Category Archives: Russia

July 17, 2023 at 6:30 a.m. EDT

VARDO, Norway The officers in tracksuits looked a little nervous as they rapped on the window of the rental car.

They wondered what we were doing here, on an island high above the Arctic Circle, some 4,000 miles from Washington and not far from where Russia bases some of its most sophisticated submarines. Was there a reason we were taking pictures of the hulking white radar stations that look out from Norway to Russias Kola Peninsula?

Because of the political situation, we are checking everything, one officer said.

For several years now, European and U.S. security and intelligence officials have been keeping a closer eye on the world above the Arctic Circle, knowing that melting polar ice will open new trade routes, propel a race for natural resources and reshape global security. Western officials watched as Russia revived Soviet-era military sites and while China planned a Polar Silk Road.

But the war in Ukraine and the dramatic deterioration of Western relations with Moscow have put the frostbitten borderlands between Norway and Russia on heightened alert, while increasing the geostrategic importance of the Arctic.

The result is an uptick in military, diplomatic and intelligence interest that could usher in an iteration of the Great Game, the 19th-century rivalry between the British and Russian empires for influence in Asia.

For Russia, because the war in Ukraine has diminished Moscows conventional military forces and hobbled the Russian economy, its Arctic assets have become more critical. The Arctic has become more important because the nukes are more important, said Maj. Gen. Lars Sivert Lervik, the chief of the Norwegian army.

Meanwhile, NATO has increased its stake in the north, with Finland and possibly soon Sweden joining their neighbor Norway in the alliance.

This spring, a U.S. aircraft carrier made a port call in Norway for the first time in 65 years, stopping in Oslo before participating in exercises with NATO allies in the north. Around the same time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken toured the region and announced that the United States would reopen a diplomatic post in Tromso, a coastal city in the Norwegian Arctic. The U.S. diplomat expected to arrive next month would be the first posted there since the 1990s.

Diplomatic drama and intrigue abound.

A cable car view of Tromso, a coastal city in the Norwegian Arctic, leading to Mount Storsteinen, on June 9, 2023. (Video: The Washington Post)

The Arctic Council an intergovernmental forum that promotes cooperation is in disarray because seven of its members refuse to work at a political level with its eighth member, Russia, disrupting collaboration on critical issues such as climate change.

In the past year, Norwegian media outlets have reported about drones buzzing airports and oil and gas installations, the expulsion of Russian diplomats as spies, and the case of a man accused of illegal intelligence gathering while posing as a Brazilian guest researcher at a Norwegian university.

For NATO allies, a flashing yellow light turned red, and we need to think more carefully, said a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss alliance thinking. Countries need to be sharing more information on destabilizing actions, on things that look strange, and we need to be less naive and more aware.

From a watchtower near the seaport of Kirkenes, young Norwegian soldiers peer across the border into the Russian wilderness, surveilling a summer landscape of smooth rock and low pine a view that shifts only with the seasons.

In January, not far from here, a man claiming to be a defector from Russias Wagner mercenary group ran across a frozen river in the dead of the polar night. Since then, the soldiers said, things have been quiet.

To Lervik, the chief of the Norwegian army, calm at the northeastern frontier is not particularly reassuring. Russias capabilities in the north, including nuclear weapons, remain intact and very dangerous, he said.

Members of the border guards head for the Jarfjord station, stocked with supplies for the soldiers stationed there. (Video: The Washington Post)

Western officials worry, too, that Russia could block commercial shipping lanes or U.S. Navy ships en route to Europe, particularly at a potential maritime chokepoint called the Greenland, Iceland, U.K. gap that separates the Norwegian and North seas from the open Atlantic Ocean.

Russias ability to disrupt reinforcement is a real challenge to the alliance, said one senior Western intelligence official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters.

There is also concern that Moscow has mapped critical undersea infrastructure and could engage in sabotage against Europe. Last month, NATO launched a center for protecting undersea pipelines and cables.

The defense policy director at the Finnish Defense Ministry, Janne Kuusela, said that the risk of conventional military confrontation in the Arctic remains low but that does not preclude conflict in the years ahead. We all see how Russia is acting, he said.

In his newsroom, Barents Observer editor Thomas Nilsen pulled out a map.

He pointed to where we were in Kirkenes, just a few miles from the Russian border. And there was the Kola Peninsula, home to Russias Northern Fleet and some of its most advanced air and naval assets, including the core of its second-strike capability.

Nilsen dragged a pen along the page to show what Russia considers its bastion and where its submarines could go to hide.

But he said he is equally concerned about what Russia is doing on the ground in Norway, in and out of view.

There are ways to send in small green men and make this a buffer zone for Russia, he said, referring to armed soldiers without insignia of affiliation. That is the game.

Last year, he wrote a story about a Russian bishop who wanted to build a chapel next to Vardos radars U.S.-funded assets that have loomed over the town for decades.

