Category: Світ
світові новини
Iceland Volcano Continues Spewing Lava for Third Day
Russian Opposition Activists in Seattle Remember Navalny as Putin Claims Victory
In Seattle, there were no polling stations for Russian citizens to join the worldwide movement known as “Noon Against Putin,” a symbolic protest of the re-election of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, they commemorated opposition leader Alexey Navalny and wrote letters to the growing list of political prisoners in Russia. Natasha Mozgovaya has the story.
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Ukraine Reports Downing 17 of 22 Russian Drones
Putin Wins Election with No Effective Opposition
Putin Says He Supported Prisoner Swap for Opposition Leader Navalny
European Far-Right Firebrand Prevented From Speaking at Swiss Event
Berlin — A prominent European far-right figure was prevented from giving a speech at an event in Switzerland and thrown out of the region where it was taking place.
Martin Sellner of the Identitarian Movement said in a video posted on social media network X, formerly Twitter, that he had been invited by a local group, Junge Tat (Young Deed), to “talk about remigration and the ethnic vote” and what happened at a recent meeting in Germany that prompted a string of large protests there. Remigration refers to the return, sometimes forced, of non-ethnically European immigrants back to their place of racial origin.
Sellner, who comes from neighboring Austria, said that a few minutes after he started speaking at the event Saturday, the electricity was turned off and he was taken to a police station, then told he was thrown out of Aargau canton (state) and escorted to Zurich.
Regional police said in a statement that they tracked down the Junge Tat event in the small town of Tegerfelden on Saturday after receiving several tips. They found some 100 people at the venue and said that, after the landlady found out about the contents of the planned meeting, she canceled the contract for it.
Police said they told organizers to end the event, but they didn’t obey. Without identifying Sellner by name, they said the speaker was held and ordered out of the region “to safeguard public security” and prevent confrontations with opponents.
Germany has seen large protests of the far right following a report that extremists met in Potsdam in November to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship. Sellner presented his “remigration” vision for the deportation of immigrants there.
That meeting has prompted widespread criticism of the Alternative for Germany party, some of whose members reportedly attended. The party has sought to distance itself from the event, while also decrying the reporting of it.
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Is the West Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine?
For as long as the U.S. and its Western allies have been sending military assistance to Ukraine, Moscow has accused the West of using Ukraine to fight a proxy war against Russia. But, as Maxim Adams reports, the reality is much more complicated. VOA footage and video editing by Elena Matusovsky.
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Protests, Petrol, and Passports Mark Final Day of Russian Elections
An outpouring of international protests marked the third and final day of voting in Russia’s presidential elections, as supporters of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny heeded on of his last calls to action. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Greece Alarmed by Rising Tides of Migrants
Athens — Greece is facing increasing illegal immigration as the Gaza crisis continues. The trend has Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and senior European Union officials heading to Egypt Sunday to sign an aid package worth just over $8 billion intended to help ease migration.
A surge in illegal migration has seen numbers entering Greece swell by more than 400% in the last month alone.
Palestinians rank high in these flows but Egyptians are increasingly following suit.
“There is no doubt, that Egypt has suffered the greatest fallout of the crisis in Gaza,” said Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Keridis. “And as if the country and its economy was not strained enough, the Gaza crisis and inflow of Palestinians has exacerbated the situation, setting Egyptians to a massive flight.”
Since the start of the year, Greece’s southernmost islands of Crete and Gavdos have been hardest hit with daily flows of Egyptians landing on their shores, seeking refuge to the West via Libya.
On Sunday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will travel to Cairo with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to finalize an $8.06 billion aid package to shore up the Egyptian economy and help stem the tide of illegal immigration.
Under the planned deal, a first tranche of $1 billion will be dispersed immediately as emergency financial assistance. The rest, will be tied to economic reforms.
Greece has been a favored gateway to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia since 2015, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, causing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Thousands others have since then died at sea.
The migration crisis has seen Greece take a strong-arm approach to fend off illegal flows, triggering, however, accusations that it is pushing back migrants on rickety rafts, endangering their lives, even torturing them upon arrival.
Authorities have largely refuted the accusations but migrants are increasingly speaking up.
Last week, four Greek bodyguards were arrested for beating a migrant, battering his face and breaking his ribs, according to a migrant’s testimony.
An urgent investigation is underway.
