The team of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has published details about a superyacht that they suspect belongs to President Vladimir Putin.
The team said in a video on its YouTube channel on March 21 that all crew members, except the captain, of the Scheherazade yacht worth $700 million, are Russian citizens, and many of them are employed by the Federal Protection Service (FSO), the agency responsible for Putin's personal security.
According to Navalny's team, the 140-meter long superyacht was made in Germany in 2020. Details on its owner are unknown.
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However, in mid-March, The New York Times cited sources that U.S. authorities had linked the yacht to Putin. A former crew member also confirmed the link to the newspaper.
According to the report, the yacht traveled to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi twice, once in 2020 and again in 2021. It is known that Putin regularly visits his residence in Sochi.
The ship's captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, a British national, has denied that Putin owned or had ever been on the yacht. He also refused to name the vessel's owner.
If the yacht's connection to Putin is proven, it will be impounded, as Putin is currently under sanctions from the European Union over Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
At this point, the yacht is anchored at the Marina di Carrara port in the Italian region of Tuscany.
The attention to evidence of Putin's alleged wealth, or the perks that he has at his fingertips, is nothing new.
Officially, Putin earned a salary equivalent to $136,000 in 2020, and in his income and asset declaration that year he listed a modest apartment, three Soviet-era cars, and a small camping trailer handed down by his late father.
But in more than two decades as president or prime minister, he has regularly been accused of amassing a huge personal fortune. Putin has consistently denied the allegations.
In 2012, three years before he was shot dead near the Kremlin, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov co-authored a report describing a stunning array of helicopters and jets, homes, luxury watches, and four yachts that, according to the report, belonged to Putin or were available for his use in connection with his office.
In February, an 82-meter-long yacht also allegedly linked to Putin traveled from the Germany city of Hamburg to the Russian port city of Kaliningrad, two weeks before Russia started an unprovoked military attack on Ukraine and just ahead of sweeping Western sanctions on Putin and those close to him that have frozen their assets outside of Russia.
In early 2021, Navalny's team issued an investigation shining a spotlight on a $1.35 billion estate on the Black Sea's exclusive Gelendzhik Bay that was allegedly built for Putin.
Separately on March 22, authorities in Finland said they had impounded 21 yachts belonging to Russian citizens as they investigate whether the owners are under sanctions.
The same day, Reuters reported that authorities in the British territory of Gibraltar had seized a yacht belonging to Russian billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky, who is under Western sanctions. Pumpyansky is the chairman of PJSC, a major steel-pipe supplier for Russia's oil and gas industry.
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The United Kingdom has added several high-profile Russian individuals and companies to its sanctions list as Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to tighten the "economic vice" around President Vladimir Putin over Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The British government said on March 24 that 59 individuals and entities had been added to the sanctions list, effectively freezing their assets and restricting the people on the list from coming to the country.
The expanded list includes Russian oligarchs Evgeny Shvidler, financier Oleg Tinkov, and Herman Gref, the head of Russia's largest bank, Sberbank. Companies now on the list include Gazprombank, Alfa Bank, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot.
"The harder our sanctions, the tougher our economic vice around the Putin regime, the more we can and do to help the Ukrainians [and] I think the faster that this thing could be over," Johnson said at an extraordinary NATO summit in Brussels after the updated list was announced.
The United States and its allies have imposed several series of crippling economic and financial sector sanctions against Russia since it launched a war against Ukraine on February 24.
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce more penalties against Moscow on March 24.
His national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters on March 22 the actions "will focus not just on adding new sanctions but on ensuring that there is joint effort to crack down on evasion on sanctions."
Gazprombank is one of the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas. Alfa-Bank is one of Russia's top private lenders.
Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, says Russia is stalling in talks on a cease-fire in Ukraine and won't take the discussions seriously until it has reached its goals with its unprovoked invasion.
In an interview with Spain's TVE broadcast on March 24, Borrell said Russian President Vladimir Putin has his eyes on surrounding the Black Sea coast to the border with Moldova in order to isolate Ukraine from the water.
"Right now, Russia doesn't want to sit and negotiate anything. What it wants is to occupy the ground," Borrell said. "It wants to negotiate in earnest only when it has secured a position of strength."
Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24. While it has moved on fronts mainly in the north and east, the fiercest battles so far have been over the port city of Mariupol, with Ukrainian forces putting up stiff resistance.
Taking control of the city of some 400,000 would give Russia a land link between Crimea -- which Moscow seized in 2014 – and territory controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Residents of Mariupol, tens of thousands of whom have yet to escape the besieged city, have been trapped for weeks with dwindling basic supplies, such as water, food, and fuel. At least 2,300 people have died, some buried in mass graves, authorities have said.
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An extraordinary NATO meeting is under way in Brussels -- the first of three exceptional summits scheduled on March 24 by Western leaders to map out the next steps in efforts to stop Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as fierce fighting continues in the besieged city of Mariupol and other flash points across the country.
RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who is attending the NATO meeting and is then scheduled to take part in a European Union summit as well as a gathering of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, is expected to use the occasion to announce more sanctions against Moscow.
As the meeting got under way, Britain announced that it was adding 59 Russian individuals and entities to its sanctions list, effectively freezing their assets and restricting the people on the list from coming to the country. Companies now on the list include Gazprombank, Alfa Bank, and the state-run shipping firm Sovcomflot.
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskiy was also due to address Western leaders via video link from his besieged capital of Kyiv as the war passed the one-month mark on the morning of March 24.
In a video message late on March 23, Zelenskiy called on the world's democracies to unite in the face of Russia's "crude and cruel" force, accusing the invaders of atrocities against civilians and warning the West that freedom must take precedence over economic interests.
"At these three summits, we will see who is a friend, who is a partner, and who betrayed us for money. Life can be defended only when united," he said.
Russian ground forces slowed or stopped in their tracks by Western-armed Ukrainian troops are resorting to indiscriminately shelling military and civilian targets alike from a distance.
Speaking ahead of the NATO summit, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin made a "big mistake" with his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said leaders at the meeting will discuss "the need for a reset of our deterrence and defense in the longer term."
WATCH: Drone video has revealed widespread devastation in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. The footage posted to social media on March 22 showed the smoldering ruins of damaged residential buildings that have been hit by Russian shelling.
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NATO has already said it will double the number of deployments it has in Europe by adding four more. The new installments will be located in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria.
Josep Borrell, the European Union's top diplomat, said on March 24 that Russia is stalling in talks on a cease-fire in Ukraine and won't take the discussions seriously until it has reached its goals.
A senior U.S. defense official said on March 23 that Moscow's ground forces appear to be setting up defensive positions 15 to 20 kilometers outside Kyiv as they make little to no progress toward the city center.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in some areas east of Kyiv, Ukrainian troops appear to have pushed the Russians farther away.
The official added that there is activity from Russian ships in the Sea of Azov, where the besieged strategic port of Mariupol is located.
The Ukrainian Navy said on March 24 that it had struck a Russian naval transport vessel docked in the Sea of Azov near Mariupol.
"The Orsk large landing ship of the Black Sea Fleet of the occupiers has been destroyed in the port of Berdyansk captured by Russia," the Ukrainian Navy wrote on social media.
Plumes of black smoke could be seen coming out of a large gray vessel docked next to big cranes in amateur footage of what the Ukrainian Navy said was the strike on the ship.
There was no immediate response to the claim from the Russian Defense Ministry and the strikes could not be independently confirmed.
In an interview with Spain's TVE broadcast on March 24, Borrell said Russian President Vladimir Putin has his eyes on surrounding the Black Sea coast to the border with Moldova in order to isolate Ukraine from the water.
"Right now, Russia doesn't want to sit and negotiate anything. What it wants is to occupy the ground," Borrell said. "It wants to negotiate in earnest only when it has secured a position of strength." Biden is scheduled to give a news conference after the March 24 meetings, then head to Poland for talks with leaders in that country, which has taken on the bulk of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the fighting. The UN General Assembly is preparing to meet on March 24 to discuss the war in Ukraine and a draft humanitarian resolution written by Kyiv. Unlike in the Security Council -- where Russia, along with other permanent members, holds veto power -- no one country can block a resolution in the General Assembly.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said late on March 23 that his country would send 6,000 more missiles and about $33 million in financial aid to Ukraine’s military, which is battling against a brutal invasion by Russian forces.
