Belarus’ opposition activists and Western officials have denounced the reelection of Alexander Lukashenko to serve his seventh five-year presidential term.   

The 70-year-old leader began his iron-fisted rule in 1994.  

He received nearly 87% of the ballots cast in Sunday’s election in the Eastern European country, according to the Belarus Central Election Commission.  

His victory was not surprising as he has imprisoned many of his opponents, while others have fled abroad to live in exile.  

Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya labeled Lukashenko’s successful reelection as “sheer nonsense.” Before Sunday’s vote, she had encouraged voters to cross out every candidate’s name on the ballot.   

The four challengers in Sunday’s election had all praised Lukashenko’s leadership, according to The Associated Press. 

The European Union, Britain, Australia and New Zealand issued a joint statement condemning “the sham presidential elections in Belarus and the country’s human rights violations under Lukashenko.”  

Britain’s Foreign Office said Monday that it has sanctioned six Belarus citizens and three defense sector firms, after the Sunday polls in Belarus. The sanctioned individuals include the head of the Belarusian Central Election Commission and two prison chiefs. 

“Following Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown in which critical voices within Belarus have been silenced, yesterday’s sham election failed to meet international standards and has been condemned by international partners,” the Foreign Office said. The Foreign Office also said that the sanctions were being placed in coordination with Canada. 

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement, “The world has become well-accustomed to Lukashenko’s cynical pretense of democracy in Belarus, while in reality he brutally represses civil society and opposition voices to strengthen his grip on power.”   

Lukashenko’s successful presidential bid in 2020 set off months of protests in which thousands of people were beaten and more than 65,000 were arrested. He was roundly condemned by the West, which imposed sanctions.    

However, he survived the protests with the help of his close ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Lukashenko depends on for subsidies, as well as political support.   

Putin called Lukashenko Monday to congratulate him on his “convincing victory.” Chinese President Xi Jinping also congratulated the Belarusian leader.  

The Viasna Human Rights Center, an exiled Belarusian nongovernmental organization, said in a statement that Belarus has over 1,250 political prisoners in custody.

Some information in this story was provided by The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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BELGRADE, SERBIA — Serbia’s striking university students on Monday launched a 24-hour blockade of a key traffic intersection in the capital, Belgrade, stepping up pressure on the populist authorities over a deadly canopy collapse in November that killed 15 people.

Serbian farmers on tractors and thousands of citizens joined the blockade that followed weeks of protests demanding accountability of the deadly accident in the northern city of Novi Sad that critics have blamed on rampant government corruption.

A campaign of street demonstrations has posed the biggest challenge in years to the populist government’s firm grip on power in Serbia.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic, later on Monday urged dialogue with the students, saying, “We need to lower the tensions and start talking to each other.”

Students in the past have refused to meet with Vucic, saying the president is not entitled by the constitution to hold talks with them.

“Any kind of a crisis poses a serious problem for our economy,” said Vucic. “Such a situation in society is not good for anyone.”

Vucic has faced accusations of curbing democratic freedoms despite formally seeking European Union membership for Serbia. He has accused the students of working for unspecified foreign powers to oust the government.

Several incidents have marked the street demonstrations in the past weeks, including drivers ramming into the crowds on two occasions, when two young women were injured.

Traffic police on Monday secured the student blockade to help avoid any similar incidents. Protesting students set up tents at the protest site, which is a key artery for the city commuters and toward the main north-south motorway.

Some students played volleyball, others sat down on blankets on the pavement or walked around on a warm day. The students also held a daily 15-minute commemoration silence at 11:52, the exact time when the canopy at a train station in Novi Sad crashed on Nov. 1.

Many in Serbia believe the huge concrete canopy fell because of sloppy reconstruction work that resulted from corruption.

Serbia’s prosecutors have filed charges against 13 people, including a government minister and several state officials. But the former construction minister, Goran Vesic, has been released from detention, fueling doubts over the investigation’s independence.

The main railway station in Novi Sad was renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure deal with Chinese state companies.
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PARIS — European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to continue sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, but to ease some sanctions against Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

Weeks of stalling by Hungary ended Monday, allowing the EU to renew sanctions against Russia for another six months.

But in return, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — considered close to Moscow — is pushing for Ukraine to reopen a gas pipeline to central Europe after letting a transit deal expire.

The bloc also earmarked aid for Moldova’s energy needs, which Europe says are threatened by Russia.

The 27-member bloc moved in the opposite direction when it came to Syria — agreeing to scale up humanitarian aid and ease some sanctions, now that the country is under new leadership.

“This could give a boost to the Syrian economy and help the country get back on its feet,” said Kaja Kallas, EU’s foreign policy chief.

Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has called the EU’s move a “positive step.”

European foreign ministers also discussed a raft of other thorny issues, from the Gaza ceasefire to Iran and the conflict in eastern Congo.

Another key topic: relations with the new Trump administration.

“As the United States shifts to [a] more transactional approach, Europe needs to close ranks. We are stronger when we are united — that was a view that everybody shared,” Kallas said.

She described Washington as Europe’s closest ally, but tensions have surfaced over trade, military spending and Greenland, after President Donald Trump indicated he wanted to acquire the territory.

“We are not negotiating on Greenland,” Kallas said. “Of course, we are supporting our member state, Denmark, and its autonomous region, Greenland.”

Kallas also noted the many ways the EU and U.S. are interlinked. But she said Europe needs to take into account its own strengths, in discussions with partners as well as with adversaries.
…

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 22, Donald Trump — just two days after being inaugurated for his second term as U.S. president — again called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the “ridiculous” war with Ukraine, but this time he added a threat.

“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The following day, Trump told reporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told him he’s ready to negotiate an end to the war. In an interview with Fox News aired that same day, Trump said Zelenskyy is “no angel” and “shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen.”

Does the new U.S. administration have sufficient economic leverage over Russia to force it to make peace, or at least talk about peace?

According to Konstantin Sonin, John Dewey distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and former vice rector of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, the U.S. has economic leverage, but some of its levers are clearly weaker than others.

“Russia’s trade with the U.S. is very small — less than $3 billion a year,” he told Danila Galperovich of VOA’s Russian Service. “Accordingly, even if any opportunity for U.S. companies to trade with Russia is completely closed, the damage to Russia will be small. There is an opportunity to strengthen secondary sanctions — that is, additional pressure, first of all, on China, on India, on other countries, so that they more strictly comply with the primary sanctions.

