Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia said on Saturday it had downed 47 Ukrainian drones while Kyiv reported neutralized 24 drones fired by Moscow.

The Ukrainian air force said many missiles were fired from the Russian border region of Belgorod, without specifying the number or the type.

It said Russia had fired 28 drones at Ukraine, of which 24 were destroyed in the Sumy, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Mikolayev and Kherson regions.

The Ukrainian chief of staff also said Kyiv’s forces had struck a fuel depot overnight in the eastern Russian-occupied Lugansk region, setting it on fire. It did not give any details.

Moscow did not confirm the attack. But the Russian defense ministry said its forces had downed 47 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 17 in the southeastern Krasnodar region, 16 over the Azov Sea and 12 over the border region of Lursk.

The Krasnodar governor said on Telegram that Ukrainian drone attacks had damaged three homes and set a vehicle on fire.

Russian forces have made advances across the eastern front line and targeted Ukraine’s power grid as the country faces its toughest winter since the full-scale Russian invasion started in February 2022.
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NEW ORLEANS — On the eve of World War II, Nazis in Austria seized a pastel by renowned impressionist artist Claude Monet, selling it off and sparking a family’s decadeslong search that culminated Wednesday in New Orleans.

At an FBI field office, agents lifted a blue veil covering the Monet pastel and presented Adalbert Parlagi’s granddaughters with the artwork over 80 years after it was taken from their family. Helen Lowe said she felt that her grandfather would be watching and that he would be “so, so proud of this moment.”

Monet’s 1865 Bord de Mer depicts rocks along the shoreline of the Normandy coast, where Allied forces stormed the beaches of Nazi-occupied France during D-Day in 1944, marking a turning point in the war. The Monet pastel is one of 20,000 items recovered by the FBI Art Crime Team out of an estimated 600,000 artworks and millions of books and religious objects stolen by the Nazis.

“The theft was not random or incidental, but an integral part of the Nazis’ plan to eliminate all vestiges of Jewish life in Germany and Europe, root and branch,” U.S. State Department Holocaust adviser Stuart E. Eizenstat said in a March speech.

After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Adalbert Parlagi, a successful businessman and art lover, and his wife, Hilda, left behind almost everything they owned and fled Vienna, using British license plates to drive across the border, their granddaughters said. Though the Parlagis hadn’t identified as Jewish for years and baptized their children as Protestants, they were still considered Jewish under Nazi laws, according to Austrian government records. Other relatives were killed in concentration camps.

The Parlagis attempted to ship their valuable carpets, porcelain and artworks out of Vienna to London, but found out later that their property had been seized and auctioned off by the Gestapo to support the Third Reich.

Multiple international declarations decried trading in Nazi-looted art, beginning with Allied forces in London in 1943. The 1998 Washington principles, signed by more than three dozen countries, reiterated the call and advocated for the return of stolen art.

Yet Adalbert Parlagi’s efforts were stonewalled by the Vienna auctioneer who had bought and sold the Monet pastel and another artwork owned by Parlagi. The records were lost after the fighting in Vienna, the auctioneer told Adalbert in a letter shortly after World War II, according to an English translation of a document prepared by an Austrian government body reviewing the Parlagi family’s art restitution claims.

“I also cannot remember two such pictures either,” the auctioneer said.

Many survivors of World War II and their descendants ultimately give up trying to recover their lost artwork because of the difficulties they face, said Anne Webber, co-founder of the London-based nonprofit Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which has recovered more than 3,500 looted artworks.

“You have to just constantly, constantly, constantly look,” Webber said.

Adalbert Parlagi and his son Franz kept meticulous ownership and search records. After Franz’s death in 2012, Françoise Parlagi stumbled upon her father’s cache of documents, including the original receipt from her grandfather’s purchase of the Monet pastel. She reached out to Webber’s commission for help in 2014.

The commission’s research team reviewed archives and receipts, contacted museums and art experts and scoured the internet, but initially found “absolutely no trace,” Webber said. Then, in 2021, the team discovered online that a New Orleans dealer acquired the Monet in 2017 and sold it to a Louisiana-based doctor and his wife.

The FBI investigated the commission’s research and, earlier this year, a federal court ruled the pastel should be returned to the Parlagis’ descendants.

“There was never a question” of returning the art to the rightful owners after learning of its sordid history, said Bridget Vita-Schlamp, whose late husband had purchased the Monet pastel.

“We were shocked, I’m not going to lie,” she said.

The family recovered another work in March from the Austrian government but there are still six more artworks missing, including from acclaimed artists Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac. The U.S. is likely the “largest illegal art market in the world,” said Kristin Koch, supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Art Crime Program.