Members of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has historic ties to Russian intelligence services, he wrote, also were also interested in studying Kirkeness water supply.

Frode Berg, a retired Norwegian border inspector who spent 23 months in a Moscow prison on espionage charges, said Norway is still not prepared for possible Russian operations.

Berg, who admitted that he cooperated with Norwegian intelligence and traveled to Russia as a courier, was freed in a prisoner swap. He is now back in Kirkenes and concerned by the lack of alarm.

Because of what happened to me, I can see spies, he said. Other people close their eyes.

The man who identified himself as Jose Assis Giammaria, a 37-year-old Brazilian researcher, had purportedly come to Tromso to work on Arctic security which made sense, as Tromso is a hub for research and diplomacy on polar issues.

But when Norwegian authorities arrested him in October, they said he was, in fact, a 44-year-old Russian national named Mikhail Mikushin. His previous time at Canadian universities, officials suggested, was part of an effort to develop a backstory for his fake identity. We are quite certain that he is not Brazilian, said the Norwegian Security Services Thomas Blom last fall.

The arrest shocked Tromso, a city where Arctic exceptionalism the idea that the region can be protected from politics still held sway.

For more than three decades, diplomats and scientist in the north have argued that the critical work of protecting the Arctic ought to stand apart from politics high north, low tension, as some Norwegians like to say.

But the spy case and the diplomatic discord at the Arctic Council which has its secretariat in Tromso have pointed to a resurgence of Great Power competition in the region.

Our main mission at this time is to keep the council intact, surviving, said Morten Hoglund, the chair of the Senior Arctic Officials of the Arctic Council.

Marc Lanteigne, an associate professor of political science at the University of Tromso and an expert on Arctic affairs, said the forum may not be salvageable.

If we are dealing with a long-term freeze for lack of a better word we might need another forum to discuss climate change and the ships paddling around the Arctic, he said.

We are definitely going to see more tacit power-balancing in this part of the world, he added. And I wonder if Tromso is ready for it.

Lanteigne is a member of the Grey Zone, a research group at the University of Tromso that focuses on hybrid threats. Before his arrest, Giammaria (a.k.a. Mikushin) was listed on the groups website.

Lanteigne chuckled at the irony of an alleged deep-cover Russian agent posing as a researcher of hybrid threats.

It was a really interesting illustration of how, when we talk about security, its not only a question of military security, he said. All of sudden, we see a glaring example.

See the article here:

An Arctic 'Great Game' as NATO allies and Russia face off in far north - The Washington Post

As the Turkish president shifts his focus toward Kyiv, he is essentially testing Moscows new red lines. How firmly is Russia prepared to react in a situation where it is simultaneously fending off a Ukrainian counteroffensive and recovering from the Wagner mutiny?

Following his hard-fought victory in the May presidential election, Turkeys long-standing leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been gradually shifting toward the West. While Moscow reacted calmly to Ankaras willingness to approve Swedens NATO accession, Turkeys transfer of five Ukrainian commanders who had been captured by Russian forces back to Kyiv and Erdogans remarks in support of Ukraines entry into NATO have sparked outrage.

Moscow is currently not in a position to allow a deterioration of relations with Turkey, and it is also important for Erdogan to avoid that in order to continue benefiting from mediating between Moscow and the West. His turn toward the West is also driven by internal factors, such as a severe economic crisis that necessitates colossal investments only the West can provide.

Erdogans entire pre-election program was built on diverting the attention of Turkish voters from the troubled economy, especially from the fivefold depreciation of the lira against the dollar in recent years and enormous inflation, which reached 85 percent in annual terms last November.

Grandstanding over Turkish military achievements and uncompromising rhetoric toward the West were designed to demonstrate Turkeys increased international influence. That way, Erdogan could limit his references to socio-economic problems, explaining that Turkey is forging its own path.

Immediately after the elections, however, the Turks had to face reality. The Turkish lira continued to rapidly decline against the dollar, dropping by nearly 30 percent within a month from election day. Consumer prices in June increased by 38 percent from the previous June.

All of this prompted Erdogan to utilize his reelection to abandon the policy of artificially low interest rates and embark on a path of economic liberalization. Following new appointments, the Turkish central bank hiked the interest rate for the first time in twenty-seven monthsfrom 8.5 percent to 15 percent.

That alone is not enough for a comprehensive stabilization of the Turkish economy, which heavily relies on foreign investments. Turkey is in dire need of an influx of foreign capital, and the largest investors in its economy continue to be Western countries, primarily the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom, which together account for about 30 percent.

Moreover, a significant portion of Turkish exports goes to the West. Even after record growth in trade with Moscow, Russia still only accounts for 3.7 percent of Turkeys exports, trailing far behind its Western counterparts.

