The failure of diplomatic attempts to reach peace agreements in Ukraine amid increased military support from the USA and the EU has led to a major reshuffle in the government. The large-scale reshuffle is taking place against the background of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine with vague prospects for its cessation. Volodymyr Zelensky, fearing failure in future presidential and parliamentary elections, is making active efforts to clean up the political field and discredit possible rivals for the post of the Ukrainian president.

Thus, on July 16, 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nominated Economy Minister Yulia Sviridenko as the new prime minister with a simultaneous reshuffling of the majority of cabinet members1

As a result of the mass reshuffle, Ukraine’s military industry will be placed under the leadership of the Defense Ministry, which will be headed by former Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, who has held this position since March 4, 2020. Under pressure from Zelenskyy and the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, Denys Shmygal was forced to tender his resignation on July 15, 2025. The Ukrainian parliament voted for the resignation of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal on 16 July 2025.

The decision to dismiss Shmygal, 49, was supported by 261 MPs, while the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine was also dissolved during the government reshuffle.

In mid-July, Zelenskyy also said that he was considering acting Defense Minister Rustem Umerov as Ukraine’s ambassador to the USA. Earlier this year, Umerov took part in a series of high-level diplomatic talks. Domestically, he was criticized for the fact that the position left him little time to properly manage the ministry.

Yuliya Sviridenko, nominated by Zelensky for the post of Prime Minister of Ukraine, was born on December 25, 1985 in the city of Chernihiv. Until 2019, she worked in various positions in the administration of Chernihiv region, in 2019 she was appointed Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, since 2020 she was deputy head of the office of the President of Ukraine, headed by Andriy Yermak. She is a member of the pro-presidential Servant of the People party.

According to Zelenskyy, the appointment of Yuliya Sviridenko as the new prime minister is based on her extensive experience in supporting Ukrainian industry and the urgent need to attract foreign funding for Ukraine’s military needs. Sviridenko gained influence thanks to the support of the head of the president’s office, Yermak, and her work with the USA, where she played a key role in signing an agreement with the USA on rare earth minerals in May 2025.

Next year, Ukraine will face the difficult task of financing its growing budget deficit amid cuts in foreign aid. The Ukrainian Finance Ministry estimates that the country’s financing needs from the US and the EU for 2026 amount to 40bn dollars.

According to Sergiy Marchenko – Minister of Finance of Ukraine, now the government does not know where to find these funds in case of a decrease in funding from the European Union and international funds. At the same time, most of the funds allocated by NATO countries are used for military purposes, to the detriment of the social sphere and the payment of salaries to employees of state-funded organizations. In mid-July, the Ukrainian parliament supported a bill on amending the 2025 budget, which envisages an increase in defense spending by 412 billion hryvnyas ($10 billion) this year.

Meanwhile, Russia has started signaling its desire for a third round of talks with Ukraine after US President Donald Trump said that the USA would supply Ukraine with more long-range weapons through NATO members. Trump also warned that if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire within 50 days, Washington would impose 500% duties on the country’s goods.

These circumstances against the background of widespread corruption, forced mobilization, deterioration of the social status of Ukrainian citizens, illegitimacy of the country’s leadership and disregard for the norms of national and international law contribute to the intensification of the internal political struggle for the future posts of the President and members of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Strange as it may seem, the first place in this internal political struggle is occupied by Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office and the shadow leader of Ukraine. Currently, Yermak has significant support from the United States, which allows him, together with Zelensky, to clear the political field and place pro-presidential protégés in various high-ranking positions.

Presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine were to be held in March and July 2024. However, due to another extension of martial law in May this year, these procedures have not been carried out.

Zelenskyy’s powers as president ended on May 21, 2024. At the same time, the decision of the Parliament of Ukraine – the Verkhovna Rada – to extend his powers in accordance with the national law No. 389-VIII dd. 12.05.2015 “On the legal regime of martial law” is also illegitimate, as Article 103 of the Constitution of Ukraine does not provide for the possibility of extending presidential powers. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, the presidential term is 5 years and the President of Ukraine even under martial law has no right to extend his powers. Only the Parliament has the right to extend the powers. Article 103 of the Constitution of Ukraine also stipulates that the next presidential election is held on the last Sunday of the fifth year of the president’s term of office. In the event of early termination of the powers of the President of Ukraine, elections are held within ninety days from the date of termination of his powers

According to the Ukrainian constitution, the prime minister’s candidacy should be proposed to the president by the parliamentary majority faction (currently, it is the pro-presidential Servant of the People party). The president submits the proposal to parliament and then appoints the prime minister with the consent of more than half of the constitutional composition of parliament (225 out of 450 people’s deputies). Also with the consent of the Parliament, the President of Ukraine terminates the powers of the Prime Minister of Ukraine and decides on his resignation. Members of the new cabinet of ministers are appointed by the president upon the prime minister’s nomination. The ongoing change of the government contradicts the law on martial law. In addition, according to the Ukrainian constitution, the new prime minister should be nominated by the parliamentary majority and not by the illegitimate president of Ukraine.

Many Ukrainian and international lawyers note that under national laws and international law, any agreements and legal acts signed and introduced by Zelenskyy into parliament after May 20, 2024 are effectively illegitimate, contradict Ukrainian legislation and can be canceled or easily legally challenged. In this regard, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to appoint Yuliya Sviridenko as prime minister also contradicts the current Ukrainian legislation and norms of international law.

As for the parliamentary elections in Ukraine, they were held on July 21, 2019, the deputies were elected for a term of 5 years and their powers ended in July 2024. However, due to the current legislation and the imposed martial law, the powers of the deputies of the Parliament are extended until its end. According to Article 20 of the Electoral Code of Ukraine No. 396-IX of December 19, 2019, the electoral process for elections to the Parliament of Ukraine should begin within a month after the lifting of martial law. Therefore, in fact, in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Speaker of Parliament, has been the legal head of Ukraine since May 21, 2024.

For this reason, Zelensky’s decisions to extend martial law, appoint a new prime minister, Yuriy Sviridenko, reshuffle other members of the Ukrainian government, sign an agreement with the United States on rare earth minerals and transfer the port of Odessa to American companies are legally unauthorized and can be easily overturned both in Ukrainian legal proceedings and in international arbitration courts.

Realizing this legal precedent-casus, the leadership of the United States of America and a number of EU countries, primarily Great Britain, France and Germany, in cooperation with the Ukrainian side, are currently trying to develop a legal mechanism to give legitimacy to the legal acts already adopted by Mr. Zelensky, as well as to the future presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, since the elections held after the end of martial law in Ukraine do not fall under any provision of the current constitution.