The art world has a greater responsibility to investigate the origins of artworks and a moral obligation to return looted works to their rightful owners, Webber said.

“They represent the life and the lives that were taken,” Webber said. “They represent the world that they were exiled from.”

The granddaughters of Adalbert and Hilda Parlagi say they are grateful for what they have already gotten back. Françoise Parlagi, a broad smile on her face, said she hoped to hang a copy of the pastel in her home. She said the moment felt “unreal.”

“So many families are in this situation. Maybe they haven’t even been trying to recover because they don’t believe, they think this might not be possible,” she said. “Let us be hope for other families.”
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STOCKHOLM — Meta Platforms said on Friday that it had removed a network of group accounts targeting Russian speakers in Moldova ahead of the country’s October 20 election, for violation of the company’s policy on fake accounts.

Authorities in Moldova, an ex-Soviet state lying between Romania and Ukraine, said they had blocked dozens of Telegram channels and chat bots linked to a drive to pay voters to cast “no” ballots in a referendum on European Union membership held alongside the presidential election.

Pro-European President Maia Sandu is seeking a second term in the election and called the referendum on joining the 27-member bloc as the cornerstone of her policies.

The fake Meta accounts posted criticism of Sandu, pro-EU politicians and close ties between Moldova and Romania, and supported pro-Russia parties in Moldova, the company said.

The company said its operation centered on about a dozen fictitious, Russian-language news brands posing as independent entities with presence on multiple internet services, including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, as well as Telegram, OK.ru and TikTok.

Meta said it removed seven Facebook accounts, 23 pages, one group and 20 accounts on Instagram for violating its “coordinated inauthentic behavior policy.”

About 4,200 accounts followed one or more of the 23 pages and about 335,000 accounts followed one or more of the Instagram accounts, Meta said.

In Chisinau, the National Investigation Inspectorate said it had blocked 15 channels of the popular Telegram messaging app and 95 chat bots offering voters money. Users were told the channels “violated local laws” on political party financing.

It had traced the accounts to supporters of fugitive businessman Ilan Shor — members of the banned party bearing his name or the “Victory” electoral bloc he had set up in its place from his base of exile in Moscow.

Moldovan police said on Thursday that they searched homes of leaders linked to Shor as part of a criminal investigation into election-meddling. Police have said tens of thousands of voters were paid off via accounts in a Russian bank to derail the vote.

Shor was sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia last year in connection with the 2014 disappearance of $1 billion from Moldovan banks. He denies allegations of trying to bribe voters.

Sandu accuses Moscow of trying to topple her government while Moscow has accused her of fomenting “Russophobia.”
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ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Russian President Vladimir Putin met Iran’s president Friday, at a time when Tehran is supplying weapons for Moscow’s war in Ukraine and concerns are growing over escalating attacks between Israel and Iran and its militant allies.

Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian discussed the situation in the Middle East on the sidelines of an international forum in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, Russian state media said.

Moscow and Tehran signed a $1.7 billion deal for Iran to export drones to Russia after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the U.S. also believes it has transferred short-range ballistic missiles.

Both countries were accused this week by Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, of carrying out a “staggering” rise in attempts at assassination, sabotage and other crimes on U.K. soil. McCallum said his agents and police have tackled 20 “potentially lethal” plots backed by Iran since 2022 and warned that it could expand its targets in the U.K. if conflicts in the Middle East deepen.

During the two presidents’ meeting, Putin told Pezeshkian that Moscow and Tehran’s positions on international events are often very close, according to Russian state news agency Tass. He also invited the Iranian leader to visit Russia and Pezeshkian accepted, Tass said.

“We have many opportunities now, and we must help each other in our relationships. Our principles, our positions in the international arena are similar to yours,” Pezeshkian said at the start of his meeting with Putin.

Pezeshkian said that Israel’s “savage attacks,” on Lebanon are “beyond description.” The Israeli military sent ground troops into southern Lebanon and is carrying out airstrikes in the country against Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.

Speaking Friday as the forum opened, Putin said he wants to create a “new world order” of Moscow’s allies to counter the West, according to video provided by the Kremlin.

The conference is being attended by other regional leaders including Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and the heads of the other Central Asian nations, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Putin is also expected to hold talks with Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov.

Berdymukhamedov was elected in March 2022 to succeed his father, Gurbanguly, who had run the gas-rich country since 2006.

Turkmenistan has remained largely isolated under autocratic rulers since it became independent following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
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washington — A media watchdog group’s report is prompting renewed scrutiny of the role Serbia is playing in the dissemination of Russian propaganda in the Balkans, particularly as it concerns Moscow’s war on Ukraine. 

