VOA Russian spoke to U.S. experts who outline how a mix of U.S. sanctions, export controls and other methods of applying pressure on the Russian economy can help President Donald Trump’s administration to force Moscow to stop the war in Ukraine. Experts agree that if Russian President Vladimir Putin does not engage in negotiations, the U.S. should expand punitive economic measures to hurt the Russian economy, so Moscow simply won’t have resources to continue the war. 

Click here for the full story in Russian.

 
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While Russia is still controlling Central Asian countries politically and economically, those states are also looking for new partners, especially with China, to help ensure their own development. And according to the regional experts, even if the U.S. starts a tough policy against Beijing, it will not have a serious impact on Central Asia, and they will not stop their economic relations with China. 

Click here for the full story in Uzbek. 
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The U.S. special envoy to Russia and Ukraine said Thursday the U.S. plans to significantly step up pressure on Russia through sanctions to end the war in Ukraine. 

In an exclusive interview with the New York Post, Special Envoy Keith Kellogg said there is a lot of room to increase sanctions on Russia, particularly in Russia’s energy sector. He characterized sanctions enforcement on Russia as “only about a 3” on a scale of 1 to 10 on “how painful the economic pressure can be.” 

Kellogg told the Post he understands that both Moscow and Kyiv will have to make concessions to end what he called the “industrial-sized” killing in the war. 

In the interview, Kellogg also was critical of the approach by the administration of former President Joe Biden of “supporting Ukraine as long as it takes,” calling it “a bumper sticker, not a strategy.” 

Kellogg said the Trump administration is focused on a “holistic approach” to ending the war, combining support for Ukraine with increased pressure on Russia. 

Kellogg’s Chief of Staff Ludovic Hood echoed those sentiments when he told the GLOBSEC Transatlantic Forum in Washington on Thursday, “Nothing’s off the table at this stage” as far as negotiations for a peace deal. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s presidential website reported the U.S. special envoy also spoke Thursday with Ukraine’s head of the office of the president, Andriy Yermak. In a statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said the two discussed Kellogg’s upcoming visit to Ukraine, as well as the situation on the front lines and security issues for Ukrainian civilians.  

The statement said the two gave “special attention” in their conversation to the upcoming Munich Security Conference, scheduled to begin in one week. 

In a separate interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, Yermak stressed the importance of “active engagement” between Ukraine and the Trump administration, particularly as any peace negotiations. 

Yermak emphasized the importance of keeping the Trump White House up to date and providing accurate information about the battlefield situation. He said direct communication with U.S. partners is crucial for establishing a shared position, because it is impossible to form any peace plans without Ukraine. 

Meanwhile, in the latest reports from the battlefield, Ukraine’s air force reported Friday – from its Telegram social media account – Russian attacks across multiple Ukrainian regions killed at least three civilians and injured five over the past 24 hours.  

The report said Ukrainian air defenses shot down 81 of 112 Shahed combat drones and decoy drones Russia launched over nine oblasts, or regions, while 31 other drones were lost without causing damage.

From his Telegram account, Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said Russian shelling killed one person and wounded five others, and two high-rise buildings and six private houses were damaged. 

The regional administration in Sumy Oblast says two people were killed when Russian shelling destroyed a two-story apartment building. The report said the victims’ bodies were found in the rubble as rescue crews cleared the area and there are fears more bodies could be found.  

 
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday authorized economic and travel sanctions targeting people who work on International Criminal Court investigations of U.S. citizens or U.S. allies such as Israel, repeating action he took during his first term.  

The move coincides with a visit to Washington by Israel’s Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu, who — along with his former defense minister and a leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas — is wanted by the ICC over the war in the Gaza Strip.  

It was unclear how quickly the U.S. would announce names of people sanctioned. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the ICC’s investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan. 

The ICC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sanctions include freezing any U.S. assets of those designated and barring them and their families from visiting the United States. 

The 125-member ICC is a permanent court that can prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression against the territory of member states or by their nationals. The United States, China, Russia and Israel are not members.  

Trump signed the executive order after U.S. Senate Democrats last week blocked a Republican-led effort to pass legislation setting up a sanctions regime targeting the war crimes court.  

The court has taken measures to shield staff from possible U.S. sanctions, paying salaries three months in advance, as it braced for financial restrictions that could cripple the war crimes tribunal, sources told Reuters last month. 

In December, the court’s president, judge Tomoko Akane, warned that sanctions would “rapidly undermine the Court’s operations in all situations and cases, and jeopardize its very existence.”

Russia has also taken aim at the court. In 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia has banned entry to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and placed him and two ICC judges on its wanted list. 
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid tribute to the country’s “warriors” in the Kursk operation in an address Thursday marking the six-month anniversary of the operation in Russia.

“With our active operation on Russian territory, we have brought the war home to Russia, and it is there that they must feel what war is.  And they do,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address.

He said Ukrainian soldiers have shown that, even with limited resources, Ukraine can “act decisively, unexpectedly, and effectively.”

“We are exposing Russia’s bluff for what it is – a bluff,” he said.

In its description of the operation, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, cited the ability of a small group of Ukrainian troops in Kursk oblast to complicate Russian efforts to advance in Ukraine and undermine the Russian military to launch or renew offensive operations in what it called “low-priority areas of the front line.”