In these circumstances, Erdogan recognized the need to pivot toward the West for the sake of economic stabilization. Yet severing ties with Russia, which last year became Turkeys top importer, is not an option.

In addition to the economic problems, Erdogan must also deal with municipal elections scheduled for March next year. To regain control over major cities such as Ankara and Istanbul from the opposition, he needs to attract pro-Western urban voters to his side.

Notably, after the elections, Erdogan revisited the topic of Turkeys integration into the European Union, and even demanded an open path into the EU in exchange for Turkish approval of Swedens NATO membership.

Discussions about European integration primarily serve as posturing for Erdogan to attract Western investment and gain domestic support in pro-western cities ahead of the municipal elections. It is unlikely, therefore, that this topic will become another problem for Turkey-Russia relations.

Nor are there grounds to expect tension between Moscow and Ankara due to Turkeys approval of Swedens NATO membership. Turkish objections had long been the sticking point in Swedens accession, but the issue was in fact fundamentally resolved at the previous years NATO summit in Madrid, where Turkey, Sweden, and Finland signed the corresponding memorandum.

Erdogan was merely buying time due to the presidential elections, during which he played on anti-Western sentiment. Now that he has been reelected, Erdogans hands are untied, and he can officially announce his consent, especially as the United States sweetened the deal by agreeing to supply Turkey with F-16 fighter jets.

Turkeys approval of the Swedish accession did not come as a surprise to the Kremlin, as confirmed by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Turkey is committed to its obligations. This has never been a secret for us, and we have never looked at it through rose-colored glasses, he said.

More painful for Moscow was Turkeys decision to transfer five captured commanders of Ukraines Azov Battalion back to Ukraine during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskys recent visit to Istanbul. The five commanders had been captured by the Kremlins forces and transferred to Turkey with assurances that they would not return to Ukraine until the war ends.

In the Kremlin, Ankaras decision was seen as a violation of the existing agreement. According to Erdogan, however, upon learning of Turkeys decision, Russia was initially upset, but then, after receiving some details ... the situation turned positive.

This episode once again demonstrates how much Russian-Turkish relations depend on the personal relationship between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan. Contacts between the two countries are often informal, and the agreement regarding Azov was likely one of thosenon-bindingand Erdogan took advantage of this.

Thats not to say that the incident was entirely without consequences. The transfer of the Azov commanders, coupled with Turkeys public support for Ukraines NATO membership, elicited sharp statements from Moscow, but Russia has not gone beyond verbal criticism for now.

By shifting toward Kyiv, the Turkish president is essentially testing Moscows new red lines. How strongly is Russia willing to react in a situation when it is simultaneously fending off a Ukrainian counteroffensive and recovering from the uprising by the Wagner mercenaries?

The transfer of the Azov commanders to Ukraine also looked like an attempt to pressure Moscow for an extension of the grain deal, which expired on July 17. The deal, brokered by Turkey, allowed for Ukrainian grain ships to leave Odesa ports unhindered. Currently, the Russian leadership is refusing to extend it, but given how transactional Russia-Turkey relations have become, the two countries may still come up with an alternative arrangement..

Either way, the cautious reaction from the Kremlin showed that Russia is currently not in a position to escalate tensions with Turkey, which remains the only real mediator in Moscows relations with the West and Kyiv, as well as one of its key economic partners.

Nor has Erdogan forgotten the support he received from Moscow during his electoral campaign (Moscow granted Ankara a $20 billion gas payment deferral, for example), their close economic ties, or the ability to exert pressure on NATO partners with Russias help. Accordingly, the two countries will continue to perform this delicate balancing act, avoiding serious escalations.

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Trouble in Paradise? New Disputes Cloud Russia-Turkey Relations - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

For the second time in less than a year, explosives have damaged the bridge that links Russia and Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow illegally annexed in 2014. The 12-mile-long bridge, which includes a road and rail line running side by side, is a heavily guarded piece of infrastructure that holds major importance for Russia.

Initial reports suggested the blasts on Monday were not as severe as in last October, when an explosion caused part of the road bridge to collapse into the water.

Heres what we know about the latest attack:

Before dawn on Monday, the top Russian-installed official in Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, announced on the Telegram messaging app that traffic had been stopped on the Kerch Strait Bridge because of an emergency.

Russias antiterrorism committee later said that the bridge had been hit by two maritime drones in what appeared to be separate explosions.

A Russian-appointed official in southern Ukraine, Vladimir Rogov, wrote on Telegram that two spans of the bridge had been damaged. A married couple was killed in the attack, and their daughter was injured, a Russian official said.

Rail service along the bridge had resumed as of Monday morning, though with delays, according to Russian state news media. Video and photographs verified by The New York Times showed damage to the road, and Russian officials said drivers should use alternate routes.

Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the explosions, and Russias National Anti-Terrorism Committee said it was investigating them as a terrorist act.