“Thanks to the Serbian government’s grip on the media and favorable political environment, RT — formerly Russia Today — uses its Belgrade office to adapt the Kremlin’s narratives before disseminating them across southeastern Europe,” said the report from Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which was updated early this week. 

The Paris-based watchdog group added that it “calls on the European Union (EU) and its member states to hold Serbia accountable for hosting [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies.” 

The EU’s response was not long in coming. On Tuesday, EU spokesperson for external affairs Peter Stano called on Serbia to take urgent measures to counter Russian media manipulation and interference.  

“The European Union has adopted sanctions against Russian state-owned media, including RT,” Stano told Agence France-Presse, adding that those outlets have become an instrument of Russia’s war against Ukraine and “a channel for the dissemination and manipulation of information.” 

A day earlier, Pavol Szalai, head of the Europe and Balkans desk at RSF, told AFP that the Serbian government was allowing the country, an EU candidate nation, to be used as “an amplifier and translator of Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans.” 

In a post on X, Arno Guyon, who heads the Serbian government’s Office for Public and Cultural Diplomacy, responded to the comments by the EU’s Stano and RSF’s Szalai, calling them “very worrying.” 

“It reminds of the period of communism during which censorship was applied in Yugoslavia in the name of fighting against ‘harmful or undesirable ideas.’ It contradicts the values of pluralism, tolerance and freedom of speech, which the Serbs believe in and for which numerous Serbian intellectuals who were imprisoned and killed because of it fought.” 

Asked by VOA’s Serbian Service about the accusations concerning the Serbian government’s alleged role in disseminating Russian disinformation, the U.S. State Department responded:  

“Media manipulation and interference poses significant risks to democratic processes and societal stability in Serbia and the Western Balkans. The Department of State’s Global Engagement Center previously warned  that the Kremlin’s state-funded and state-directed media outlets RT and Sputnik are critical elements in Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”   

The State Department added that it would continue its cooperation with Serbian partners in responding to RT’s activities. 

In September, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced new measures to thwart the activities of the Russian state-funded and -directed media company Rossiya Segodnya, and five of its subsidiaries, including RT. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said those Russian state media entities “are no longer merely firehoses of Russian Government propaganda and disinformation,” but are engaged in “covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.” 

“Thanks to new information — much of which originates from RT employees — we know that RT possess cyber capabilities and engaged in covert information and influence operations and military procurement,” Blinken said. “As part of RT’s expanded capabilities, the Russian Government embedded within RT a unit with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence. RT’s leadership had direct, witting knowledge of this enterprise.” 

RT Balkan, which has existed in Serbia since 2022, publishes its content on the internet and social media. Sputnik Serbia, a subsidiary of Russia’s Sputnik state news agency, arrived in the country a little earlier, in 2017.  

Ruslan Trad, a resident fellow for security research with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told VOA that the Serbian government is providing Russia with a platform for building a serious infrastructure, which also includes a media presence. 

“Russian propaganda media use Serbia to establish a presence in the wider region,” he said. “They use different methods, such as advertising platforms on Google that users have confidence in, in order to redirect them to the contents of ‘Russia Today’ or other Russian or pro-Russian media in the Serbian language.”  

Trad believes that the Serbian authorities will ignore the criticism expressed by the European Union and non-governmental organizations. 

“Belgrade ’s position is clear. The European Union, which has economic interests in Serbia related to lithium, will do little more than comment,” he said. “[Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic doesn’t see it as a problem, so things will continue to work in the same way.” 

Still, Trad said the Serbian government’s relationships with Russia and the West are provisional, not set in stone. 

“It is obvious that Belgrade enables all this out of interest, and not because it is pressed against the wall,” he said. “Unlike other countries in the region, Serbia sees the Russian Federation as an ally, but not as a partner at any cost. It is no coincidence that Belgrade also has ties with China, the U.S. and European countries such as France.” 

He added: “However, if it wants to become a part of the European family, Belgrade will have to implement the rule of law and improve the situation in the media environment.”  
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STOCKHOLM — Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who are also known as Hibakusha, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.  

Below are some facts about the background and efforts of the movement.  

Atomic bombing of Japan   

In 1945 the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to bring an end to World War II and avoid a hugely costly invasion of the Japanese home islands.  

The two bombs killed an estimated 120,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while many thousands more died of burns and radiation injuries in the following years. The two atomic bombs remain the only nuclear weapons used in war.  

Local associations    

The fates of those who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were long concealed and neglected, especially in the initial years after the end of the war.  