The missiles will consist of anti-tank and high-explosive weapons, Johnson said on the eve of a NATO and G7 summit in Brussels.
"The United Kingdom will work with our allies to step up military and economic support to Ukraine, strengthening their defenses as they turn the tide in this fight," he said in a statement.
"We cannot and will not stand by while Russia grinds Ukraine's towns and cities into dust," Johnson said.
According to his office, Johnson will press Western allies at the Brussels summits to "step up a gear" in their responses to Moscow's actions.
He will urge the delivery of "enhanced defensive support to Ukraine and doubling down on economic sanctions,” according to his office.
The announcement comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged citizens around the world to take to the streets to protest Russia's invasion of his country.
"Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life," Zelensky said in a video address in English. "Come to your squares, to your streets, make yourselves visible and heard."
The Kremlin says it is expelling a number of U.S. diplomats in reaction to Washington's move earlier this month to expel 12 Russian representatives to the United Nations based in the United States.
"On March 23, a note with the list of the American diplomats declared 'persona non grata' was handed to [a senior diplomat] who was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," the ministry said in a statement, without disclosing the number of people hit by the order.
On February 28, Washington ordered 12 members of Russia's diplomatic mission to the UN to leave the United States, accusing them of being “intelligence operatives” engaged in espionage.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the UN said the diplomats ordered to leave had "abused their privileges of residency in the United States by engaging in espionage activities that are adverse to our national security."
The mission said the expulsions had been “in development for several months” and were in accordance with the United States’ agreement with the United Nations as host of the UN.
The diplomatic moves come as tensions are high and the United States and its allies consider additional sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The international swimming governing body says it has started an investigation of Olympic champion Yevgeny Rylov for his alleged appearance at a pro-war rally in Moscow last week.
Switzerland-based FINA said on March 23 that its disciplinary panel was investigating Rylov "for a potential violation of the FINA rules following his alleged participation in a pro-war rally at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow" on March 18.
It said the FINA board had asked the panel to expedite the proceedings involving Rylov.
FINA made the remarks as part of an announcement confirming that athletes from Russia and close ally Belarus would not take part in its World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, which are starting on June 18.
Russian cultural and sports groups and individuals have been barred from many international competitions following Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Belarus has also been hit after Russia used its territory to move troops into Ukraine.
“FINA maintains its strongest condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. FINA also wishes to reiterate its commitment to supporting the Ukraine Swimming, Diving and Artistic Swimming Federation as they prepare for upcoming competitions,” FINA said in its statement.
The March 18 Moscow sports rally featured Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking before a large crowd, many of whom were holding Russian national flags and patriotic posters to mark the eighth anniversary of the 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea.
Putin used the occasion to justify Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The UN General Assembly will not likely vote on a resolution on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine until March 24, delaying the expected vote by one day.
The delay was caused by the large number of speakers seeking to address the matter, diplomats said.
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The text of the resolution, introduced by Ukraine, is clearly directed against Russia.
The General Assembly previously voted on Moscow’s actions, but Ukraine and its Western allies are seeking to get more than the 141 “yes” votes cast on March 2 to adopt a resolution that called out Russia's "aggression against Ukraine."
Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, and Syria voted “no,” while 35 states, including China, abstained.
General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding and are mainly symbolic.
There is also a much more neutral text proposal from South Africa that does not mention Moscow as an aggressor despite its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia failed on March 23 in its attempt to get its own humanitarian resolution on the Ukraine conflict passed in the UN Security Council.
Only China joined Russia to vote in favor of the text in the 15-member Security Council. The remaining 13 countries abstained.
Western countries have described the country's introduction of a humanitarian resolution as "cynical" and an "insult."
Madeleine Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia who fled Nazi and communist persecution in Europe to become the first female U.S. secretary of state, has died at age 84.
Her family said on March 23 that she died of cancer, surrounded by family and friends.
Albright served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997 before being named as secretary of state by Democratic President Bill Clinton. She served in the State Department post for the four years of Clinton’s second term.