“There is also an opportunity to continue what [former U.S. President Joe] Biden did with sanctions against the Russian shadow tanker fleet,” Sonin added, referring to vessels that Russia uses to sell oil and evade Western sanctions.

“This requires great international cooperation, but, in principle, it can be done,” said Sonin.

Economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, a special adviser to the Russian Media Studies Project at MEMRI, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies, also stressed the significance of secondary sanctions on countries that do business with Russia.

“Trump can somehow influence other countries so that they do not buy Russian products,” Inozemtsev told VOA. “For example, let’s say he can say that if India buys Russian oil, then the United States will impose 15% duties on all goods from India. This would have the most radical consequences. [I]f… countries trading with Russia are getting serious problems in the United States for all their products, then I think that this will be a very sobering moment. If it is possible to impose a virtually complete trade blockade through U.S. sanctions, then these will be devastating sanctions, of course.”

Sonin said that, over the longer term, deregulating oil production internationally would reduce world oil prices and thereby hinder Moscow’s ability to finance its military operations against Ukraine.

“Trump is famous for his good relations with Saudi Arabia, although they are unlikely to be so good that they will reduce oil prices at his request,” he said. “But nevertheless, it is possible to work towards lowering oil prices, which even without sanctions will reduce Russian income.”

Trump spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a Jan. 22 telephone call.

Still, Sonin said that economic levers, in and of themselves, cannot force Putin to do anything. “I would say that the most direct impact is still the supply of more powerful weapons to Ukraine. I do not know to what extent Trump wants to do this, but he mentioned it, and, in principle, it is possible to supply Ukraine with more powerful weapons in larger quantities.”

Inozemtsev, however, said that Putin, who has not previously changed his behavior in response to ultimatums, could do so this time.

“Trump is a person whose degree of radicalism and unpredictability corresponds to Putin’s,” he said. “Here, perhaps, it would be better for Putin to change his mind a bit. If Trump offers him: ‘Vladimir, let’s go, we’ll meet there, sit down at the negotiating table, bring your team, I’ll bring mine, and we’ll agree on something, we’ll discuss it for a day or two, but the issue needs to be resolved,’ I think Putin will go.”
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Part of a U.S. military aid package to Ukraine in April 2022, the M113 armored personnel carrier has proved vital in conducting assault operations and providing protection for Ukrainian infantry. And many of these vehicles are still up and running nearly three years later. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy
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Sofia, Bulgaria — The Swedish coast guard chased and intercepted a Bulgarian ship after a fiber-optic cable under the Baltic Sea linking Sweden to Latvia was damaged, its owner said on Monday.

Latvia sent a warship on Sunday to investigate the damage, while Swedish prosecutors opened an “aggravated sabotage” investigation.

Nations around the Baltic Sea have scrambled to bolster defenses after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months, with some observers blaming Russia.

The Bulgarian vessel on Sunday “was chased by the Swedish coast guard with instructions for the ship to go into their territorial waters and it is now on anchor where an investigation … is ongoing,” Alexander Kalchev, CEO of Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar), owner of the Vezhen, told AFP.

He denied involvement in any sabotage. “I am convinced that we cannot say … that this was a malicious act,” he added.

The Malta-flagged vessel carrying fertilizer from Ust-Luga in Russia and headed for South America was sailing in “extremely bad weather” on Saturday based on the information given to him by the crew, Kalchev said.

An inspection on Sunday found that “one of the ship’s anchors was damaged and the anchor had dropped into the sea, which means that it was possible that it had dragged along the sea floor,” he said, adding the anchor was then pulled up.

‘Full solidarity’

Navibulgar, Bulgaria’s biggest shipping company, said it had appointed an agent in Sweden and hired a lawyer “to defend the interests of the crew and the company.”

The ship, constructed in 2022, has a crew of eight Bulgarians and nine Myanmar nationals.

“Staff from the Swedish authorities have been on board the ship since yesterday evening to carry out investigative measures,” an intelligence official told AFP.

The damage to the cable occurred in Swedish territorial waters at a depth of at least 50 meters, officials said.

The cable belongs to Latvia’s state radio and television center (LVRTC) which said in a statement that there had been “disruptions in data transmission services.”

The company said alternatives had been found and end users would mostly not be affected although “there may be delays in data transmission speeds.”

Latvia’s navy on Sunday said it had identified a “suspect vessel,” the Michalis San, near the location of the incident along with two other ships.

Prime Minister Evika Silina said Riga had notified the Swedish authorities and that the two countries were working together on the incident.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson confirmed he had been in contact with Silina during the day, and Sweden, Latvia and NATO are closely cooperating on the matter.

Experts and politicians have accused Russia of orchestrating a hybrid war against the West as the two sides square off over Ukraine.

NATO this month announced it was launching a new monitoring mission in the Baltic Sea involving ships and aircraft to deter attempts to target undersea infrastructure.

European Union President Ursula von der Leyen expressed “full solidarity” with countries affected by the incident. “The resilience and security of our critical infrastructure is a top priority,” von der Leyen wrote on X.
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BEIJING — China has prohibited imports of sheep, goat, poultry and even-toed ungulates from African, Asian and European countries due to outbreaks of livestock diseases such as sheep pox, goat pox and foot-and-mouth-disease.

The ban, which also includes processed and unprocessed products, comes after the World Health Organization released information of disease outbreaks in various countries, according to a series of announcements by China’s General Administration of Customs dated Jan. 21.

The ban from the world’s largest meat importer affects Ghana, Somalia, Qatar, Congo (DRC), Nigeria, and Tanzania, Egypt, Bulgaria, East Timor and Eritrea.

China also said it has stopped imports of sheep, goat and related products from Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh due to sheep pox and goat pox outbreaks.

It also blocked the imports of even-toed ungulates and related products from Germany following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, it said.
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STOCKHOLM/VILNIUS — An undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, prompting NATO to deploy patrol ships to the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities.

Sweden’s Security Service has seized control of a vessel as part of the probe, the country’s prosecution authority said.

“We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation,” senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.

NATO was coordinating military ships and aircraft under its recently deployed mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry.” The effort follows a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said her government was coordinating with NATO and other countries in the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances surrounding the latest incident.

“We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.