Local Hibakusha associations, along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific, formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations in 1956.   

The organisation, whose name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo, would become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.   

Witness accounts  

Through the years, Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts relating the experience of the nuclear bombs. It has issued resolutions and public appeals, and sent annual delegations to bodies such as the United Nations and peace conferences to advocate nuclear disarmament.   

The movement has helped drive global opposition to nuclear weapons through the force of the survivors’ testimonies while also creating educational campaigns and issuing stark warnings about the spread and use of nuclear arms.  

Future  

With each passing year, the number of survivors from the two nuclear blasts in Japan nearly 80 years ago grows smaller.  

But the grassroots movement has played a part creating a culture of remembrance, allowing for new generations of Japanese to carry on the work.  

Source: The Norwegian Nobel Committee 

 
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kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian missile slammed into a commercial building in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region overnight, killing four people including a 16-year-old girl, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Friday.

It was the fourth Russian attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa and the nearby region in the last five days. Kiper said a day of mourning had been announced for Friday in the region to remember people killed in a Russian drone attack on October 9.

“In two days Russian terrorists killed 13 civilian people in the Odesa region and most of them are youth,” Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app.

The ability to maintain exports through the Black Sea ports is vital for the Ukrainian economy which has been hit hard by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Prosecutor General’s office said Russian forces had struck civilian infrastructure with a ballistic Iskander missile at about 22:35 (19:35 GMT) on Thursday night.

A two-story commercial building hosting food production facilities where civilians worked was hit and 10 more people were wounded, officials said.

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said the Russian attacks targeted civilian infrastructure and strived to create impossible living conditions for millions of Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 29 out of 66 Russian drones launched at Ukraine overnight. Moscow also fired two missiles, it said, and 31 drones were “locationally lost,” an apparent reference to electronic warfare, while two drones returned towards Russian territory.

Zelenskyy meets foreign leaders

The new wave of strikes on Ukrainian Black Sea ports has coincided with visits by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week to meet leaders in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin to discuss his proposed “victory plan.”

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the strike on Odesa. Russia, which invaded in February 2022, denies targeting civilians. It says it targets only military infrastructure and other military targets although towns and cities across Ukraine have been struck repeatedly.

A Russian missile hit a Palau-flagged vessel in Odesa port Monday, while on Sunday, another Russian missile damaged a civilian Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged vessel loaded with corn in the port of Pivdennyi.

Ukrainian officials said Russia had carried out almost 60 attacks on ports over the past three months, resulting in the damage and destruction of almost 300 port infrastructure facilities, 177 vehicles and 22 civilian vessels.

“They are trying from all sides to suppress our intentions to develop, maintain our economy,” Kiper said.
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washington — The article in the Seattle Tribune had everything: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Adolf Hitler and a $15 million classic car. Unsurprisingly, it spread like wildfire across Russia’s state and pro-Kremlin media.

But the subject was a strange one for a news site about a U.S. city; such outlets usually cover only local stories.

In fact, the article with headline “Hitler’s parade car bought by Ukraine’s Zelensky” was another fake spread by Russian propaganda.

There is no such media outlet as the Seattle Tribune, just a website masquerading as a full-fledged publication. And the article itself was a compilation of Russia’s disinformation “greatest hits” about Ukraine — “Nazism,” “unrestrained corruption” and “wasting American aid.”

According to the phony news article, Zelenskyy was spotted in Kyiv exiting a Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser Offener Tourenwagen, Adolf Hitler’s parade car. The sighting supposedly occurred just days after the Ukrainian leader returned from Washington, where the U.S. government had allocated an $8 billion aid package to his country.

The article featured a screenshot of a post by the Ukrainian Telegram messenger channel Realna Viyna (“Real War” in Ukrainian) featuring a photo of the vehicle parked in front of the Ukrainian presidential administration building in Kyiv.

However, beyond the Seattle Tribune news site not actually existing, the article had several other glaring problems.

First, Realna Viyna did not publish the post in the screenshot. Second, the image of “Hitler’s car” was stolen from a photo widely available on the internet that was digitally edited into an image of the Ukrainian presidential administration building.

VOA found that the angle of photo in the screenshot, a black spot on the asphalt under the car’s running board, and the reflection on the front windshield completely match the image of the Mercedes-Benz 770K found across the internet.

Third, the Seattle Tribune website was registered on October 3, 2024, just six days before the fake article was published. And the registration was set for only one year.

The Seattle Tribune appears to belong to a network of disinformation websites controlled by John Mark Dougan, an American living in Russia, according to Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist who fact checks and debunks disinformation at the BBC.

