The late American businessman Morgan Williams was deeply involved in promoting Ukrainian business as president of the US-Ukraine Business Council.  During his time in Ukraine, Williams began collecting artwork related to the Holodomor, a famine engineered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in the early 1930’s that killed millions. Now, all that artwork has a home. Hanna Tverdokhlib has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Kostiantyn Golubchyk.
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Athens, Greece — Torrential rains flooded homes, businesses and roads in the popular Greek tourist island of Rhodes on Sunday, forcing authorities to temporarily ban the use of vehicles as Storm Bora pounded the country for a second day.

On Saturday, a man died in flash floods which hit another Greek island in the northern Aegean.

The fire service received more than 650 calls to pump water out of flooded buildings on Rhodes island and evacuated 80 people to safer ground, with the city of Ialysos hit the hardest. No injuries were reported.

Cars and debris were piled up high in the flooded streets of Rhodes, with residents trying to remove mud from their water-logged properties.

“The situation is tragic, some have lost their homes, some have fled, our cars are in a terrible condition,” said Sofia Kanelli in Ialysos.

Fire brigade spokesperson Vassilis Varthakogiannis told Greece’s SKAI TV that the bad weather would continue Monday.

The Mediterranean country has been ravaged by floods and wildfires in recent years, with scientists saying that Greece has become a “hot spot” for climate change.

“The conditions in recent years are different; we have sudden rainfall and sudden floods,” Varthakogiannis said.

In 2023, more than 20,000 tourists and locals were forced to flee homes and seaside hotels as wildfires burned for days.

Thunderstorms and heavy rain also interrupted train services in mainland Greece, especially in the center and north of the country. 
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The United States is not considering returning to Ukraine the nuclear weapons it gave up after the Soviet Union collapsed, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday.

Sullivan made his remarks when questioned about a New York Times article last month that said some unidentified Western officials had suggested U.S. President Joe Biden could give Ukraine the arms before he leaves office.

“That is not under consideration, no. What we are doing is surging various conventional capacities to Ukraine so that they can effectively defend themselves and take the fight to the Russians, not [giving them] nuclear capability,” he told ABC.

Last week, Russia said the idea was “absolute insanity” and that preventing such a scenario was one of the reasons why Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

Kyiv inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.
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KYIV, UKRAINE — Russian President Vladimir Putin approved budget plans, raising 2025 military spending to record levels as Moscow seeks to prevail in the war in Ukraine.

Around 32.5% of the budget posted on a government website Sunday has been allocated for national defense, amounting to 13.5 trillion rubles (more than $145 billion), up from a reported 28.3% this year.

Lawmakers in both houses of the Russian parliament, the State Duma and Federation Council had already approved the plans in the past 10 days.

Russia’s war on Ukraine, which started in February 2022, is Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and has drained the resources of both sides.

Kyiv has been getting billions of dollars in help from its Western allies, but Russia’s forces are bigger and better equipped, and in recent months the Russian army has gradually been pushing Ukrainian troops backward in eastern areas.

On the ground in Ukraine, three people died in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson when a Russian drone struck a minibus on Sunday morning, Kherson regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Seven others were wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, the number of wounded in Saturday’s missile strike in Dnipro in central Ukraine rose to 24, with seven in serious condition, Dnipropetrovsk regional Gov. Serhiy Lysak said. Four people were killed in the attack.

Moscow sent 78 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. According to Ukraine’s air force, 32 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks. A further 45 drones were “lost” over various areas, likely having been electronically jammed.

In Russia, a child was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, according to regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight into Sunday in four regions of western Russia: 20 over the Bryansk region, seven over the Kaluga region, and one each over the Smolensk and Kursk regions.
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KYIV, UKRAINE — The EU’s new top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, arrived in Kyiv on Sunday in a symbolic show of support for Ukraine on their first day in office.

“We came to give a clear message that we stand with Ukraine, and we continue to give our full support,” Costa told media outlets including AFP accompanying them on the trip.

The European Union’s new leadership team is keen to demonstrate it remains firm on backing Kyiv at a perilous moment for Ukraine nearly three years into its fight against Russia’s all-out invasion.

Questions are swirling around the future of U.S. support once Donald Trump assumes office in January and there are fears he could force Kyiv to make painful concessions in pursuit of a quick peace deal.

Meanwhile, tensions have escalated as Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to strike government buildings in Kyiv with his new Oreshnik missile after firing it at Ukraine for the first time last month.

The Kremlin leader said the move is a response to Kyiv getting the green light to strike inside Russia with American and British missiles, and he has threatened to hit back against the countries supplying the weaponry.

As winter begins, Russia has also unleashed devastating barrages against Ukraine’s power grid and on the frontline Kyiv’s fatigued forces are losing ground to Moscow’s grinding offensive.

“The situation in Ukraine is very, very grave,” Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, said. “But it’s clear that it comes at a very high cost for Russia as well.”

Ceasefire?

The new EU leaders — the bloc’s top officials along with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen — were set to hold talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy on Friday appeared to begin staking out his position ahead of any potential peace talks.

He called on NATO to offer guaranteed protections to parts of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv in order to “stop the hot stage of the war,” and implied he would then be willing to wait to regain other territory seized by Russia.

“If we speak ceasefire, [we need] guarantees that Putin will not come back,” Zelenskyy told Britain’s Sky News.

Kallas said that “the strongest security guarantee is NATO membership.”

“We need to definitely discuss this — if Ukraine decides to draw the line somewhere then how can we secure peace so that Putin doesn’t go any further,” she said.

Diplomats at NATO say there appears little prospect of the alliance granting Ukraine membership soon given opposition from a raft of members cautious of getting dragged into war with Russia.

Kallas said the EU “shouldn’t really rule out anything” in terms of the question of sending European troops to help enforce any ceasefire.

“We should have this strategic ambiguity around this,” she said.

‘Transactional language’

Trump has cast doubt on continuing Washington’s vast aid for Ukraine and called on EU countries to do more.

Europe together has spent around $125 billion on supporting Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, while the United States alone has coughed up over $90 billion, according to a tracker from the Kiel Institute.

Kallas said the EU would use a “transactional language” to try to convince Trump that backing Kyiv was in the interest of the U.S.

