RFE/RL   — Iya Rashevskaya was told her husband — a member of the country’s armed forces – had gone missing in the frontline in the eastern Donetsk region, in April 2023. 

The news of Serhiy Skotarenko’s disappearance came just a month after he had joined the military, having given up his job abroad. 

Rashevskaya soon found out that her husband, a native of Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhya region, was alive and being held captive in Chechnya along with several other Ukrainian prisoners of war. 

A Ukrainian soldier who was released in a prisoner swap in June 2023 told Rashevskaya that he and Skotarenko had been held in the same jail in Chechnya. 

Rashevskaya recalls getting an unexpected, brief video call from her husband in August 2023. 

“My husband asked about me and our children. He also asked me to help him to return home, saying we were his only hope,” Rashevskaya said. “He looked awful, he has lost a lot of weight.” 

Ukrainian captives in Chechnya “were being held in a basement and survived on instant noodles, bread, and water,” according to Rashevskaya. 

Ukrainian authorities estimate that more than 150 Ukrainian POWs are currently being held in Chechnya, a Russian region ruled by authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov. 

Kadyrov says the soldiers were captured by Chechen military units fighting alongside other Russian forces in Ukraine. 

But Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of POWs has claimed that Chechnya also often “buys” Ukrainian captives from various Russian military units to use them as a bargaining chip in negotiations. 

RFE/RL cannot independently verify the claim. 

Some of the Ukrainian captives were exchanged with Chechen fighters seized by Ukrainian forces. 

Kadyrov, a vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has sent thousands of Chechen fighters to Ukraine since the invasion began three years ago. 

In December 2024, Kadyrov threatened to use Ukrainian captives as human shields to protect strategically important buildings in Grozny from Ukrainian drone attacks. He said he would place them on the rooftops of buildings. 

He made the statement after Ukrainian drones reportedly hit a police campus in the Chechen capital. 

In January 2024, Kadyrov offered to release 20 Ukrainian captives in exchange for the removal of U.S. sanctions against his relatives and horses. 

Kadyrov, 48, and several of his family members, including his mother, Aymani Kadyrova, have been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union in recent years. 

Kadyrova, 71, is the head of the Kadyrov Foundation, which runs reeducation programs for Ukrainian children abducted by Russian forces from occupied territories. Washington imposed sanctions on Kadyrova and the Foundation in August 2023. 

Kadyrov was sanctioned by Washington in 2017 and 2020 over accusations of human rights abuses. 

PR campaign for Kadyrov 

Chechen human rights lawyer Abubakar Yangulbaev says Kadyrov directly controls any prisoner swaps involving the Ukrainians captives in Chechnya. 

“While the Chechens fighting in Ukraine are part of Russian troops, Chechnya also has its own interests. It’s important for Kadyrov to secure the release of the Chechens captured in Ukraine to protect his own reputation before his people, whom he constantly calls to go to fight in Ukraine,” Yangulbaev told RFE/RL. 

“It is a PR campaign for Kadyrov,” he added. 

Chechnya has never released the exact number or Ukrainian POWs it holds. 

According to Maria Klimik, a reporter for the Ukraine-based monitor, Media Initiative for Human Rights, in some cases the Ukrainian and Chechen sides have swapped captured soldiers “informally” in the battlefields in Ukraine without involving a third party. 

Klimik told RFE/RL that Ukrainian POWs in Chechnya are usually held in dark, windowless basements of buildings – presumably police stations. Prisoners sleep on utility shelves as there are no beds in the basements, Klimik said citing accounts of former POWs. 

RFE/RL cannot independently verify the claims. 

In his New Year address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 3,956 Ukrainian soldiers had been freed in prisoners’ exchanges between Kyiv and Moscow since the beginning of the invasion. 

There has been no public mention of any direct prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Chechnya, as the families of the captives in Grozny call for their release. 
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Vice President JD Vance sketched his conservative view of foreign affairs Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, accompanied by foreign politicians who say they support President Donald Trump’s agenda. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
Camera: Anthony LaBruto
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Pope Francis “had a restful night,” and Thursday morning “got out of bed and had breakfast in an armchair,” the Vatican said in a statement.

Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital last week with bronchitis, which then developed into double pneumonia.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said Thursday that the pope now has focal pneumonia with limited areas of infection in the lungs. Bruni said Francis is breathing on his own, and his heart is stable.

An earlier statement Thursday reported the pope’s clinical condition as “stable,” and his blood tests had shown “a slight improvement, particularly in the inflammatory indices.”

Wednesday evening, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the pope for 20 minutes in the hospital’s special papal suite.

“We joked as always,” the prime minister said in a statement afterward. “He hasn’t lost his proverbial sense of humor.”

Francis, whose birth name is Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has been the head of the Roman Catholic Church since 2013, when his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, resigned from the papacy.

In a recent memoir, Francis addressed the possibility of his own resignation if he became incapacitated. He said such a move would be a “distant possibility,” justified only if facing “a serious physical impediment.”

“We are all worried about the pope,” Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi, head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told Agence France-Presse. Zuppi said, however, that the reports about Francis eating and greeting people are good indications that “we are on the right path to a full recovery, which we hope will happen soon.”

Speaking at a Vatican news conference about a Mediterranean youth peace initiative, Cardinal Juan Jose Omella Omella of Barcelona compared the papacy to a train to give reassurances that the work of the papacy will continue, even with Francis’ hospitalization.

“Popes change, we bishops change, priests in parishes change, communities change, but the train continues being on the move,” the cardinal said.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Azerbaijan’s government has ordered the suspension of the Azerbaijani operation of BBC News, the British news agency confirmed Thursday.

In a statement, the BBC said it had made the “reluctant decision” to close its office in the country after receiving a verbal instruction from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We deeply regret this restrictive move against press freedom, which will hinder our ability to report to and from Azerbaijan for our audiences inside and outside the country,” a BBC spokesperson said in a statement.

The suspension comes after Azerbaijani state-run media last week reported that the Azerbaijani government wanted to reduce the number of BBC staff working in the country to one.

The BBC said it has received nothing in writing about the suspension from the Azerbaijani government. While the news agency seeks clarification, its team of journalists in the country have stopped their journalistic activities, according to the BBC.

Neither Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry nor its Washington embassy immediately responded to VOA’s emails seeking comment.

The BBC has operated in Azerbaijan since 1994. The news agency says its Azerbaijani service reached an average of 1 million people every week.

The BBC suspension marks the continuation of a harsh crackdown on independent media that the Azerbaijani government has engaged in for years.

Azerbaijan is among the worst jailers of journalists in the world. As of last week, at least 23 journalists were jailed in the former Soviet country in retaliation for their work, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Many of the journalists jailed in Azerbaijan are accused of foreign currency smuggling, which media watchdogs have rejected as a sham charge.

Among those jailed is Farid Mehralizada, an economist and journalist with the Azerbaijani Service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Jailed since May 2024, Mehralizada faces charges of conspiring to smuggle foreign currency and “illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion and document forgery.” He and his employer reject the charges, which carry a combined sentence of up to 12 years behind bars.
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BRUSSELS — The European Commission said Thursday it had approved 920 million-euro of German state aid, or $960 million, to Infineon Technologies for the construction of a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in Dresden.

The measure will allow Infineon to complete the MEGAFAB-DD project, which will be able to produce a wide range of different types of computer chips, the Commission said.

Chipmakers across the globe are pouring billions of dollars into new plants, as they take advantage of generous subsidies from the United States and the EU to keep the West ahead of China in developing cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

The European Commission has earmarked 15 billion euros for public and private semiconductor projects by 2030.

“This new manufacturing plant will bring flexible production capacity to the EU and thereby strengthen Europe’s security of supply, resilience and technological autonomy in semiconductor technologies, in line with the objectives set out in the European Chips Act,” the Commission said in a statement.

The Commission said the plant — which is slated to reach full capacity in 2031 — will be a front-end facility, covering wafer processing, testing and separation, adding that its chips will be used in industrial, automotive and consumer applications.