He noted on social network X that creating fake local American news sites is Dougan’s standard approach. That conclusion matches VOA’s observations about Dougan’s network.

A former deputy sheriff in Florida, Dougan was charged with extortion and wiretapping in the United States. In 2016, he fled to Russia and later received political asylum there.

He now operates at least 167 disinformation sites that often publish narratives serving Russian interests, according to a May 2024 investigation by NewsGuard.

Dougan’s sites previously attracted widespread attention for spreading a fake story claiming that Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, had purchased a $4.8 million Bugatti supercar during a visit to France for commemorations of the D-Day landing.

That story seemed to be aimed at a Western audience. The fake “Hitler car” story, however, is mostly spreading in the Russian information space. In a message on the Telegram messenger, Dougan told VOA that he was unaware of the Seattle Tribune.

“Never heard of it. But I looked it up [and] heard there’s lots of great information on there. A real pillar of journalistic integrity, on par with the NYT, CNN and MSNBC,” he wrote, referring to The New York Times and two major U.S. TV news channels.

As is often the case with higher-quality fakes, the phony story about Hitler’s parade car combines a fictitious narrative about Zelenskyy with real facts about the sale of a former Nazi parade car in the United States.

The factual information comes from an article in a real American newspaper: The Seattle Times, which reported in February 2018 that the Mercedes-Benz 770K had briefly appeared in the Seattle area after having been put up for auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, a month earlier.

While the vehicle did not sell at the auction, it soon found a buyer. After that, the “Hitler car” was briefly unloaded from a truck in the wealthy Seattle suburb of Medina, where it attracted the attention of a local resident, who told The Seattle Times about it. Later, the car was likely reloaded onto the truck and taken way.

The director of the auction company Worldwide Auctioneers, Rod Egan (his name was also mentioned in the fake Seattle Tribune story), refused to tell The Seattle Times the buyer of the car, citing a non-disclosure agreement.

However, Egan said the car’s ultimate destination was “very, very far away” outside the United States.

The Seattle Times article also cited a German media report that six such cars were bought by a Russian billionaire in 2009. Among them was the vehicle mentioned in the fake article.

The fake story about Zelenskyy and the “Hitler car” also recalled a scene from the 2001 American comedy film “Rat Race,” in which actor Jon Lovitz steals Hitler’s parade car from a fictional museum of Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie and then crashes it into a gathering of American World War II veterans.

Asked whether he was familiar with the film and scene, Dougan replied, “Comedy gold right there.”
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WASHINGTON — Russian opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza was released from a Russian prison on August 1 as part of a wide-ranging exchange of prisoners between Russia and several Western countries. He had been jailed in April 2022 on charges of treason for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. He was almost fatally poisoned twice, in 2015 and 2017.

Since his release, Kara-Murza has been actively involved in the Russian opposition’s diplomatic efforts, meeting with the U.S. and French presidents and the German chancellor. During a recent visit to Washington, he sat down for interviews with Voice of America journalists. Speaking to VOA’s Ukrainian Service, he discussed the agenda that the Russian opposition is promoting in the West.

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: After your release, you met with [U.S.] President [Joe] Biden, [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron and [German] Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz. What was your main message to them about policy toward Russia?

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian opposition politician: There are two main messages. The first message is that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin must lose the war in Ukraine, because if he does win, that means that in a year or a year and a half, we will be talking about another war or another Russian invasion, because this is what this man does.

The second message is that the democratic nations of the free world must have a strategy. We know from the last couple of centuries of Russian history that failed wars of aggression always lead to political changes at home. Once Putin is defeated in Ukraine, there must be a prepared strategy for reintegrating a new, changed, post-Putin democratic Russia back into Europe, back into the civilized world, and back into what we call the international rules-based order.

VOA: If Putin loses power, how can democratization possibly happen? Someone from his inner circle would most likely grab power.

Kara-Murza: I hope he doesn’t die in office and that’s how it ends. I’m a Christian, and I know that everybody gets a trial up there, and so will he. But I really want that man to get a trial in this life, too.

On the question of change, this is a personalistic dictatorship. It is not an ideological dictatorship like in Soviet times, with the collective Politburo, when you could replace the person at the top without replacing the regime. This system is going to collapse very quickly, as we saw in 1953 after [Josef] Stalin’s death.

VOA: But [Nikita] Khrushchev, who replaced Stalin, was from his inner circle; he wasn’t an outsider.

Kara-Murza: Even if the next leader comes from the same circle, they always base their rule on a complete denial of everything that happened before. Khrushchev was one of Stalin’s closest entourage. He was the one who released millions of people from the gulag and engaged in a very incomplete, very imperfect but nevertheless de-Stalinization process that we had in the late 1950s, early 1960s — the so-called “Thaw.”