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European Union Announces $8 Billion Package of Aid for Egypt
Cairo — The European Union on Sunday announced a $8 billion aid package for cash-strapped Egypt amid concerns that economic pressure and conflicts and chaos in neighboring countries could drive more migrants to European shores.
The deal is scheduled to be signed during a visit by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and the leaders of Belgium, Italy, Austria, Cyprus and Greece, according to Egyptian officials.
The package includes both grants and loans over the next three years for the Arab world’s most populous country, according to the European Union Mission in Cairo.
According to a document from the EU mission in Egypt, the two sides have promoted their cooperation to the level of a “strategic and comprehensive partnership,” paving the way for expanding Egypt-EU cooperation in various economic and non-economic areas.
The EU will provide assistance to Egypt’s government to fortify its borders especially with Libya, a major transit point for migrants fleeing poverty and conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and will support the government in hosting Sudanese who have fled nearly a year of fighting between rival generals in their country.
Egypt has for decades been a refuge for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa trying to escape war or poverty. For some, Egypt is a destination and a haven, the closest and easiest country for them to reach. For others, it is a point of transit before attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.
While the Egyptian coast has not been a major launching pad for people smugglers and human traffickers sending overcrowded boats across the Mediterranean to Europe, Egypt faces migratory pressures from the region, with the added looming threat that the Israel-Hamas war will spill across its borders.
The package drew criticism from international rights groups over Egypt’s human rights record. Amnesty International decried the deal and urged European leaders not to be complicit with human rights violations taking place in Egypt.
“EU leaders must ensure that the Egyptian authorities adopt clear benchmarks for human rights, said Amnesty International’s Head of the European Institutions Office, Eve Geddie in a statement. Geddie pointed to Egypt’s restrictions on media and freedom of expression and a crackdown on civil society.
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Putin Poised to Rule Russia for 6 More Years
Russian-Belarusian Band Returns to Stage After Detention in Thailand
Warsaw, Poland — A Russian-Belarusian rock band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion returned to the stage this week, voicing defiance after being detained in Thailand in January and threatened with deportation to Russia.
The band, Bi-2, formed in the 1980s in Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union, left Russia in protest over the invasion and has been touring ever since in countries with large Russian-speaking communities.
Ahead of a concert in Vilnius on Thursday, band members met with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and supporters of late Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month.
“We have become hostages to Russian history,” Egor Bortnik, one of the band’s two founders, told AFP ahead of a concert in Warsaw on Saturday.
But 51-year-old Bortnik, who is better known by his stage name “Lyova,” said he was “not against the war.”
“On the contrary, I’m for the war. I just want Ukraine to liberate its own territory,” he said.
“Putin has to gather his orcs and get out of Ukraine,” Bortnik said, using a disparaging term for Russian soldiers frequently used by Ukrainians.
The band was detained in Phuket, Thailand, in January on immigration charges in a case that has alarmed Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin living abroad.
The organizers of their concerts said all the necessary permits had been obtained, but the band was issued with tourist visas in error, and they accused the Russian consulate of waging a campaign to cancel the concerts.
After a week in detention, the band members were released and traveled to Israel, where they met with Foreign Minister Israel Katz who said in a statement that the episode showed that “music will win.”
Several of their concerts in Russia were canceled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left the country.
“I put my prosperity on the line when the war began, and I had to leave Russia. It was unexpected, it was not a process we had prepared for,” Bortnik said.
Bortnik, who moved to Israel while still a teenager, said he was more used to emigration than some of his peers who left Russia in the wake of the war.
“I understand how difficult it is,” he said.
Bortnik said he was no “geopolitician” and does not write explicitly “political songs” although their lyrics can “hit a nerve that is constantly vibrating.”
He said Putin’s demise could be sudden and violent and would also bring down Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades.
“If something happens to Putin then there could be a civil war — the finale for any tyranny,” he said.
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Iceland Volcano Erupts 4th Time, Spewing Lava Into Sky
COPENHAGEN — A volcano in Iceland erupted on Saturday for the fourth time since December, the country’s meteorological office said, spewing smoke and bright orange lava into the air in sharp contrast against the dark night sky.
In a video shot from a Coast Guard helicopter and shown on public broadcaster RUV, fountains of molten rock soared from a long fissure in the ground, and lava spread rapidly to each side.
