Almost all deaths have been recorded in the eastern Valencia region, where thousands of soldiers, police officers and civil guards were frantically clearing debris and mud in the search for bodies.

Officials have said that dozens of people remain unaccounted for, but establishing a precise figure is difficult with telephone and transport networks severely damaged.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska on Friday told Cadena Ser radio station that 207 people had died and that it was “reasonable” to believe more fatalities would emerge.

It is also hoped that the estimated number of missing people will fall once telephone and internet services are running again.

Restoring order and distributing aid to destroyed towns and villages — some of which have been cut off from food, water and power for days — is a priority.

Authorities have come under fire over the adequacy of warning systems before the floods, and some residents have also complained that the response to the disaster is too slow.

Susana Camarero, deputy head of the Valencia region, told journalists on Saturday that essential supplies had been delivered “from day one” to all accessible settlements.

But it was “logical” that affected residents were asking for more, she said.

Authorities in Valencia have restricted access to roads for two days to allow emergency services to carry out search, rescue and logistics operations more effectively.

 

‘Overwhelmed’ by solidarity

Thousands of people pushing shopping trolleys and carrying cleaning equipment took to the streets on Friday to help with the effort to clean up.

Camarero said some municipalities were “overwhelmed by the amount of solidarity and food” they had received.

The surge of solidarity continued Saturday as around 1,000 people set off from the Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia toward nearby towns laid waste by the floods, an AFP journalist saw.

Authorities have urged them to stay at home to avoid congestion on the roads that would hamper the work of emergency services.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez chaired a meeting of a crisis committee made up of top cabinet members on Saturday and is due to address the country later.

The storm that sparked the floods on Tuesday formed as cold air moved over the warm waters of the Mediterranean and is common for this time of year.

But scientists warn that climate change driven by human activity is increasing the ferocity, length and frequency of such extreme weather events.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed an overnight drone attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv that lasted into late morning and wounded at least one person, city officials said on Saturday.

Debris from downed drones struck six city districts, wounding a police officer, damaging residential buildings and starting fires, according to city military administrator Serhiy Popko.

Mayor Vitalii Klitschko had earlier reported that two people had been injured.

“Another night. Another air-raid alert. Another drone attack. The armed forces of the Russian Federation attacked Kyiv again according to their old and familiar tactics,” Popko wrote on social media.

He said all the drones aimed at Kyiv had been shot down, but warned that others currently located in airspace outside the city could turn toward the capital.

Reuters correspondents reported hearing explosions in and around the city during an air-raid alert that lasted more than five hours.

Russia has carried out regular airstrikes on Ukrainian towns and cities behind the front lines of the war which began when Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.

Kyiv’s military said on Friday that Moscow’s forces had launched more than 2,000 drones at civilian and military targets across Ukraine in October alone.

Russia has denied aiming at civilians and said power facilities are legitimate targets when they are part of Ukrainian military infrastructure.
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A 22-year-old Russian man considered a political prisoner by activists has died in a penal colony in Belarus, human rights group Viasna said Friday.

The rights group said it confirmed the death of Dmitry Shletgauer, who was recently transferred to a penal colony in Mogilev in eastern Belarus.

Viasna said Shletgauer had been at the penal colony for a short time before his death.

“Provisionally, this happened on October 11,” the rights group said. “He spent less than a month in the penal colony. The exact cause of death is unknown.”

Shletgauer received a 12-year sentence after being convicted of espionage and facilitating extremist activities.

He was arrested in the crackdown in Belarus that occurred after the disputed 2020 presidential election of Alexander Lukashenko that gave the strongman a sixth term.

In September, Shletgauer joined Viasna’s list of recognized political prisoners in Belarus.

Belarus, a close ally of Russia, is reported to have approximately 1,300 political prisoners, according to Viasna.

Radio Free Europe reports Shletgauer was born in Slavgorod, Russia, and acquired residency in Belarus in 2018.

Some information for this story came from Agence France-Presse.
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When the U.S. Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on three companies belonging to Denis Postovoy on Wednesday, it was yet another move to break up what U.S. authorities say was an international scheme to violate sanctions.

A month earlier, on September 16, law enforcement officials arrested the 44-year-old Russian national in Sarasota, Florida.