Latvia’s navy said earlier on Sunday it had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other vessels were also subject to investigation.

Up to several thousand commercial vessels make their way through the Baltic Sea at any given time, and a number of them passed the broken cable on Sunday, data from the MarineTraffic ship tracking service showed.

One such ship, the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Vezhen, escorted to Swedish waters by a Swedish coastguard vessel on Sunday evening, MarineTraffic data showed. It later anchored outside the Swedish naval base in Karlskrona in southern Sweden.

It was not immediately clear if the Vezhen, which passed the fiber optic cable at 0045 GMT on Sunday, was subject to investigation.

A Swedish coastguard spokesperson declined to comment on the Vezhen or the position of coastguard ships.

Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which listed the Vezhen among its fleet, did not immediately reply to requests for comment outside of office hours.

NATO cooperation

Swedish navy spokesperson Jimmie Adamsson earlier told Reuters it was too soon to say what caused the damage to the cable or whether it was intentional or a technical fault.

“NATO ships and aircrafts are working together with national resources from the Baltic Sea countries to investigate and, if necessary, take action,” the alliance said in a statement on Sunday.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his country was cooperating closely with NATO and Latvia.

NATO said last week it would deploy frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure and reserved the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat.

Finnish police last month seized a tanker carrying Russian oil and said they suspected the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecoms cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.

Finland’s prime minister in a statement said the latest cable damage highlighted the need to increase protection for critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

The cable that broke on Sunday linked the Latvian town of Ventspils with Sweden’s Gotland island and was damaged in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone, the Latvian navy said.

Communications providers were able to switch to alternative transmission routes, the cable’s operator, Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC), said in a statement, adding it was seeking to contract a vessel to begin repairs.

“The exact nature of the damage can only be determined once cable repair work begins,” LVRTC said.

A spokesperson for the operator said the cable was laid at depths of more than 50 meters (164 feet).

Unlike seabed gas pipelines and power cables, which can take many months to repair after damage, fiber optic cables that have suffered damage in the Baltic Sea have generally been restored within weeks.
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Rome — Italy said Sunday it was transferring 49 migrants picked up in the Mediterranean to new processing centers in Albania, in the third such attempt facing hurdles by courts.

The navy vessel Cassiopea with the migrants on board was expected to reach the Albanian port of Shengjin on Tuesday morning, port officials said.

The Interior Ministry said Sunday that 53 other migrants “spontaneously presented their passports” after they were told that it would avoid their transfer to Albania. Where the nationality is confirmed, processing generally takes less time as people who are determined by Italy to be ineligible to apply for asylum in the European Union are repatriated via a fast-track procedure.

Italian judges refused to validate the detention of the first two small groups in the Albanian centers, built under a contentious agreement between Rome and Tirana.

Their cases have been referred to the European Court of Justice, which had earlier established that asylum applicants could not undergo a fast-track procedure that could lead to repatriation if their country of provenance was not deemed completely safe.

The European court hearing on the case is scheduled for Feb. 25.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government had vowed to reactivate the two centers in Albania that have remained dormant following the Italian courts’ decisions.

The premier’s position was partially backed by a ruling in late December by Italy’s highest court, which said Italian judges could not substitute for government policy in deciding which countries are safe for repatriation of migrants whose asylum requests are rejected.

The decision does allow lower courts to make such determinations on a case-by-case basis, short of setting overall policy.

Italy has earmarked $675 million (650 million euros) to run the centers over five years. They opened in October ready to accept up to 3,000 male migrants a month picked up by the Italian coast guard in international waters.

Human rights groups and nongovernmental organizations active in the Mediterranean have slammed the agreement as a dangerous precedent that conflicts with international laws.

Meloni has repeatedly stressed that plans to process migrants outside EU borders in Albania had received strong backing from other European leaders.
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Berlin — Government officials and residents attended a solemn Mass Sunday to honor a child and a man killed in a knife attack in Germany, an assault that amplified the debate about migration ahead of the Feb. 23 general election.

The ecumenical religious service at the Catholic Basilica of St. Peter and Alexander in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, was briefly suspended for the tolling of the city’s bells at the exact time that the attack took place Wednesday, 11:45 a.m.

Bavaria Governor Markus Soder, Aschaffenburg Mayor Jurgen Herzing and Muslim imam Zischan Mehmood addressed the congregation that included rescuers, to express grief and disbelief at the loss of lives. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was also present.

“Compassion, solidarity and cohesion are more important than ever, because there are many dividers and agitators around us,” Mehmood told the people gathered in and outside the church. “We must never allow grief and pain to tear us apart.”

Soder said the attack was a “senseless, brutal and disturbing crime.”

“Good and evil are not a question of origin, nationality, ethnicity or faith,” Soder said, and stressed that the killings should not lead to divisions because “incitement is the wrong answer.”

Before attending the service, Faeser and Soder laid wreaths at the site of the attack.

The attack is politically sensitive a month before Germany’s national election as migration policy is among the top campaign issues.

A 2-year-old boy of Moroccan origin, who was part of a group of kindergarten children, was killed, along with a 41-year-old German man who apparently intervened to protect the children in a city park. The arrested suspect is a 28-year-old former asylum-seeker from Afghanistan who had been told to leave Germany. Officials said he had received psychiatric treatment and there was no immediate indication that he was motivated by extremism.

He is being held in a psychiatric hospital, according to the German news agency, dpa.

Bavarian officials said two adults and a 2-year-old Syrian girl were also wounded in the attack and hospitalized but there was no danger to their lives.
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London — Ireland called in help from England and France on Sunday as repair crews worked to restore power to hundreds of thousands of people after the most disruptive storm for years.

More than 1 million people in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland were left without electricity after Storm Eowyn roared through on Friday.

In Ireland, which suffered the heaviest damage, the wind snapped telephone poles, ripped apart a Dublin ice rink and even toppled a giant wind turbine. A wind gust of 183 kph was recorded on the west coast, breaking a record set in 1945.

The state electricity company, ESB Networks, said that more than 300,000 properties in Ireland still had no power on Sunday, down from 768,000 on Friday. The Irish military was also helping out, but the company said that it could be two more weeks before electricity is restored to everyone.

Irish Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary said authorities were “throwing everything at it.”

