LOS ANGELES — The United States and its NATO allies are paying increased attention to military cooperation between Russia and China in the Arctic, where the two countries have conducted joint naval exercises, coast guard patrols and strategic bomber air training.

That cooperation includes more closely coordinated military drills, said Iris Ferguson,  U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Arctic and Global Resilience. She spoke during an online December 5 discussion hosted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The increasing levels of collaboration between Russia and the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and the unprecedented style of collaboration, especially in the military domain, give us again pause,” said Ferguson.

In October, the coast guards of China and Russia conducted their first joint Arctic maritime patrol.

In July, four Russian and Chinese strategic bombers flew over the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea, marking the first time their military aircraft launched from the same airbase in northern Russia and the first time Chinese bombers flew within the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.

China and Russia also held joint naval exercises in the Bering Strait in 2022 and 2023.

China has no Arctic territory of its own but is interested in growing opportunities for mineral exploration and a shipping route to Europe as climate change causes the Arctic ice cap to recede.

“It is an interesting development showing that a level of cooperation that a few years ago we didn’t think will get to that level,” said Stephanie Pezard, associate research department director at the RAND Corporation, headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

As recently as a few years ago, she told VOA Mandarin earlier this week, “Russia was really trying to beat China in industrial development in the Arctic.”

The U.S. Department of Defense published a “2024 Arctic Strategy” in July that identifies Chinese and Russian collaboration as a major geopolitical challenge driving the need for a new strategic approach to the Arctic.

Chang Ching, a senior researcher from the Society for Strategic Studies based in Taipei, said China’s presence in the Arctic creates pressure on the U.S. and other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“In the past, Russia was the only traditional adversary in the Arctic, but now there is an additional challenge,” Chang told VOA Mandarin this week.

No immediate threat

Other NATO members are responding to the increased military activities of Russia and China in the Arctic.

Canada released a new Arctic Foreign Policy report December 6 to address its growing military cooperation with other like-minded nations in the region.

The report recommends that Canada strengthen diplomatic and technological cooperation with NATO countries in the Arctic and like-minded nations such as Japan and South Korea. It also emphasizes enhancing Canada’s military presence in the Arctic.  Canada’s Arctic territory makes up about 40% of the country and more than 70% of its coastline.

Canada, Finland, and the U.S. in November agreed to jointly build icebreakers, ships to cut through frozen waters, a decision driven at least in part by a desire to counter Russia’s influence in the region. 

Despite their stepped-up joint military activities in the Arctic, analysts say China and Russia do not pose an immediate threat to the U.S. and its partners in the region.

“I think it’s really important to not overstate what the PRC is getting from Russia as well,” Ferguson said. “We know what it takes to operate with allies. We know the years of investment and trust building and interoperability required to make an alliance, and you know their flying in [a] circle together is not the same.”

Why is China in the Arctic?

China is a new player in the Arctic.

Beijing’s “Arctic Policy White Paper,” published in 2018, stated that China’s polar strategy focuses on issues such as climate change, environmental protection, scientific research, navigation routes, resource exploration and development, security and international governance.

“China will not and has no intention of using Arctic issues to promote its geopolitical interests,” said the Chinese Embassy to VOA Mandarin in an emailed response Wednesday to the comments made at the online CSIS discussion.

“As a non-Arctic country, China is an active participant, builder and contributor to Arctic affairs, contributing its wisdom and strength to the change and development of the Arctic,” the embassy statement said.

However, Yang Zhen and Ren Yanyan, researchers at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, suggest that China-Russia naval cooperation in the Arctic is a way to counterbalance what they call the U.S.’s “maritime hegemony.”

Meanwhile, Beijing and Moscow have been developing Arctic shipping routes, especially for Russian oil and gas, as Western sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have largely halted the trade with Europe.   
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LONDON — Support for far-right parties in Europe continued to grow in 2024 amid voter concerns over immigration, inflation and the war in Ukraine.

Far-right parties gained nearly a quarter of votes from across the bloc in June’s European Union parliamentary elections, although centrist parties continue to hold the balance of power at the EU institutions in Brussels.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party won the highest share of French votes in the EU parliament election, with 31%.

French President Emmanuel Macron — whose Renaissance Party won 15% of the vote — made the shock decision to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

National Rally saw a path to government for the first time.

“We are ready to be in power if the French people give us their support in the forthcoming legislative elections,” Le Pen told supporters. “We are ready to turn the country around, ready to defend the interests of the French people, ready to put an end to mass immigration.”

Left and centrist parties, however, formed an alliance to block National Rally from power.

Macron appointed a new government under Prime Minister Michel Barnier, but France was plunged into turmoil again in early December after National Rally withdrew its support for government, forcing a no-confidence vote and prompting Barnier’s resignation.