He was charged with conspiring to violate sanctions on Russia, commit smuggling, commit money laundering and defraud the United States.

According to the indictment, Postovoy used an international network of companies to export dual-use microelectronic components from the United States to Russia –– potentially spare parts for military drones used in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

Postovoy is not the first Russian charged with violating U.S. export controls. But he is one of the few who allegedly did it from inside the United States.

Using court documents and open-source information, VOA pieced together Postovoy’s history, revealing a story involving international trade, criminal charges in two countries, a U.S. startup and Florida real estate.

Postovoy pleaded not guilty to all the charges. If convicted, he could face decades in prison.

Postovoy is in pretrial detention and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer did not respond to a VOA request for comment. When VOA reached Postovoy’s wife by phone, she hung up. She did not respond to questions sent to her on the WhatsApp messenger app.

According to the latest court filings, Postovoy’s case was transferred to the U.S. District Court in Washington.

American charges

After Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the U.S. significantly expanded restrictions on the export of microelectronics to Russia.

The Department of Justice has accused Postovoy and several unnamed co-conspirators of using a network of companies under their control in Hong Kong, Switzerland and Russia to violate those sanctions.

It claims Postovoy misrepresented the buyers and destinations of the goods, routing them through Hong Kong, Switzerland, Turkey and Estonia.

“As alleged, he lied about the final destination for the technology he was shipping and used intermediary destinations to mask this illegal activity,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves stated in a press release. “Fortunately, our skilled law enforcement partners at HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] and our dedicated attorneys unraveled the plot.”

The prosecution states that Postovoy’s clients included the Russian company Streloi Ekommerts and other unnamed firms. According to the indictment, the contract with Streloi was completed before the company was added to the U.S. sanctions list in December 2023.

An investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty found that Streloi actively helps Russia circumvent Western export restrictions.

Another recipient of the microelectronics, according to an invoice included in the case materials, was the Russian technology company Radius Avtomatika.

Neither company responded to emailed questions from VOA.

It is unclear whether the microelectronics Postovoy allegedly exported were ultimately used in drones, but one court document states that the people he contacted were members of Russia’s military-industrial complex.

Hong Kong story

Originally from Novosibirsk, Russia, Postovoy had lived in Hong Kong since at least 2010 with his wife — a Ukrainian citizen from Crimea — and their three children.

Shipping records indicate his companies were involved in exporting goods from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, to Russia. Prosecutors allege that after the U.S. expanded its sanctions, some of this activity became illegal.

When the DOJ announced Postovoy’s arrest, it also listed the names of his companies that it said were involved in the alleged scheme. Aside from the Russian-registered firm Vektor Group, all the others were in Hong Kong: Jove HK Limited, JST Group Hong Kong and WowCube HK Limited.

All are now under U.S. sanctions, except for WowCube HK Limited.

Its appearance in the indictment provoked a rapid response from Cubios, another company previously associated with Postovoy. It produces the WOWCube gaming console, wich looks like a Rubik’s cube with multiple screens.

Just a day after Postovoy’s arrest was announced, Cubios publicly denied any connection to WowCube HK Limited.

“Neither Cubios nor any of its officers, directors, managers or employees … have any connection to the HK Entity whatsoever. We do not own, operate or are in any way affiliated with the HK Entity,” the company said in a statement on its website.

The startup also said that Postovoy “falsely listed himself as a VP of the Company” on LinkedIn.

In fact, Postovoy was previously Cubios’ vice president for production, according to archived versions of its website.

Ilya Osipov, CEO of Cubios, told VOA that a mutual friend introduced him to Postovoy.

“I was looking for someone who could help with production in China — they gave me Denis,” he wrote in a message to VOA.

According to Osipov, Postovoy became a business partner and made important contributions to prototypes and test batches of the WOWCube. Later the company decreased cooperation with him.

Although Postovoy did not have an official position, Cubios allowed him to call himself the vice president of production “for business purposes,” Osipov told VOA.

He claimed that Postovoy founded the Hong Kong firm without Cubios’ permission. It was planned to become a distributor of the consoles in Asia, but that never happened, Osipov said.

Coming to America

In 2022, Postovoy and his family moved to Sarasota, Florida, where Cubios’ headquarters is.

According to Osipov, Postovoy said the move was motivated by a desire to raise children in a Western country and concerns about increasingly strict Chinese control of Hong Kong.