“Aid for Ukraine is not charity,” she said. “A victory for Russia definitely emboldens China, Iran, North Korea.”

The new EU foreign policy chief said the bloc would continue seeking to put Ukraine in the “strongest” position — if and when Kyiv chose it was time to negotiate with Moscow.

But she conceded that it was becoming “increasingly difficult” for the 27-nation bloc to agree on new ways to ramp up support for Ukraine.

“This war has been going on for quite some time and it is harder and harder to explain it to our own people,” she said. “But I don’t see any option.”
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BUCHAREST, ROMANIA — Still reeling from this week’s shock developments, Romanians returned to the polls Sunday to elect their Parliament, with the far right tipped to win, potentially heralding a shift in the NATO country’s foreign policy.

Romania was thrown into turmoil after a top court ordered a recount of the first round of last week’s presidential election won by Calin Georgescu, a little-known far-right admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin. A runoff in that poll is slated for December 8.

Despite accusations of Russian influence and alleged interference via TikTok, Sunday’s parliamentary elections went ahead as planned.

While the recounting of more than 9 million ballots appeared to proceed quickly, people on the streets of Bucharest expressed worries about the recent twists and turns.

“What’s going on now doesn’t seem very democratic,” Gina Visan told AFP at a Christmas market in Bucharest.

“They should respect our vote. We’re disappointed, but we’re used to this kind of behavior,” said the 40-year-old nurse, echoing voter’s distrust in traditional parties.

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 9 p.m., with an exit poll due to be published shortly afterward.

The first official results are expected later in the evening.

Confusion, anger and fear

Amid allegations of irregularities and possible interference in the election, concerns over the transparency of the electoral process have emerged, with independent observers being denied access to the recount.

According to Septimius Parvu of the Expert Forum think tank, the recount order by Romania’s Constitutional Court had “many negative effects,” including undermining confidence in institutions.

“We’ve already recounted votes in Romania in the past, but not millions of votes, with parliamentary elections in the middle of it all,” said Parvu.

“No decision made during this crucial period should limit the right of Romanians to vote freely nor further put at risk the credibility of the election process,” the U.S. Embassy in Romania stressed.

But the top court’s decision is likely to boost the far right, Parvu said.

The NATO member of 19 million people has so far resisted rising nationalism in the region, but experts say it faces an unprecedented situation as anger over soaring inflation and fears of being dragged into Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine have mounted.

George Sorin in Bucharest said he hopes the far right will score well, claiming the current Parliament had mostly served the interests of “Brussels and Ukraine” instead of “national interests.”

Outgoing President Klaus Iohannis said Sunday’s vote would determine Romania’s future — whether it will “remain a country of freedom and openness or collapse into toxic isolation and a dark past.”

Far right eyes breakthrough

Romania’s political landscape has been shaped by two major parties for the past three decades, but analysts predict a fragmented Parliament to emerge from Sunday’s vote, influencing the chances of forming a future government.

Polls show that three far-right parties are predicted to claim more than 30% of the vote share combined.

Among them is the AUR party, whose leader George Simion won nearly 14% of the presidential vote, which topped the latest polls on more than 22%.

“We are here, standing, alive, more numerous than ever, and with a huge opportunity ahead of us,” Simion — a fan of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump — recently told his supporters.

The Party of Young People (POT), which was founded in 2023 and has meanwhile thrown its support behind Georgescu, could reach the 5% threshold to enter Parliament and there is also the extreme-right SOS Romania party, led by firebrand Diana Sosoaca.

In recent years, around 30% of Romanians have embraced far-right views, even if they have not always voted for them in elections.

Elena Lasconi’s pro-European USR party has warned that the country faces “a historic confrontation” between those who wish to “preserve Romania’s young democracy” and those who want to “return to the Russian sphere of influence.”

The ruling Social Democrats (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL), which suffered a defeat in the presidential ballot, have centered their campaigns on their “experience.”

“The political scene is completely reset,” said political scientist Remus Stefureac, adding that 2025 “will be extremely complicated in terms of security risks.”
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BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA — Dozens of countries warned Sunday that a handful of nations were obstructing efforts in South Korea to reach an ambitious landmark global treaty to curb plastic pollution.

With hours until negotiations are scheduled to end, delegates say a group of mostly oil-producing “like-minded countries” have refused to compromise on key sticking points.

Those include setting targets for reducing plastic production and phasing out chemicals known or believed to be harmful to human health.

“We also are worried by the continuing obstruction by the so-called like-minded countries,” Olga Givernet, France’s minister delegate for energy, told reporters.

Finding an agreement on an ambitious treaty “remains an absolute priority,” Givernet said, and “we are planning on pushing it.”

Plastic production is on track to triple by 2060, and over 90% of plastic is not recycled.

But while everyone negotiating in Busan agrees on the problem, they disagree on the solution.

Countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia insist the deal should focus only on waste and reject calls for binding global measures.

They have made their position clear in documents submitted in negotiations and during public plenary sessions, though neither delegation responded to repeated AFP requests for comment.

‘Blocking the process’

“It is disappointing to see that a small number of members remain unsupportive of the measures necessary to drive real change,” said Rwanda’s Juliet Kabera.

“We still have a few hours left in these negotiations, there is time to find common ground, but Rwanda cannot accept a toothless treaty,” she warned.

Fiji’s Sivendra Michael also called out a “very minority group” for “blocking the process.”

The latest draft text for the treaty contains a range of options, reflecting the ongoing divisions. A promised new version has been repeatedly delayed.

The talks are supposed to be the final round of negotiations after two years of discussion.

The venue has only been rented until mid-morning Monday, sources told AFP.

Portuguese delegate Maria Joao Teixeira said there were real fears talks could collapse and have to be extended to another round elsewhere.

“We are really trying to not have a weak treaty,” she told AFP.

Environmental groups have pushed ambitious countries to call a vote if progress stalls.

But observers caution that risks alienating even some countries in favor of a strong treaty.

Another option would be for the diplomat chairing the talks to simply gavel through an agreement over the objections of a handful of holdouts, they said.

That too holds risks, potentially embittering the remaining diplomatic process and jeopardizing adoption of a treaty down the road.