A spokesman for Ukraines security service, Artem Dekhtiarenko, crowed about the attack without saying directly that it was conducted by Ukrainian forces, in keeping with Kyivs policy of deliberate ambiguity about strikes on Russian-held territory. He described the attack using the term cotton, which is used by Ukrainian officials to describe blasts in Russian-occupied areas.

We are watching with interest how one of the symbols of the Putin regime has once again failed to withstand the military load, Mr. Dekhtiarenko said in a comment posted on the Ukrinform website.

The Kerch Strait Bridge, which opened in 2018, is a vital supply route for goods heading to the Crimean Peninsula. It also carries Russian tourists to the regions beaches, which are most popular in summertime.

Before the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russias military used the bridge to transport supplies to its troops in the region, including to the naval port at Sevastopol, home of its Black Sea Fleet. Since last year, the bridge has also been an important conduit for reinforcements and supplies to Russian troops who have seized control of territory in southern Ukraine.

For the Kremlin, the bridge is a symbol of the connection it is attempting to forge between Crimea and Russia. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia drove a truck across its 12-mile length when it was opened, and two months after it was damaged last October, he again drove across as he inspected repairs.

A day after the bridge was damaged last October, Russia started an aerial campaign to cripple Ukraines energy supplies, hitting power stations and other infrastructure with drones and missiles in assaults that lasted for months.

Any attack on the bridge is celebrated by Ukrainians. But disruptions to the route also serve a military purpose, impeding Russian efforts to supply their forces trying to hold off a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began last month. The bridge is seen as a key artery for Russian occupation troops in southern Ukraines Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

In recent months, Ukraine has made targeting Russian logistics nodes a priority in its war strategy, and has used missiles supplied by the United States and other allies, according to military experts.

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What We Know About the Crimea Bridge Attack - The New York Times

In any discussion over the future of Russias economy, the issues raised are always the same: Western sanctions, growing war spending, and the redirection of trade flows to Asia. Left unaddressed, however, are two additional trends: increasing nationalization and a new wave of privatization. Seemingly mutually exclusive, these developments could prove entirely compatible and may well transform Russias social structure and further entrench the countrys political system.

A great many assets have changed hands since Russias invasion of Ukraine. Many were left behind by Western companies that pulled out of the country,chief among themretailers and food and drink chains (like McDonalds, IKEA, and Starbucks), automakers (such as Ford and Mercedes), and retail banks (including Home Credit and Socit Gnrale).

Exiting Russia has become more difficult with time. In August 2022, President Vladimir Putinissued a decreebanning foreign investors from unfriendly countries (as determined by the Russian government) from selling or transferring their stakes in strategic companies operating in Russias financial and energy sectors, from which only he may grant exemptions. Later, in December, the government introduced a rule forcing foreign companies leaving Russia to dispose of their assets at a discount of no less than 50% of market value.

In March 2023, those requirements were expanded to include a compensation payment to the state, while in April, Putinauthorized the expropriationof foreign-owned assets in response to the seizure and freezing of Russian assets abroad. The first firms to fall victim to the latter measure were the local subsidiaries of Finlands Fortum and Germanys Uniper, both energy companies, which may not have been formally nationalized but are unlikely to ever be reclaimed by their former parents.

The holdings of foreign companies aside, state assets have remained attractive. The former Accounts Chamber head Alexei Kudrin, when making the case for large-scale privatization, pointed out that the state sector generated more than half of Russias GDP in 2019. In the oil and gas sector, nearly 75% of revenuescame fromstate companies.

Still another source of assets for redistribution have been those Russian entrepreneurs who liquidated their assets including parts of the internet services giant Yandex, the telecom company Vimpelcom, and online bank Tinkoff and moved abroad, voluntarily or not.

As a result, there is an unprecedented turnover of heavily discounted assets in Russia today, from those belonging to the state to those relinquished or otherwise lost by foreign companies and Russian businesspeople. Now the authorities must decide what to do with them all.

One of the options is privatization, a strategy close to the heart of state bank VTB CEO Andrei Kostin, whose bankacquiredthe rival Otkritie group last December in one of the largest deals in Russian banking history without an auction or much concern for antitrust restrictions.

Kostins privatization drive is wide-ranging,targetingeverything from Russian Railways to the Transneft oil pipeline company to the Rostec defense conglomerate and even cognac makers. Thanks to its status as Russias second-biggest bank, not evenrecord lossesin 2022 will prevent VTB from taking part in the carving up of assets at bargain prices.

Kostin is joined in backing privatization by the governments financial and economic bloc, led by Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, and Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov. Their preference, however, is for limited rather than mass privatization.

Kostins argument in favor of privatization that it must be introduced to generate interest among investors and stem the outflow of capital is telling. According to the central bank, the volume of transfers to foreign bankstripledin 2022, suggesting that most people who wished to get their money out of Russia did so then.