Macron is struggling to appoint a new prime minister amid calls for his resignation.

Meanwhile, Le Pen faces troubles of her own, as an ongoing corruption trial could derail her political ambitions. A verdict is due in March.

German elections

In Germany, Europe’s biggest economic power, the far-right Alternative for Germany Party finished second in the EU parliament elections, putting the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in third place.

Scholz appealed to voters to reject the right-wing party.

“We have to worry about the vote for right-wing populist parties here and in other European countries. We must never get used to this, and it must always be our mission to push them back,” Scholz said in the wake of the results.

His call went unheeded. In September, Alternative for Germany won a state election for the first time in Thuringia and came a close second in Saxony.

Immigration

Concerns over immigration were central to the far right’s success, said Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at the Bruegel economic think tank in Brussels.

“How do you respond to that dissatisfaction that relates to migration? I mean, perhaps also the topic of inflation and increases in prices in the last years play a role. But I think the migration topic really is sort of at the center of the dissatisfaction,” Wolff said.

Germany’s three-party ruling coalition under Scholz collapsed in November. The country is due to hold a general election in February.

Aid to Ukraine

Alternative for Germany, which is currently polling in second place behind the center-right Christian Democrats, is campaigning on a platform of slashing immigration and ending military support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. Germany is Kyiv’s second-biggest donor, after the United States.

“We want peace in Ukraine. We don’t want any weapons deliveries. We don’t want any tanks. We don’t want any missiles,” AfD leader Alice Weidel said at a press conference on December 7.

In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party topped the vote in September’s election with more than 28%. However, all other parties ruled out forming a coalition with it, so the party has been excluded from power.

In 2025, analysts say, all eyes will be on the political turbulence in France and Germany as Europe prepares for the return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in January.
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Support for far-right parties in Europe continued to grow in 2024. Analysts say the trend was driven by concerns over immigration, inflation and the war in Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell has more.
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French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he cut short a visit to Poland Thursday to return home to name a new prime minister eight days after French lawmakers rejected Prime Minister Michel Barnier in a no-confidence vote.

Barnier, who had been prime minister for just three months, angered members of parliament on both the right and the left last week when he pushed through the 2025 budget without parliamentary approval, something Barnier said he did to maintain “stability” amid France’s deep political divisions.

Macron asked Barnier to stay on in a caretaker capacity until the president names a successor.

Following a meeting with Macron at his Elysee Palace office Tuesday, party leaders said the president had promised to name a replacement to lead the government within 48 hours.

The meeting did not include the far-right National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen or the far-left France Unbowed party of Jean-Luc Melenchon. The Associated Press reports Macron said he would only speak with more moderate political forces.

Following last week’s no-confidence vote, Macron, in a nationally televised speech, vowed to stay in office until the end of his term in 2027. He also promised to appoint a prime minister who would form a government “in the general interest, representing all the political parties who can participate in it, or at least who agree not to bring it down.”

A spokeswoman for Barnier’s caretaker government, Maud Bregeon, told reporters Wednesday Macron would either seek to bring parties from the center-left into his center/center-right coalition or make a deal with them not hold any no confidence votes against them.

Analysts suggest top candidates to be prime minister include centrist Democratic Movement party leader François Bayrou, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu and center-left ex-Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Four former members of Basque separatist organization ETA were each sentenced Thursday in Spain to nearly 75 years in prison, more than 20 years after they attempted to murder two journalists and their infant son by placing a flowerpot filled with explosives outside the family’s home.

Aurora Intxausti, a journalist for El Pais newspaper; her husband, Juan Palomo, a reporter for Antena 3 television; and their then-18-month-old son, Inigo, were targeted in 2000 as ETA broadened its terror campaign across Basque society.

In previous years, the organization had targeted only police and soldiers but began killing and threatening journalists, judges, local politicians, women and children in a campaign it called the “socialization of suffering.”

In 2018, ETA announced its full and formal dissolution, but the Spanish judiciary is still pursuing members of the organization for past crimes.

The Spanish branch of watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, said attacks on journalists should be punished even if it takes judicial authorities two decades to catch up with the perpetrators.

“It is important that justice is done,” Alfonso Bauluz, president of RSF, told VOA.

“ETA represented a permanent threat to the freedom of expression, and its disappearance represents a strengthening of the freedom of the media and the security of Spanish journalists,” he said.

The bomb attack failed because as the family was leaving their home on November 10, 2000, Palomo heard something that sounded like a firecracker going off.  He noticed a plant pot on the front doorstep that had not been there and told his family to get as far away from the door as possible.

The bomb contained 2.5 kilograms of dynamite and shrapnel. It failed to go off because Palomo opened the door briskly, causing the connection between the detonator and the explosives to fail.