American prosecutors see a different motivation.

In a response to U.S. federal investigators included in the case materials, Hong Kong police said Postovoy was charged on March 1, 2022, with money laundering — a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison and a fine of up to $643,000.

According to the email, Postovoy was scheduled to appear in court on March 4 but left Hong Kong the day before.

Hong Kong police did not respond to VOA’s request for comment.

By June 2022, Postovoy’s wife purchased a house in southeastern Sarasota.

Sarasota County property records indicate the house was valued at around $980,000. A mortgage covered $680,000 of the cost.

In August 2023, Postovoy bought another house, in the new Rivo Lakes gated community in Sarasota. According to purchase documents, it cost $1.13 million. In September, he transferred it to a trust controlled by his wife.

On the same day, his wife transferred the house to another trust and later sold the property.

According to a U.S. magistrate judge, Postovoy’s decision to transfer the second house into a trust was likely an attempt to conceal his ownership.

He “did not list his home — which is valued at nearly a million dollars and held in the name of a trust controlled by his wife — on his financial affidavit submitted to this Court,” the judge wrote in a decision not to grant Postovoy bail.

This may not be the only attempted cover-up in the case: Russian company records indicate that, in December 2023, a man named Dmitry Smirnov replaced Postovoy as owner of his Vektor Group company.

VOA’s Cantonese Service contributed research to this story.
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istanbul — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday sued the main opposition leader and Istanbul’s powerful mayor over allegedly slanderous remarks made at a protest rally a day earlier, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Filed on Friday, the two separate lawsuits targeted Ozgur Ozel, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, also a top party official.

One accused Ozel of “publicly insulting the president” and “clearly committing a crime against the reputation and honor of the office of the presidency.”

The second suit alleged Imamoglu had made “unfounded accusations including slander, that violated Erdogan’s rights” and had “acted with the aim of humiliating the president in front of the public.”

Each lawsuit sought 1 million Turkish lira ($30,000) in damages from the accused.

The legal action centers on remarks the pair allegedly made Thursday at a demonstration in the Istanbul district of Esenyurt a day after police arrested its opposition mayor for alleged links to the banned Kurdish PKK militant group.

It was not immediately clear which remarks prompted the legal action, but Ozel, who took over as CHP leader just a year ago, quickly hit back.

Erdogan “pretends to have been insulted without any insult being made, and tries to make himself the victim … as if it was not he who insulted and victimized Esenyurt” by arresting its mayor, he told reporters. 

Imamoglu, who was elected as Istanbul mayor in 2019, is often portrayed as Erdogan’s biggest political rival and is widely expected to run in the 2028 presidential race. He is seen as one of Turkey’s most popular politicians.

Two years ago, Imamoglu was sued for defamation after describing Istanbul election officials as “idiots” during the 2019 Istanbul mayoral election.

A court found him guilty, sentenced him to nearly three years in jail and barred him from politics for the duration of the sentence, prompting an international outcry.

Imamoglu has appealed while continuing to serve as mayor.

At the time, Erdogan insisted the case had nothing to do with him.

The 70-year-old Turkish leader launched his own political career in the 1990s by being elected as mayor of Istanbul.
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Moldova’s Constitutional Court on Thursday validated the results of last month’s referendum, formally recognizing the country’s decision to join the European Union.

The “yes” result, however, was an incredibly close one, much closer than polls had predicted, and the road toward EU membership for Moldova is not expected to be smooth either.

Supporters of the measure attribute the much closer than expected result to Russian meddling in the run-up to the vote held on October 20, together with the presidential election.

Both campaigns were marred by massive Russian disinformation and an alleged vote-buying scheme said to have cost the Kremlin tens of millions of dollars.  Some have described an atmosphere of bitterness and division with unprecedented mud-slinging and “hate speech,” including ethnic slurs and fascist tropes, leaving the country, some would say, dangerously divided.

The top two presidential candidates, incumbent pro-Europe President Maia Sandu and pro-Kremlin former prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo, face a run-off vote on Sunday.

“I hope that the pro-European forces, that Maia Sandu will win elections, but I am worried that this victory will be achieved with a small margin,” Ludmila Barba, host of Moldovan program The European Vector, told VOA.  “That was the case with the referendum. And this state of affairs means that this antagonism in society will remain.”