To this end, at the end of June 2025, the Chairman of the Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk announced the preparation of a law on post-war elections, which is scheduled to be considered at the next sessions of the Ukrainian Parliament. Although Ruslan Stefanchuk himself notes that the said law will also be illegitimate if martial law is lifted in the country.

Against this background, the internal political struggle between various parties and candidates for the post of the future president of Ukraine is intensifying. The main direction of this interaction is the development of a normatively grounded strategy for future presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Allies of Volodymyr Zelensky from Great Britain and the USA announcing continuation of his support and new deliveries of weapons paid for by them realize that without interference in pre-election processes and vote counting procedure it is difficult to predict the results of future elections. That is why Volodymyr Zelensky has now started an active reshuffle of the government and clearing the political field of possible competitors in the upcoming elections.

The Economist previously wrote about the fact that the USA and EU countries are negotiating with Ukraine to start election processes after the ceasefire at the end of 2025 7 . However, in order to hold elections in Ukraine, martial law, which the authorities imposed on February 24, 2022 and extend every three months, must cease to be in force. The sixteenth extension for 90 days will come into force on August 7, 2025.

The Ukrainian mass media name Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, a former commander-in- chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who is currently ambassador to the UK, as Zelenskyy’s main rival.

From November 2024 to the end of June 2025 a number of sociological centers (KIIS – Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, SOCIS – Ukrainian Center for Sociological Studies) and the EU (Statista – German Statistical Data Center from February 5-11, 2025, June 6-11, 2025, Survation – English Polling and Marketing Research Agency from February 25-27, 2025) conducted opinion polls on the topic of presidential elections in Ukraine in order to determine the trust rating of Ukrainian citizens. According to the results of opinion polls as of the end of June 2025, more than 65.3% of respondents support holding presidential elections at the end of 2025.

According to the results of the conducted research, as of the end of June 2025, out of 14 possible candidates for the post of the future president of Ukraine, the highest results were shown by: V.Zelensky, V.Zaluzhny, P.Poroshenko, Y.Tymoshenko. If V.Zaluzhny and V.Zelensky make it to the second round of voting and there are no violations at the elections, the population of Ukraine will give preference to V.Zaluzhny. The candidacy of Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, is also being considered as a gray cardinal and a dark horse. A number of experts do not rule out that if the USA agrees to support his candidacy as the future president of Ukraine, Yermak is capable of making efforts to physically remove Zelenskyy, for example, due to a sharp deterioration of his health, as was the case with the poisoning of the wife of Kyrylo Budanov, head of the main intelligence department of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

Against this background, many Ukrainian experts expect a large number of violations, scandals and kompromat at the future presidential election in Ukraine, as well as possible influence on the pre-election processes by the US, UK, Germany and France.

While the Ukrainian people are eagerly awaiting the resolution of the conflict, members of the Ukrainian parliament continue to scuffle. Thus, on July 16, 2025, on the eve of the vote on the appointment of the new Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yuriy Sviridenko, MPs Oleksiy Honcharenko and Danylo Hetmantsev had another scuffle on the rostrum during the regular session.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Valeriy Krylko.

Details remain somewhat sketchy, but the agreement supposedly sets out a sharing of revenues in a manner satisfactory to the parties while floating, if only tentatively, the prospect of renewed military assistance.  That assistance, however, would count as US investment in the fund.  According to the White House, the US Treasury Department and US International Development Finance Corporation will work with Kyiv “to finalize governance and advance this important partnership”, one that ensures the US “an economic stake in securing a free, peaceful, and sovereign future for Ukraine.”

In its current form, the agreement supposedly leaves it to Ukraine to determine what to extract in terms of the minerals and where this extraction is to take place.  A statement from the US Treasury Department also declared that, “No state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s Minister of Economy, Yulia Svyrydenko, stated that the subsoil remained within the domain of Kyiv’s ownership, while the fund would be “structured” on an equal basis “jointly managed by Ukraine and the United States” and financed by “new licenses in the field of critical materials, oil and gas – generated after the Fund is created”.  Neither party would “hold a dominant vote – a reflection of equal partnership between our two nations.”

The minister also revealed that privatisation processes and managing state-owned companies would not be altered by the arrangements.  “Companies such as Ukrnafta and Energoatom will stay in state ownership.”  There would also be no question of debt obligations owed by Kyiv to Washington.

That this remains a “joint” venture is always bound to raise some suspicions, and nothing can conceal the predatory nature of an arrangement that permits US corporations and firms access to the critical resources of another country.  For his part, Trump fantasised in a phone call to a town hall on the NewsNation network that the latest venture would yield “much more in theory than the $350 billion” worth of aid he insists the Biden administration furnished Kyiv with.

Svyrydenko chose to see the Reconstruction Investment Fund as one that would “attract global investment into our country” while still maintaining Ukrainian autonomy.  Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House of Foreign Affairs Committee, thought otherwise, calling it “Donald Trump’s extortion of Ukraine deal”.  Instead of focusing on the large, rather belligerent fly in the ointment – Russian President Vladimir Putin – the US president had “demonstrated nothing but weakness” towards Moscow.

The war mongering wing of the Democrats were also in full throated voice.  To make such arrangements in the absence of assured military support to Kyiv made the measure vacuous.  “Right now,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said on MSNBC television, “all indications are that Donald Trump’s policy is to hand Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, and in that case, this agreement isn’t worth the paper that it’s written on.”

On a certain level, Murphy has a point.  Trump’s firmness in holding to the bargain is often capricious.  In September 2017, he reached an agreement with the then Afghan president Ashraf Ghani to permit US companies to develop Afghanistan’s rare earth minerals.  Having spent 16 years in Afghanistan up to that point, ways of recouping some of the costs of Washington’s involvement were being considered.  It was agreed, went a White House statement sounding all too familiar, “that such initiatives would help American companies develop minerals critical to national security while growing Afghanistan’s economy and creating new jobs in both countries, therefore defraying some of the costs of United States assistance as Afghans become more reliant.”

Ghani’s precarious puppet regime was ultimately sidelined in favour of direct negotiations with the Taliban that eventually culminated in their return to power, leaving the way open for US withdrawal and a termination of any grand plans for mineral extraction.

A coterie of foreign policy analysts abounded with glowing statements at this supposedly impressive feat of Ukrainian diplomacy.  Shelby Magid, deputy director of the Atlantic Council think tank’s Eurasia Centre, thought it put Kyiv “in their strongest position yet with Washington since Trump took office”.  Ukraine had withstood “tremendous pressure” to accept poorer proposals, showing “that it is not just a junior partner that has to roll over and accept a bad deal”.