Four ETA members admitted to attempted murder on Thursday in Madrid at the Audiencia Nacional, Spain’s top criminal court, and were sentenced to nearly 75 years each in prison.

Asier Garcia, Patxi Xabier Makazaga, Jon Zubiaurre and Imanol Miner received sentences of 19 years and 10 months for each of the three counts of attempted murder and a further 14 years and 10 months each for terrorist offenses.

In their closing remarks, the judges said the bomb had been planted “with the sole intention of causing the deaths of the couple and their child.”

Despite the sentences, under Spanish law, most criminals can serve a maximum of only 30 years in prison.

The case had been shelved through lack of evidence, but in 2020, police made a breakthrough when French authorities passed files on the case to the Spanish.

Intxausti said her family was forced to leave Basque country after the attempt on their lives, which left many other journalists fearing for their own lives.

Intxausti said the jailing of the four ETA bombers has given her family closure.

“It is proven that they went to kill without caring that my child was with us,” Intxausti told El Pais.

“It puts an end to a tragic event that occurred in 2000,” she said. “I have to thank the Civil Guard, who discovered who the people who wanted to kill us were, and to the court for issuing a fair sentence.”

ETA, which killed 858 people during its four-decade armed campaign, renounced its use of arms in 2011.

The organization also kidnapped 77 people, threatened 42,000 others and carried out 9,000 assaults, according to a 2013 study by the University of Seville. It said 326 journalists had been threatened by the separatist organization, according to data from the Spanish police.

Another report, by the Committee to Protect Journalists, from 2001 found ETA’s attacks on reporters threatened press freedom.

“Press freedom is generally respected in Spain, and the CPJ does not routinely monitor conditions in the country; however, a series of attacks on journalists by ETA, including the murder of a prominent columnist from El Mundo [newspaper] greatly alarmed journalists during 2000, forcing many to leave the Basque region and others to hire full-time bodyguards,” the report said.

“ETA is using the same kind of terror tactics used by [late Spanish dictator General Francisco] Franco,” it said.

In 2018, ETA issued an apology for its actions and accepted that it bore “direct responsibility” for years of bloodshed.
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DAKAR, SENEGAL — Mali’s armed forces, supported by Russian mercenaries, committed abuses against civilians since the withdrawal of a U.N. peacekeeping mission late last year, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday.

Malian armed forces and the Russia-backed Wagner Group deliberately killed at least 32 civilians, including seven in a drone strike, kidnapped four others, and burned at least 100 homes in towns and villages in central and northern Mali since May, the rights group said.

Human Rights Watch also accused jihadi groups in the region of having summarily executed at least 47 civilians and displaced thousands of people since June. It said the groups burned thousands of houses and looted livestock, which is vital to the survival of the nomadic communities in the region.

“The Malian army with the Wagner Group and Islamist armed groups have been targeting civilians and their property in violation of the laws of war,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in the report.

Mali, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by jihadi groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance.

Wagner has been present in Mali since late 2021 following a military coup, replacing French troops and international peacekeepers to help fight the militants. At the same time, the mercenary group has been accused of helping to carry out raids and drone strikes that have killed civilians.

In December last year, the United Nations ended its decade long peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, following the government’s request that alleged the force was inadequate to respond to the insurgency.

“Since MINUSMA left Mali a year ago, it has been extremely difficult to get comprehensive information on abuses, and we are deeply concerned that the situation is even worse than reported,” Allegrozzi said.
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The head of Russia’s Chechnya region said Thursday a Ukrainian drone attack hit a police barracks, injuring at least four people.

Ramzan Kadyrov said on Telegram the drone damaged the building’s roof and windows and also caused a small fire.

The attack was the second to hit a police facility in the region this month, according to Kadyrov.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it shot down a drone over Chechnya, as well as four drones over Kursk, three over North Ossetia and eight over Russia-occupied Crimea.

In Ukraine, the governor of the Kherson region said Russian drones attacked Thursday, with one injuring a man in the city of Kherson.

Missile warfare

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Russia would respond to Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles, which Russian defense officials said were used in a Wednesday strike on a Russian airfield in the city of Taganrog.

“The response will follow in a manner deemed appropriate. But it will definitely follow,” Peskov said.

A U.S. official said Wednesday that a U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded Russia could launch another of its experimental hypersonic ballistic missiles against Ukraine in the coming days, although Washington does not consider it to be decisive in the nearly three-year war.

Russia first fired the Oreshnik missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21, in what President Vladimir Putin characterized as a response to Ukraine’s first use of long-range U.S. and British missiles to strike more deeply into Russian territory with Western permission. 