VOA: What kind of preparations should be made? How could democratic forces seize power?

Kara-Murza: The domestic aspect concerns reflection and accountability, which I call a truth-and-reconciliation process. That is necessary for any society that has undergone the trauma of totalitarian rule. All the people who are responsible for the crimes against Russian citizens, like the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, the assassination of Alexei Navalny and the persecution of hundreds and hundreds of political prisoners, have to be brought to justice. All the archives and the documents of all the crimes committed must be made public.

VOA: What about confronting the Russian imperialist mentality? Should Russia also confront all the crimes it has committed toward other people throughout its history?

Kara-Murza: It is part of the totalitarian past, because for years and years, for decades, the regime in the Kremlin has been committing crimes against our people in Russia and against other countries, other people and other nations. Look at the aggression and the wars this regime has conducted against the Chechens, against the Georgians, against Ukraine — let’s not forget, starting in 2014. Then, in Syria, of course, let’s not forget [Sergei] Shoigu, [Putin’s] defense minister, boasted about new armaments they had tested — tested! — on people, on civilians in residential areas.

VOA: I want to address your main argument about integrating Russia into the West after democratization and liberalization. The main argument against this would be that the West already tried that in the 1990s. Russia was part of the G8. NATO and the EU engaged with Russia. It received assistance. However, as Russia became richer, it became more aggressive. The more it became integrated with the West, the more efficient its malicious activities against the West became.

Kara-Murza: Here is where I fundamentally disagree, because the whole problem is that the West did not do that in the 1990s. Yes, there were some symbolic steps, like the G8, which is just a summit meeting. But, unlike other countries of the former Warsaw Pact, Russia in the 1990s was never offered a prospect of what I would call first-tier European or Atlantic integration with tangible benefits like free trade, visa-free travel and common security guarantees.

VOA: But it requires time. Ukraine still hasn’t been offered NATO membership …

Kara-Murza: But the problem is that these windows of opportunity are, by definition, short and brief. They last a few months at best, and the West lost that window of opportunity in Russia in the early 1990s. We cannot allow that to happen again.

In 1943, as WWII was ongoing, the U.S. government developed the Morgenthau Plan for postwar Germany. It was about dismembering, de-industrializing, humiliating and basically destroying Germany as a functioning state. Given the horrors committed at the time of the war, it was emotionally very understandable. However, leaders of Western-allied nations realized that they could not base long-term strategic policy on emotion. So, the Morgenthau Plan was abandoned in favor of the Marshall Plan, which was the exact opposite: to rebuild and reconstruct Germany after the war, to make it a successful market economy and a functioning liberal democracy.

VOA: Should this happen before or after Russia pays reparations for the destruction of Ukraine?

Kara-Murza: It should be simultaneous. The only way we can ensure long-term peace, stability, security and democracy on the European continent is with a democratic Russia. It’s not going to happen any other way.
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STOCKHOLM — Swedish police said on Thursday they were investigating a shooting near an Israeli target in the city of Gothenburg, which the national broadcaster said was a unit of Israeli defense electronics firm Elbit Systems. 

Police said in a statement it had apprehended a young suspect at the scene and launched a probe into suspected attempted murder and serious weapons crimes. 

They did not identify the company, but Elbit Systems Sweden CEO Tobias Wennberg told Reuters there had been a serious incident outside its premises on Thursday, adding that no one was injured in the incident. 

“Elbit Systems Sweden otherwise has no knowledge of the incident. Our operations continue as usual,” he said in an email. 

A police spokesperson said there was only one suspect, and investigators were not aware of any concrete threats against other Israeli targets in the city on Sweden’s west coast. 

The suspect is under 15 years of age, public broadcaster SVT and other Swedish media reported, without identifying their sources. 

The Israeli Embassy in Stockholm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Swedish police in May said they had stepped up security around Israeli and Jewish interests in the Nordic country after officers on patrol heard suspected gunshots near Israel’s embassy in Stockholm. 

Sweden has seen an epidemic of gun violence in recent years, driven by criminal gangs feuding over drugs and other illicit activities. 
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WASHINGTON — Neither rising death tolls nor plunging temperatures are likely to change the trajectory of Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to senior U.S. officials charged with supporting Kyiv’s fight against Moscow’s forces. 

The officials, briefing reporters Wednesday on the condition of anonymity to discuss battlefield developments, said fighting over the past several weeks has resulted in only minor changes to the front lines, with few indications Russia is making any adjustments.