Time and logistics remain significant obstacles to the realisation of the agreement.  As Ukraine’s former minister of economic development and current head of Kyiv school of economics Tymofiy Mylovanov told the BBC, “These resources aren’t in a port or warehouse; they must be developed.”  Svyrydenko had to also ruefully concede that vast resources of mineral deposits existed in territory occupied by Russian forces.  There are also issues with unexploded mines.  Any challenge to the global rare earth elements (REEs) market, currently dominated by China (60% share of production of raw materials; 85% share of global processing output; and 90% manufacturing share of rare earth magnets), will be long in coming.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The implication of the Skripal evidence, revealed for the first time on Thursday, is that the attack on the Skripals was not perpetrated by Russian military agents who were photographed elsewhere in Salisbury town at the time; that the attacker or attackers were British agents; and that if their weapon was a nerve agent called Novichok, it came, not from Moscow, but from the UK Ministry of Defence chemical warfare laboratory at Porton Down.

Porton Down’s subsequent evidence of Novichok contamination in blood samples, clothing, car, and home of the Skripals may therefore be interpreted as British in source, not Russian.

This evidence was revealed by a police witness testifying at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry in London on November 14. The police officer, retired Detective Inspector Keith Asman was in 2018, and he remains today  the chief of forensics for the Counter Terrorism Policing (CTPSE) group which combines the Metropolitan and regional police forces with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5).

According to Asman’s new disclosure, Yulia Skripal had woken from a coma and confirmed to the doctor at her bedside that she remembered the circumstances of the attack on March 4. What she remembered, she signalled,  was not (repeat not) the official British Government narrative that Russian agents had tried to kill them by poisoning the front door-handle of the family home.

The new evidence was immediately dismissed by the Sturgess Inquiry lawyer assisting Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley), the judge directing the Inquiry. “We see there,” the lawyer put to Asman as a leading question, “the suggestion, which we now know not to be right, of course”.   — page 72.

Hughes then interrupted to tell the witness to disregard what Skripal had communicated. “If the record that you were given there is right, someone suggested to her ‘Had you been sprayed’. She didn’t come up with it herself.” — page 73. Hughes continued to direct the forensics chief to disregard the hearsay of Skripal. “Anyway the suggestion that she had been sprayed in the restaurant didn’t fit with your investigations?  A. [Asman] No, sir. LORD HUGHES:  Thank you.”

So far in in the Inquiry which began public sessions on October 14, this is the first direct sign of suppression of evidence by Hughes.

Hearsay, he indicates, should be disregarded if it comes from the target of attack, Yulia Skripal. However, hearsay from British Government officials, policemen, and chemical warfare agents at Porton Down must be accepted instead. Hughes has also banned Yulia and Sergei Skripal from testifying at the Inquiry.

The lawyer appointed and paid by the Government to represent the Skripals in the inquiry hearings said nothing to acknowledge the new disclosure nor to challenge Hughes’s efforts to suppress it.

Asman described his career and credentials in his witness statement to the Inquiry, dated October 23, 2024. His rank when he retired from the regular police forces in 2009 was detective inspector. He was then promoted to higher ranking posts at the operations coordinating group known as Counter Terrorism Policing for the Southeast Region (CTPSE). By 2018 Asman says he was “head of the National Counter Terrorism Forensics Working Group since 2012, and was the UK Counter Terrorism Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) forensic lead.” In June 2015 Asman was awarded the Order of the British Empire (MBE) “for services to Policing.”

At page 19 of his recent witness statement, this is what Asman has recorded for the evening of March 8, 2018:

Source: Dawn Sturgess Inquiry — page 19.

Asman’s went on to claim in this statement: “At this point Yulia Skripal was described as being emotional and fell unconscious. I made notes of my conversation with DI [Detective Inspector] VN104 in one of my notebooks, and in addition this information was confirmed to me in writing the next morning. The information she provided about being sprayed at the restaurant [Zizzi] was seemingly inconsistent with the presence of novichok at the Mill public house and 47 Christie Miller Road. On hearing this, I personally wondered whether Yulia Skripal knew more about it than she had alluded to and therefore whilst being fully cognisant of the SIO’s [Senior Investigative Officer] hypothesis and the need to be open-minded continued to prioritise her property.”

The Scene of the Novichol Crime

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

The Evidence the Crime Was British

Left: Yulia Skripal in May 2018, the scar of forced intubation still visible; read more here. Centre; Dr Stephen Cockroft who recorded the exchange with Skripal at her bedside on March 8, 2018; that was followed, Cockroft has also testified, by forced sedation and tracheostomy – read more. Right: read the only book on the case evidence.  

Open-minded was not what the judge and his lawyers wanted from Asman when he appeared in public for the first time on Thursday, November 14. Referring precisely to the excerpt of Skripal’s hospital evidence, Francesca Whitelaw KC for the Inquiry asked Asman: “We can take that [witness statement excerpt] down, but this information as well, was it consistent or inconsistent with what you  had found out in terms of forensic about the presence of  Novichok at The Mill and 47 Christie Miller Road?  A. [Asman] It, I would say, was inconsistent on the basis that she said she was sprayed in the restaurant.” — page 73.

Asman was then asked by Whitelaw to comment on Yulia Skripal’s exchange with Cockroft. “My question for you is: how, if at all, this impacted on your investigations?  A. It only very slightly impacted on it…It was information to have but not necessarily going to change my approach on anything.” — page 73.

In the Inquiry record  of hearings and exhibits since the commencement of the open sessions on October 14, there have been eleven separate exhibits of documents purporting to record what Yulia and Sergei Skripal have said; they include interviews with police and witness statements for the Inquiry; they are dated from April 2018 through October 2024. Most of them have been heavily redacted. None of them is signed by either Skripal.

Neither Yulia nor Sergei Skripal has been asked by the police, by the Inquiry lawyers, or by Hughes to confirm or deny whether Yulia’s recollection of March 8, 2018, of the spray attack in Zizzi’s Restaurant is still their evidence of what happened to them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Helmer.

The campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli state has been relentless and pathological.  Even before last year’s October 7 attacks by Hamas, much was made of the fact that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current.  Victimhood, complained the amnesiac enforcers of the Israeli state, was being encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees.  Nasty memories were being kept alive.

Since then, Israel has been further libelling and blackening the organisation as a terrorist front best abolished. (Labels are effortlessly swapped – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist”.)  Initially came that infamous dossier pointing the finger at 12 individuals said to be Hamas participants in the October 7 attacks.  With swiftness, the UN commenced internal investigations.  Some individuals were sacked on suspicion of being linked to the attacks. Unfortunately, some US$450 million worth of donor funding from sixteen countries was suspended.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was always at pains to explain that he had “never been informed” nor received evidence substantiating Israel’s accusations.  It was also all the more curious given that staff lists for the agency were provided to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance.  At no point had he ever “received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

In April, Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is under way, with serious implications for peace and security”.  Repeatedly, requests by the agency to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been refused, staff barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian actors and Israel, and UNRWA premises and staff targeted.