The aid will take the form of a direct grant of up to 920 million euros to Infineon to support its overall investment, amounting to 3.5 billion euros. Infineon, Germany’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, which was spun off from Siemens 25 years ago, has said the plant will be the largest single investment in its history.

Infineon has agreed with the EU to ensure the project will bring wider positive effects to the EU semiconductor value chain and invest in the research and development of the next generation of chips in Europe, the Commission said.

It will also contribute to crisis preparedness by committing to implement priority-rated orders in the case of a supply shortage, in line with the European Chips Act. 
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Tens of thousands of people remained without power Thursday in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa as a result of several days of Russian aerial attacks.

Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that crews were working to restore electricity service, and had brought 40,000 customers back online, with another 49,000 still without power.

Russian attacks continued Thursday in multiple parts of Ukraine, including in the central region of Cherkasy where Governor Ihor Taburets said air defenses shot down 14 Russian drones.

Taburets said on Telegram there was damage to a business and a power line, but no casualties.

Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim reported the military shot down a drone over his region.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it destroyed four Ukrainian drones overnight, including three over Russia-occupied Crimea and one over Bryansk.

Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram there were no reports of damage or casualties. 
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President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeated a claim that the United States has spent $350 billion on Ukraine’s war — a figure that far eclipses the amount recorded by the Department of Defense and the interagency oversight group that tracks U.S. appropriations to Ukraine.

Since Russia’s illegal invasion in February 2022, the U.S. Congress has appropriated about $183 billion for Ukraine, according to the interagency oversight group that is charged with presenting reports to Congress.

Of that, the Pentagon confirmed to VOA that the U.S. has sent $65.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and an additional $3.9 billion that Congress has authorized in military aid to Kyiv remains unspent.

About $58 billion of the $183 billion in total aid for Ukraine was spent in the U.S., going directly toward boosting the U.S. defense industry, either by replacing old U.S. weapons given to Kyiv with new American-made weapons, by procuring new U.S.-made weapons for Kyiv or by making direct industrial investments.

VOA asked the White House to clarify Trump’s comments, specifically seeking any documentation for the mathematical discrepancy. The White House replied by referring VOA back to the president’s comments.

In a post Wednesday on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said, “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.”

Zelenskyy on Wednesday told Ukrainian reporters the total cost of the war since February 2022 was about $320 billion.

“One hundred and twenty billion of that comes from us, the people of Ukraine, the taxpayers, and $200 billion from the United States and the European Union,” Zelensky said. “This is the cost of weapons. This is the weapons package — $320 billion.”

Trump, who has mentioned the $350 billion figure several times, also said in his Wednesday social media post: “The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.”

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a Germany-based nonprofit that tracks military, financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine, says European nations —specifically the EU, United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland — have allocated about $140 billion in total in aid for Ukraine, while the United States has allocated about $120 billion in total aid. Total aid includes military, humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine.

The U.S. has provided about $2 billion more than Europe in military aid for Ukraine, but “European donors have been the main source of [total] aid to Ukraine since 2022, especially when it comes to financial and humanitarian aid,” the institute said in its latest report last week.

The aid to Ukraine constitutes a very small amount of GDP for several nations. For example, the U.S., Germany and the U.K. have mobilized less than 0.2% of their GDP per year to support Kyiv, while contributions from France, Italy and Spain to Ukraine have amounted to about 0.1% of their annual GDP. 

U.S. government math is complex, and spending is massive in scale. A live tracker of U.S. government spending says that the U.S. government has spent about $2.4 trillion in the early part of the 2025 fiscal year. The previous year’s spending was $6.75 trillion. 

Still, scholars were quick to dismiss the accuracy of Trump’s numbers.

“This figure is not true,” said Liana Fix, fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s possible to track how much the United States has spent for Ukraine.” 
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WASHINGTON — A German study shows that the cancer detection rate improves by almost 18% when doctors get help from artificial intelligence.  