“The war in Ukraine, in other words, is not permanently stalemated. Either side can potentially restore, maneuver and begin to gain or regain significant territory. Russia will be able to do so if the West reduces or cuts off aid. Ukraine may be able to do so if Western support continues to empower Ukrainian innovation,” the Institute said in a Thursday news release.

Ukrainian officials reported damage Thursday at a market in the northeastern city of Kharkiv after the latest round of overnight Russian drone attacks targeting multiple parts of the country.

Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that debris from a downed drone damaged power lines in the city.

Ukraine’s military said its air defenses shot down 56 of the 77 total drones deployed by Russian forces.

The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia and Zhytomyr regions, according to the military.

Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysask said on Telegram that Russian drone attacks and shelling damaged more than 10 houses in his region.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it destroyed 28 Ukrainian drones overnight.

About half of the drones were shot down over the Sea of Azov, the ministry said, while Russian forces destroyed the others of the Rostov, Krasnodar and Astrakhan regions.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a drone struck a car in the village of Logachyovka, killing three people.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Azerbaijani authorities detained two more journalists this week, bringing the number held in the past year to nearly two dozen.

Police on Wednesday arrested Shamshad Agha, of the news website Argument, and Shahnaz Beylargizi of Toplum TV. A court in the capital, Baku, on Thursday ordered the journalists to be held in pretrial detention for two months and one day, and three months and 15 days respectively, according to their lawyers.

The journalists are charged with smuggling — a charge used in several other cases since November 2023, as authorities detained at least 23 journalists.

Many of those currently detained had worked for the independent outlets Abzas Media and Meydan TV.

All the journalists being investigated since November 2023 have denied wrongdoing, and media watchdogs say they believe the cases are designed to silence media.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, said that Agha’s arrest “underscores a grim intent by Azerbaijani authorities to silence and further restrict the country’s small and embattled independent media community.”

“Azerbaijan’s government should immediately reverse its unprecedented media crackdown and release Agha along with all other unjustly jailed journalists,” said a statement from CPJ’s Gulnoza Said.

Bashir Suleymanli, who is head of the Baku-based legal assistance group known as the Institute of Civil Rights, believes that the arrests are an attempt by authorities to stifle free speech.

“It seems that the process will continue until the complete elimination of independent journalism in the country,” he told VOA.

Lawmaker Bahruz Maharramov, however, says the arrests are not a press freedom issue.

“Law enforcement agencies have taken relevant measures based on facts and irrefutable evidence, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt,” he told VOA. “Of course, since such media organizations are formed more as instruments of influence of the West, the legal and judicial measures taken against them are observed with inadequate reactions from the West.”

Based in Azerbaijan, human rights activist Samir Kazimli says that independent media and news outlets critical of the government are undergoing a difficult period.

“If this policy of repression does not stop, independent media in Azerbaijan may be completely destroyed,” he told VOA.

Kazimli said that the international community, including rights groups, politicians and U.S. and European officials “must take steps using urgent and effective mechanisms to stop the Azerbaijani authorities’ attacks on civil society and independent media.”

One of the journalists detained this week had recently spoken out about concerns for the future of independent media in Azerbaijan.

“The lives of all independent journalists are in danger,” Agha told VOA in January.

The editor of Argument, a news website covering democracy, corruption and human rights, said he has been banned from leaving the country since July.

The research organization Freedom House describes Azerbaijan as an “authoritarian regime” and states that authorities have “carried out an extensive crackdown on civil liberties in recent years.”

Elshan Hasanov of the Political Prisoners Monitoring Center told VOA that the total number of detainees documented by the Azeri nonprofit is 331.

Azerbaijani authorities reject criticism on detainees as biased.

Parliamentarian Maharramov told VOA that media in the country are free and that conditions for providing everyone with information, including diversity of opinion and freedom of action in the media sector as a whole, are fully ensured.

Azerbaijan is among the worst jailers of journalists in the world, according to data by the CPJ. The country ranks 164 out of 180 on the Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best environment for media. 

This story originated in VOA’s Azeri Service.
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Police in Sweden investigating the nation’s worst mass shooting said at a news briefing Thursday that the scene at an adult learning center was an “inferno” of smoke, with injured and dead victims.

The attack on Tuesday left 10 people dead, including the suspected shooter, at Campus Risbergska in the city of Orebro, about 200 kilometers west of Stockholm. The facility offers adult courses, including Swedish language classes for immigrants. Law enforcement officials say the shooter, who Swedish media have identified as 35-year-old Rickard Andersson, may have been a student at the center.

Law enforcement officials have not officially identified the suspect, whose cause of death remains unclear.

Orebro police Chief Lars Wiren said at the news conference Thursday that about 130 officers arrived at the scene within 10 minutes of an alarm, where they found “dead people, injured people, screams and smoke.”

As officers entered the building, they reported it was partially filled with smoke, making it difficult for them to see. They reported gunfire that they believed was directed at them but reportedly did not return fire.

Police said the smoke was not caused by fire but by “some sort of pyrotechnics.” Several officers had to seek medical treatment for smoke inhalation.

Chief investigator Anna Bergkvist said Thursday that the suspect had a license for four guns, all of which have been confiscated.

“Three of those weapons were next to him when police secured him inside the building,” she said.

Bergkvist said investigators have not determined a motive for the mass shooting, telling Agence France-Presse that “multiple nationalities, different genders and different ages” were among those who were killed.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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