Israel’s campaign to dissuade donor states from restoring funding proved a mixed one.  Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July that funding would be restored.  In the view of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA had taken steps to ensure that it was meeting “the highest standards of neutrality.”

In August, the findings of a review of the allegations by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, instigated at the request of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, were released. It confirmed UNRWA’s role as “irreplaceable and indispensable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a “pivotal” body that provided “life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”

In identifying eight areas for immediate improvement on the subject of neutrality (for instance, engaging donors, neutrality of staff, installations, education and staff unions), it was noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” that the agency’s employees had been “members of terrorist organizations.”

On October 24, UNRWA confirmed that one of its staffers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been in the agency’s employ since July 2022 while serving as a Nukhba commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion.  Attawi is alleged to have participated in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im in October last year.  His name had featured in a July letter from Israel to the agency listing 100 names allegedly connected with terrorist groups.  But no action was taken against Attawi as the Israelis failed to supply UNRWA with evidence.  Lazzarini’s letter urging, in the words of Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, “to cooperate … by providing more information so he could take action” did not receive “any response”.

Having been foiled on various fronts in its quest to terminate UNRWA’s viable existence, Israeli lawmakers are now taking the legislative route to entrench the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.  Two bills are in train in the Knesset. The first, sponsored by such figures as Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, would bar state authorities from having contact with UNRWA.  The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically prevent the agency from operating in Israeli territory through revoking a 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.

Even proclaimed moderates – the term is relative – such as former defence minister Benny Gantz support the measures, accusing the UN body of making “itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it”.  It did not improve the lot of refugees, but merely perpetuated “their victimisation.”  Evidently for Gantz, Israel had no central role in creating Palestinian victims in the first place.

By barring cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA, work in Gaza and the West Bank would become effectively impossible, largely because Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to the territories or permit any coordination with the Israeli Defense Forces.

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills.  “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.”  Ambassadors from 123 UN member states have echoed the same views, while the Biden administration has, impotently, warned that the proposed “restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment” while also denying educational and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In their October 23 statement, the Nordic countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate “to carry out […] direct relief and works programmes” for millions of Palestinian refugees as determined by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) would be jettisoned.  “In the midst of an ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, a halt to any of the organisation’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”

The statement goes on to make a warning.  To impair the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “may well destabilise the situation in [Gaza, and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem], in Israel and in the region as a whole, and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects of a two-state solution.”

These are concerns that hardly matter before the rationale of murderous collective punishment, one used against a people seen more as mute serfs and submissive animals than sovereign beings entitled to rights and protections.  Israel’s efforts to malign and cripple UNRWA remains a vital part of that agenda.  In that organisation exists a repository of deep and troubling memories the forces of oppression long to erase.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli state has been relentless and pathological.  Even before last year’s October 7 attacks by Hamas, much was made of the fact that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current.  Victimhood, complained the amnesiac enforcers of the Israeli state, was being encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees.  Nasty memories were being kept alive.

Since then, Israel has been further libelling and blackening the organisation as a terrorist front best abolished. (Labels are effortlessly swapped – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist”.)  Initially came that infamous dossier pointing the finger at 12 individuals said to be Hamas participants in the October 7 attacks.  With swiftness, the UN commenced internal investigations.  Some individuals were sacked on suspicion of being linked to the attacks. Unfortunately, some US$450 million worth of donor funding from sixteen countries was suspended.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was always at pains to explain that he had “never been informed” nor received evidence substantiating Israel’s accusations.  It was also all the more curious given that staff lists for the agency were provided to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance.  At no point had he ever “received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

In April, Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is under way, with serious implications for peace and security”.  Repeatedly, requests by the agency to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been refused, staff barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian actors and Israel, and UNRWA premises and staff targeted.

Israel’s campaign to dissuade donor states from restoring funding proved a mixed one.  Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July that funding would be restored.  In the view of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA had taken steps to ensure that it was meeting “the highest standards of neutrality.”

In August, the findings of a review of the allegations by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, instigated at the request of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, were released. It confirmed UNRWA’s role as “irreplaceable and indispensable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a “pivotal” body that provided “life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”

In identifying eight areas for immediate improvement on the subject of neutrality (for instance, engaging donors, neutrality of staff, installations, education and staff unions), it was noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” that the agency’s employees had been “members of terrorist organizations.”

On October 24, UNRWA confirmed that one of its staffers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been in the agency’s employ since July 2022 while serving as a Nukhba commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion.  Attawi is alleged to have participated in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im in October last year.  His name had featured in a July letter from Israel to the agency listing 100 names allegedly connected with terrorist groups.  But no action was taken against Attawi as the Israelis failed to supply UNRWA with evidence.  Lazzarini’s letter urging, in the words of Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, “to cooperate … by providing more information so he could take action” did not receive “any response”.

Having been foiled on various fronts in its quest to terminate UNRWA’s viable existence, Israeli lawmakers are now taking the legislative route to entrench the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.  Two bills are in train in the Knesset. The first, sponsored by such figures as Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, would bar state authorities from having contact with UNRWA.  The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically prevent the agency from operating in Israeli territory through revoking a 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.

Even proclaimed moderates – the term is relative – such as former defence minister Benny Gantz support the measures, accusing the UN body of making “itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it”.  It did not improve the lot of refugees, but merely perpetuated “their victimisation.”  Evidently for Gantz, Israel had no central role in creating Palestinian victims in the first place.

By barring cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA, work in Gaza and the West Bank would become effectively impossible, largely because Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to the territories or permit any coordination with the Israeli Defense Forces.

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills.  “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.”  Ambassadors from 123 UN member states have echoed the same views, while the Biden administration has, impotently, warned that the proposed “restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment” while also denying educational and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In their October 23 statement, the Nordic countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate “to carry out […] direct relief and works programmes” for millions of Palestinian refugees as determined by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) would be jettisoned.  “In the midst of an ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, a halt to any of the organisation’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”

The statement goes on to make a warning.  To impair the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “may well destabilise the situation in [Gaza, and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem], in Israel and in the region as a whole, and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects of a two-state solution.”

These are concerns that hardly matter before the rationale of murderous collective punishment, one used against a people seen more as mute serfs and submissive animals than sovereign beings entitled to rights and protections.  Israel’s efforts to malign and cripple UNRWA remains a vital part of that agenda.  In that organisation exists a repository of deep and troubling memories the forces of oppression long to erase.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

“CPJ denounces the intimidation of journalists Iryna Sysak, Valeria Yehoshyna, and Yulia Khymeryk, and calls on Ukrainian authorities to ensure timely investigations into the bomb threats recently sent across Ukraine,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Ukrainian authorities must ensure the safety of the journalists and hold the perpetrators to account. Journalists must be able to work safely without fear of retaliation.”