‘Hope in consensus’

Mexico’s head of delegation Camila Zepeda said she did not favor calling a vote.

“We have hope in consensus. The multilateral process is slow, but there is a possibility of having critical mass to move forward,” she told AFP.

“Showing this critical mass helps us so that the more contentious issues can be unblocked.”

German delegate Sebastian Unger also said many countries would prefer to avoid a vote.

“If you would leave out many important countries that you want to have on board, then the effects of the treaty [are impacted],” he told AFP.

Over 100 countries now support setting a target for production cuts, and dozens also back phasing out some chemicals and unnecessary plastic products.

But representatives of China and the United States, the world’s two top plastics producers, were absent from the stage at a news conference urging ambition.

“They are still considering, and we are hopeful that there will be some interest on their part,” said Mexico’s Zepeda.

“This coalition of the willing is an open invitation. And so it’s not like it’s them against us.”

Panama’s Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez meanwhile told colleagues that “history will not forgive us” for leaving Busan without an ambitious treaty.

“This is the time to step up or get out.”
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — President-elect Donald Trump threatened 100% tariffs Saturday against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar. 

His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRICS alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. 

Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members of the alliance, and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. 

While the U.S. dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system. 

Trump, in a Truth Social post, said, “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.” 

At a summit of BRICS nations in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake.” 

“It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.” 

Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT, and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners. 

Trump said there is “no chance” BRICS will replace the U.S. dollar in global trade and any country that tries to make that happen “should wave goodbye to America.” 
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PRISTINA, KOSOVO — Kosovo’s Interior minister Xhelal Svecla said Saturday that police had arrested eight people after an explosion hit a canal that sends water to its two main power plants, an incident Pristina labeled a “terrorist act” by neighboring Serbia. 

“Somehow we managed to fix the damage, arrest the suspects and confiscate a huge arsenal of weapons,” Svecla said during a live-streamed news conference.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic denied what he said were “baseless accusations” about Belgrade’s involvement in the incident, which occurred Friday around 7 p.m. (1800 GMT).  

Police commander Gazmend Hoxha said those arrested “are suspected of inciting, organizing and even executing these recent terrorist acts and in particular the one in the canal of Iber Lepenc.” 

Hoxha said an initial investigation had shown that between 15 and 20 kilos of explosives were used in the attack. 

Police raided 10 locations, confiscating more than 200 military uniforms, six shoulder-fired rocket launchers, long weapons, pistols and ammunition, he said. 

Police said most of the people arrested belong to the local Serb organization Civilna Zastita (Civil Protection), which the government in Kosovo has declared as a terrorist organization. 

Reuters was unable to contact the group. 

Tensions with Serbia 

The explosion has increased tensions between the two Balkan countries. Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 almost a decade after a guerrilla uprising against its rule, but Serbia has not recognized Kosovo as an independent state. 

Relations remain especially frayed in the north of the country where the blast occurred, and where the Serb minority refuses to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and still sees Belgrade as their capital. 

Kosovo’s Security Council, which held emergency talks early Saturday, said it had activated armed forces to prevent similar attacks.  

Security was already heightened after two recent attacks where hand grenades were hurled at a police station and municipality building in northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbians live.  

“The Security Council has approved additional measures to strengthen security around critical facilities and services such as bridges, transformer stations, antennas, lakes, canals,” the council said in a statement Saturday.  

NATO, which has maintained a peacekeeping force in Kosovo since 1999, condemned the attack in a statement Saturday. Its personnel have provided security to the canal and the surrounding area since the blast, it said.  

A Reuters reporter visited the site Saturday, where silt had poured through a hole in the canal’s concrete wall. Workers had installed a series of large tubes to bypass the leak.  

Power supplies appeared to be largely intact, but the drinking water supply was disrupted in some areas.  

Energy minister Artane Rizvanolli said Kosovo was coordinating with Albania’s power company to provide more electricity. She said water will be trucked to affected areas. 
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MOSCOW — Russian police raided several bars and nightclubs across Moscow on Saturday as part of the government’s crackdown on “LGBTQ+ propaganda,” state media reported. 

Smartphones, laptops and video cameras were seized, while clubgoers had their documents inspected by officers, Russia’s Tass news agency said, citing sources in law enforcement. 

The raids come exactly a year since Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that the “LGBTQ+ movement should be banned as an “extremist organization.”

Its decision followed a decadeslong crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights in Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has touted “traditional family values” as a cornerstone of his quarter-century in power. 

Footage shared on social media appeared to show police ordering partygoers to lie on the floor as officers moved through Moscow’s Arma nightclub. 

The capital’s Mono bar was also targeted, Russian media reported. In a post on Telegram on Saturday, the club’s management didn’t directly reference an incident with law enforcement, but wrote, “Friends, we’re so sorry that what happened, happened. They didn’t find anything forbidden. We live in such times, but life must go on.” 

Police also detained the head of the “Men Travel” tour agency Saturday under anti-LGBT laws, Tass reported. The news agency said that the 48-year-old was suspected of preparing a trip for “the supporters of nontraditional sexual values” to visit Egypt over Russia’s New Year’s holidays. 

The raids mirror the concerns of Russian activists who warned that Moscow’s designation of the “LGBTQ+ movement” as “extremist” — despite it not being an official entity — could see Russian authorities crack down at will on groups or individuals. 

Other recent laws have also served to put pressure on those that the Russian government believes aren’t in line with the country’s “traditional values.”

On November 23, Putin signed into law a bill banning the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender-affirming care is legal. 

The Kremlin leader also approved legislation that outlaws the spread of material that encourages people not to have children. 
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Georgia on Saturday said authorities arrested 107 people during a second day of protests sparked by the government’s decision to delay European Union membership talks.

The Black Sea nation has been rocked by turmoil since the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed victory in an October 26 parliamentary election that the pro-EU opposition said was fraudulent.

The Interior Ministry said 107 people were detained for “disobedience to lawful police orders and petty hooliganism.”

“Throughout the night … protesters threw various objects, including stones, pyrotechnics, glass bottles and metal items, at law enforcement officers,” it said, adding that “10 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were injured.”

The ministry earlier said 32 police officers were wounded and 43 protestors detained on Thursday.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s statement Thursday that Georgia will not seek to open accession talks with the European Union until 2028 ignited a furious reaction from the opposition and two days of protests.