When she became secretary of state, Albright was the highest-ranking woman ever in the U.S. government, although she was not in the line of succession to the presidency because she was foreign-born.
Clinton said in a Twitter statement that Albright was "one of the finest Secretaries of State, an outstanding UN Ambassador, a brilliant professor, and an extraordinary human being."
Republican former President George W. Bush, who was often criticized by Albright, wrote on Twitter: “[Wife] Laura and I are heartbroken by the news of Madeleine Albright’s death. She lived out the American dream and helped others realize it.”
“She served with distinction as a foreign-born foreign minister who understood firsthand the importance of free societies for peace in our world. I respect her love of country and public service, and Laura and I are grateful to have called Madeline Albright our friend.”
Albright was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama in 2012.
As ambassador to the UN, Albright pressed for a tougher stance against ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina after Bosnian Serb military forces laid siege to the capital, Sarajevo, killing at least 10,000 soldiers and civilians.
As secretary of state, she played a key role in persuading Clinton to intervene militarily against Yugoslav and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic over his treatment of Kosovo's ethnic-Albanian population in 1999.
Kosovar leaders praised Albright's contributions to the small Balkan country's independence.
President Vjosa Osmani described her as "a great friend of Kosovo."
"She gave us hope, when we didn't have it," Osmani said in a Facebook post, adding that the "people of Kosovo will remember her forever."
"She became our voice and our arm when we had neither a voice nor an arm. She recognized the pain of our people because she had experienced persecution herself since childhood," she said.
She was born near Prague in 1937 as Marie Jana Korbelova. Her family fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 as the Nazis took over the country, and spent the war years in London.
After the war, as communists took over much of Eastern Europe, her Czech diplomat father took the family to the United States.
RFE/RL freelance correspondent Polina Efimova has been detained in the Russian city of Taganrog as she was talking to refugees from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which is under siege by Russian armed forces.
Efimova’s colleagues told the Novaya gazeta newspaper that she was detained when interviewing refugees from Mariupol in a bus near the Sports Palace in Taganrog on March 23.
According to her colleagues, police detained Efimova after she said that she did not have documents with her to prove that she was a journalist.
Mariupol, which had a population of 400,000 before the war, has been reduced to rubble, with thousands of civilians dead and many more seeking a route out of the city to safety amid constant bombardment by Russian forces.
For the past two weeks, Russia has attempted to encircle Mariupol, an important port on the Sea of Azov and the most contentious battleground in the war so far.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government has determined that members of Russia's forces have committed war crimes during the country’s invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on March 23.
“Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement.
"Our assessment is based on a careful review of available information from public and intelligence sources," Blinken said.
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"As with any alleged crime, a court of law with jurisdiction over the crime is ultimately responsible for determining criminal guilt in specific cases," he added.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague generally prosecutes alleged war crimes.
U.S. President Joe Biden had called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "war criminal" when talking to journalists on March 16, sparking an angry reaction from Moscow.
The U.S. military accused Russian forces on March 21 of committing war crimes in their bloody invasion, while European and Ukrainian officials have also used the term in describing Russia’s actions.
In addition, Blinken himself had previously called Russia’s attacks on Ukraine “war crimes,” but this is the first official statement by the U.S. government declaring the assessment, headlined: “War Crimes by Russia’s Forces in Ukraine,” the statement said.
“Since launching his unprovoked and unjust war of choice, Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed unrelenting violence that has caused death and destruction across Ukraine,” the statement added.
“We’ve seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities. Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded.”
Two Tajik men who served in the Russian Army and were killed during Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine have been buried in Tajikistan.
Sources close to the government told RFE/RL on March 23 that, in all, the bodies of at least four Tajik men who were killed while fighting alongside Russian armed forces in Ukraine had been repatriated to Tajikistan.
RFE/RL's correspondents found out the identities of two Tajiks who were buried in recent days in Tajikistan's Khatlon and Sughd regions -- 50-year-old Saidakbar Saidov and 38-year-old Ramazon Murtazoev, who served in the Russian Army and were killed in Ukraine.