The threats followed an October 8 investigation by the three journalists published by Schemes, an investigative journalism TV program within RFE/RL’s Ukrainian service, about Russian secret services recruiting Ukrainians to set fire to Ukrainian military vehicles. 

After evacuating several buildings after the bomb threats and investigating, Ukraine’s national police stated on October 15 that they opened criminal proceedings for “knowingly false reports of threat to the safety of citizens.”

Ukrainian media outlets that received bomb threats include: 

• Independent outlet Ukrainska Pravda 
• Independent outlet Liga.net
• Several regional offices of public broadcaster Suspilne 
• RFE/RL’s office in the capital, Kyiv

“We will not be intimidated and stand behind our reporters who will continue to bring news to Ukrainian audiences without fear or favor,” President Stephen Capus said in a post on his RFE/RL website.

According to RFE/RL, the unnamed group that claimed responsibility for the bomb threat messages also called for the burning of Ukrainian military vehicles on social media.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On February 24, 2022, over 100,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Russia’s invasion violated international law and has been brutal (though far less deadly for civilians than the Canadian-enabled onslaught on Gaza).

Eight years earlier, on February 22, 2014, elected president Victor Yanukovich was forced from office in an event that propelled Moscow’s seizure of Crimea and a civil war in the east of Ukraine, which was partly a NATO-Russia proxy war. Russia massively expanded that conflict two years ago.

As Owen Schalk and I detail in the just released Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy, Ottawa played a significant role in destabilizing Yanukovich and pushing him out. Between 2010 and 2014, Canada waged a campaign to subvert an elected president who passed legislation codifying Ukrainian neutrality in the geopolitical confrontation between NATO and Russia, which increasingly played out in Ukraine.

Soon after he was elected, Ottawa began seeking to undermine Yanukovych’s government. Months after he became president, Prime Minister Harper declared, “there are issues that are of concern to Ukrainian-Canadians and to the government of Canada involving issues of human rights and the rule of law, and I’ll be raising those with President Yanukovych.” Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) head Paul Grod and other representatives of the ultranationalist organization accompanied the prime minister during his October 2010 visit to Ukraine. In announcing their participation, the UCC release claimed, “recent steps taken by Ukraine’s political leadership have seriously undermined the country’s constitution, its democratic institutions, the protection of its historical memory and national identity, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

During the trip, Stephen Harper met opposition leaders, including failed presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko. In Lviv, Harper visited a controversial new nationalist museum and met its director, who had recently been accused of passing classified information to third parties. Talking to journalists about Ukraine’s 1932 famine, Harper encouraged the public to challenge their government, saying the Holodomor should “remind the Ukrainian people of the importance of their freedom and democracy and independence, and of the necessity of always defending those things.”

A year after his trip, Harper threatened Yanukovych over legal proceedings against Tymoshenko, who was found guilty of corruption. In an October 2011 letter, Canada’s PM wrote, “I cannot overstate the potential negative impact of the current judicial proceedings against Yulia Tymoshenko on both Ukraine’s future relations with Canada and others and on Ukraine’s long-term democratic development.” During an April 2012 visit, international trade minister Beverly Oda said Canada was deeply concerned about human rights abuses and, in a highly abnormal diplomatic move, had Ukrainian-Canadian representatives participating in her delegation criticize the government.

Further encouraging opposition to the government, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced funding for a project “to strengthen freedom of expression, freedom of information and free media in Ukraine.” Launched during a March 2013 visit, the initiative was designed to boost antigovernment forces.

Ottawa helped encourage the November 2013 Maidan protests that would spiral into regime change by breathlessly criticizing the Yanukovych government. It is quite clear that if Yanukovych’s main competitor in the 2010 election, Yulia Tymoshenko, had won and committed five times more rights violations, she would have received far less criticism.

In the two decades before the Maidan uprising, Canada channeled tens, probably hundreds, of millions of dollars to anti-Russian elements of Ukrainian civil society. In 2013, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland boasted that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, and other US government agencies had plowed $5 billion into bolstering Western-oriented forces in Ukraine since 1991. In a sign of Ottawa’s close ties to opposition activists, throughout the Maidan protests the Canadian embassy’s local spokesperson, Inna Tsarkova, was a prominent member of AutoMaidan, an anti-government group that organized protests in front of Yanukovych’s residence calling for the president to go. As the Embassy’s Program Officer, Tsarkova had previously led sessions about acquiring Canadian funding. Two months into the Maidan protests, Tsarkova’s car was set ablaze. In an interview with a Ukrainian Canadian radio program two days after, the long-time employee at the Canadian embassy said, “if we don’t stand up enough than you know it means the end of Ukraine in terms of democracy and real freedoms. It will be the Soviet empire back in the 1930s when people were just thrown into prison and killed.”

The Maidan protests were sparked by Yanukovych stalling on the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. The free trade accord was a step forward in the process of the country potentially joining the EU, which was attractive to many Ukrainians, especially in the west and centre of the country. However, the agreement was more divisive than portrayed by Canadian media and officials. Ukraine, with the second largest landmass in Europe, has significant geographical divisions. For instance, Lviv in the west is closer to Prague, Vienna and Berlin than to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which is near Russia. Additionally, eastern and southern Ukraine was part of the Russian empire for two centuries, while modern Ukraine’s west was once part of the Polish-Lithuanian and Austro-Hungarian empires.

Joining the EU was viewed favourably by many Ukrainians, but the Association Agreement had costs as well. The EU deal would not only undercut trade with Russia; it also depended on Kyiv agreeing to the International Monetary Fund’s demand for “extremely harsh conditions” on eliminating energy subsidies and other government supports.

Amidst the negotiations over the Association Agreement, Moscow offered some $10 billion in benefits to Ukraine and called for tripartite (EU, Russia, and Ukraine) negotiations to work out various trade and economic issues. The EU rejected negotiations. The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said explicitly that Kyiv had to choose between the EU Association Agreement and a customs union with Russia. The EU’s take-it-or-leave-it position exacerbated deep geographical and linguistic divisions within Ukraine.

When the anti-Yanukovych uprisings began in late 2013, Canada supported the three-month-long protests. The Canadian government assisted pro-EU, including many far-right, protesters who rallied in central Kyiv’s Maidan square from November 21, 2013, to February 22, 2014. During the uprising Canada’s foreign minister attended an anti-government rally and protesters used the Canadian embassy as a safe haven for numerous days.