He later accused the opposition and the EU ambassador to Georgia of distorting his words. He insisted membership in the bloc “by 2030” remains his “top priority.”

‘Resistance movement’

On Friday, AFP reporters saw riot police fire water cannons and tear gas at pro-EU protesters gathered outside the parliament in Tbilisi, who tossed eggs and fireworks.

Clashes broke out later between protesters and police, who moved in to clear the area outside parliament, beating demonstrators, some of whom threw objects.

Independent TV station Pirveli said one of its journalists was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Protests were also held in other cities across Georgia on Friday, independent TV station Mtavari reported.

Pro-Western opposition parties are boycotting the new parliament, while President Salome Zurabishvili has sought to annul the election results through the country’s constitutional court.

In a televised address to the nation on Friday evening, the pro-Western president — who is at loggerheads with the ruling party — said: “The resistance movement has begun. … I stand in solidarity with it. We will remain united until Georgia achieves its goals: to return to its European path, secure new elections.”

‘Brutal repression’

After the October vote, a group of Georgia’s leading election monitors said they had evidence of a complex scheme of large-scale electoral fraud.

Brussels has demanded an investigation into what it said were “serious irregularities” reported by election monitors.

Georgian Dream MPs voted unanimously Thursday for Kobakhidze to continue as prime minister, even as the opposition boycotted parliament, which faces a serious legitimacy crisis.

“Police actions in Tbilisi mark another punitive attack on the right to peaceful assembly,” said Amnesty International.

France, Britain, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania were among the countries to voice concern.

The Council of Europe condemned what it described as “brutal repression,” urging Georgia to remain “faithful to European values.”

In recent years, critics accused Georgian Dream — in power for more than a decade — of moving the country away from Europe and closer to Russia.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says being admitted into NATO could end what he described as the “hot phase of the war” waged by Russia.

In an interview with Sky News aired on November 29, Zelenskyy suggested that he would be willing to consider a ceasefire if Ukraine’s unoccupied territories fell under NATO’s protection and the invitation to join the alliance recognized Ukraine’s international borders.

Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has been occupying 20% of Ukrainian territory since launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022. 

“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Zelenskyy said, adding that the occupied eastern parts of the country could then be taken back “in a diplomatic way.”

This comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has criticized the billions of dollars that the United States has poured into Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

Trump has also said he could end the war within 24 hours of retaking the White House, a statement that has been interpreted as meaning that Ukraine would have to surrender territory that Russia now occupies.

Earlier this week, Trump named Keith Kellogg, a retired army lieutenant general who has long served as a top adviser to Trump on defense issues, as his nominee to be special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

Kellogg has advocated telling the Ukrainians that if they don’t come to the negotiating table, U.S. support would dry up, while telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that if he doesn’t come to the table, the United States would give the Ukrainians “everything they need to kill you in the field.”

For the past several months, Russia has been battering Ukrainian cities with increasingly heavy drone, missile and glide-bomb strikes, causing casualties and damaging energy infrastructure as the cold season settles in.

Earlier this month, a senior United Nations official, Rosemary DiCarlo, warned that Moscow’s targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure could make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war” nearly three years ago.

Ukraine has launched several counterattacks since the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, the top foreign supporter of Ukraine in its battle against Russia’s invasion, and Kyiv’s European allies authorized the use of long-range missiles against targets inside Russia.
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washington — The U.S. ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for Hungary’s government debt Friday citing “institutional and governance weaknesses” and concerns its antagonistic relationship with the EU could have financial consequences.

Hungary is a recipient of substantial amounts of funding from the European Union, which are conditional on meeting certain criteria, including adherence to the rule of law.

The country’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, has clashed with Brussels on a range of issues in recent years, some of which could see it lose out on those EU funds, Moody’s indicated in a note explaining its decision.

“Our decision to change the outlook to negative (from stable) reflects downside risks related to the quality of Hungary’s institutions and governance,” Moody’s analysts wrote in a note explaining their decision.

What that means, they said, is that Hungary could ultimately lose out on a “substantial” amount of EU money “because it does not meet the conditions for the release of these funds.”

“In turn, this could lower trend GDP growth and weaken fiscal and debt metrics,” they added.

In the same note, Moody’s affirmed Hungary’s investment grade foreign- and local-currency credit rating of Baa2.

Moody’s said that the total EU funds allocated to Hungary were equivalent to around 3.4% of economic output per year.

Given the ongoing “difficult negotiations” between Hungary and the EU, Moody’s noted there were “elevated risks that Hungary will miss out on a substantial amount” of some of that funding.
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PRISTINA, KOSOVO — An explosion Friday evening damaged a canal in northern Kosovo supplying water to two coal-fired power plants that generate nearly all of the country’s electricity, Prime Minister Albin Kurti said, blaming what he called “a terrorist act” by neighboring Serbia.

There were no immediate reports of injuries and the cause of the blast, which also impacted drinking water supplies, was not clear. Serbian officials did not respond to requests for comment, and Reuters found no immediate evidence of Belgrade’s involvement.

“This is a criminal and terrorist attack with the aim to destroy our critical infrastructure,” Kurti said in a televised address. He said that some of the country could be without power if the problem is not fixed by morning.

In a sign of ethnic tensions between the two Balkan countries, Kurti echoed Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani by blaming Serbian criminal gangs without providing proof.

Earlier on Friday, Kosovo police announced increased security measures after two recent attacks where hand grenades were hurled at a police station and municipality building in northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbians live. It was not clear if the incidents were linked.

Local media showed pictures of part of the canal destroyed and leaking water and a heavy police presence at the site.

Faruk Mujka, the head of water company Ibar-Lepenci, told local news portal Kallxo that an explosive device was thrown into the canal and damaged the wall of a bridge.

He said the water supply, which also feeds drinking water to the capital, Pristina, must be halted to fix the problem as soon as possible since it was the main channel for supplying Kosovo Energy Corporation, the country’s main power provider.

Independence for ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo came in 2008, almost a decade after a guerrilla uprising against Serbian rule. However, tensions persist, mainly in the north where the Serb minority refuses to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and still sees Belgrade as their capital.