For the study, radiologists — doctors who analyze the results of mammograms and other diagnostic tests — used artificial intelligence to examine the mammograms of more than 460,000 German women between the ages of 50 and 69. They found one more cancer for every 1,000 women than humans alone did, according to researchers. It was the largest real-world exploration to date into the use of AI to help detect breast cancer.  

“The breast cancer detection rate is better, and this is really strong evidence,” said Dr.  Alexander Katalinic, of the University of Lubeck in Germany, who was the study’s principal investigator. “And based on this evidence, we should start to use more AI in breast cancer screening, and in the end, this should be standard.”  

The mammograms of 463,094 German women were examined between July 2021 and February 2023. About half were reviewed by two radiologists, which is standard procedure in Germany. In just over half of the cases, the humans were assisted by AI.  When AI was involved, the breast cancer detection rate was 6.7 per 1,000 women, compared to 5.7 per 1,000 women screened solely by humans. 

“AI really is suitable for replacing human readers to a certain extent,” Katalinic said. “But how far do you want to go? This is not only a question of science, it’s also a social question. How is the society’s trust in AI?”  

The study found that AI also helped reduce the number of false positive results. Artificial intelligence, however, did miss some cancers. 

“The AI is not perfect in the same way that the humans are not perfect,” said Stefan Bunk, cofounder of Vara, a health care technology company in Berlin that developed the artificial intelligence used in the study. “There were 20 cases in our study where the AI said this case is normal but actually a radiologist found cancer.”  

Humans, however, missed a malignancy 10 times more than the AI, according to the study results.  

“AI, unlike humans, doesn’t get tired, right?” Bunk said. “AI works in the same way at 2 a.m. in the morning like in the middle of the day. So, it’s definitely an advantage, and it’s also one of the reasons why I think AI finds cancers that otherwise humans would miss.” 

AI could help reduce the workload for radiologists, freeing them to focus on more complex cases, according to Bunk, who added that increasing reliance on AI could lead to the risk of losing human expertise over time. 

“Those complex cases — those cases where you need to take into account multiple angles, where you need to talk to the patient, right — is something where expertise and an actual radiologist is very important and should continue to be trained,” Bunk said.   

Dr. Wei Yang, a professor in breast radiology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, believes increased use of AI could energize radiologists. 

“I think that the advent of AI is an opportunity and a trigger for us to become more excited about our field so that highly trained radiologists will have the open space, the time and the concentration to focus on more complex tasks,” Yang said. 

Using a human radiologist along with artificial intelligence offers the best of both worlds, according to Katalinic. 

“The combination of a human together with AI is much better than only having the human reading,” he said. 

Yang, who was not involved in the study, is encouraged by the results.  

“The data is very compelling,” she said. “The increased cancer detection rate, the reduction in the false positive callbacks and the potential impact this can have on the workforce and burnout. So overall, very, very positive.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday the United States understands the needs for security guarantees for Ukraine, as he visited the country for talks with Ukrainian officials.

Gen. Keith Kellogg told reporters in Kyiv that he was in Ukraine “to listen,” hear the concerns of Ukrainian leaders and return to the United States to consult President Trump.

Kellogg said the United States wants the war in Ukraine to end, saying that would be good for the region and the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of an expected meeting with Kellogg that while U.S. officials have said there will be no U.S. troops deployed as part of any potential post-war peacekeeping mission, there are still other ways it can help, such as providing air defense systems.

“You don’t want boots on the ground, you don’t want NATO,” Zelenskyy said. “Okay, can we have Patriots? Enough Patriots?”

The discussions in Kyiv come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron hosting European leaders Wednesday for a second round of talks about the conflict and European support for Ukraine.

Kellogg also met earlier this week with European leaders, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.

Rubio said both Ukraine and Russia would have to make concessions to achieve peace.

“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters. No Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks.

Zelenskyy objected to being excluded from the meeting, a position that drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”

Russia began the war with its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy added Wednesday that while he has “great respect” for Trump, the American leader is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

 

Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the U.S.-Russia negotiations.