Many Tajiks have dual Tajik-Russian citizenship which is allowed by a special agreement between Dushanbe and Moscow.
Moscow has not provided an update on casualty figures since early in the invasion, when it said on March 2 that 498 soldiers had been killed.
However, a NATO official told AP that the Russian death toll was likely to be between 7,000 and 14,000, although numbers on both sides are impossible to independently confirm.
MINSK -- A U.S. citizen who took part in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., has been granted refugee status in Belarus.
In an interview with state-controlled media, Evan Neumann said he had received refugee status papers in the western city of Brest on March 22.
Neumann, 49, was detained by Belarusian border guards last August for illegally crossing into the country from Ukraine.
In December, a court in Washington indicted Neumann on 14 criminal counts, including assaulting police officers and other crimes related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said at the time that the FBI was investigating the case and that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
Neumann told Belarusian media earlier that he stayed in Switzerland and Italy before heading to Ukraine for four months. He then decided to illegally cross into Belarus and seek political asylum after Ukraine's security services started showing an interest in him.
The United States has no extradition treaty with Belarus.
The attack on the Capitol attempted to halt a joint session of U.S. Congress that was in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory over incumbent Donald Trump in a November 2020 election. The siege followed a rally near the White House earlier that day at which Trump called on his supporters to march on the Capitol in a last-gasp attempt to overturn the election results.
The attempt failed as lawmakers reconvened after the riot to certify the results, ensuring Biden became the country's 46th president.
The indictment says that during the riot, Neumann shoved a metal barricade into a line of officers and struck the officers with the barricade and with his fist. In an interview with Belarus-1, Neumann rejected the charges, calling them "political persecution."
Since the riot, more than 700 people have been arrested for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 220 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
Iran's foreign minister says an agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear accord that Tehran signed with world powers is closer “than ever before.”
"If the U.S. acts pragmatically, we are ready to have foreign ministers of countries belonging to the nuclear deal's joint commission gather in Vienna to finalize the agreement," Hossein Amirabdollahian told a news conference during a visit to Damascus on March 23.
"We believe that today we are closer to an agreement in Vienna than ever before," he said.
"We have given our latest proposals to the U.S. through the European Union's Coordinator to reach a final deal. We reminded the Americans that we will not cross our red lines," Amirabdollahian said.
If an agreement is reached, it would mark the culmination of nearly a year of tough negotiations between Tehran and Western powers, although previous statements on both sides have suggested that a deal was imminent only to hit further snags.
An agreement had been close weeks earlier until Moscow demanded guarantees from the United States that sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine would not hurt its trade with Iran.
Inserting a bit of caution, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani said on Twitter following Amirabdollahian’s statement that being "near the finish line is no guarantee to crossing that."
“It requires extra caution, much perseverance, additional creativity, and [a] balanced approach to take the last step. To finish the job, there are certain decisions that our Western interlocutors need to take.”
The comments come a day after the United States said it was up to Iran to make the hard decisions necessary to revive the landmark nuclear deal and ease its sanctions-ravaged economy.
"The onus is on Tehran to make decisions that it might consider difficult," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a briefing on March 22.
Price cautioned, though, that a return to the deal was neither certain nor imminent.
Iran signed the landmark deal with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China in 2015. It allowed for the easing of sanctions in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programs.
But then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in May 2018, saying the terms were not strict enough to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and also to punish Tehran for its putative support of extremist activity in the region. Trump also reimposed tough financial sanctions against Iran.
Iran has denied it is seeking nuclear weapons, saying the program is for civilian purposes, and it has rejected accusations of support for extremists.
However, after Washington pulled out, Iran has breached limits set in the deal and has insisted that the United States lift its sanctions before it returns to the accord.
Meanwhile, a group of Republican lawmakers in the United States sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to keep Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on the designated list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Unconfirmed reports stated that the U.S. administration was considering removing the group from the list as part of compromises related to the nuclear talks.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world today,” Representative Scott Franklin of Florida said.
“Through its sponsorship of terrorism, the IRGC is responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people and at least 600 U.S. troops. It has consistently sought the destruction of our partners and allies in the region, most notably Israel, and has been an obstacle to peace in the Middle East for decades.”