“We’re bringing additional people from England today and we’re looking for people from France, additional technicians,” he told broadcaster RTE. “What we’re focused on is getting our infrastructure back up, getting our power back up, getting our water and connectivity back up as soon as is possible.”

Another 75,000 people were still without power on Sunday in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and neighbors the Republic of Ireland.

At least two people died during the storm. Kacper Dudek, 20, was killed when a tree fell on his car in County Donegal in northwest Ireland, local police said.

Police in Scotland said that a 19-year-old man, who hasn’t been named, died in a hospital on Saturday after a tree fell on his car in the southwestern town of Mauchline on Friday.

More rainy and windy weather battered Britain and Ireland on Sunday, with a gust of 132 kph recorded at Predannack in southwest England.
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis warned of the “scourge of antisemitism” in his Angelus prayer on Sunday, the eve of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, noting it marks 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. 

“The horror of the extermination of millions of Jewish people and others of different faiths during those years must never be forgotten or denied,” Francis said, citing the example of Hungarian-born poet Edith Bruck, who lives in Rome. 

He noted that many Christians were also killed in Nazi concentration camps, “among whom there were numerous martyrs.” 

“I renew my appeal for everyone to work together to eradicate the scourge of antisemitism, along with every form of discrimination and religious persecution,” Francis said. 

“Together, let us build a more fraternal, just world, educating young people to have hearts open to all, in the spirit of fraternity, forgiveness, and peace,” he added. 

The pontiff also launched an appeal for an end to the civil war in Sudan, which began in April 2023, saying it is causing “the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world, with dramatic consequences even in South Sudan.” 

The pope also expressed concern for the situation in Colombia’s Catatumbo region, where many civilians have been killed by clashes between armed groups, which have forced over 30,000 people to leave their homes.
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MINSK, BELARUS — Belarusians began voting Sunday, with President Alexander Lukashenko expected to cruise to victory unchallenged for a seventh term, prolonging his three-decade authoritarian rule.

Lukashenko, a 70-year-old former collective farm boss, has been in power in reclusive, Moscow-allied Belarus since 1994.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) in Minsk’s first presidential vote since Lukashenko suppressed mass protests against his rule in 2020. He has since allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine in 2022.

The opposition and the West said Lukashenko rigged the last vote and the authorities cracked down on demonstrations, with more than a thousand people still jailed.

All of Lukashenko’s political opponents are either in prison — some held incommunicado — or in exile along with tens of thousands of Belarusians who have fled since 2020.

“All our opponents and enemies should understand: do not hope, we will never repeat what we had in 2020,” Lukashenko told a stadium in Minsk during a carefully choreographed ceremony Friday.

Belarusians hope for ‘no war’

Most people in Belarus have only distant memories of life in the landlocked country before Lukashenko, who was 39 when he won the first national election in Belarus since it gained independence from the Soviet Union.

Criticism of the strongman is banned in Belarus. Most people AFP spoke to in Minsk and other towns voiced support for him but were still fearful of giving their surnames.

The other candidates running against Lukashenko have been picked to give the election an air of democracy and few know who they are.

“I will vote for Lukashenko because things have improved since he became president [in 1994],” said 42-year-old farmer Alexei in the tiny village of Gubichi in southeastern Belarus.

He earns around 300 euros a month selling milk.

But, like many in Belarus, he is worried about the war in neighboring Ukraine.

In 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine from several directions, including from Belarus. The following year, Russia sent tactical nuclear weapons to the country, which borders NATO countries.

Alexei said he wished “for there not to be a war.”

The government’s narrative has been to say that Lukashenko guaranteed peace and order in Belarus, accusing 2020 street protest leaders of sowing chaos.

‘Farce’

The United Nations estimates that some 300,000 Belarusians have left the country since 2020 — mostly to Poland and Lithuania — out of a population of 9 million.

They will not be able to cast ballots, with Belarus having scrapped voting abroad.

Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya denounced the vote as a “farce” in a January interview with AFP.

Her husband, Sergei Tikhanovsky, has been held incommunicado for almost a year.

She urged dissidents to prepare for an opportunity to change their country but conceded “it was not the moment.”

In the run-up to the election, the Lukashenko administration pardoned around 200 political prisoners.

But former prisoners AFP spoke to say those released are under the close watch of security services and are unable to lead a normal life.

Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski is among those in prison in Belarus.

Reliant on Russia

While Lukashenko once carefully balanced his relations between the European Union and Moscow, since 2020 he has become politically and economically reliant on Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, called the election a “sham” in a posting on X Saturday and said, “Lukashenko doesn’t have any legitimacy.”

Known as “Europe’s last dictator” — a nickname he embraces — Lukashenko’s Belarus has retained much of the Soviet Union’s traditions and infrastructure.

Unlike in Russia, the KGB security agency has kept its haunting name and Belarus still applies the death penalty.

The country’s economy is largely state-planned and Lukashenko scrapped Belarus’s white-red-white flag in the 1990s — which has since become the symbol of the opposition.

Lukashenko prides himself for having kept the country’s Soviet-era industries and agriculture enterprises in state hands.

In his speech on Friday, he spoke about the “pyatiletka” (Five Year Plan) — an economic term used in the Soviet Union. 
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ROME — Italy’s prime minister addressed growing criticism Saturday of the repatriation of a Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court, as Giorgia Meloni cited an appeals court order and security concerns.

The repatriation of Ossama Anjiem to Libya, a key partner in Europe’s efforts to keep migrants from crossing the Mediterranean and landing on its shores, sparked outrage from human rights groups and questions from Italy’s opposition parties.

Meloni said her government will ask the ICC to clarify why it took months to issue the arrest warrant for Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, and why it was issued only after he traveled through at least three European countries.

“Al-Masri was released by an order of Rome’s Court of Appeal … It was not a government choice,” Meloni told journalists during a trip to Saudi Arabia.

Italy has close ties to Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli and relies on it to patrol its coasts and prevent migrants from leaving. Any trial of al-Masri in The Hague could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of Libya’s coast guard.

Al-Masri leads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Deterrence Forces. He was arrested Sunday in Turin, where he reportedly attended the Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before.

The ICC warrant, dated the day before his arrest, accused al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Mitiga prison, starting in 2015, that are punishable with life in prison. The court said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence. The prison holds political dissidents, migrants and others.

Human rights groups for years have documented abuses in Libyan detention facilities where migrants are kept.