At the same time, nearly 30% of the total amount deposited in Russian bankscamefrom those with more than 10 million rubles in savings. This group of people, representing just 0.1% of depositors (probably about 20,000 people), evidently cannot or do not wish to move their money abroad.

The same can be said of several other tens of thousands of Russians working in government, particularly at security and supervisory agencies. Their wealth can no longer be transferred abroad, and they largely lack the knowledge and experience to invest in Asia, making their funds a dead weight gathering dust in anticipation of better times and a new round of redistribution.

What can the authorities do? The answer is clear: acquire the abandoned assets at the maximum discount, then redistribute them in such a way as befits their industry. Financial firms, natural resources, and other energy companies will be absorbed by state banks and companies in a kind of quasi-nationalization or pseudo-privatization that Russia has perfected over time.

Nonstrategic assets, such as in retail, will be redistributed among the nouveau riche and the upper middle class: generally, the generations aged 35-55 and university-educated, whose wealth has come from either state-adjacent projects such as roadbuilding, or senior positions at state companies and private firms with Western investors. According toForbes, a significant part of Western assets have already been awarded to the old oligarchs, the former CEOs of Western companies Russian subsidiaries, and entrepreneurs from the provinces. Also in the mix are Asian especially Chinese companies, which can count on their governments support.

Public servants, including representatives of the security state, may also get in on the action, having enriched themselves through petty corruption, though they will be sure to involve themselves strictly through proxies.

All this may combine to shore up Putins regime. Russias social structure had started to resemble an hourglass as the middle class contracted and emigrated. Now that same middle class may also be able to benefit from the countrys current direction, turning a structure that looked like it might break in half at any minute into a far more stable trapezoid shape.

The regimes economic foundation will now consist of the states expanded asset base in natural resources, energy, and heavy industry. Meanwhile, at the top of the new social hierarchy will be the trusted lieutenants of the president and their heirs, along with select officials holding significant stakes in state-adjacent companies or directorships. The more the state brings under its control, the more such people there will be.

The middle layer of Russias social structure will be shaped by the redistribution of assets among those well-off Russians forced to focus on the domestic market by international sanctions. In return for their loyalty, they will receive high-quality assets at a significant discount, which may turn them into a pillar of the regime and a source of patriotic optimism and even radicalism. There could even be a peoples privatization, in which the wealthy are awarded minority stakes in state companies.

Much will depend on the avoidance of catastrophe on the Ukrainian front, the continued apathy of the public sector, and the success of Russias pivot to Asia. Yet the effect could be to extend the regimes lifespan and it may well even enable a transition of power down the road.

This article was originallypublishedby The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Russia Looks to Economic Redistribution to Shore Up the Regime - The Moscow Times

The U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Joe Donnelly, is also in D.C. and will be present at some of the cardinals meetings in Washington.

The White House and the Vatican embassy in the U.S. didnt respond to requests for comment. The Russian embassy in D.C. didnt respond to a question about if it was supportive of the Vaticans effort.

In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russias commissioner for childrens rights, for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.

Russian officials claim they are holding on to Ukrainian kids for their own safety due to the war, in some cases handing them over to adoptive families.

Pope Francis has made alleviating the suffering of children his top issue of the 16-month war, namely the safe return of those who have been displaced by brutal fighting. He and his team are working with Ukraine, Russia and interested parties on a potential deal, though theres no public indication that one will be reached soon.

There is no peace plan [or] mediation, Zuppi told reporters earlier this month. There is a great aspiration that the violence ends, that human lives can be saved starting with the defense of the youngest.

In May, Pope Francis told reporters in Hungary that the Catholic Church would do all that is humanly possible to help bring Ukrainian children home.

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Biden and emissary for Pope Francis to meet on Russia's deportations of Ukrainian children - POLITICO

Russia is blaming Ukraine for the fatal attack on a key bridge in Crimea that left two dead and one injured Monday.

One of the sections of the 12-mile Kerch Bridge in Crimea was blown up Monday, killing a married couple and injuring their daughter. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said that this explosion was caused by two Ukrainian sea drones.

Moscow is labeling the explosion as a terrorist attack as the bridge serves as a key symbol of Russia’s claim to Crimea as it connects the two countries. Russia captured Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has been utilizing the bridge to aid its military operations in southern Ukraine since the war started.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said Monday that Ukraine was a “terrorist organization,” vowing in a Telegram post to “blow up their houses and houses of their relatives, search and eliminate their accomplices.”

This is the second time parts of the Kerch Bridge have exploded since the war started. In October 2022, a truck blast downed two sections of the bridge and resulted in damage that took months to repair. Monday’s blast appears less serious than the October one, as Russian authorities said it did not affect the piers but damaged the decking in a section of one of the two road links.