A little over a week into the protests, Canada released a statement critical of government repression, which University of Ottawa professor Ivan Katchanovski says was precipitated by far-right infiltrators.  In a November 30, 2013, release titled “Canada Condemns Use of Force Against Protesters in Ukraine,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared, “Canada strongly condemns the deplorable use of force today by Ukrainian authorities against peaceful protesters.” ix days later, Baird visited Maidan square with Paul Grod, president of the ultranationalist UCC. From the stage, Grod announced Baird’s presence and support for the protesters, which led many to chant “Thank you Canada.” In recognition of Canada’s important role, a Canadian flag flew at the Maidan protest. Baird also called on Ukrainian authorities to respect the protests and bemoaned “the shadow that Russia is casting over this country.”

On December 27, Canada’s chargé d’affaires visited protest leader and journalist Tetyana Chornovol in the hospital after she was violently attacked. Three weeks earlier, Chornovol was widely reported to have participated in seizing Kyiv City Hall. A former member of a far-right party, Chornovol had previously been arrested on numerous occasions and was subsequently charged with murder for throwing a Molotov cocktail at Yanukovych’s Party of Regions headquarters during the Maidan protests.

Prime Minister Harper repeatedly expressed support for the protesters and criticized Yanukovych. On January 27, he slammed the Ukrainian president for “not moving towards a free and democratic Euro-Atlantic future but very much towards an anti-democratic Soviet past.” The next day Ottawa announced travel restrictions and economic sanctions on individuals close to the elected president. At the press conference to announce the measures, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander said, “you [Yanukovych] are not welcome in Canada and we will continue to take strong action until the violence against the people of Ukraine has stopped and democracy has been restored.” Ottawa subsequently slapped travel bans and economic sanctions on dozens of individuals aligned with Yanukovych.

At the height of the protests, activists used the Canadian embassy, which was immediately adjacent to Maidan square, as a safe haven for “at least a week.” The protesters gained access to a mini-van and other Canadian material. In a story written a year after the coup, the Canadian Press quoted officials from allied European nations accusing Canada of being “an active participant in regime change.” In his investigation of Maidan activists’ use of the Canadian embassy in Kyiv, Canadian Press reporter Murray Brewster writes, “Canadians are not very popular in some quarters and occasionally loathed by pro-Russian Ukrainians.”

At least some of those allowed to use the Canadian embassy were from the far right. In “The far right, the Euromaidan, and the Maidan massacre in Ukraine” professor Katchanovski reported, “the leader of the [far right] Svoboda-affiliated C14 admitted that his C14-based Maidan Self-Defense company took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Kyiv on February 18 and stayed there during the Maidan massacre.”

On February 19 and 20, more than 50 were killed in violence that was widely blamed on government security forces. However, the recent trial verdict confirmed work by Katchanovski showing that far-right activists were likely responsible for many of these deaths.

The killings precipitated the collapse of the government. As revealed in a leaked phone call between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, US officials midwifed Yanukovych’s unconstitutional replacement. During the call the US officials decide that Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who advocated joining NATO, should take power.

After Yanukovych was ousted, Ottawa sought to shore up the unconstitutional government. Soon after, Baird “welcomed the appointment of a new government”, saying, “the appointment of a legitimate government is a vital step forward in restoring democracy and normalcy to Ukraine.” But the country’s constitutional provisions dealing with replacing or impeaching a president were flagrantly violated. While Ukraine’s Parliament passed a resolution backing Yanukovych’s ouster, the impeachment procedure enshrined in Article 111 of the constitution requires a special investigatory commission to formulate charges against the president, a ruling by the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court and multiple (decisive) votes in parliament.

Days after the coup, Baird led a delegation of Conservative Party MPs and Ukrainian-Canadian representatives to meet acting president Oleksandr Turchynov and new prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was Nuland’s preference. Canada’s foreign minister announced an immediate $200,000 in medical assistance for those injured in the political violence. Subsequently, Ottawa announced $220 million in aid to the interim government. Harper said, “I think we really have to credit the Ukrainian people themselves with resisting the attempt to overturn their democracy and to lead their country back into the past.”

After the coup, Canada’s PM was the first G7 leader to visit the interim government. Alongside Baird and Justice Minister Peter MacKay, Harper told the acting president, “you have provided inspiration and a new chapter in humanity’s ongoing story of the struggle for freedom, democracy and justice.” During his visit to shore up the US and Canadian-installed government, Harper accused Vladimir Putin of seeking to destabilize international security and return the world to the “law of the jungle.” In support of the unconstitutional change of power, Harper visited the authorities in Kyiv twice in under two months.

All this is history. But over the past week the Canadian media has all but ignored the ten-year anniversary of Yanukovych’s ouster. It complicates the narrative that the war is simply explained by Russia’s aggression. Understanding the background to the war is essential to finding an exit to the it.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

At least four journalists were briefly detained last Friday and Saturday while reporting on gatherings to mourn Navalny’s sudden death in prison on Friday, February 16, according to media reports and three of the journalists, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. 

“The detention of at least four journalists covering the public expression of mourning by Russian people after the announcement of the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny is not surprising given the Russian authorities’ long history of harassing journalists covering pro-Navalny demonstrations,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Journalists should be able to report on tributes to Navalny and freely cover events of public interest without fear of being detained.” 

At about 9 p.m. last Friday, police detained Elina Kozich, a correspondent with independent news outlet RusNews, and Aleksei Dushutin, a photojournalist with the independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta, while they were covering a spontaneous memorial gathering for Navalny in Saint Petersburg, Kozich told CPJ and the independent news website SOTA reported. RusNews posted a video of Kozich being detained on Telegram. 

“I had my press card on me, which the police officer saw, and I also told him that I was a journalist,” she told CPJ. “The officer himself did not introduce himself, did not tell me why I was being detained, but simply said, ‘Let’s go, press.’”

The two journalists were driven to the police station, where they were held in the police van for over an hour and had their press cards and IDs photographed, before being released, Kozich told CPJ. 

Separately on Friday, police detained RusNews correspondent Yulia Petrova while she was doing a live broadcast from a square in Moscow, where people had come to lay flowers to a monument to the victims of political repression, Petrova told CPJ. 

“After two hours of broadcasting I decided to move to the side where people were supposed to leave the square. A police officer was shouting that people can’t stand there even for a second. I stood for only two minutes, then an officer came and tried to grab my phone. Then another man came, he was not wearing uniform, his face was covered with a piece of cloth, and he was wearing a cap so I could only see his eyes. He grabbed my hand and started twisting my arm. The officer said that they will take me to the police truck and started threatening me but I said that I was not going anywhere with a man without uniform as it was not detention but kidnapping. Then they both twisted my arms and took me to the police truck,” she said. She stayed in the police truck for about 40 minutes, before being released, she told CPJ. 

She added that she went to report on another gathering in Moscow last Saturday. “I heard on their [police] radio set that they had a direction [instruction] not to detain the press but they tried to prevent me from taking videos, pushed me and pressed me down many times. All my friends who came to lay flowers were detained, some of them are now under arrest,” she said.