The ICC said the arrest warrant was transmitted to member states Saturday, including Italy, and that the court had told Italy to contact it “without delay” if it ran into problems cooperating with the warrant.

But Rome’s court of appeals ordered al-Masri freed Tuesday, citing a “procedural error” in his arrest. The ruling said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio should have been informed ahead of time since the ministry handles all relations with the ICC.

Al-Masri was sent to Libya aboard an aircraft of the Italian secret services.

The ICC said it had not been given prior notice of the appeals court’s decision, as required, and was “yet to obtain verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken.”

Meloni said Italy’s government, “faced with a dangerous individual, decided to expel him immediately and, as it happens in many cases with dangerous prisoners who are repatriated, didn’t use a regular flight, also for passengers’ safety.”

She said Italy will provide all needed clarifications to the ICC.

Opposition parties have asked Meloni to urgently explain the “very serious” development, while calling on the justice minister to resign.
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HALLE, GERMANY — Tens of thousands of Germans rallied Saturday against the far right ahead of next month’s legislative elections, as U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk again endorsed the anti-immigrant AfD party.

Musk, speaking by video link, told thousands of AfD supporters gathered in the eastern city of Halle that their party was “the best hope for the future of Germany.”

AfD supporters at the rally shouted their approval as party co-leader Alice Weidel looked on smiling.

Meanwhile, protesters against the AfD turned out in cities across Germany.

The largest gatherings took place in Berlin and Cologne, police revising their turnout figures upward to 35,000 and 40,000 respectively.

The protesters in Berlin used their mobile phones to form “a sea of light for democracy” in front of the Brandenburg Gate, holding letters forming the word “Resistance.”

AfD polling a record

AfD is polling at about 20% before Germany’s February 23 elections, a record for a party that has shattered a decades-old taboo in post-war Germany against supporting the far right.

The mainstream conservative CDU/CSU alliance leads with about 30%, with CDU leader Friedrich Merz the favorite to become chancellor after the elections.

Musk, a close associate of U.S. President Donald Trump, told the AfD rally the election was important.

“I think it could decide the entire fate of Europe, maybe the fate of the world,” he said.

Musk has rattled European politicians in recent weeks with comments on his social platform X supporting AfD and far-right politicians in other countries, including Britain.

Like Trump, the AfD opposes immigration, denies climate change, rails against gender politics, and has declared war on a political establishment and mainstream media it claims limit free speech.

Peaceful protests

The anti-AfD rallies took place in about 60 towns following calls from a variety of organizations, attracting more people than the police expected.

The protests passed peacefully, with banners saying, “Nazis out” or “AfD is not an alternative,” a reference to the far-right party’s full name “Alternative for Germany.”

The CDU’s Merz also came in for criticism. Many protesters fear he is tempted to break his party’s policy of refusing to enter into coalition talks with the AfD.

There was also a protest in the southern city of Aschaffenbourg, where a deadly knife attack recently by an Afghan migrant further inflamed the debate over immigration.

Several thousand also turned out in the eastern city of Halle, where the AfD rally was addressed by Musk, leading to a few incidents.

Halle police said they had opened criminal investigations for offenses including assault, insults and disrupting traffic. They said they would also be taking action against 21 people who tried to force a barrier.
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HAIFA, ISRAEL — Naftali Furst will never forget his first view of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, on Nov. 3, 1944. He was 12 years old.

SS soldiers threw open the doors of the cattle car, where he was crammed in with his mother, father, brother, and more than 80 others. He remembers the tall chimneys of the crematoria, flames roaring from the top.

There were dogs and officers yelling in German “Get out, get out!” forcing people to jump onto the infamous ramp where Nazi doctor Josef Mengele separated children from parents.

Furst, now 92, is one of a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors able to share first-person accounts of the horrors they endured, as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ most notorious death camp. Furst is returning to Auschwitz for the annual occasion, his fourth trip to the camp.

Each time he returns, he thinks of those first moments there.

“We knew we were going to certain death,” he said from his home in Haifa, northern Israel, earlier this month. “In Slovakia, we knew that people who went to Poland didn’t return.”

Strokes of luck

Furst and his family arrived at the entrance to Auschwitz on Nov. 3, 1944 -– one day after Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the cessation of the use of the gas chambers ahead of their demolition, as the Soviet troops neared. The order meant that his family wasn’t immediately killed. It was one of many small bits of luck and coincidences that allowed Furst to survive.

“For 60 years, I didn’t talk about the Holocaust, for 60 years I didn’t speak a word of German even though it’s my mother tongue,” said Furst.

In 2005, he was invited to attend the ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald, where he was liberated on April 11, 1945, after being moved there from Auschwitz. He realized there were fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors who could give first-person accounts, and he decided to throw himself into memorial work. This will be his fourth trip to a ceremony at Auschwitz, having also met Pope Francis there in 2016.

Some 6 million European Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust — the mass murder of Jews and other groups before and during World War II. Soviet Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau on Jan. 27, 1945, and the day has become known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. An estimated 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Just 220,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and more than 20% are over 90.

A meeting place after the war

Furst, originally from Bratislava, then part of Czechoslovakia, was just 6 when the Nazis first started implementing measures against the country’s Jews.

He spent ages 9 to 12 in four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. His parents had planned to jump off of the cattle car on the way to the camp, but people were packed so tightly they couldn’t reach the doors.

His father instructed the entire family, no matter what, to meet at 11 Sulekova St. in Bratislava after the war. Furst and his brother were separated from their mother. After numbers were tattooed on their arms, they also were taken from their father. They lived in Block 29, without many other children. As the Soviet army closed in on the area, so close they could hear the booms from the tanks, Furst and his brother, Shmuel, were forced to join a dangerous journey toward Buchenwald, marching for three days in the cold and snow. Anyone who lagged behind was shot.

“We had to prove our desire to live, to do another step and another step and keep going,” he said. Many people gave up, longing to end the hunger and thirst and cold, and just sat down, where they were shot by the guards.

“We had this command from my father: ‘You must adapt and survive, and even if you’re suffering, you must come back,'” Furst recalled.

Furst and his brother survived the march, and an open-car train ride in the snow, but they were separated at the next camp. When Furst was liberated from Buchenwald, captured in a famous photo that included Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in the bunkbeds, he was sure he was alone in the world.