Moldova is a parliamentary republic and those elections will take place next year. Right now, the government is controlled by Sandu’s PAS party, but some predict it could lose control next year.

Analysts expect Moldova will remain a battleground for hearts, minds and political allegiances for some time to come and Moscow is no doubt poised to further exploit divisions. It has been throwing its weight around Moldova since the collapse of the USSR but has been honing its meddling technique since last year’s local elections.

“It was like a bootcamp for them [the Kremlin] for interference and then they scaled it,” Orysia Lutsevych, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at London’s Chatham House, told VOA. “They’ve seen what worked and that was vote-buying, trying to put eggs in different baskets … but underneath it all, having influence, having them on the payroll of Russia.”

The most audacious part of the scheme was the participation of fugitive Russia-based oligarch Ilan Shor, who was convicted in 2017 of banking fraud in Moldova. He is accused of buying off a network of up to 300,000 Moldovans, paying them to vote against Europe in last month’s referendum.

“They have been paid for their activity, from the equivalent of 50 euros a month and up.  It’s not big money, but when you take into account the complicated economic and social situation in Moldova, for people with a low income, these 50 euros are important,” Barba said.

President Sandu called out the scheme but was unable to stop it.

Moldovan runoff follows Georgia election

Moldova’s runoff comes on the heels of a hotly disputed victory for Georgia’s pro-Russian Georgian Dream party.

Georgia’s opposition-aligned president, Salome Zourabichvili, declared the results illegitimate, describing a “Russian Special Operation” to undermine the vote and she is fighting back, at this point, with uncertain effect.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE]) has noted voter intimidation, ballot stuffing and bribery in Georgia, but Moscow claims its hands are clean. Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the showing by the pro-Russian party is a dramatic turn for a country that had full-blown war with Russia in 2008.

“I would never have imagined Russia or a Russian agenda having such a strong comeback in Georgia. There was for a while so much open hatred toward Russia, that anything suspected to be related to Russia would immediately be rejected,” Lutsevych said.

“This is where Russians are smart in how they play the subversion game. They are not openly saying this is a Russian agenda.”

The recent passage in Georgia of a “Foreign Agent” law, an act clearly inspired by Moscow, got the EU to pause further discussion about bringing Georgia into the bloc.  And the conduct of last week’s elections was to be another “litmus test” for Brussels on Tbilisi’s readiness to join.

While there may be clever, forward-thinking manipulation on the part of Moscow, Barba says one cannot ignore the effect of the immediate raw rage coming from the Kremlin.

“This is the first election since the Russian aggression in Ukraine began. The situation is more complicated because Russia is furious that it didn’t manage to take Ukraine in three days and that makes it more aggressive,” she says.

“Since it was not able to clinch victory in Ukraine, it is going after smaller ones in Georgia and Moldova to prove or assert its status.”

For the people of Moldova, fear has become the main theme of the elections. Barba points out that the pro-Russian side has said that if Moldova stays close to Russia, “the country will be safe. That Ukraine has war because they went toward the EU.”

“That narrative is going around. And thepro-Europeans say if we end up with Russia, we will have war, we will be dragged in.  Both sides are trying to say that the other option could lead to war.”

According to Lutsevych, fear can ultimately drown out Sandu’s main message that Moldova can have a brighter future with Europe. And this is taking its toll on some young members of Sandu’s team.

“They don’t feel it’s a fair game. They don’t feel they can win against that. It’s so powerful. It’s hard to compete when someone like Russia fuels anger, fear, and you have to compete on a positive agenda.”

Still, getting into Europe is a fight in itself and Lutsevych praises Sandu for taking up that fight. And the nature of this election campaign, she concludes, has put Moldova more front and center on Europe’s agenda and perhaps put enhanced focus on what Russia is doing on the sidelines of the Ukraine war.
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The United States is watching growing cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic closely and some of their recent military collaboration in the region sends “concerning signals”, the U.S. Arctic ambassador said.  

Russia and China have stepped up military cooperation in the Arctic while deepening overall ties in recent years that include China supplying Moscow with dual-use goods despite Western sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine. 

Russia and the United States are among eight countries with territory in the resource-rich Arctic. China calls itself a “near-Arctic” state and wants to create a “Polar Silk Road” in the Arctic, a new shipping route as the polar ice sheet recedes with rising temperatures.  