The EU’s Kosovo ambassador, Aivo Orav, condemned the attack that he said was already “depriving considerable parts of Kosovo from water supply.”  
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Thousands of demonstrators protesting the Georgian government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union rallied outside the parliament and clashed with police for a second straight night Friday.

The night before, police used water cannons, pepper spray and tear gas to disperse protesters who took to the streets of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the ruling Georgian Dream party announced the suspension. The interior ministry said it detained 43 people during the protests.

On Friday evening, protesters again swarmed the parliament, with some trying to break the metal gates to the building. Riot police used water cannons to push them away from the building and later moved to force them farther back along Rustaveli Avenue, the city’s main boulevard.

Some of the protesters used garbage bins and benches to try to build barricades.

Clashes between police and protesters also erupted late Friday in the Black Sea port of Batumi.

Georgian Dream’s disputed victory in the October 26 election, which was widely seen as a referendum on the country’s aspirations to join the European Union, has sparked massive demonstrations and led to an opposition boycott of the parliament. The opposition said the vote was rigged under the influence of Russia, which seeks to keep Georgia in its orbit.

President Salome Zourabichvili joined protesters Thursday after accusing the government of declaring “war” on its own people. In Friday’s address to the nation, Zourabichvili urged police not to use force against protesters.

The Georgian president, who has a largely ceremonial role, has declared that the ruling party rigged the election with the help of Russia, Georgia’s former imperial master.

The government’s announcement that it was suspending negotiations to join the EU came hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned last month’s vote as neither free nor fair, representing yet another manifestation of the continued democratic backsliding “for which the ruling Georgian Dream party is fully responsible.”

European election observers said October’s vote took place in a divisive atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.

The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on the condition that it meet the bloc’s recommendations but put its accession on hold and cut financial support earlier this year after the passage of a “foreign influence” law widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.

EU lawmakers urged for a rerun of the parliamentary vote within a year under thorough international supervision and by an independent election administration. They also called on the EU to impose sanctions and limit formal contacts with the Georgian government.

The Georgian prime minister fired back, denouncing what he described as a “cascade of insults” from the EU politicians and declaring that “the ill-wishers of our country have turned the European Parliament into a blunt weapon of blackmail against Georgia, which is a great disgrace for the European Union.”

“We will continue on our path toward the European Union; however, we will not allow anyone to keep us in a constant state of blackmail and manipulation, which is utterly disrespectful to our country and society,” Kobakhidze said. “We must clearly show certain European politicians and bureaucrats, who are completely devoid of European values, that they must speak to Georgia with dignity, not through blackmail and insults.”

Kobakhidze also said Georgia would reject any budgetary grants from the EU until the end of 2028.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws like those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June, after parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.
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seoul — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has told the Russian defense minister that Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons is the result of direct military intervention by the United States and that Moscow is entitled to fight in self-defense, state media said Saturday.  

The state-run Korean Central News Agency said Kim met Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov on Friday, and it quoted the North Korean leader as saying, “The U.S. and the West made Kyiv authorities attack Russia’s territory with their own long-range strike weapons.” Russia should take action to make “hostile forces pay the price,” Kim said.

“The DPRK government, army and people will invariably support the policy of the Russian Federation to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity from the imperialists’ moves for hegemony,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying. 

DPRK is short for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 

Kim pledged to expand ties with Russia in all areas, including military affairs, under the comprehensive strategic partnership he signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June, which includes a mutual defense agreement, KCNA said. 

Moscow and Pyongyang have dramatically advanced ties since their leaders held a summit in September 2023 in Russia, and the North has since shipped to Russia more than 10,000 containers of ammunition, as well as self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launchers, according to South Korea’s spy agency. 

KCNA made no mention of whether Kim and Belousov discussed North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia. 

South Korea’s spy agency has said that North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia and that they have been moved to the front lines, including the Kursk region, where Russian forces are trying to expel Ukrainian forces.  

Ukraine has fired U.S. ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory after the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden gave permission to use them for such an attack this month.  

Russia in turn unleashed attacks against Ukraine’s military and energy infrastructures, saying they were made in response to the use of U.S. medium-range missiles.  

Belousov separately held talks with North Korean Defense Minister No Kwang Chol and said the partnership pact signed by Kim and Putin would contribute to maintaining the balance of power in Northeast Asia. 

Kim personally attended a reception hosted by the defense ministry for Belousov’s delegation, KCNA said. 
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TALLINN, ESTONIA — Imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Gorinov was convicted again on Friday for opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine and handed a three-year prison term.

A swift, three-day trial against Gorinov, once a low-profile activist, underscored Moscow’s intolerance of any dissenting voices.

Gorinov, a 63-year-old former member of a Moscow municipal council, is already serving a seven-year prison term for public criticism of the full-scale invasion.

Taking into account his previous conviction and sentence, a court in Russia’s Vladimir region ordered him to serve a total of five years in a maximum-security prison, a facility with stricter conditions than the one he’s currently in.

Russia’s independent news site Mediazona quoted Gorinov’s lawyer as saying that it means he will spend a year more behind bars compared to his previous sentence.

Gorinov was first convicted in July 2022, when a court in Moscow sentenced him to seven years in prison for “spreading false information” about the Russian army at a municipal council meeting.

Gorinov allegedly voiced skepticism about a children’s art competition in his constituency while saying that “every day children are dying” in Ukraine.

He was the first known Russian sent to prison under a 2022 law that essentially bans any public expression about the war that deviates from the official narrative.

His arrest, conviction and imprisonment has shocked many. In written comments to The Associated Press from behind bars in March 2023, Gorinov said that “authorities needed an example they could showcase to others (of) an ordinary person, rather than a public figure.”

Authorities launched a second case against him last year, according to his supporters. He was accused of “justifying terrorism” in conversations with his cellmates about Ukraine’s Azov battalion, which Russia outlawed as a terrorist organization, and the 2022 explosion on the Crimean bridge, which Moscow deemed an act of terrorism.

Gorinov vehemently rejected the accusations Wednesday, independent news site Mediazona reported. It quoted him as telling the court that he merely said the annexed Crimean Peninsula was Ukrainian territory and called Azov a part of the Ukrainian army.