The eruption began at 2023 GMT, and the fissure was estimated to be about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles) long, roughly the same size as the last eruption in February, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement.
Authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula just south of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik.
The site of the eruption was between Hagafell and Stora-Skogfell, the same area as the previous outbreak on February 8, the Met Office said.
“This was definitely expected,” said Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Centre.
“Of course, the exact time of the eruption is impossible to predict. The first cues of this moving towards the surface actually only happened about 15 minutes in advance,” she said.
Reykjavik’s Keflavik Airport’s website showed it remained open both for departures and arrivals.
Lava appeared to be flowing rapidly south toward the nearby Grindavik fishing town, where a few of the nearly 4,000 residents had returned following earlier outbreaks, the Met Office said. .
The town was again being evacuated, public broadcaster RUV reported. An outbreak in January burned several of its homes to the ground.
“We’re just like, this is business as usual,” Kristin Maria Birgisdottir, who was evacuated from Grindavik in November, told Reuters.
“My son … just called me and said, ‘Mamma, did you know the eruption has started?’ And I was like, ‘yeah, I did know.’ Oh, my grandma just told me. So it’s like we don’t even bother telling each other anymore,” she said.
Icelandic police said they had declared a state of emergency for the area.
The nearby Blue Lagoon luxury geothermal spa immediately shut its doors, as it did during previous eruptions.
Iceland, roughly the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky, boasts more than 30 active volcanoes, making the north European island a prime destination for volcano tourism, a niche segment that attracts thousands of thrill seekers.
In 2010, ash clouds from eruptions at the Eyafjallajokull volcano in the south of Iceland spread over large parts of Europe, grounding some 100,000 flights and forcing hundreds of Icelanders to evacuate their homes.
Volcanic outbreaks in the Reykjanes peninsula are so-called fissure eruptions, which do not usually cause large explosions or significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere.
Gases from the eruption were traveling westwards out to sea, the meteorological office said.
Scientists fear the eruptions could continue for decades, and Icelandic authorities have started building dikes to divert burning lava flows away from homes and critical infrastructure.
The February eruption cut off district heating to more than 20,000 people as lava flows destroyed roads and pipelines.
Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, among the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot spot as the two move in opposite directions.
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Latvia Starts Criminal Case Against EU Lawmaker Suspected of Russian Espionage
HELSINKI — Latvia’s state security service has started criminal proceedings against an European Parliament lawmaker and a citizen of the Baltic country who is suspected of cooperating with Russian intelligence and security services, according to Latvian media reports Saturday.
Latvian media outlets reported that the security service, known by the abbreviation VDD, has been investigating the activities of Tatjana Ždanoka, 73, and her alleged Russia ties over the past several weeks since reports were published in January by Russian, Nordic and Baltic news sites saying that she has been an agent for the Russian Federal Security Service since at least 2004.
According to news agency LETA, the Latvian security service decided to start a criminal process against Ždanoka on Feb. 22. The security service couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Ždanoka has denied all of the allegations against her.
The European Parliament said in late January that it had opened an investigation into news reports that a Latvian member of the assembly, Ždanoka, has been working as a Russian agent for several years. The European Union’s legislative body, based in Strasbourg, France, said it was taking the allegations very seriously.
Following a joint investigation, the independent Russian investigative journalism site The Insider, its Latvian equivalent Re:Baltica, news portal Delfi Estonia, and Swedish newspaper Expressen published on Jan. 29 emails that they said were leaked and showed Ždanoka’s interactions with her handler.
Expressen claimed that Ždanoka has been spreading propaganda about alleged violations of the rights of Russians living in Baltic countries and arguing for a pro-Kremlin policy, among other things. She has also refused to condemn Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the paper said.
Latvia, a Baltic nation of 1.9 million people, and neighboring Estonia are both home to a sizable ethnic Russian minority of about 25% of the population. Both countries are ex-Soviet republics.
Over the past few years, Moscow has routinely accused Latvia and Estonia of discriminating against their Russian-speaking populations.
Ždanoka’s resume, which is posted on the European Parliament website, lists her as the president of the EU Russian-Speakers’ Alliance, a nongovernmental organization, since 2007. She was first elected to the European Parliament in 2004.
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Russians Cast Ballots in Election Preordained to Extend Putin’s Rule
Germany Calls for More Aid to Gaza as Scholz Heads to Israel
BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Israel on Saturday to allow humanitarian aid access to Gaza on a larger scale, ahead of a two-day trip to the Middle East.