The United States and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement. Bruce characterized the meeting as “an important step forward” toward peace.

Rubio said Ukraine and European nations would have to be involved in talks on ending the war. He said that if the war is halted, the United States would have “extraordinary opportunities … to partner” with Russia on trade and other global issues.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she and other European foreign ministers spoke to Rubio after the U.S.-Russia meeting, and she expressed support for a Ukraine-led resolution.

“Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps,” Kallas said on X. “By working together with the US, we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine’s terms.”

Russia now controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized 2014 territory, including the Crimean Peninsula that it unilaterally annexed in 2014, a large portion of eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian separatists captured in subsequent fighting, and land Russia has taken over since the 2022 invasion.

As the invasion started, Moscow hoped for a quick takeover of all of Ukraine. But with stiff Ukrainian resistance, the war instead evolved into a grinding ground conflict and daily aerial bombardments by each side.

Zelenskyy has long demanded that his country’s 2014 boundaries be restored, but U.S. officials have said that is unrealistic, as is Kyiv’s long-sought goal of joining NATO.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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LONDON — Germany is set to hold a general election on Sunday, with voter frustrations over migration at the forefront of a heated campaign.

The center-right Christian Democrats are leading the polls with about 29% support, with party leader Friedrich Merz the front-runner to become Germany’s next chancellor.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD, Party, which domestic intelligence services are monitoring as a suspected extremist organization, is polling in second place, with 21% support ahead of Sunday’s election.

“I am in favor of the principle that we must make a fundamental distinction between asylum and immigration. The state has not done that so far. Everything is mixed up, and we have had illegal migration into our country for 10 years,” AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said during a televised election debate on Monday.

The AfD has steadily risen in support over recent months, said political scientist Wolfgang Schroeder, a fellow at the Berlin Social Science Center.

“This party has gained more and more support over time, interestingly to the same extent that it has become more radicalized,” he told The Associated Press. “And the main driving force behind this success is, on the one hand, its anti-migration policy, which is very popular in Germany, even in the center of the political spectrum. Then there is their fight against the environmental transformation and their positioning in the Russia war.”

The AfD has campaigned against sending military aid to Ukraine and advocates a closer relationship with Russia.

The party’s policies have caught the attention of U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, who wrote on his social media platform X in December that “only the AfD can save Germany.”

In an opinion article for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Musk wrote, “The portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false, considering that Alice Weidel, the party’s leader, has a same-sex partner from Sri Lanka! Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!”

Musk later hosted a live chat on X with Weidel.

Terror attacks

Meanwhile, a recent spate of deadly terror attacks in Germany has intensified the debate over migration.

“And this has been one of the main reasons why the election has been really shifted toward focusing around migration,” said Sarah Wagner, an assistant professor at Queen’s University Belfast.

“It’s quite different to the election campaigns that we saw back in 2021, where a lot of the parties were talking quite a lot about climate change, for example,” Wagner told VOA.

Despite its growing popularity in some parts of the country, the rhetoric of the AfD and its supporters repulses many Germans. Large protests against the far right have been held in Berlin and other cities in the lead-up to the election.

Cost of living

While immigration is dominating the campaigns, analysts say the cost of living is at the forefront of voters’ minds as Europe’s biggest economy struggles to emerge from an inflation crisis.

Germany’s past reliance on cheap Russian energy and Europe’s rapid severing of ties with the Kremlin have seen prices soar. Germany’s powerhouse carmakers are facing stiff competition from China, while the threat of U.S. import tariffs looms over the election, along with U.S. demands for a huge rise in defense spending.

Economic pressures led to the collapse of the three-party coalition government in November. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats wants to increase borrowing to fill a $26 billion hole in the 2025 budget and to help fund military aid for Ukraine.

Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union, argues that the country shouldn’t take on more debt and should instead seek to stimulate greater economic growth.

“The economy of the Federal Republic of Germany is now bringing up the rear in the European Union. We are in last place,” Merz told lawmakers on Feb. 11.