Gorinov’s trial began Wednesday in the Vladimir region, where he is serving time stemming from his previous conviction. Photos from the courtroom, published by Mediazona, showed a weary Gorinov in the defendant’s cage, with a hand-drawn peace symbol on a piece of paper covering his prison badge. He held a hand-written placard saying: “Stop killing. Let’s stop the war.”

He had part of a lung removed before prison and has struggled with respiratory illnesses behind bars.

In his closing statement in court on Friday, Gorinov remained defiant and once again condemned the Russian authorities for the war in Ukraine.

“My guilt is that I, as a citizen of my country, allowed this war to happen and could not stop it,” Mediazona quoted him as saying.

“But I would like my guilt and responsibility to be shared with me by the organizers, participants, supporters of the war, as well as the persecutors of those who advocate peace. I continue to live with the hope that this will happen someday. In the meantime, I ask those who live in Ukraine and my fellow citizens who suffered from the war to forgive me,” Gorinov said.

According to OVD-Info, a prominent rights group that tracks political arrests, some 1,100 people have been implicated in criminal cases over their anti-war stance since February 2022. A total of 340 of them are currently behind bars or have been involuntarily committed to medical institutions.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his NATO counterparts to issue an invitation at a meeting in Brussels next week to Kyiv to join the Western military alliance, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

The letter reflects Ukraine’s renewed push to secure an invitation to join NATO, which is part of a “victory plan” outlined last month by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Ukraine says it accepts that it cannot join the alliance until the war is over but extending an invitation now would show Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could not achieve one of his main goals — preventing Kyiv from becoming a NATO member.

“The invitation should not be seen as an escalation,” Sybiha wrote in the letter.

“On the contrary, with a clear understanding that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is inevitable, Russia will lose one of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war,” he wrote. “I urge you to endorse the decision to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance as one of the outcomes of the NATO Foreign Ministerial Meeting on 3-4 December 2024.”

NATO diplomats say there is no consensus among alliance members to invite Ukraine at this stage. Any such decision would require the consent of all NATO’s 32 member countries.

NATO has declared that Ukraine will join the alliance and that it is on an “irreversible” path to membership. But it has not issued a formal invitation or set out a timeline.

Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister in charge of NATO affairs, said Kyiv understood that the consensus for an invitation to join NATO “is not yet there” but the letter was meant to send a strong political signal.

“We have sent a message to the allies that invitation is not off of the table, regardless of different manipulations and speculations around that,” she told Reuters.

In his letter, Sybiha argued an invitation would be the right response “to Russia’s constant escalation of the war it has unleashed, the latest demonstration of which is the involvement of tens of thousands of North Korean troops and the use of Ukraine as a testing ground for new weapons.”

In recent days, however, diplomats have said they do not see any changes of stance among NATO countries, particularly as they await the Ukraine policy of the United States — the alliance’s dominant power — under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
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When Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in an August 2023 plane crash, many analysts said his death could mark the end of the Wagner Group, the private military company he co-founded that provided thousands of Russian mercenaries for Moscow’s initiatives and other interests abroad.

But more than a year later, the picture of Russian mercenary activities has only grown more complicated, researchers say.

Before Prigozhin’s death, Wagner’s mercenaries had fought in conflicts around the world –– from Ukraine to the Middle East and Africa –– and helped Russia to spread its influence far beyond its borders.

Along the way, Wagner faced allegations of murdering African civilians and committing war crimes.

Then, in June 2023, Prigozhin launched an unexpected insurrection against Russian authorities over their handling of the war in Ukraine. His mercenaries captured the city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on toward Moscow. Prigozhin stood down only after the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, mediated a deal.

After such brazen insubordination, many were unsurprised when Prigozhin died in a plane crash less than two months later. But predictions that the Wagner Group’s activities would die with him have proven to be untrue.

Wagner Group fighters are still active in the Central African Republic and Mali. In other countries like Niger, it has been replaced by Africa Corps, a successor organization subordinate to Russia’s defense ministry. In other cases, different Russian militarized structures have picked up the Wagner name and symbols.

What is clear to analysts is that Russian mercenaries are not going away. If anything, the future of Russian private military companies will be “more sustainable and less spectacular” according to Jack Margolin, an independent researcher who recently published a book on the Wagner Group.

Since Prigozhin’s death, Russia has “really effectively created infrastructure and incentive structures in order to draw in former [Wagner] fighters and build this system of semi-formal forces,” he told VOA.

Ties with the Russian state

The Wagner Group’s activities around the world have always been intertwined with Russian foreign policy, but the exact nature of that connection is a subject of debate among experts.

Margolin notes that Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin –– who also died in the August 2023 plane crash –– served in the special forces of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, commonly called the GRU. Around 2014, he and Prigozhin founded the Wagner Group, which was initially small.

That same year, Wagner took part in the illegal Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. Later, the mercenaries were dispatched to the pseudo-state Russia propped up in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

During this period, there is ample evidence that Wagner actively cooperated with the Russian defense ministry –– in part because Ukraine intercepted Wagner conversations with Russian officers.

But when Wagner operations moved beyond Ukraine, the picture grew more complicated. Experts differ on how to interpret it.

Maria Kucherenko leads Russian studies at the Ukraine-based Come Back Alive Initiatives Center. She believes that Wagner was created by Russian military intelligence and remains under its control.

For this reason, she views the post-Prigozhin changes in the mercenary corps as largely superficial.

“Only the surnames of the GRU generals in charge have changed,” she said.

Other analysts paint a more complex picture of Wagner’s ties with the Russian state. Margolin sees a greater degree of freedom in Wagner’s past activities.

“They acted in the GRU’s interest. They coordinated with the GRU. All of Wagner’s operations abroad were supported by logistics that were owned by the Ministry of Defense,” he said. “But at the same time, they were still able to determine in this local context exactly what they wanted to do.”

John Lechner, a researcher who will publish a book on Wagner in March, believes the mercenary corps’ relationship with the Russian state heavily depended on the country where it was operating.

In Ukraine and Syria, where the mercenaries backed the government of Bashar al-Assad, Wagner actively collaborated with the Russia’s defense ministry. But in sub-Saharan Africa, where the Russian state had a very limited presence, Wagner was able to decide what Russia’s national interests were, Lecher said in an interview.