“It’s an attritional strategy,” said a senior U.S. military official. “It’s kind of the Russian way of war that they continue to throw mass into the problem.”

That willingness to try to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with sheer numbers has cost Russia’s military, according to the latest U.S. military assessments.

The U.S. estimates Russian forces have suffered 600,000 casualties, killed and wounded, since Moscow first launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — a toll that U.S. officials said surpasses the number of Russian casualties in any conflict since World War II.

September has been especially costly, with Russia sustaining more casualties last month than in any other month of the war, officials said. 

Russia’s military has also suffered in other ways.

Senior U.S. officials estimate Ukraine has destroyed or damaged more than 30 medium to large Russian ships stationed in the Black Sea, forcing Russia to relocate its Black Sea fleet. Ukraine is also thought to have destroyed more than two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank inventory.

“[It is] forcing the Russian military to dig into Soviet-era stockpiles and fuel tanks from World War II,” said a senior U.S. defense official.

And then there are the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ammunition depots, believed to have destroyed hundreds of thousands of Russian and North Korean-made rounds.

U.S. officials said the damage would likely slow delivery of ammunition and artillery rounds to the front lines.

Still, they warned, the Kremlin appears undeterred, even it means more Russian casualties.

“Russia does continue to devote significant amounts of resources and … lives toward a grinding campaign, redoubling its efforts in the east,” said the senior defense official. 

“Russia has also demonstrated time and time again a willingness to do whatever it takes to attempt to force the Ukrainians to capitulate, including purposely targeting Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure.”

For now, senior U.S. officials assess that Russian President Vladimir Putin has managed to avoid calling for a mass mobilization, like the call-up of some 300,000 reservists back in September 2022, thanks in part to pay increases for Russian volunteers. But just how long Putin can sustain Russia’s efforts without new troops is not clear.

As for Ukraine, senior U.S. officials point to the country’s success with its domestically produced drones and even its offensive into Russia’s Kursk region as reasons for hope.

“My assessment is that the Ukrainians will be able to maintain their position in Kursk for some amount of time, here into the future,” said the senior U.S. military official. “Several months and potentially beyond.”

The official said Ukraine’s military leadership appears to be looking at the big picture.

“Certainly, they’re focused on how they get through the winter, but they’re thinking a little bit longer term about how they set conditions for success next year,” the official said. 

“The Ukrainians are thinking forward to 2025,” the U.S. official added. “That includes things like ensuring that the additional brigades can come online as they increase their recruitment, as they get better equipment and training, reconstituting brigades that they’re cycling off the front line and really building up their combat power for the future.”
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WASHINGTON — A prominent Ukrainian news outlet reported Wednesday it is facing “ongoing and systematic pressure” from the office of the Ukrainian president that is threatening the outlet’s work.

In a statement on its website, the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda said officials are being blocked from communicating with the outlet’s journalists, its reporters are being denied access to official events and businesses are being pressured to stop advertising on its website.

In the statement, the outlet also highlighted a tense exchange between Ukrainska Pravda journalist Roman Kravets and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a recent press conference. During the interaction, Zelenskyy questioned the outlet’s editorial independence.

Ukrainska Pravda editor-in-chief Sevgil Musayeva told VOA it was important for the outlet to be honest with readers about the pressure it faces from the government.

“Ukraine is fighting for the right to exist but also for the right to be democratic, independent and transparent,” Musayeva said from Kyiv.

“And freedom of press and freedom of speech is one of [the] essential values of democracy. That’s why we will protect this value as much as we can,” Musayeva continued.

Ukrainska Pravda said it views the government’s actions as attempts to influence the outlet’s editorial policy.

The outlet has been facing this kind of pressure for about one year, but it has become even worse over the past two months, according to Musayeva. From now on, Ukrainska Pravda said, it will make public any attempts by the president’s office to pressure the outlet, according to the statement.

“Each such attempt only strengthens our motivation to expose corruption and mismanagement in the highest ranks of power,” the statement said. “We call on everyone who values freedom of speech and the independence of Ukrainian journalism to join us in defending these values.”

Media watchdogs — and Ukrainian journalists — have expressed concern about the state of press freedom in Ukraine in recent months amid Russia’s war on the country.

In June, Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said press freedom was “shrinking” in Ukraine, with challenges that include rising political pressure, surveillance and threats.

“The pressure, threats and interference must stop,” Jeanne Cavelier, head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said in the June statement. “Despite their admirable resilience after Russia launched its full scale invasion on 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian media landscape remains fragile.”

The Ukrainian president’s office, the Foreign Ministry and Ukraine’s Washington embassy did not immediately reply to VOA emails requesting comment for this story.