Firewall

Polls suggest that the Christian Democrats will win the election but finish well short of a majority. Merz has ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD, despite relying on their votes to pass a recent motion in parliament calling for tougher immigration controls.

Mainstream German parties have sought to exclude the far right from power since the end of World War II by refusing to enter coalitions or relying on their votes in parliament, a policy known as the “firewall.”

The policy drew criticism from U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who surprised delegates at the Munich Security Conference on Friday with a speech focusing on a purported democratic backsliding among European allies.

“Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There’s no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t,” Vance said before meeting Weidel on the sidelines of the Munich summit.

‘American interference’

Mainstream German parties united in rejecting Vance’s intervention.

On Monday, Scholz said, “When a vice president interferes in the German election campaign and says extreme right-wing parties are not so bad, I say that we think extreme right-wing parties are bad, and we don’t want to work with them.”

Merz echoed those concerns.

“The Americans are questioning democratic institutions. And they are interfering quite openly in an election, including in relation to democratic parties and their majorities. And I have to say, it disturbs me,” Merz told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
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WASHINGTON — A Yazidi woman who survived rape and enslavement by Islamic State and was rescued from Gaza last October in a U.S.-led operation arrived in Germany on Tuesday, February 18.

Fawzia Amin Saydo, 21, was kidnapped by IS militants from her hometown of Sinjar, northern Iraq, in August 2014, just a month before her 11th birthday. She endured a decade of suffering, including rape, enslavement and forced marriage to a Palestinian IS fighter in Syria before being sent to Gaza to live with her captor’s mother.

She was rescued from Gaza on October 1, 2024, during a secret U.S.-led operation that involved cooperation among human rights activists, as well as Israeli, Jordanian, Iraqi and United Nations officials.

Saydo arrived about 5 p.m. local time at Hannover Airport in Langenhagen, Germany, where she was received by her lawyer, Kareba Hagemann, a group of relatives and human rights activists.

“She has arrived in Germany safely, and she is very relieved,” Hagemann told VOA. “The first thing Fawzia said upon her arrival was, ‘Please make sure my family can also come join me and live here with me.'”

The German consulate in Baghdad on February 10 issued Saydo a visa on a humanitarian basis. Her mother, grandmother and five siblings are still in Iraq.

“Her family, except her two sisters, wanted to go as well, but the German government made it clear that they will only agree to take in Fawzia,” Hagemann said. “There is no legal obligation to take her, but it is an act of humanity, which is why I was thankful to them to agree to take Fawzia at least.”

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, Germany is the third-largest refugee-hosting country in the world and the largest in the European Union, with 2.5 million refugees from all over the world, including more than 1 million refugees from Ukraine.

Since the 2014 Yazidi genocide carried out by Islamic State in northern Iraq, the number of Yazidi asylum-seekers in Germany has risen to more than 200,000.

The ongoing debate within German society about deporting refugees, however, has put many asylum-seekers from the religious minority at risk of deportation. This is particularly due to some politicians arguing that the defeat of IS in 2017 has ended group-specific persecution in Iraq — a claim contested by human rights organizations.

On Monday, German authorities announced the deportation of 47 Iraqis whose asylum applications had been denied. Among the more than 300,000 Iraqi refugees and migrants living in Germany, refugee organizations estimate that nearly 700 Iraqis were deported in 2024 alone, with about 10,000 currently facing the risk of deportation.

Hagemann, who is also a Yazidi, told VOA the uncertainty has taken a psychological toll on many Yazidi asylum-seekers who fled Iraq due to persecution. While the exact number of deported Yazidis remains unclear, she estimated that at least five have been sent back to Iraq and the Kurdistan region.

“Those Yazidis want to build their new life and integrate, even though some of them find it hard to learn a new language because of their trauma,” Hagemann said. “Unfortunately, most of them are not as lucky as Fawzia to be supported, and [they] decide to come to Germany illegally, where they face deportation and have been held in captivity for years.”

In January 2023, the German Bundestag [parliament] passed a resolution that recognized Islamic State’s crimes against Yazidis as genocide. Since then, the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein have enacted laws to protect Yazidi asylum-seekers from deportation.

