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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