“The Biden administration simply cannot reward this terrorist regime with any sort of legitimacy from the U.S. government.”
The United States designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019.
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The Belarusian government has shut down Ukraine's consulate in the western city of Brest and ordered an unspecified number of Ukrainian diplomats to leave the Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk as Belarus continues to assist Russian armed forces in their attacks against Ukraine.
Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anatol Hlaz said on March 23 that Ukraine's ambassador and four employees at the embassy in Minsk will be allowed to stay in the country, while the rest of the staff will be forced to leave.
Hlaz added that the move was made due to "Ukraine's numerous unfriendly actions" conducted for many years "to irresponsibly destroy interstate relations" with Belarus.
A day earlier, Belarus's security service (KGB) said in a statement that at least 10 employees at the Ukrainian Embassy, which accounts for almost half of the diplomatic mission's staff, were actually "staff members of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's main intelligence directorate" and allegedly "involved in recruiting agents and collecting classified data."
On March 19, Belarus recalled all of its embassy staff in Kyiv, which prompted speculation that Belarus was preparing to send its troops to Ukraine to help Russian armed forces.
Belarus has aided Russian President Vladimir Putin by allowing Belarusian territory to be used by Russians troops to launch attacks against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged French companies to leave Russia and stop sponsoring Moscow’s “war machine” as many other Western enterprises have done in the wake of the Kremlin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
In a video address to the French parliament on March 24, Zelenskiy said that "French companies must quit the Russian market."
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"Renault, Auchan, Leroy Merlin, and others must stop sponsoring the Russian war machine," he added.
The Ukrainian president has kept a high profile following Russia’s February 24 invasion and has spoken to several legislatures through video linkups, including to lawmakers in the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Israel.
Seated at a desk wearing a khaki T-shirt, Zelenskiy told the French parliament that images of devastated Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol "recall the ruins of Verdun as in the photos of World War I that everyone has seen."
"The Russian Army makes no distinction between targets. They destroy residential areas, hospitals, schools, universities."
Automaker Renault, which is partly state-owned, suspended production at plants near Moscow last month but has since reportedly resumed production.
Major French retailers such as Auchan, Leroy Merlin, and sports group Decathlon have not followed a boycott of Russia by other top Western companies.
Zelenskiy is scheduled to address the Swedish parliament on March 24 and Danish lawmakers on March 25.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the Western alliance will deploy four new battle groups across Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia as part of its response to Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
NATO already has battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.
"I expect leaders will agree to strengthen NATO's posture in all domains with major increases of forces in the eastern part of the alliance, on land, in the air, and at sea. The first step is the deployment of four new NATO battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia," Stoltenberg told journalists in Brussels on March 23.
"This means that we will have eight multinational NATO battle groups all along the Eastern flank from the Baltic to the Black Sea," Stoltenberg said ahead of an extraordinary NATO summit scheduled for March 24 that will also be attended by U.S. President Joe Biden.
"We face a new reality for our security, so we must reset our deterrence and defense for the longer term," he said.
MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin says Russia will start forcing "unfriendly countries" -- including all European Union states -- to pay for their natural gas supplies in rubles.
Putin's March 23 statement comes as crippling international sanctions slapped on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine begin to hit hard, especially the local currency.
Putin said during his meeting with the government that Russia will implement the changes and stop accepting payments in currencies that have been "compromised" within one week. He did not say whether oil supplies would also be affected by the move.
The announcement means that European nations who have imposed sanctions on Russia, along with Britain, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United States, will have to buy rubles with their euros or U.S. dollars at rates fixed by Russia's central bank to pay for the natural gas delivered from Russia. The move would bolster the ruble by raising demand for it.
Last week, Putin signed a decree allowing Russian banks sanctioned by the West to carry out their obligations with regard to foreign currency deposits in rubles at the current exchange rate until September 1.
Russia's close ally, Kazakhstan, has already said it will use Russian rubles for the payment of customs fees in bilateral trade.
U.S. President Joe Biden says the threat of Russia using chemical weapons against Ukraine was "real" as NATO head Jens Stoltenberg warned of "far-reaching consequences" if Moscow were to use armaments.