Hagemann argued that allowing Yazidi survivors, particularly those who have been victims of rape, to remain in Germany would provide them with a chance to heal — an opportunity, she said, they cannot find in Iraq.

“We have been able to schedule a therapy session for Fawzia on Thursday, just two days after her arrival in Germany, to enable her start a self-determining life again,” Hagemann said.

Rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have reported that Yazidi survivors do not get adequate psychological support upon their return to Iraq.

Activists from the Montreal-based Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI), who assisted Saydo in relocating to Germany, stated that her return from Gaza to Iraq only marked a minor improvement in her life, as she continued to endure neglect and targeting from militants in her hometown of Sinjar.

“She kept saying, ‘I have been brought from one hell to another,'” said human rights activist and CYCI member Dawood Jajju, describing Saydo’s dire situation in Iraq.

Activists say Saydo and her family were threatened by Iraqi militants three weeks after her return to Sinjar after she appeared in a news article in which she praised Israel for its role in taking her out of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Iraqi officials tasked to work on her case were not available to comment.

Steve Maman, founder of CYCI, told VOA that Saydo was summoned several times by Iraqi authorities “who mistakenly believe she is a Zionist and an Israeli-trained agent.”

“Fawzia did not receive any therapy at all. The country has not made any effort or gesture to help her. It seems that Yazidis are second-class citizens in their own country,” Maman said.

When Islamic State attacked the Sinjar region in 2014, the group killed nearly 10,000 Yazidis and enslaved more than 6,000 of women and children.

Data from the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Region show that some 3,500 Yazidis have been rescued or freed, with some 2,600 still missing.
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Ukrainian soldier Andriy Chernytskyi came up with a project to build a kids’ playground in his hometown – but didn’t live to see it come to fruition. The playground is now open. Tetiana Kukurika has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Sergiy Rybchynski.
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, who began his fifth day in hospital on Tuesday for what doctors have described as a “complex” respiratory infection, will not take part in this weekend’s Holy Year events, the Vatican said on Tuesday. 

The 88-year-old pontiff has been suffering from a respiratory infection for more than a week and was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday. 

A planned public papal audience set for Saturday had been canceled “due to the health condition of the Holy Father,” the Vatican said in a brief statement.  

A papal mass scheduled for Sunday will still take place, but will be led instead by a senior Vatican official, it added. 

The Vatican said on Monday that doctors had changed the pope’s drug therapy for the second time during his hospital stay to tackle a “complex clinical situation.” They described it as a “polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract.” 

 

Doctors say polymicrobial diseases can be caused by a mix of viruses, bacteria and fungi. 

Francis, who has been pontiff since 2013, has had influenza and other health problems several times over the past two years. As a young adult he developed pleurisy and had part of one lung removed, and in recent times has been prone to lung infections. 
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A Russian drone hit an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dolynska, officials said Tuesday, injuring at least three people.

Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region where the attack took place, said on Telegram that authorities evacuated dozens of people from the building and that those injured included a mother and two children.

The attack was part of a widespread Russian aerial assault overnight, which the Ukrainian military said included 176 drones.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 103 of the drones, with intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the military said Tuesday.

Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said on Telegram that debris from a destroyed drone damaged four houses in his region.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it destroyed five Ukrainian drones, including four over the Voronezh region and one over Belgorod.

Both regions are located along the Russia-Ukraine border and are frequent targets of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram there were no reports of casualties or damage.

Some information for this story was provided by Reuters
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PARIS — European leaders called for beefing up their defense spending Monday after a Paris summit on Ukraine and the region’s security — amid concerns about an aggressive Russia and declining support from Washington. The emergency meeting comes ahead of U.S.-Russian talks on ending the war in Ukraine — which it appears could leave out the Europeans.

The summit, called by French President Emmanuel Macron, came as Europeans confront a shift in transatlantic relations under the new administration U.S. President Donald Trump.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said European security was at a “turning point.”