But within months, just as Furst’s father had instructed, the four family members reunited at the address they memorized, the home of family friends. The rest of their family –- grandparents, aunts, uncles — were all killed. His family later moved to Israel, where he married, had a daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, with another on the way.

‘We couldn’t imagine this tragedy’

On Oct. 7, 2023, Furst awoke to the Hamas attack on southern Israel, and immediately thought of his granddaughter, Mika Peleg, and her husband, and their 2-year-old son, who live in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the border with Gaza where scores of people were killed or kidnapped.

“It just kept getting worse all day, we couldn’t get any information what was happening with them,” said Furst. “We saw the horrors, that we couldn’t imagine this type of horror is happening in 2023, 80 years after the Holocaust.”

Toward midnight on Oct. 7, Peleg’s neighbors sent word that the family had survived. They spent almost 20 hours locked inside their safe room with no food or ability to communicate. Her husband’s parents, who both lived on Kfar Aza, were killed.

Despite his close connection, comparisons between Oct. 7 and the Holocaust make Furst uncomfortable.

“It’s awful and terrible and a catastrophe, and hard to describe, but it’s not a Holocaust,” he said. As awful as the Hamas attack was for his granddaughter and others, the Holocaust was a multi-year “death industry” with massive infrastructure and camps that could kill 10,000 people a day for months at a time, he said.

Furst, who was previously involved in coexistence work between Jews and Arabs, said his heart also goes out to Palestinians in Gaza, although he believes Israel needed to respond militarily. “I feel the pain of everyone who is suffering, everywhere in the world, because I think I know what suffering is,” he said.

Furst knows that he is one of very few Holocaust survivors still able to travel to Auschwitz, so it’s important for him to be present there to mark the 80th anniversary.

These days, he is telling his story as many times as he can, taking part in documentaries and movies, serving as the president of the Buchenwald Prisoner’s Association and working to create a memorial statue at the Sered’ concentration camp in Slovakia.

He feels a responsibility to be the mouthpiece for the millions who were killed, and people can relate to the story of a single person more than the hard numbers of 6 million deaths, he said.

“Whenever I finish, I tell the youth, the fact that you were able to see living testimony (from a Holocaust survivor) puts a requirement on you more than someone who did not: you take it on your shoulders the obligation to continue to tell this.” 
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KYIV, UKRAINE — Moldovan President Maia Sandu visited Kyiv on Saturday for talks with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid growing tensions in Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist enclave of Moldova that neighbors Ukraine.

The territory, which has a population of half a million, has seen heating, hot water and electricity cut-offs since the start of the year because a Kyiv-Moscow gas transit contract that had allowed Russian gas to flow there has expired.

“We’ll discuss security, energy, infrastructure, trade and mutual support on the EU path,” Sandu wrote on X as she arrived in the Ukrainian capital.

There was a demonstration in Transnistria on Friday to call on Moldova to facilitate the transit of Russian gas and end the energy crisis, local media reported.

Transnistria used to receive gas from Russia via a pipeline that crossed Ukraine and Moldova.

Kyiv has refused to renew the transit contract, which expired on Jan. 1, abruptly ending Russian gas supplies to Transnistria, which has declared a state of emergency.

The rest of Moldova has been spared gas cuts thanks to gas and electricity imports from neighboring Romania.

With Ukraine’s struggle against a Russian invasion nearly in its fourth year, Moldova is afraid the conflict could expand onto its territory in case of Russian attempts to destabilize Transnistria.

In an interview with AFP, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean on Wednesday accused Moscow of trying to generate “instability” in Moldova. He said the crisis could only be resolved if Russian troops stationed in Transnistria since a war against Moldova in 1992 are pulled out.
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New online videos recently investigated by VOA’s Russian and Ukrainian services show how artificial intelligence is likely being used to try to create provocative deepfakes that target Ukrainian refugees. 

In one example, a video appears to be a TV news report about a teenage Ukrainian refugee and her experience studying at a private school in the United States.

But the video then flips to footage of crowded school corridors and packets of crack cocaine, while a voiceover that sounds like the girl calls American public schools dangerous and invokes offensive stereotypes about African Americans. 

“I realize it’s quite expensive [at private school],” she says. “But it wouldn’t be fair if my family was made to pay for my safety. Let Americans do it.” 

Those statements are total fabrications. Only the first section — footage of the teenager — is real. 

The offensive voiceover was likely created using artificial intelligence (AI) to realistically copy her voice, resulting in something known as a deepfake. 

And it appears to be part of the online Russian information operation called Matryoshka —‚ named for the Russian nesting doll — that is now targeting Ukrainian refugees. 

VOA found that the campaign pushed two deepfake videos that aimed to make Ukrainian refugees look greedy and ungrateful, while also spreading deepfakes that appeared to show authoritative Western journalists claiming that Ukraine — and not Russia — was the country spreading falsehoods. 

The videos reflect the most recent strategy among Russia’s online disinformation campaign, according to Antibot4Navalny, an X account that researches Russian information operations and has been widely cited by leading Western news outlets. 

Russia’s willingness to target refugees, including a teenager, shows just how far the Kremlin, which regularly denies having a role in disinformation, is prepared to go in attempting to undermine Western support for Ukraine. 

Targeting the victims  

A second video targeting Ukrainian refugees begins with real footage from a news report in which a Ukrainian woman expresses gratitude for clothing donations and support that Denmark has provided to refugees. 

The video then switches to generic footage and a probable deepfake as the woman’s voice begins to complain that Ukrainian refugees are forced to live in small apartments and wear used clothing. 

VOA is not sharing either video to protect the identities of the refugees depicted in the deepfakes, but both used stolen footage from reputable international media outlets.  

That technique — altering the individual’s statements while replicating their voice — is new for Matryoshka, Antibot4Navalny told VOA.  

“In the last few weeks, almost all the clips have been built according to this scheme,” the research group wrote. 

But experts say the underlying strategy of spoofing real media reports and targeting refugees is nothing new. 

After Russia’s deadly April 2022 missile strike on Ukraine’s Kramatorsk railway station, for example, the Kremlin created a phony BBC news report blaming Ukrainians for the strike, according to Roman Osadchuk, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. 

During that same period, he noted, Russia also spread disinformation in Moldova aimed at turning the local population against Ukrainian refugees.

“Unfortunately, refugees are a very popular target for Russian disinformation campaigns, not only for attacks on the host community … but also in Ukraine,” Osadchuk told VOA. 