Wagner wasn’t “just a shadowy arm of the Kremlin pursuing the Kremlin’s interests; they were creating them,” he said.

What next?

Since Prighzoin’s death, Wagner has undergone significant changes –– although analysts disagree about how fundamental they are.

Russian journalist Ilya Barabanov, who coauthored a Russian-language history of Wagner, believes that the old private military company essentially no longer exists.

“Over the last year and a half, we’ve seen Prigozhin’s empire being broken apart,” he told VOA. “Some [parts] are going to the Ministry of Defense. Some are going to the Russian National Guard. Some are going to Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces.”

The original Wagner, meanwhile, continues to operate only in the Central African Republic, Mali, and Belarus.

Despite these changes, the dissolution of Wagner is going more slowly than expected because the Kremlin is too busy waging war in Ukraine, Barabanov added.

Margolin emphasizes that Russia’s successor mercenary structures won’t function the same way Wagner did.

The Wagner Group stood out for its risk appetite and relative independence from the Russian government. In the Central African Republic, it was Wagner that decided to transition from a strategy of defending the capital of Bangui and the country’s political elite to a more aggressive battle with insurgents, he notes. Wagner also decided with whom it would do business.

In contrast, Africa Corps and other successor companies are much more risk-averse and more actively coordinate their activities with Russian military intelligence, Margolin said.

Lechner notes that efforts to replace Wagner have been more successful in some places than others.

Starting in 2019, Wagner mercenaries fought in Libya on the side of rebel general Khalifa Haftar. But in October 2020, he signed a ceasefire with the United Nations-backed Libyan government. Because active fighting had stopped, Russia had little trouble replacing Wagner there with Africa Corps, Lechner said.

In Mali, Wagner mercenaries are engaged in pitched battles with Tuareg separatists and Islamist fighters in the country’s north. In late July, dozens of Russian fighters were killed in an ambush near the town of Tinzaouaten.

Lechner suggests that in the future there will be multiple “mini-Prigozhins” in charge of Russian military companies, but not one individual with “all of the political clout and business interests that Prigozhin had come to represent.”

Both Margolin and Lechner agree that, while Wagner is no longer officially fighting in Ukraine, its influence on that conflict has been significant.

Journalists have often pointed out Wagner’s usage of so-called “meat storms,” when the company was willing to sacrifice waves of men to wear down Ukrainian forces. The tactic was particularly noticeable during the 2022-23 battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which Russia eventually razed and captured.

But Wagner also gained military experience in the Middle East and Africa that the official Russian military is now applying in Ukraine: for example, devolving command authority to lower echelons and small unit tactics, Margolin said.

“Wagner has in many ways achieved the thing that Prigozhin said was necessary during the siege of Bakhmut, which was that the Russian armed forces needed to become more like Wagner to be more effective,” he told VOA.

Lechner refers to it as the “Wagnerization of the Russian military.”

Resisting Russian mercenaries abroad

Regardless of exactly what structures succeed Wagner, Russian mercenary activities will likely continue to worry Western governments. Experts say it will be difficult to push back against their influence abroad.

Ukrainian researcher Kucherenko believes that the U.S., European countries, Ukraine, and other partners must join forces to counteract Russian mercenaries. But she suggests they must look higher in the command structure.

“We need to evaluate them as representatives of the GRU itself,” she said.

She suggests directing particular attention to Yunus-bek Yevkurov, Russia’s deputy defense minister, and Major General Andrei Averyanov, the reported former commander of a secretive military intelligence unit that has conducted assassinations abroad. Both men now are reputed to play key roles in Africa Corps.

Margolin suggests that, among other efforts, the U.S. should focus on export controls to limit the mercenaries’ access to military technologies, especially drone technologies, which played a key role in Wagner’s activities in Ukraine.

He also suggests that Western governments should be cautious about propping up African regimes with poor human rights records and entrenched corruption, despite any fears that Russia will rush in if they do not.

In fact, engaging with such governments feeds popular anger against the West, which in turn provides “fertile ground for organizations like Wagner to take root,” Margolin said.

Lechner notes that Wagner expanded its presence in Africa as Western powers exited the continent.

For example, France withdrew its forces from the Central African Republic in 2016 amid a civil war in the country. Wagner stepped in to provide security for the country’s leadership.

“I don’t think there is any interest for the United States to put troops on the ground in Africa to be perfectly honest,” Lechner said. Short of that, he said, “I’m not exactly sure what [Western powers] can offer.”

Russian mercenaries have few similar competitors in the region. Though China is active in Africa, its activities are mainly focused on large economic investments. Even Wagner’s business activities have mostly not placed it in conflict with China.

Russian journalist Barabanov suggests there is one more factor that will play a key role in determining the future of Russian mercenaries: Russia’s war against Ukraine.

If that conflict ends, then “the Russian government will have a huge human resource of veterans who fought in this war,” he said, “and they can probably be used in other, far-off conflicts.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday threatened to strike “decision-making centers in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, with Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic cruise missiles, after pounding Ukrainian energy infrastructure and cutting off power to more than one million people across the country.

“We do not rule out the use of Oreshnik against the military, military-industrial or decision-making centers, including in Kyiv,” Putin told a news conference in the Kasakh capital, Astana.

He said he launched Thursday’s drone and missile attack against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.S. medium-range ATACMS missiles.

The attack marked Russia’s second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month. Officials said it was the 11th major strike on Ukraine’s energy system since March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of a “despicable escalation,” saying it had used cruise missiles with cluster munitions.

The attack marks Russia’s second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month. Officials said it was the 11th major strike on Ukraine’s energy system since March.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow launched the attack in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.S. medium-range ATACMS missiles. Putin also said Russia’s future targets could include “decision-making centers” in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

Ukraine called on the international community to respond to Putin’s threats to target government centers in Kyiv.

“We expect those countries that have urged everyone to avert the expansion of the war to react to the statements voiced by Putin today,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said.

In addition to the more than 1 million people who lost power in the aftermath of the strikes, millions more had their existing schedule of rolling power cuts escalated.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia used 91 missiles and 97 drones in the assault. The air force said 12 of those hit their targets, the majority of which were energy and fuel facilities. All missiles or drones aimed at Kyiv were brought down, officials said.