At around 1 p.m. last Saturday, police in the central city of Chelyabinsk arrested RusNews correspondent Kseniya Starikova as she filmed an unidentified man removing flowers that had been placed in Navalny’s memory on a monument to the victims of political repression, RusNews reported and Starikova told CPJ via messaging app. Starikova said she was taken to the police station and released shortly after showing a digital photo of her press accreditation and editorial assignment document.

More than 400 people attending Navalny memorials in 36 Russian cities were detained on Friday and Saturday, the human rights news website OVD-Info reported.

Dozens of journalists have been detained in Russia in recent years while covering pro-Navalny protests, as CPJ has documented. 

On February 21, the independent weekly Sobesednik reported that the outlet’s latest issue, dated from February 20 and featuring Navalny on the front page, had been withdrawn from distribution sites in Moscow, according to media reports.

“All this is very serious and even a little scary for us. We don’t know why the number was confiscated: we didn’t break any laws,” Sobesednik journalist Elena Milchanovska told the media group Ostorozhno Media. CPJ emailed Sobesednik for comment, but did not immediately receive any reply.

Navalny, who was 47 when he died in an Arctic penal colony, rose to prominence as a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin. Navalny made global headlines in 2020 when he fell ill on a plane from poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. Russia denied involvement. After months of medical treatment in Germany, Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 and was arrested upon arrival. 

CPJ did not receive a response to its emails to Moscow, Chelyabinsk, and Saint Petersburg police requesting comment on the journalists’ arrests.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Belarusian authorities continue using their shameful ‘extremism’ legislation by imprisoning journalists who have worked for media that they have arbitrarily banned from operating in the country,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. “Authorities should drop all charges against former Ranak journalists Liudmila Andenka and Yulia Dovletov, release them immediately, and ensure that no journalists are jailed for their work.”

On Thursday, December 7, authorities in the southeastern city of Svietlahorsk detained Andenka and Dovletova, respectively a former reporter and former editor-in-chief of Ranak.me, a website affiliated with privately-owned broadcaster Ranak, according to multiple media reports, the advocacy and trade group Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), which operates from exile, and a Facebook post by former Ranak reporter Andrei Lipski. 

Speaking to CPJ via email, Lipski said that both Andenka and Dovletova are being held at a temporary detention center for 72 hours. Authorities charged Dovletova with “creating an extremist formation or participating in it,” Lipski told CPJ, without specifying if Andenka was facing the same charges. If found guilty, Dovletova faces up to 10 years in jail, according to the Belarusian Criminal Code. 

The status of Alena Shcherbin, Ranak’s former director with whom contact was lost on Thursday evening, was still unknown as of December 8, according to a BAJ representative who spoke to CPJ under condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

“My relatives received calls from the police demanding access to my apartment in Svietlahorsk,” Lipski, who is located outside Belarus, wrote on Facebook.

Lipski told CPJ that a court will decide on Monday whether to extend the journalists’ detention. “We all, former [Ranak employees], are very worried about the fate of our colleagues,” he said.

On September 5, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs labeled the privately-owned broadcaster Ranak an “extremist formation,” BAJ reported. In June, authorities detained four Ranak journalists, including Lipski, on charges of distributing extremist materials and held two of them for several days. The persecution of the outlet and its journalists allegedly stemmed from Ranak’s coverage of a June 7 explosion of a pulp and paper mill in Svietlahorsk, BAJ reported.

Belarusian authorities had previously searched the outlet’s office and some of its journalists’ apartments in 2020 and 2021. In 2020, Ranak covered the nationwide protests demanding Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s resignation.

CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency in charge of criminal investigations, for comment but did not receive any response.

Belarus was the world’s fifth worst jailer of journalists, with at least 26 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2022, when CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Belarusian journalist Yuliya Mudreuskaya should never have been detained by authorities in the first place; her recent sentencing to 18 months in a penal colony is a grave abuse of power,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Mudreuskaya and all other journalists held behind bars must be released immediately. Belarusian authorities should stop holding secretive trials of journalists and must allow members of the press to work freely and safely.”

Mudreuskaya’s sentencing was reported by Viasna, a banned human rights group that continues to operate unofficially, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists, an advocacy and trade group operating from exile. Those reports, published on January 14, say Mudreuskaya was convicted in 2022, her appeal was rejected, and she has begun her sentence.

Authorities detained Mudreuskaya, chief editor of the automobile news website ABW.by, along with Yury Hladchuk, the outlet’s branded content editor, on June 16, 2022. On June 16 and 17, the pro-government Telegram channel Center E published “confession” videos of the journalists, which CPJ reviewed.

Mudreuskaya’s trial began on September 19 and Hladchuk’s began on December 2, according to Viasna and the BAJ, which said that no new information was available concerning Hladchuk’s status.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On December 1, the Belarusian Ministry of Information ordered Belarusy y Rynok’s registration to be annulled, according to a December 12 statement by the outlet, media reports, and a copy of the decision, which CPJ reviewed.

Authorities accuse Belarusy y Rynok of violating a section of the country’s media law barring outlets from being more than 20 percent owned by non-Belarusians or by foreign entities, according to those reports and Belarusy y Rynok majority shareholder Dzmitry Novikau, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.

Novikau told CPJ that the outlet’s foreign founding members had already given up their shares after a law limiting foreign ownership was enacted in 2021, but said authorities refused to register the documents reflecting that change.

“By revoking the registration of Belarusy y Rynok, Belarusian authorities have put an end to the release of a historical newspaper that has courageously continued to provide independent reporting for over 30 years,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities must immediately reverse the cancellation of Belarusy y Rynok’s registration, and let all media outlets work freely.”

In its statement, Belarusy y Rynok said it would stop printing to comply with the order.

“For now, the outlet’s social media and YouTube are still being updated,” Belarusy y Rynok chief editor Andrei Aleksandrovich told CPJ in a phone interview. “No appeal against the order of the Belarusian Ministry of Information is planned.”

Belarusy y Rynok, which was founded in 1990, called itself the “oldest independent Belarusian newspaper” in its statement. It recently covered the country’s economic difficulties and Ukrainian authorities’ confiscation of Belarusian companies’ property.

In May 2022, authorities in Minsk searched Belarusy y Rynok’s editorial office and detained Aleksandrovich, the outlet’s director Kanstantsin Zalatykh, and an accountant, Yulia Kahno.

Zalatykh remains in detention and faces charges of inciting hatred, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in jail, according to Viasna, a banned human rights group that continues to operate unofficially.

The Ministry of Information blocked Belarusy y Rynok’s website in July, according to media reports.

CPJ emailed the Belarusian Ministry of Information for comment, but did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On Thursday, September 8, authorities searched the homes of at least five journalists in cities across Russia over their alleged connection to Ilya Ponomarev, a former Duma member charged with spreading false information about the army, according to multiple news reports.