Just hours after the bridge explosion, Reuters reported that Moscow halted a U.N.-backed grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain over the Black Sea. Moscow maintains that there was no connection to Russia ending its participation in the deal with the explosion on the bridge, Reuters reported.

While Kyiv has remained hesitant to speak on who is responsible for the bridge explosion, Ukrainian Security Service spokesman Artem Degtyarenko said in a statement that they would reveal how the “bang” was orchestrated after Ukraine won the war.

The Security Service of Ukraine also tweeted a revised version of a popular lullaby, saying that the bridge “went to sleep again.”

The Associated Press contributed.

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Russia: Ukraine to blame for fatal attack on key bridge in Crimea - The Hill

TALLINN, Estonia Vladimir Putin has compared himself to the czar Peter the Great. But to travel through Eastern Europe is to see how much he has instead caused Russian influence to shrink.

Ive been on a road trip through Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and its clear that Putin has managed to unite nearly everyone against Russia. Even Russian speakers who often used to feel loyalty to Moscow are now fund-raising for Ukraine.

One of my first memories is of a trip to Poland in the 1960s to visit my grandparents (Kristof is short for Krzysztofowicz). What I remember is that Communist Poland seemed endlessly bleak and depressing. Later, when I began to travel around Eastern Europe as a law student and aspiring journalist, my main impression was that in the Communist bloc you didnt need color film.

Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who was in Vilnius for the NATO summit, told me that when he first visited the country in 1979, he had the same impression: It looked like everything had been whitewashed with gray paint. It was drab and lifeless. Flash forward, and today these countries are almost unrecognizable: vibrant, colorful and far wealthier than Russia. Poland has become a sophisticated manufacturing base for Europe, and Intel just announced that it would build a $4.6 billion chip plant near Wroclaw.

Poland has been able to serve as a model for countries to the east, Mark Brzezinski, the American ambassador to Poland, told me. And Russia has been a model of a different kind.

Putins actions since February 2022 have proven the thesis that Russia under Putin is interested in leadership by terror and authoritarianism, Brzezinski added. For other countries of the former Soviet bloc, if they ever were wobbly about joining the West, they certainly have had a clarifying experience.

The improvements in the Baltics have been as pronounced as those in Poland. Estonia is now a jewel of Europe, the global model of a high-tech and prosperous e-state. It has nurtured countless high-tech start-ups, including Skype, and as I walked through Tallinn, the capital, I shared a sidewalk with a robot delivering a takeout dinner to a nearby home.

In contrast, Russia and the places that have remained in its orbit like Belarus and Transnistria remain dismal and oppressive. A glimpse of that side of the chasm: One of the worlds bravest journalists, Elena Milashina, who has reported on human rights in Russia, was attacked recently in Chechnya; thugs beat her, shaved her head, poured dye on her and left her with a brain injury.

Putin claims to be a champion of the rights of Russian speakers, whose families often moved to neighboring nations when they were all under Soviet rule. And historically many were allied with Moscow and had grievances against the post-Communist pro-Western governments. Now Putin has upended that. His invasion and behavior embarrasses many Russian speakers and makes them rethink their allegiance.

In Lviv, Ukraine, Oleksandra Kabanova told me that she and her husband are native Russian speakers who always spoke to each other in Russian. But after her husband joined the Ukrainian Army last year to fight the Russian invaders, they switched to Ukrainian, even if she sometimes struggles to find the right word.

It was way too toxic to continue speaking Russian, she said.

Putins invasion paradoxically strengthened the Baltic countries, which until last year faced fundamental challenges. Each had a seemingly indigestible Russian minority, plus NATOs real-life commitment to protect these countries was uncertain especially during the presidency of Donald Trump. (A nightmare for leaders in the region is that Trump is re-elected in 2024, possibly wrecking NATO, cutting off aid to Ukraine and rescuing Putin from himself.)

Putin also revived NATO. It has added Finland and is moving to include Sweden, and there is renewed commitment to Article 5, which would lead all NATO countries to rush in to fight off any Russian incursion. As for the Russian speakers, they are finally being digested.

The majority of our Russian-speaking people are with us, Estonias prime minister, Kaja Kallas, told me. They clearly see that life here is so much better than life in Russia.

The mood in the Baltics is reflected by a huge poster in Riga, Latvia, showing Putins face as that of a skull-like monster.

The fundamental truth is that Putin has weakened Russia. It appears to be in a long-term economic and demographic decline that Putin has accelerated. Russias only claim to relevance is its nuclear arsenal; as a saying goes, it is Burkina Faso with nukes.

Driving through the countries that Moscow once ruled, through societies now united against him, Im ready to bet that Putin will not be remembered as a modern Peter the Great. Rather, he will go down in history as the leader who broke his country: Vladimir the Lilliputian.