“I think it’s a real threat,” Biden said on March 23 as he left for Europe, where he will meet with NATO, Group of Seven, and European Union allies to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is in its fourth week amid fierce resistance by Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
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Several Western officials, including Stoltenberg, have repeatedly warned that Russia might use chemical weapons in Ukraine and that such a move would be a war crime.
"Any use of chemical weapons would totally change the nature of the conflict, it would be a blatant violation of international law, and would have far-reaching consequences," Stoltenberg said in Brussels on March 23.
Earlier this month, Russia requested a meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council to address Moscow's allegations of U.S. “biological activities” in Ukraine -- a charge made without any evidence and denied by both Washington and Kyiv. The U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said Washington was "deeply concerned" that Russia likely called the session as a "false flag effort" aimed at laying the groundwork for its own use of biological or chemical weapons in Ukraine.
"Russia has a track record of falsely accusing other countries of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating,” Thomas-Greenfield said on March 11.
"We have serious concerns that Russia may be planning to use chemical or biological agents against the Ukrainian people,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
KEMEROVO, Russia -- A court in Siberia has imposed pretrial restrictions on journalist Andrei Novashov, a former freelance correspondent for RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realities, and charged him with distributing "false information" about Russia's armed forces by reposting another journalist’s article online.
Novashov's lawyer, Maria Yankina, told RFE/RL that a court in the city of Kemerovo ruled on March 23 that her client cannot use the Internet, make phone calls, or attend public events while an investigation into his activities continues.
Yankina said that she cannot disclose any other information about her client as she signed a document keeping her from discussing details of the case.
Novashov has gone incommunicado since police searched his home on March 21.
The investigators launched a probe against Novashov using a new law that envisions a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for distributing "false" information about the operations of the Russian armed forces. The legislation was endorsed by President Vladimir Putin on March 5.
The case against Novashov stems from his reposting an article by journalist Viktoria Ivleva, who used Ukrainian sources to describe the brutal attack by Russian armed forces on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where thousands of civilians have been killed or remain trapped inside the city with no utilities and dwindling food supplies.
According to the Telegram channel Setevyye Svobody, investigators proposed that Novashov publicly apologize to the Russian armed forces for reposting the report, but he refused to do so.
A day earlier, RFE/RL President Jamie Fly condemned legal attacks on Novashov and other journalists associated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Russia, vowing that the “systematic harassment” will not stop the independent news organization from covering events in the country.
Criminalizing defamation or insult could have a chilling impact on the right to freedom of expression in Armenia, the head of the European Union’s delegation to the country told RFE/RL.
Amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code adopted by parliament last summer made insulting government officials and public figures an offense punishable with hefty fines or prison sentences of up to three months.
The opposition and human rights activists have criticized the measure, calling it an infringement of free speech.
Asked whether the EU delegation to Armenia shares local and international concerns regarding the legislation, Andrea Wiktorin told RFE/RL's Armenian Service that the delegation is closely monitoring the situation and “does its own legal analyses” together with colleagues in Brussels.
In written responses to the Armenian Service's questions, Wiktorin stressed that a law which interferes with freedom of expression “must be narrowly and precisely circumscribed so that it is legally predictable and certain.”
Wiktorin stressed that Armenia is a member of the Council of Europe and should therefore abide by the continental human rights body's rules. “Most importantly, the question is whether the law is implemented in a democratic and nonarbitrary manner, on the basis of objective criteria, subject to independent judicial control, where the judges consider the proportionality of the sanction," Wiktorin said.
The EU diplomat said also that the delegation had “a general consultation” with Armenian Prosecutor-General Artak Davtian earlier this month.
“We talked about a number of issues and had a very profound and detailed discussion. I am convinced he takes the issue very seriously,” Wiktorin said.
Armenian authorities have defended the controversial law. Speaking after his March 3 meeting with Wiktorin, Davtian said the law is necessary for “reducing or neutralizing the scale and impact of hate speech.”
Several international organizations, including the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, have called on Armenia to decriminalize “grave insults" while U.S. democracy watchdog Freedom House has repeatedly said the passing and enforcement of the controversial law highlights a “clear degradation of democratic norms” in Armenia.