When such disinformation operations are geared toward a Ukrainian audience, he added, the goal is often to create a clash between those who left Ukraine and those who stayed behind. 

Deepfakes of journalists, however, appear designed to influence public opinion in a different way. One video that purports to contain audio of Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, for example, claims that Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is just a bluff. 

“The whole world is watching Ukraine’s death spasms,” Higgins appears to say. “There’s nothing further to discuss.” 

In another video, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a senior journalist at BBC Verify, appears to say that “Ukraine creates fakes so that fact-checking organizations blame Russia,” something he then describes as part of a “global hoax.” 

In fact, both videos appear to be deepfakes created according to the same formula as the ones targeting refugees. 

Higgins tells VOA that the entirety of the audio impersonation of his own voice appears to be a deepfake. He suggests the goal of the video was to engage factcheckers and get them to accidentally boost its viewership. 

“I think it’s more about boosting their stats so [the disinformation actors] can keep milking the Russian state for money to keep doing it,” he told VOA by email. 

Sardarizadeh did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.  

Fake video, real harm  

The rapid expansion of AI over the past few years has drawn increased attention to the problem of deepfake videos and AI images, particularly when these technologies are used to create non-consensual, sexually explicit imagery. 

Researchers have estimated that over 90% of deepfakes online are sexually explicit. They have been used both against ordinary women and girls and celebrities. 

Deepfakes also have been used to target politicians and candidates for public office. It remains unclear, however, whether they have actually influenced public opinion or election outcomes. 

Researchers from Microsoft’s Theat Analysis Center have found that “fully synthetic” videos of world leaders are often not convincing and are easily debunked. But they also concluded that deepfake audio is often more effective.

The four videos pushed by Matryoshka — which primarily uses deepfake audio — show that the danger of deepfakes isn’t restricted to explicit images or impersonations of politicians. And if your image is available online, there isn’t much you can do to fully protect yourself. 

Today, there’s always a risk in “sharing any information publicly, including your voice, appearance, or pictures,” Osadchuk said. 

The damage to individuals can be serious.   

Belle Torek, an attorney who specializes in tech policy and civil rights, said that people whose likenesses are used without consent often experience feelings of violation, humiliation, helplessness and fear. 

“They tend to report feeling that their trust has been violated. Knowing that their image is being manipulated to spread lies or hate can exacerbate existing trauma,” she said. “And in this case here, I think that those effects are going to be amplified for these [refugee] communities, who are already enduring displacement and violence.” 

How effective are deepfakes? 

While it is not difficult to understand the potential harm of deepfakes, it is more challenging to assess their broader reach and impact. 

An X post featur phony videos of refugees received over 55,000 views. That represents significant spread, according to Olga Tokariuk, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 

“It is not yet viral content, but it is no longer marginal content,” she said. 

Antibot4Navalny, on the other hand, believes that Russian disinformation actors are largely amplifying the X posts using other controlled accounts and very few real people are seeing them. 

But even if large numbers of real people did view the deepfakes, that doesn’t necessarily mean the videos achieved the Kremlin’s goals. 

“It is always difficult … to prove with 100% correlation the impact of these disinformation campaigns on politics,” Tokariuk said. 

 Mariia Ulianovska contributed to this report.
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BELGRADE, SERBIA — A woman rammed a car into a crowd of anti-government protesters in Serbia’s capital and injured one of them Friday, police said, as a student-led strike shut down businesses and drew tens of thousands of people to demonstrations around the country.

The nationwide protests took place on the same day that President Aleksandar Vucic held a big afternoon rally with thousands of supporters in the central town of Jagodina, his coalition stronghold, to counter the persistent anti-government protests that have challenged his tight grip on power for nearly three months.

Vucic told his supporters that the country has been “attacked both from outside and inside” by the anti-government protests.

“It is not accidental that that they have attacked Serbia from abroad,” Vucic said, pointing out Serbia’s friendly relations with Russia and China, and a refusal to impose sanctions on Moscow because of the war in Ukraine.

“That is what they want to crush, but we must not allow it. That is our strength,” he told the cheering crowd.

Call for talks

Vucic also called for a dialogue with the striking students, who have received widespread support from all walks of life in Serbia, at the same time weakening popular support for his party. The students have rejected negotiations on their demands with Vucic.

The protesters have blocked traffic daily in Serbia to protest the deaths of 15 people killed in the November collapse of a train station canopy that critics have blamed on government corruption.

The government denies blame for the deaths.

Police in Belgrade said that they detained the 24-year-old driver who rammed into a crowd of protesters in a section of the city called New Belgrade. The injured victim, a 26-year-old woman, was hospitalized; her condition was described as stable.

A similar incident took place during a blockade last week in Belgrade, when a car rammed into protesting students, seriously injuring a young woman.

Many in Serbia believe the huge concrete canopy at a train station in the northern city of Novi Sad fell down because of sloppy reconstruction work that resulted from corruption.

Weekslong protests demanding accountability for the crash have been the biggest since Vucic came to power more than a decade ago. He has faced accusations of curbing democratic freedoms despite formally seeking European Union membership for Serbia.

It wasn’t immediately possible to determine how many people and companies joined the students’ call for a one-day general strike on Friday. They included restaurants, bars, theaters, bakeries, shops and bookstores.

“Let’s take freedom in our hands,” students told the citizens in their strike call.

At his rally in Jagodina, Vucic announced the formation in March of a nationwide political movement in the style of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia movement to help ensure the dominance of his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party.

“You are all welcome to the movement of big change and future,” Vucic said. He said that the movement will include people who aren’t members of any political party.

“We need new energy,” Vucic said.

Foreign influence alleged

The president and the country’s mainstream media have accused the students of working under orders from foreign intelligence services to overthrow the authorities while pro-government thugs have repeatedly attacked protesting citizens.

The 15-minute traffic blockades on Friday started at 11:52 a.m., the exact time of the canopy collapse in Novi Sad.

Serbian universities have been blockaded for two months, along with many schools. A lawyers association also has gone on strike, but it remained unclear how many people stayed away from work in the state-run institutions on Friday.

Protest marches were held Friday in Belgrade, Novi Sad, the southern city of Nis and other smaller cities — even in Jagodina before Vucic’s arrival.