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Opinion | How Putin Broke Russia - The New York Times

Harvesting barley in Ukraines Mykolaiv region last year.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times

Russia said on Monday that it was ending an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite Moscows naval blockade, upending a deal that had helped to keep global food prices stable and alleviate one element of the global fallout from the war.

Ukraine is a major producer of grain and other foodstuffs, and the United Nations secretary general, Antnio Guterres, said he was deeply disappointed by the decision. Millions of people who face hunger, or are struggling, as well as consumers around the world facing a cost of living crisis, will pay a price, he said.

"Todays decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere, he told journalists.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists earlier on Monday that the agreement had been halted until Russias demands were met.

He added that the decision was not connected to the attack hours earlier on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the attack, but Kyiv has not taken responsibility.

Russia has repeatedly complained about the agreement, which it considers one-sided in Ukraines favor. Russias Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a statement that emphasized its objections, including what it described as continued Ukrainian provocations and attacks against Russian civilian and military facilities in the Black Sea area, and said that the United Nations and Ukraines Western allies had not addressed Russian demands.

Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the deal, the statement said.

The agreement, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative and brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, had been set to expire on Monday after a series of short-term extensions.

Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would speak to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the agreement and signaled hope that it could be revived.

Despite the statement today, I believe the president of the Russian Federation, my friend Putin, wants the continuation of this humanitarian bridge, Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Moscow had broken its agreement with the United Nations and with Mr. Erdogan, rather than with his country itself, given that Ukraine had made a separate deal with the two mediators over grain. Ukraine demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory and an end to aggression before any talks can take place.

Even without the Russian Federation, everything must be done so that we can use this Black Sea corridor, Mr. Zelensky said in remarks sent by his press office, adding that Ukraine was ready to restart shipments if the United Nations and Turkey agreed.

The deal successfully eased shortages that resulted from blockades in the first months of the war, which caused global wheat prices to soar. It allowed Ukraine to restart the export of millions of tons of grain that had languished for months, and it has been renewed multiple times, most recently in May. Wheat prices fluctuated on Monday, exposing vulnerable countries to the prospect of a new round of food insecurity.

But Moscow has complained that Western sanctions continue to restrict the sale of its own agricultural products, and sought guarantees that would facilitate its exports of grain and fertilizers. In an effort to extend the deal, Mr. Guterres sent Mr. Putin proposals last week that he said would remove hurdles affecting financial transactions through Russias agricultural bank.

Ukraine has exported 32.8 million tons of grain and other food since the initiative began, according to U.N. data. Under the agreement, ships are permitted to pass through shipping lanes controlled by Russian naval vessels, which in effect have blockaded Ukraines ports since the start of Russias full-scale invasion in February 2022. The ships are inspected off the coast of Istanbul on their way out and in, in part to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

Last year, Russia halted participation in inspections that were part of the deal, only to rejoin in a matter of days.

Safak Timur , Daniel Victor and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

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Explosions on Crimean Bridge Disrupt Key Link to Russia - The New York Times

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia halted participation on Monday in the year-old U.N.-brokered deal that lets Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea, spreading fear in poorer countries that price rises will put food out of reach.

Hours earlier, a blast knocked out Russia's bridge to Crimea in what Moscow called a strike by Ukrainian sea drones. Russia said two civilians were killed and their daughter wounded in what Moscow cast as a terrorist attack on the road bridge, a major artery for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said there was no link between the attack and its decision to suspend the grain deal, over what it called a failure to meet its demands to implement a parallel agreement easing rules for its own food and fertilizer exports.

"Unfortunately, the part of these Black Sea agreements concerning Russia has not been implemented so far, so its effect is terminated," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres signalled that Russia's withdrawal meant that the related pact to facilitate Russia's grain and fertilizer exports was also terminated.

"Today's decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere," he told reporters.

Moscow said it would consider rejoining the grain deal if it saw "concrete results" on its demands but that its guarantees for the safety of navigation would meanwhile be revoked.

In Washington, the White House said Russia's suspension of the pact "will worsen food security and harm millions".

GLOBAL FOOD PRICES

Ukraine and Russia are some of the world's biggest exporters of grain and other foodstuffs and any interruption could drive up food prices across the globe, especially in the poorest countries.

Shashwat Saraf, the emergency director in East Africa for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said the impacts would be far-reaching in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, which have been facing the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades.

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"I don't know how we will survive," said Halima Hussein, a mother of five children living in a crowded camp in Somalia's capital Mogadishu for people displaced by years of failed rains and violence.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised the prospect of resuming grain exports without Russia's participation, suggesting Kyiv would seek Turkey's support to effectively negate the Russian de facto blockade imposed last year.

"We are not afraid," spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov quoted Zelenskiy as saying. "We were approached by companies, shipowners. They said that they are ready, if Ukraine lets them go, and Turkey continues to let them through, then everyone is ready to continue supplying grain."