Musayeva told VOA she believes the pressure is in response to critical coverage Ukrainska Pravda has produced about the Ukrainian government, including on misconduct and corruption.

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Musayeva said, there has been a sense of less tolerance for news stories critical of the government. Still, the outlet will continue to cover all aspects of government, good or bad, she said.

“We continue our critical coverage on some bad governance,” she said. “We still see that corruption didn’t disappear.”

Musayeva said she recognizes the importance for the media to cover positive stories about Ukraine.

“But at the same time, the role of independent media in democratic countries is to provide information for the people and truthful information for the people about the current situation,” she said.
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BEIJING — China’s anti-dumping measures against brandies imported from the European Union are “legitimate trade remedy measures,” the commerce ministry said on Wednesday, a day after imposing the temporary curb.

French brands such as Hennessy and Remy Martin will face the strictures, adopted just days after the 27-nation bloc voted for tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs), sparking its biggest trade row with Beijing in a decade.

China’s commerce ministry said preliminary findings of an investigation showed that dumping of brandy from the European Union threatened “substantial damage” to domestic industry.

On Wednesday the ministry said the EU’s actions against Chinese EVs “seriously lack a factual and legal basis” and “clearly violate” World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

China has protested strongly to the WTO, it added.

Trade tensions have surged since the European Commission said last week it would press ahead with tariffs on China-made EVs, even after Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, rejected them.

Another sign of rising trade tension was the ministry’s remarks on Tuesday that an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into EU pork products would deliver “objective and fair” decisions when it wraps up.

It also said it was considering a hike in tariffs on imports of large-engine vehicles, which would hit German producers hardest. German exports to China of vehicles with engines 2.5 liters in size, or larger, reached $1.2 billion last year.
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LONDON — That long-held Wimbledon tradition of line judges dressed in elegant uniforms is no more. 

The All England Club announced Wednesday that artificial intelligence will be used to make the “out” and “fault” calls at the championships from 2025. 

Wimbledon organizers said the decision to adopt live electronic line calling was made following extensive testing at the 2024 tournament and “builds on the existing ball-tracking and line-calling technology that has been in place for many years.” 

“We consider the technology to be sufficiently robust and the time is right to take this important step in seeking maximum accuracy in our officiating,” said Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club. “For the players, it will offer them the same conditions they have played under at a number of other events on tour.” 

Bolton said Wimbledon had a responsibility to “balance tradition and innovation.” 

“Line umpires have played a central role in our officiating setup at the championships for many decades,” she said, “and we recognize their valuable contribution and thank them for their commitment and service.” 

Line-calling technology has long been used at Wimbledon and other tennis tournaments to call whether serves are in or out. 

The All England Club also said Wednesday that the ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles finals will be scheduled to take place at the later time of 4 p.m. local time on the second Saturday and Sunday, respectively — and after doubles finals on those days. 

Bolton said the moves have been made to ensure the day of the finals “builds towards the crescendo of the ladies’ and gentlemen’s singles finals, with our champions being crowned in front of the largest possible worldwide audience.”

 
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LONDON — Renewable energy sources are set to meet nearly half of all electricity demand by the end of the decade, but to fall short of a U.N. goal to triple capacity to reduce carbon emissions, an International Energy Agency (IEA) report showed on Wednesday.

The world is set to add more than 5,500 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity between now and 2030, almost three times the increase between 2017 and 2023, the IEA Renewables 2024 report said.

It said the increase is equivalent to the current power capacity of China, the European Union, India and the United States combined, but not enough to meet a target set at the COP28 U.N. climate conference.

For the world to triple capacity, governments need to intensify efforts to integrate renewables into power grids.

This requires the building and modernizing of 25 million kilometers of electricity grids and reaching 1,500 GW of storage capacity by 2030, the IEA said.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is set to account for 80% of the growth in renewable energy capacity to 2030. The wind sector is also forecast to recover and double its rate of expansion to 2030 compared with 2017-2023.

Global solar manufacturing capacity is expected to be more than 1,100 GW by the end of 2024, more than double the estimated demand by then. This supply glut has helped to cheapen solar module prices but also means many manufacturers are experiencing large financial losses, the report added.

While the U.N. target is a challenge, national governments are hitting their goals, with 70 countries, accounting for 80% of global renewable power capacity, estimated to reach or surpass their renewable energy targets for 2030.

“Renewables are moving faster than national governments can set targets for,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.

“This is mainly driven not just by efforts to lower emissions or boost energy security: it’s increasingly because renewables today offer the cheapest option to add new power plants in almost all countries around the world.”
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