Scholz will travel to the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba on Saturday to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Sunday before flying to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It is necessary for aid to reach Gaza on a larger scale now. That will be a topic that I also have to talk about,” Scholz told journalists ahead of his trip.
He also voiced concern about Israel’s planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the Palestinian population of 2.3 million have taken shelter.
“There is a danger that a comprehensive offensive in Rafah will result in many terrible civilian casualties, which must be strictly prohibited,” he said.
Germany’s air force said it dropped pallets with 4 tons of relief goods by air into the enclave Saturday.
“Every package counts. But airdrops are just a drop in the ocean,” the foreign ministry said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ terror attack on October 7, has displaced most of the population and left people in dire need of food and other essentials.
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Russian Officials Say Ukrainian Shelling Kills 2 in Border City
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine, killed two people, Russian officials said Saturday.
A man and a woman died in the attack and three other people were wounded, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. It was the latest in exchanges of long-range missile and rocket fire in Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Five people were also wounded when a Ukrainian drone hit a car in the village of Glotovo, some 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Gladkov said.
Also on Saturday, a Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at an oil refinery belonging to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. He said an attack on another refinery was thwarted. No casualties were reported.
The attacks come a day after a Russian assault on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed at least 20 people. The ballistic missile attack blasted homes in the southern city Friday, followed by a second missile that targeted first responders who arrived at the scene, officials said.
Forty people are still in the hospital following the attacks, Odesa regional Governor Oleh Kiper said Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a “just response” to the attack in a video address Friday evening.
Saturday’s attacks occurred as Russians entered the second day of voting in a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule by another six years after he crushed dissent.
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Navalny’s Allies Continue Fight to Undermine Putin’s Grip on Power
TALLINN, Estonia — Alexey Navalny’s team is used to working independently. The most potent foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin was frequently absent for long stretches after being arrested, assaulted, poisoned, or imprisoned.
But when Navalny died suddenly in February at age 47 in a remote Arctic prison, his team was left with a monumental challenge: sustaining an opposition movement against Putin — who is all but certain to be reelected — without the living example of their defiant and charismatic leader.
After the initial shock wore off, Navalny’s closest allies returned to the work that cost Navalny his freedom and life: undermining Putin’s iron-fisted grip on power.
A significant test will come Sunday, the last of three days that voters can go to the polls in an election that is widely viewed as more of a formality than an exercise in democracy.
That’s when Navalny’s team — with the endorsement of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya — is calling for a protest dubbed “Noon Against Putin.” They are asking Russians to flock to polling stations Sunday at noon local time across the country’s 11 time zones to demonstrate their discontent with Putin’s rule and his war against Ukraine.
“It is a very simple and safe action, it can’t be banned,” Navalnaya said in a video address. “It will help millions of people to see their like-minded allies and to realize that we are not alone, we’re surrounded by people who are also against the war, against corruption and against lawlessness.”
Navalny’s followers have expressed a wide mix of emotions in the weeks since his death, from renewed inspiration to a sense of defeat.
Maria Obukhova of Moscow, who paid tribute to Navalny on Wednesday at the Borisovskoye Cemetery, said the crowds she saw at his funeral — which numbered in the thousands — were motivational.
“It was a huge surprise for me, because it seemed before like everything had died here, that Russia is no longer, that it had died,” said Obukhova, who placed white daisies at Navalny’s gravesite.
Another Muscovite at the cemetery, a man named Valery who withheld his last name for security reasons, said he had little hope for the future and that after Navalny’s death, “something has really broken” inside of him.
Just several days after her husband’s death, Navalnaya expressed determination to keep his mission alive.
In the past month, she has addressed the European Parliament, met with United States President Joe Biden, and urged Western countries not to recognize the results of Russia’s election. She also has called on the West to impose more sanctions on those close to Putin.
Leading up to the election, Navalny’s team urged supporters to cast their ballots for any candidate other than Putin, or to invalidate them by choosing two or more candidates. They also had dozens of volunteers call ordinary Russians to ask them about their grievances and try to turn them against Putin.
The phone campaign was announced by Navalny over the summer, and since then “tens of thousands” of calls were made, Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s top strategist, said a video. “We will not stop doing that,” he vowed.