Ahead of the Paris talks — gathering European Union, NATO and British leaders — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described efforts to introduce competition between the European Union and the United States as senseless and potentially dangerous.

Ian Lesser, who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund policy institute, said there are two big issues on the agenda for European leaders in the near term.

“It’s all about what can be done for and with Ukraine, in anticipation of the United States doing less, and possibly in anticipation of having to guarantee a settlement or at least a ceasefire,” Lesser said.

“The other long-term question, which is some ways more serious, is how to secure Europe’s defense with the United States potentially absent in the years to come And there, I think, there’s very little consensus, and it’s a very big and expensive and long-term project for Europe.”

Top U.S. and Russian officials were to hold talks Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to discuss Ukraine and a possible summit between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Neither Ukraine nor the Europeans have been invited.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country is willing to send troops to Ukraine as part of any peace deal. Other European leaders say that’s premature. Meanwhile, the foreign minister of Hungary, which is close to both Russia and the Trump administration, said the Paris talks undermine peace.

Leaders in Paris also discussed ways to rapidly increase Europe’s own defense capabilities and support for Ukraine.

“Increased spending at home, increased defense production, increased sizes of armies, increased intelligence cooperation, increased training — all of this is to happen, in addition to supplying Ukraine so its front line doesn’t collapse,” said Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at the Chatham House think tank in London.

She described a key security conference in Munich last week, which left Europe concerned about Washington’s new priorities, as a wake-up call.

“It’s a different White House and a different team,” she said. “And Europe was slow to realize that and to find the right words and the right package for this transactional world of America.”

The U.S. has long pushed Europe to do more for its own defense. Now — with Russia gaining the advantage on the ground in Ukraine, and Washington calling for NATO members to increase military budgets — Europeans are sensing an urgency to do so.
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NICOSIA, CYPRUS — A pair of agreements outlining how sizable natural gas deposits inside Cypriot waters will get to market via processing facilities in Egypt are a milestone for energy cooperation, Cyprus’ president said Monday. 

President Nikos Christodoulides said the cooperation between Cyprus and Egypt is helping to define the regional energy map, calling the agreements “game-changers” that are “pivotal for our strategic partnership.” 

The first agreement between Egypt, Cyprus and a consortium made up of energy companies Total of France and Italy’s Eni foresees piping natural gas from a deposit known as Cronos to Egyptian facilities where it will be liquefied and processed for export to markets including Europe. 

The Eni-Total consortium, which holds exploratory licenses for four of the 13 areas or blocks inside Cyprus’ offshore economic zone, will make a final decision on how it will extract and convey the gas before the summer this year. 

Eni Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi called the agreement a decisive step toward creating an energy hub in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Officials haven’t disclosed how large the Cronos deposit is, but it’s believed to hold more than the Aphrodite deposit — the first gas field discovered inside Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone in 2011 — that’s estimated to contain 4.5 trillion cubic feet of gas. 

The second agreement between Egypt, Cyprus and a consortium composed of Chevron, NewMed Energy and Shell sets out the framework under which the Aphrodite deposit will be developed and monetized. 

The Aphrodite deal comes three days after the Cypriot government and the Chevron-led consortium approved a revised development and production plan for the deposit that includes a floating platform that processes extracted natural gas as well as a pipeline link to Egypt. 

Cypriot Energy Minister George Papanastasiou said last month the options of whether to use Aphrodite gas for Egypt’s domestic energy needs or to process it for export are still being weighed. 

Christodoulides also held talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on the two countries’ next energy cooperation goals as well as regional developments. 

Christodoulides also met on the sidelines of Egypt’s energy exhibition EGYPES 2025 with ExxonMobil’s Vice President for Global Exploration John Ardill. 

ExxonMobil and partners Qatar Petroleum — which hold exploration licenses for two Cypriot blocks — are currently drilling a new well near the existing Glaucus deposit, which is estimated to contain 5 to 8 trillion cubic feet of gas. 

Papanastasiou has said there are “positive” indications of natural gas quantities at the new Elektra well, also in Cypriot waters, with preliminary results expected in early April.
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