“The enemy is using a large number of missiles and drones. Their massive use in certain areas often exceeds the number of means of [air defense] cover,” the air force said in a statement.

In the Lviv region, 523,000 subscribers lost electricity, regional head Maksym Kozytsky said on social media. The region, in the western part of the country, borders Poland.

Directly north of the Lviv region, 215,000 customers lost power in the region of Volyn, and 280,000 lost power in the neighboring Rivne region, their governors said.

“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.

Ukrenergo, the national electrical grid operator, introduced emergency power cuts amid the attack, Galushchenko said.

Officials told Reuters that several nuclear power units were disconnected from the network during the attacks.

Private power company DTEK said the power cuts impacted Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.

Some regional officials said water service was also affected by the airstrikes.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said in a Telegram post that Russia had stockpiled missiles to strike Ukrainian infrastructure and wage war against civilians during the cold season, The Associated Press reported.

The three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is looming, and Russian ground forces are advancing at their fastest pace in two years.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry urged its partners to accelerate the delivery of military aid, saying that was more important than drafting more men.

“We are now in the situation when we need more equipment to arm all the people that have already been mobilized, and we think the first priority is to send quicker, faster military aid,” Tykhyi, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, told reporters in Kyiv.

The statement comes one day after a senior U.S. official said Wednesday that Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers from 25 years old to 18 in order to replace those lost on the battlefield.

On Thursday, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Ukraine is ready to host a second global summit aimed at ending Russia’s invasion in the “nearest future,” according to local media.

Kyiv hosted its first “peace summit” in June in Switzerland. Russia was not invited.

Speaking in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Putin said there were no preconditions to start talks with Ukraine on a possible peace deal, but that terms he set out in June for the deal remained the same.

In June, Putin said Russia would end the war only if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over four entire Ukrainian provinces claimed by Moscow. Kyiv rejected those demands as amounting to surrender.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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N’DJAMENA, chad — Chad’s government said Thursday that it had ended its defense cooperation pact with France, a move that could see French troops leave the Central African country. 

In a statement, Chad’s foreign ministry said the country, a key Western ally in the fight against Islamic militants in the region, wanted to fully assert its sovereignty after more than six decades of independence.  

It said the decision to end the defense cooperation agreement revised in 2019 would enable it to redefine its strategic partnerships.  

Chad has cooperated closely with Western nations’ military forces in the past, but it has moved closer to Russia in recent years.  

The decision is another nail in the coffin of France’s historic and colonial role in West and Central Africa after being forced to pull its troops out of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso following military coups.  

The military juntas have since turned to Russia, which has mercenaries deployed across the Sahel region – a band of countries stretching from Africa’s northwest to northeast coasts – and has been fostering closer ties with Chad’s President Mahamat Deby. 

“In accordance with the terms of the accord, Chad will respect the modalities of the termination, including the necessary deadlines, and will collaborate with French authorities to ensure a harmonious transition,” the statement said. 

The French foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment. 

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, on Thursday visited Chad’s border with Sudan.  

There were no indications that Paris had been given advance notice of the decision, although a French envoy to President Emmanuel Macron this week handed in a report with proposals on how France could reduce its military presence in Chad, Gabon and Ivory Coast, where it has deployed thousands of troops for decades. 

France has around 1,000 troops as well as warplanes stationed in Chad. 

In a further blow to France, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said in an interview with French state TV on Thursday that it was inappropriate for French troops to maintain a presence in his country.  

He stopped short of saying if or when French troops would be asked to leave, but he said Paris would be the first to know. Around 350 French troops are based in Senegal. 

The statement by Chad’s foreign ministry said the decision to end the nation’s defense partnership with France should in no way undermine the friendly relations between the two countries.  

Earlier this year, Chad ordered a small contingent of U.S. special operations to leave the country. In September, the U.S. said it was in talks for them to return.  

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on whether it has a presence in Chad. 
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GABORONE, BOTSWANA — Botswana has been added as a second center, in addition to Belgium, to verify the origin of rough diamonds meant for export to the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries, the nation’s presidency announced Thursday.

African producers had complained that making Belgium the sole verification center led to disruptions in the global diamond supply chain, as the G7 moved to stop the flow of gems mined in Russia.

A statement by the office of the president said Botswana was granted permission to set up a verification center following “intensive” discussions with the G7 Diamond Technical Team.

The announcement comes as President Duma Boko and Minister of Minerals Bogolo Kenewendo returned Thursday from a diamond conference in Brussels.

Kenewendo told state television it is logical to grant Botswana, the world’s second-largest producer of diamonds, the right to certify rough stones.

She said that Botswana has a track record in verification and certification, together with other countries under the Kimberley Process.

The Kimberley Process is a trade regime that certifies rough diamond exports entering the global market, but it has been criticized for failing to do enough to keep out diamonds from conflict zones.

Diamond-producing countries such as Angola and Namibia should be recognized verifiers because they have prepared through the Kimberley Process, Kenewendo said.

To sanction Russian diamonds, the G7, at the start of the year, proposed that all stones destined for export to their member countries be routed through Antwerp, Belgium, to verify their origin.

African producers, led by Botswana, protested, saying the move caused disruptions to the global supply chain due to delays and added costs.

Belgian-based diamond industry researcher Hans Merket said the addition of Botswana as a verification center will allow more flexibility.

“Botswana appears to be something of a test case with the G7 Diamond Technical Team already explicitly referencing Namibia and Angola as potential future certification nodes,” Merket said.

“By diversifying the certification points, this approach could establish a more balanced and inclusive framework for the G7 certification scheme aligning more closely with the global dynamics of the global supply chain,” he said.

“Moreover, it can also help pave the way for stricter controls and higher ethical standards in the diamond sector, particularly as the Kimberley Process certification scheme faces increasing criticism for its declining credibility and leniency,” Merket said.

Jaff Bamenjo, coordinator of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, said more African diamond producers should be added as verification centers because the addition of only Botswana will not resolve supply chain disruptions.

“African diamond producing countries are suffering from a problem they did not create,” Bamenjo said.

Botswana’s export certification center is expected to be operational early next year.
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