“Things can’t stay the same anymore,” actor Goran Susljik told N1 regional television. “Students have offered us the possibility of change.”

Serbia’s prosecutors have filed charges against 13 people for the canopy collapse, including a government minister and several state officials. But the former construction minister, Goran Vesic, has been released from detention, fueling doubts about the investigation’s independence.

The main railway station in Novi Sad was renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure deal with Chinese state companies.
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WASHINGTON — Ahead of Belarus’ presidential election this weekend, a media advocacy group filed a complaint Friday with the International Criminal Court accusing the country’s longtime leader of crimes against humanity against journalists.

The complaint, filed by Reporters Without Borders, known by French acronym RSF, accuses President Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating a harsh crackdown on independent media that began after he claimed victory in the disputed 2020 election.

That election was widely seen as rigged, with opposition candidates jailed or forced to flee. Security forces violently suppressed the subsequent mass protests.

Paris-based RSF cited in its complaint the imprisoning and persecution of journalists and displacement of media workers as examples of crimes against humanity.

“RSF calls on the ICC Prosecutor to include these crimes against journalists in its preliminary investigation,” Antoine Bernard, RSF’s director of advocacy and assistance, said in a statement.

Since the crackdown on independent media began, Belarus has ranked among the worst jailers of journalists in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Belarusian media experts say the dire environment has made it harder to access credible information.

“The Belarusian information space is tightly controlled by the government,” Natalia Belikova, the head of international cooperation at Press Club Belarus, told VOA from Warsaw.

Repression against journalists and activists has been increasing in the lead up to the election, she said. Press Club Belarus counts more than 40 journalists currently jailed in the country.

The European Parliament and exiled Belarusian leader Svetlana Tikhanovskayahave condemned the upcoming election in Belarus as a sham.

Since 2020, the Belarusian government has pressured independent media through raids on news outlets, blocking websites and designating media organizations as “extremist.”

The harsh environment forced some reporters to quit their jobs. Meanwhile, hundreds of other journalists fled into exile, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

“For five years, the Belarusian regime has systematically persecuted independent voices, starting with journalists,” Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said in a statement.

Belikova said she thinks the complaint to the ICC is significant.

“On the level of raising the profile of repression in Belarus, especially against journalists and free press, I think this is a very important move,” she said.

But Belikova added that she wasn’t sure whether the complaint will improve the crisis facing Belarusian journalists.

The office of the ICC prosecutor said it does not comment on complaints but confirmed it had received one from RSF.

The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment for this story.

The assault on independent media has created an environment where state-run propaganda can thrive, according to analysts.

Beginning last week, the Belarusian state-run television network ONT has aired a series of propaganda films that feature three jailed journalists. The journalists are seen in prison facilities, looking emaciated and exhausted as they are asked questions.

The journalists — Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk, who work for VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Ihar Karney, who previously contributed to RFE/RL — are jailed on charges that press freedom groups view as politically motivated.

The ONT propaganda series accused the journalists of trying to “set Belarus on fire.”

“It is a very bad and malicious practice. It is against all human rights,” Belikova said about the interviews.

Belikova said the interviews were likely intended to discredit RFE/RL in the eyes of Belarusians. RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service is one of the main independent outlets delivering independent news to people inside the country.

RFE/RL said it had no comment on the interview series.

Despite the proliferation of state-run propaganda, Belarusians still regularly access banned news sites.

The five biggest sites had over 17 million visits in December 2023, according to a 2024 JX Fund report. Belarus has a population of around 9 million people.
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LONDON — A London judge on Friday rejected a U.S. mother’s challenge to be extradited to Colorado to face murder charges in the deaths of two of her young children.

Judge John Zani said in Westminster Magistrates Court that it would now be up to the British Home Secretary to order Kimberlee Singler returned to the United States.

Singler, 36, is accused of two counts of first-degree murder in the December 2023 shooting and stabbings of her 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, and one count of attempted murder in the knife slashing of her 11-year-old daughter. She also faces three counts of child abuse and one count of assault.

Singler’s attorney had argued that sending her back to the U.S. would violate European human rights law, in part, because she faces a sentence of life in prison without parole in Colorado if convicted of first-degree murder. Such a sentence would be inhumane because it offers no prospect for release even if she is rehabilitated, attorney Edward Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald said that despite an option for a Colorado governor to commute her sentence at some point, it was “political suicide” to do so.

Experts for the defense had originally said that a life sentence had never been commuted in Colorado. But prosecutors later found that Governor John Hickenlooper in 2018 commuted life sentences of five men convicted of murder.

The defense countered that three of those sentences were not life without parole and two were for men who committed their crime between the ages of 18 and 21, which is sometimes considered a mitigating factor at sentencing because of their relative youth.

“This defendant, Kimberlee Singler, has no real prospect of release no matter what progress she makes” behind bars, Fitzgerald said.

Prosecutor Joel Smith said the judge only had to consider if there is a mechanism that could allow Singler to be freed someday.

“Prospect of release — that is not your concern,” Smith told the judge at a hearing in December.

Zani said in his ruling that there was an option in Colorado to release an inmate serving a life sentence.

“I am satisfied that the defendant has failed to vault the hurdle necessary in order to succeed in the challenges raised,” the judge said.

Fitzgerald said he planned to appeal.

Singler has denied that she harmed her children. She told police that her ex-husband had either carried out the killings or hired a hitman.

Singler had superficial knife wounds and was initially treated as a victim.

But that changed when her surviving daughter, who initially said she had been attacked by an intruder, told police her mother tried to kill her.

After her daughter changed her story, police sought to arrest Singler on Dec. 26, but she had fled. She was found four days later in London’s posh Chelsea neighborhood and arrested.

The girl told police that her mother gave the children milk with a powdery substance to drink and told them to close their eyes as she guided them into a sibling’s bedroom, prosecutors said.

Singler cut her neck and, as the girl begged her to stop, she slashed her again. The girl said her mother had a gun.

“The defendant told her that God was telling her to do it and that the children’s father would take them away,” Smith said at a previous hearing.

Police found Aden Wentz, 7, and Elianna “Ellie” Wentz, 9, dead when they entered the Colorado Springs apartment on Dec. 19. They had been shot and stabbed.

Although Singler blamed her husband, authorities said he had a solid alibi backed up by GPS records that showed he had been driving a truck at the time of the killings.
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