“We assess that the Oreshnik is not a game-changer on the battlefield, but rather just another attempt by Russia to terrorize Ukraine, which will fail,” the U.S. official told reporters. There was no immediate response from Russia.

Putin had said that Russia might fire the Oreshnik missile again, possibly to target “decision-making centers” in Kyiv, if Ukraine keeps attacking Russia with long-range Western weapons.

The Russian leader has claimed that the Oreshnik is impossible to intercept and that it has destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, even when fitted with a conventional warhead.

Some Western experts have said the novel feature of the Oreshnik is that it carries multiple warheads that can simultaneously strike different targets — a capability usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Nonetheless, the U.S. official downplayed the usefulness of the missiles, calling them “experimental” in nature and saying that “Russia likely possesses only a handful” of them. The official also said the weapon has a smaller warhead than other missiles Russia has deployed in Ukraine. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Western nations and Russia engaged in a battle for influence in Eastern Europe in 2024, as elections were held in several states that had once been under Soviet rule. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Moscow has been widely accused of meddling in European democracy following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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LONDON — This year saw a battle for influence in eastern Europe between the West and Russia as elections were held in several states that were once under Soviet rule. Moscow is widely accused of meddling in European democracy amid tensions that have run high since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

Georgia 

In April, tens of thousands of Georgians staged demonstrations in Tbilisi against the government’s so-called “foreign agent” law, which requires all organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from overseas to register and submit to detailed investigations.  

The legislation was dubbed the “Russian law” by its opponents, after similar laws long used by President Vladimir Putin’s government to silence political opposition and free media.  

The protests evolved into a battle for Georgia’s future: to be aligned with the West or with Russia. It is a fight that continues to this day on the streets of Tbilisi. 

Georgia’s opposition parties pinned their hopes on ousting the government in the October general election; however, the ruling Georgian Dream party won with more than 53% of the vote.  

Election monitors accused Georgian Dream of overseeing widespread vote rigging, including “ballot box stuffing, physical assault on observers attempting to report on violations, observer and media removal from polling stations, tearing up of observers’ complaints, intimidation of voters inside and outside polling stations,” according to the head of the European Parliament monitoring delegation, Antonio Lopez-Isturiz White. 

Georgian Dream insisted it won a fair election. The government suspended accession talks with the European Union. The United States in turn suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia.  

Many Georgians fear their hopes of a future tied to the West are being lost. Protesters returned to the streets in November, demanding another vote. 

“I just want us to look towards Europe and not back to the hole where we just got out,” said student Salome Bakhtadze. 

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze was unrepentant. “We are absolutely committed to fully neutralizing the radical opposition,” he said at a press conference on December 6. 

Moldova 

Moldova, another former Soviet republic, held a bitterly fought presidential election in October. 

Despite widespread evidence of meddling by Moscow, which it denied, pro-European incumbent Maia Sandu won the November second-round vote after Moldovans voted by a thin margin to embed the desire for EU membership in the nation’s constitution.  

“Today, dear Moldovans, you have given a lesson in democracy,” she said after her victory. 

Romania 

In neighboring Romania, far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, who opposes Western aid for Ukraine, scored a shock first-round win in November’s presidential election with 23% of the vote. Polls taken ahead of the vote suggested support for Georgescu was in the single digits.   

Romania’s top court annulled the result after security services uncovered an alleged disinformation campaign to promote Georgescu on social media, which was widely blamed on Russia. Moscow again denied meddling in the vote. 

“This candidate’s campaign was supported by a state foreign to Romania’s interests,” Romania’s incumbent president, Klaus Iohannis, said in a televised address on December 6. The country has yet to choose a new date for an election rerun. 

Election interference 

Russia is conducting a campaign of interference in European democracy — but the picture is complex, argues Costin Ciobanu, a political analyst at Aarhus University in Denmark. 

“There is evidence that Russia tried to use its tools to favor Georgescu, but we don’t know yet whether there was a direct coordination between the Georgescu campaign and Russia,” Ciobanu told VOA. 

“Russia is exploiting vulnerabilities within our democracies. They are leveraging the way in which social networks function in today’s democracies. But I would not say that all that is happening within our societies, that all the grievances and fury that we see is a result of Russia leveraging its hybrid warfare techniques.” 

“I would always emphasize the local vulnerabilities, the fact that sometimes you have this kind of gap between the elite and the population. And sometimes Russia is just trying to make those gaps wider,” Ciobanu said.
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VOA Russian speaks with Ksenia Kirillova, an analyst with Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and The Jamestown Foundation, on how Syria is being portrayed by Russian propaganda. Russian pro-government botnets have already started pushing the narrative that “Syria is of no benefit for Russia” following the fall of Moscow’s ally Bashar al-Assad. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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