Armenia’s Constitutional Court on March 22 began considering the constitutionality of the legislation following a claim lodged by the country’s ombudsman. The court said the examination of the claim proceeds in writing.
Well-known post-Soviet reformer Anatoly Chubais has left his post as Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy for stable development, a move that could signal the highest-profile protest inside the Kremlin against Moscow's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin on March 24 confirmed that Chubais had stepped down “on his own accord” following reports by Bloomberg and Reuters quoting Kremlin sources as saying that Chubais -- who was responsible for relations with international organizations -- had left the country.
Russia's state news agency TASS earlier quoted a source as saying that Chubais had left his position but did not confirm whether he was still in Russia or not. No reason was given for Chubais's departure. He is the highest-profile official on Putin's team to resign since Russia launched its attack against Ukraine on February 24. The 66-year-old Chubais was first deputy prime minister, finance minister, and chief of the presidential office when Boris Yeltsin was Russia's first president following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Chubais was a key reformer and an ideologue of the privatization program in Russia in the early 1990s. Since the start of the war, many Western countries have implemented crippling sanctions on Russia and those close to Putin.
Award-winning Russian journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, a freelance contributor to RFE/RLs North.Realities project, has left her native country for Latvia amid a pressure campaign by authorities over her activities as a journalist. Prokopyeva wrote on Facebook late on March 22 that she had left the Russian city of Pskov and is currently in Riga. "There is no way to shut me up now. And I will return. As soon as it is possible," Prokopyeva wrote, adding that it was a very difficult decision for her to leave Russia.
On March 18, police forced their way into Prokopyeva's home, knocked her on the floor, and handcuffed her as she lay face down on the ground. She was taken to a police station for questioning in a case about allegedly spreading lies about the region's governor. That same day, police searched the residences of several other journalists and opposition politicians as part of the probe, which stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Pskov Governor Mikhail Vedernikov after an anonymous report on Telegram earlier in March criticized him for lambasting independent media and praising Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. He made the comments as he spoke about several soldiers from Pskov who had died in the war. Many journalists and activists have left Russia since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Russian authorities have ordered local media and bloggers to only publish information provided by official sources about the ongoing war in Ukraine. As part of the guidelines, the conflict cannot be referred to as a war or an invasion, and instead must be called a "special military operation." In 2020, Prokopyeva won the International Press Freedom award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Just days before she was announced as the winner, a Russian court found her guilty of “justifying terrorism” and ordered her to pay a hefty fine in a controversial case widely criticized as an attack on freedom of speech. On March 22, RFE/RL President Jamie Fly condemned legal attacks on journalists associated with RFE/RL in Russia, vowing that the “systematic harassment” will not stop the news organization from covering events in the country. “The Kremlin’s systematic harassment of Yulia Paramonova, Andrei Novashov, and Svetlana Prokopyeva for their work as journalists for RFE/RL is deplorable,” he said in a statement on March 22. “We will not be prevented from providing the Russian people with the truth at a moment they need it more than ever.”
Poland has ordered the expulsion of 45 Russian Embassy and trade mission staff members, accusing them of working for Moscow's secret services and describing them as a danger to the country's and NATO's security.
Poland's Internal Security Agency said on March 23 that it had asked the Foreign Ministry to urgently remove the Russians from the country.
“These are people who...operate using their diplomatic status, but in reality conduct intelligence activities against Poland,” said Stanislaw Zaryn, the state security spokesman.
Officials said Russian Ambassador Sergei Andreev was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and given a note informing him of the expulsion of 45 employees of the embassy and Russia’s trade mission.
Andreev, who was not among those being expelled, denied the named individuals were involved in spying, telling reporters they “were carrying out normal diplomatic and trade activity.”
He said Russia has the right to respond in a like manner.
Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said that “Russia has been waging a barbaric war against Ukraine for over three weeks. We and other Western countries are treated as a key enemy.”
“Further tolerating this type of illegal activity by Russian services would create a particular threat to Poland’s security, but also to our NATO and European Union allies, with whom we coordinate all such activities,” he said.
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