Michael Sfraga, the United States’ first ambassador-at-large for Arctic affairs, said the “frequency and the complexity” of recent military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing in the region sent “concerning signals”. 

“The fact that they are working together in the Arctic has our attention,” Sfraga, who was sworn in last month, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Alaska. “We are being both vigilant and diligent about this. We’re watching very closely this evolution of their activity.” 

“It raises our radar, literally and figuratively,” he added.

Sfraga cited a joint run by Russian and Chinese bomber planes off the coast of Alaska in July, and Chinese and Russian coast guard ships sailing together through the Bering Strait in October.  

He said these activities had been conducted in international waters, in line with international law, but the fact that the bombers flew off the coast of Alaska had raised concerns for U.S. security. 

“We do need to think about security, heighten our own alliances, our own mutual defences,” Sfraga said. “Alaska, the North American Arctic, is NATO’s western flank and so we need to think about the Arctic that way.” 

The activity was also a concern for U.S. allies as the Bering Strait and the Bering Sea give access to the North Pacific and South Pacific, he said. 

The Pentagon said in a report released in July that the growing alignment between Russia and China in the Arctic was “a concern”.  

China and Russia are trying to develop Arctic shipping routes as Moscow seeks to deliver more oil and gas to China amid Western sanctions. Beijing is seeking an alternative shipping route to reduce its dependence on the Strait of Malacca. 

The Arctic also holds fossil fuels and minerals beneath the land and the seabed that could become more accessible with global warming.  
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TOKYO — Japan and the European Union announced a sweeping new security and defense partnership in Tokyo on Friday. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell hailed it as a historic and “very timely” step.

Borrell and his Japanese counterpart, Takeshi Iwaya, unveiled the pact to develop cooperation on joint military drills, the exchange of information related to the defense industry and space security, among other matters.

“I am extremely pleased to be here with Minister Iwaya to announce the conclusion of this security and defense partnership between the European Union and Japan,” Borrell said.

He called it the “the first agreement of this nature” the EU has made with an Asia-Pacific country, describing it as “historical and very timely.”

“We live in a very dangerous world” and “given the situation in both of our regions, this political framework deepens our ability to tackle emerging threats together,” Borrell told reporters.

He did not mention China, but Japan has previously called its neighbor its greatest security challenge as Beijing builds up military capacity in the region.

After the Tokyo talks, Borrell heads to South Korea, where concerns about North Korea will top the agenda.

The United States has said thousands of North Korean troops are in Russia readying to fight in Ukraine.

Pyongyang also test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles on Thursday, demonstrating its threat to the US mainland days ahead of elections.

Defense industries

The text of the EU-Japan Security and Defense Partnership, seen by Agence France-Presse, said they would promote “concrete naval cooperation,” including through activities such as joint exercises and port calls, which could also include “mutually designated third countries.”

It also said the EU and Japan would discuss “the development of respective defense initiatives including exchange of information on defense industry-related matters.”

Japan, which for decades has relied on the United States for military hardware, is also developing a new fighter jet with EU member Italy and Britain that is set to be airborne by 2035.

The agreement on industrial cooperation could “turbo-charge collaboration, such that joint defense projects between Japanese and European firms funded through EU mechanisms may be on the cards,” analyst Yee Kuang Heng of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy told AFP.

Japan is ramping up defense spending to the NATO standard of 2% of GDP by 2027, partly to counter China, which is increasing military pressure on Taiwan.

Beijing claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring it under its control.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who could head a minority government after a disastrous general election last week, has said that “today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia.”

Ishiba has also called for the creation of a NATO-like regional alliance with its tenet of collective security, although he has conceded this will “not happen overnight.”

The same warning was issued by Ishiba’s predecessor, Fumio Kishida, who was hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden for a state visit in April at which the allies announced plans to boost their defense partnership.

On Friday, Borrell and Iwaya also “exchanged an instrument of ratification for Japan EU Strategic Partnership Agreement, or SPA,” Iwaya said, referring to a separate, previously agreed-upon pact.

“This SPA will formally enter into force on January 1 next year. It will be a legal foundation to strengthen the Japan-EU strategic partnership into the future,” Iwaya said.
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