Volkov also gave a video address shortly after Navalny’s death to rally supporters and perhaps tap into his longtime ally’s spirit of persistence. “It will be a monument to Alexey’s cause if you and I live to see how this regime disintegrates before Putin’s eyes,” he said.
Still, the Putin opposition’s uphill battle has only gotten steeper with its leaders in exile.
“(Putin’s) regime pushes people out of the country because it understands very well that the possibilities of influencing political processes in Russia from abroad are minimal,” said Nikolay Petrov, a visiting researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Sunday’s “Noon Against Putin” protest will be a test of how much Navalny’s team can do in Russia from abroad, said Sam Greene, a director at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.
“One part of what they want to do is to send a message to those who remain in Russia that you’re not alone, that the opposition in exile has their back to a certain extent and will support them,” said Greene. “But then the question is, how do they support them?”
Efforts are underway to disrupt the protest. Navalny’s team said fake emails have been sent around purporting to be from them telling Putin opponents to show up at the polls at 5 p.m. instead of noon.
Russia’s independent election watchdog, Golos, reported that officials in at least one region are being instructed to report large gatherings near polling stations to the police.
On Thursday night, the Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow warned that unauthorized rallies near polling stations “may prevent citizens from freely exercising their voting rights and the work of election commissions,” a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
The personal risks for Putin’s opponents remain high.
On Tuesday, Volkov was attacked near his home in Lithuania. Assailants smashed a window of his car, sprayed tear gas into his face and beat him with a hammer, according to Navalny’s team.
Volkov was taken to a hospital, and upon release said his arm was broken and his leg was injured so much it was painful to walk.
He accused “Putin’s henchmen” of the attack and said it was an attempt to intimidate the team ahead of the “Noon Against Putin” protest.
With Navalny gone, some of his supporters are recalibrating their expectations.
Valery, one of many people who visited Navalny’s grave in southeastern Moscow in recent weeks, said he is less optimistic about the opposition’s prospects going forward.
“Even though Yulia, his wife — his widow — has picked up the baton, I’m not sure that it is going to be the same as it was when Alexey was alive,” he said.
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Q&A: Ukraine’s Prosecutor General: ‘Over 20 Countries’ to Investigate Russian War Crimes
China-Russia-Iran Maritime Drills Send Signal to West
tel aviv, israel — China conducted joint military drills this week with Russia and Iran in the Gulf of Oman, a critical water conduit near the entry to the Persian Gulf.
The five-day exercise, “Maritime Security Belt 2024,” involved both naval and aviation forces, with the primary objective of enhancing the security of maritime economic activities, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
The drills may have been planned long in advance of the current Israel-Hamas war, but their implication and message to regional players and the West are highly significant, analysts say.
More than 20 ships, combat boats, support carriers and navy helicopters participated in the exercise.
Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) debuted new warships in the exercise, including the Shahid Soleimani corvette.
“That’s a game changer,” Wendell Minnick, an arms specialist and “China in Arms” podcaster, told VOA.
“Pay close attention to anti-ship missiles on ships,” Minnick said. “The U.S. Navy has a real problem with these types of missiles.”
The IRGC-operated Shahid Soleimani corvette is equipped with long- and short-range anti-ship cruise missiles. It’s the first Iranian warship outfitted with advanced VLS, or Vertical Launching Systems, for firing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.
“This gives the U.S. Navy a nightmare scenario of being saturated by multidirectional vectors of attack that they cannot possibly defeat en masse,” Minnick said. “Like being attacked by bees or ants. Eventually they will get you.”
Rear Admiral Mohammad Nozari, the IRGC commander of Iran’s base at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, told the Mehr News Agency the drill’s chief objectives were consolidating regional security, promoting China-Russia-Iran cooperation, and safeguarding global peace and maritime security.
Analysts say Chinese, Russian and Iranian objectives go far beyond the IRGC top naval commander’s stated claims.
“The Chinese and the Russians are using this exercise as a variety of tools disposable to them to show their presence and to pressure the West,” said Meir Javedanfar, who teaches Iranian security studies at Reichman University, in Herzliya, Israel.
“The Chinese are saying these exercises are normal and have nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East,” Javedanfar said in an interview with VOA.
“Nevertheless, the fact that these exercises are taking place against the background of an unprecedented U.S. and Western naval presence in the Middle East shows that the rivalry between the China-Russia-Iran front against the Western front is now heating up, and the Middle East waters are playing an important part in this rivalry.”