BRIDGE BLAST

The blast on the road bridge to Crimea could have a direct impact on Moscow's ability to supply its troops in southern Ukraine, and reveals the vulnerability of Russia's own Black Sea infrastructure to devices such as seaborne drones: small, fast remote-controlled boats packed with explosives.

Images showed a section of the road bridge had come down and traffic was halted in both directions, although a parallel railway bridge was still operational. Blasts were reported before dawn on the 19-km (12-mile) bridge, which Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered built after seizing and annexing the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

Putin told officials repair work should start quickly and that Russia would respond to the "senseless" attack.

Kyiv gave no official account of the blasts but Ukrainian media quoted unidentified officials as saying Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) was behind it. SBU spokesperson Artem Dekhtyarenko euphemistically alluded to the idea that the agency would reveal the details of the blast after Ukraine won the war, without directly claiming responsibility.

Ukraine says the bridge is illegal and its use by Russia for military supplies makes it a legitimate target. It was hit by a massive explosion and fire in October.

The grain deal was hailed as preventing a global food emergency when it was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last year.

Global commodity food prices rose on Monday, though the increase was limited, suggesting traders did not yet anticipate a severe supply crisis.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the grain deal's sponsor, said earlier on Monday he still believed Putin wanted it to continue.

Western countries say Russia is trying to use its leverage over the grain deal to weaken financial sanctions, which do not apply to Russia's agricultural exports.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described Russia's suspension of the agreement as a "cynical move" and said the EU would continue to try to secure food for poor countries.

U.S. aid chief Samantha Power announced more than $500 million in humanitarian assistance during a visit to Ukraine, where the United Nations says some 17 million people need help following Russia's invasion.

Russian shelling killed two people and wounded 10 in the town of Bilopillia in Ukraine's northern Sumy region near the border with Russia on Monday, police said.

WITHOUT RUSSIA?

Russia has extended the Black Sea deal three times in the past year, despite repeated threats to quit. It suspended participation after an attack on its fleet by seaborne Ukrainian drones in October, leading to a few days when Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations kept exports going without Moscow.

Denys Marchuk, deputy head of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, the main agribusiness organisation in Ukraine, said seaborne exports might proceed again without Russian agreement.

"If there will be safety guarantees from our partners, then why not conduct the grain initiative without Russia's participation?" he told Reuters.

Any such resumption of shipments without Russia's blessing would probably depend on insurers. Industry sources told Reuters they were studying whether to freeze their coverage.

"The (key) question is whether Russia mines the area which would effectively cease any form of cover being offered," one insurance industry source said.

The latest blast on Russia's bridge to Crimea follows months of Ukrainian strikes on Russian supply lines as Kyiv pursues a counteroffensive to drive Russian forces out of its territory.

(Reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv, Michelle Nichols in New York, Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Moscow halts grain deal in what UN calls a global blow to people in need - Yahoo News

This photo released by Ostorozhno Novosti on Monday, July 17, 2023, reportedly shows damaged parts of an automobile link of the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait not far from Kerch, Crimea. AP hide caption

This photo released by Ostorozhno Novosti on Monday, July 17, 2023, reportedly shows damaged parts of an automobile link of the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait not far from Kerch, Crimea.

MOSCOW At least two people reportedly died and another was injured early on Monday after what Russian authorities said was a Ukrainian attack on a key bridge linking the Russian mainland to the annexed peninsula of Crimea.

Russian media reported two explosions hit what is called the Kerch Bridge that connects southern Russia to annexed Crimea. Russian officials called the incident a "terrorist attack" that was staged by Ukrainian special forces involving two sea drones. There was no claim of responsibility from the Ukrainian side, but a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military's Southern Command said the explosions could be a staged provocation by Russia to undermine a grain export deal that expires Monday.

Witness video online did appear to show a section of road partially collapsed, although a parallel railway track appears undamaged. Local authorities have also identified the victims; they say a teenage girl was left orphaned after her parents' car was apparently hit from the impact of whatever caused the damage.

Russia has made it clear where they think the responsibility lies: Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of carrying out a terrorist attack with help, she said, from U.S. and British intelligence.

It was the second significant strike on the bridge since last October, when a truck bomb damaged two sections of the bridge. The bridge is a key supply line for Russian forces operating in southern Ukraine. It's also an important symbol of Moscow's control of Crimea, the territory Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally drove the first vehicle over the bridge when it opened in 2018 to much fanfare.

For all those reasons Ukraine has said the bridge is a legitimate military target.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's security services, has repeatedly called the bridge redundant. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar recently listed a previous attack on the bridge last fall on Ukraine's list of military successes.

NPR's Joanna Kakissis contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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Explosions disrupt traffic on a key bridge from Crimea to Russia's mainland - NPR