The rivalry takes on heightened significance when weighed against the recent uptick in Chinese participation in regional drills.
In November, China collaborated with Pakistan in “Sea Guardian 3” joint naval exercises in the Arabian Sea. It was the biggest joint People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Pakistani Navy drill to date and included land and sea phases.
China’s warships are stationed at a naval base in Djibouti near the Red Sea waters where Iranian-backed Houthis declaring solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas conflict have since last year repeatedly fired drones and missiles at ships. China has not publicly condemned the attacks.
“If China really wanted the Houthis to stop these attacks against Western shipping, they could pressure the Iranians and the Iranians would listen, but they’re not doing this because they want to pressure Western economies and to show that they have influence in the region,” Javedanfar said.
“The drills play a part in the larger strategy led by China and Russia and Iran,” Javedanfar said.
Sophie Kobzantsev, a Russia analyst and research fellow at the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem, says the Gulf of Oman drill is part strategy, part message.
“From the beginning — the Russia-Ukraine war — Russia’s goal was to create a new world order in which it gets a role or a place as super world power,” Kobzantsev told VOA.
“Part of this concept of the new world order is to partially create a military balance vis-a-vis the West. The drill serves Russia — and Iran and China — in creating the image and the message to the West that there is a counterstrategic military coalition.”
Leading the Russian contingent was the missile cruiser Varyag from its Pacific Fleet, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Naval representatives from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Oman, India and South Africa served as observers during the exercises.
The drills come just a week after NATO’s Nordic Response exercises, the most expansive NATO drills since the Cold War ended in 1991. Nordic Response incorporated military participation of NATO’s newest member states Sweden and Finland.
With an increased U.S. foothold in the Middle East due to its role in mediating the Israel-Gulf States Abraham Accords, pursuing the normalization of Israel-Saudi ties and now mediating between Israel and Hamas, the drill also takes on “countermessage” significance, said Kobzantsev.
The area where the joint drills are taking place is also significant. An estimated 20% of globally traded oil moves through the narrow Strait of Hormuz passage linking the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
Since 2019 the Gulf of Oman has seen a series of ship seizures and attacks that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, although Tehran has denied any involvement.
“We actually see a kind of formation of the world that is reminding us of the Cold War and that there is a new clash between superpowers in this world,” said Kobzantsev. “The West vs. Russia, China and Iran.”
Marine Security Belt 2024 is the fourth joint China-Russia-Iran military exercise since 2019.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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At UN, Ukraine Protests Russian Presidential Elections on Its Territory
united nations — Ukraine, joined Friday by more than 55 countries at the United Nations, condemned Russia’s attempts to organize elections on occupied Ukrainian land, saying they were not valid.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the Russian Federation’s illegitimate attempts to organize Russian presidential elections in temporarily occupied areas within the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine,” the group said in a statement read by Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, flanked by his counterparts.
“Holding elections in another U.N. member state’s territory without its consent is in manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said. “Such elections have no validity under international law.”
Starting Friday and continuing through Sunday, Russians are casting votes in polls that international election observers have dismissed as having no chance of being free or fair and are designed to return President Vladimir Putin to power for another six years.
Ukraine, supported by council member Slovenia, requested that the U.N. Security Council meet Friday to discuss Russia’s holding of the vote in areas of Ukraine that Russian forces have seized and occupied, including Crimea and the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“You convened an entire Security Council meeting to criticize Russia for Russia’s conduct of democratic elections on territories which administratively, politically and economically are part of our country — like it or not,” Russia Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said.
Ukraine’s envoy dismissed the Russian election as a “travesty” and said residents in the occupied areas have been subject to broad intimidation by local authorities to participate in the “sham” election.
“Among them, threats against life, illegal detention, denial of access to health care and social services, threats of deportation and deprivation of property,” Kyslytsya said. “We should not forget that these actions take place at gunpoint.”
“Let’s call this what this is: It’s a blatant propaganda exercise, undertaken in the hopes of somehow strengthening Russia’s false claim to the parts of Ukraine it illegally invaded,” said U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said as the occupying power, Russia is obligated to uphold Ukrainian laws in the occupied territories. She said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned Russia’s intention to conduct presidential elections in these areas as “unacceptable.”
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