“Russian authorities’ harassment of journalists throughout the country over their alleged connections to a man accused of spreading false information about the military is just another example of how the country’s government will jump at any chance to investigate members of the press,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “Authorities must stop targeting journalists with searches, interrogations, and other forms of harassment, and allow them to work freely.”

On August 21, Ponomarev claimed that a car bombing that killed Darya Dugina, the daughter of one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allies, was organized by a group called the National Republican Army, which Ponomarev said aimed to overthrow Putin’s government, according to news reports. Ponomarev, who lives in Ukraine, was charged on August 9 under a Russian law that bans spreading “fakes” about the military.

Convictions under that law impose prison sentences of up to 15 years and fines of up to 5 million rubles (US$82,000).

On Thursday, police in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don searched the home of Bella Nasibyan, a reporter with independent news website RusNews, and took her to the local Center for Combating Extremism for questioning, according to media reports.

Authorities froze her bank accounts earlier than day and later released Nasibyan after naming her as a witness in the case against Ponomarev, according to those sources. CPJ contacted Nasibyan’s outlet via messaging app but did not receive a reply.

Police in the central city of Yekaterinburg also searched the apartment of Vladislav Postnikov, editor-in-chief of the independent Vecherniye Vedomosti newspaper, and seized his electronic devices, according to media reports.

Postnikov, who was not home during the search, later appeared for questioning at the local Center for Combating Extremism, where authorities said he was also a witness in the Ponomarev case, according to several media reports. CPJ contacted Vecherniye Vedomosti via messaging app but did not receive any reply.

In a copy of authorities’ search warrant published by Vecherniye Vedomosti, investigators alleged that Postnikov gave Ponomarev materials that the ex-Duma member had used “to discredit the Russian army.” In that post, his outlet said that Postnikov was not familiar with Ponomarev and had condemned his statements.

Previously, Vecherniye Vedomosti was fined 150,000 rubles (US$2,415) and 200,000 rubles (US$3,290) for discrediting the Russian army; Postnikov was fined 100,000 rubles (US$1,650) as CPJ documented and media reported. 

Also on Thursday, police searched the homes of Ruslan Sukhushin, a photographer, in Moscow; Yulia Glazova, a reporter with news website 86.ru, in the central city of Tyumen; and Viktor Zyryanov, a founder of local independent news website Orlets, in the town of Reutov in the Moscow region, news reports said.

All three were also named as witnesses in Ponomarev’s case, and were released later on Thursday, those reports said, adding that authorities seized technical equipment from Glazova and Sukhushin’s homes.

CPJ emailed Glazova and Orlets for more information on the raids, but did not receive any responses. CPJ was unable to immediately find contact information for Sukhushin.

Russian authorities announced on Thursday that they had taken “investigative action in several Russian regions” against the administrators of February Morning, a news project Ponomarev launched in 2022 on YouTube and Telegram, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

February Morning editors denied any connection with the five journalists targeted in Thursday’s raids, adding that they supported the journalists and “oppose the repression of independent media.”

“Under the pretext of combating ‘fakes about the army,’ a total cleansing of independent journalism in the regions is taking place,” the outlet said.

Ponomarev tweeted about the searches, writing that Russian authorities were misguided in their search, writing, “If you’re looking for NRA [National Republican Army] cells among regional journalists, you’re even dumber than we thought!”

CPJ was unable to contact the Russian Interior Ministry for comment as its website did not load.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On March 11, law enforcement searched the home of Luksha, a freelance journalist with the Kazakh state-funded television station Khabar 24, detained him, and charged him with allegedly discrediting the Republic of Belarus under Article 369.1 of the criminal code and organizing or participating in gross violations of public order under Article 342.1, according to Viasna, a banned Belarusian human rights group. If found guilty on both charges, he faces eight years in jail.

Luksha’s detention was not made public until May 17, when Viasna reported that the journalist had been detained for two months and criminally charged over his reporting. Luksha is being held in the Valadarskaga Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1 in the capital Minsk.

“The fact that freelance journalist Dzmitry Luksha’s detention was kept secret until activists learned about it by accident more than two months later shows that the Belarusian authorities continue to harass independent journalists and do so under the radar,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities in Belarus must immediately drop all charges against Luksha, release him and other journalists, and stop conducting their political repressions behind closed doors.”

According to a report by the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), a local advocacy and trade group, Luksha’s charges likely stem from his latest reporting on Belarus’ alleged involvement alongside Russia in the war in Ukraine. The material, broadcast on March 6, was removed from Khabar 24’s website but remains accessible online.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russia has used Belarusian territory as a platform for the deployment of troops and military assaults on Ukraine, according to news reports.

Luksha worked for Belteleradiocompany, the state television and radio broadcasting service, and RTVi, the privately owned international Russian-language television network, before joining Khabar 24 in 2018 as a freelance correspondent in Belarus, according to reports.

Luksha has repeatedly filmed reports for Khabar 24 about the 2020 protests in Belarus and the subsequent crackdown and has been outspoken about the country’s political situation on social media, according to the BAJ.

Separately, on May 18, the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) in Minsk detained Konstantin Zalatykh, director of the independent business newspaper Belarusy y Rynok, chief editor Andrei Aleksandrovich, and accountant Yulia Kahno, according to a report by the BAJ and a statement by Belarusy y Rynok.

Zalatykh, whose technical equipment was confiscated, was charged under Article 130 of the criminal code for “incitement of national, racial, religious, or social hatred,” BAJ reported. Aleksandrovich and Kahno were both released later that day; Aleksandrovich was questioned as a witness in Zalatykh’s case and had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Belarusy y Rynok reported. CPJ is investigating to determine if the charges are related to the outlet’s reporting.

CPJ emailed Khabar 24’s editorial office but did not receive an answer. CPJ called the Belarusian Ministry of Interior for comment, but no one answered.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On Monday, March 21, authorities in the Siberian region of Kemerovo detained Novashov, a reporter with the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster RFE/RL’s project Sibir.Realii, and charged him with distributing “fake” information, according to a report by RFE/RL and a copy of his charge sheet shared online by Net Freedoms Project, a legal aid organization.

According to that charge sheet, the case against Novashov stems from a March 10 post he published on the Russian social media network VKontakte, in which he shared an eyewitness account of Russian attacks and the siege of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, which had previously been posted on Facebook by a journalist in Mariupol.

If convicted of spreading “fakes” about Russia’s military, Novashov could face up to 15 years in prison under legislation passed earlier this month. That RFE/RL report said the journalist is being held in a temporary detention center.

“Russian authorities must release journalist Andrei Novashov at once and drop all the charges against him,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said, in New York. “While Russian authorities are waging a war on Ukraine, they are also waging an information war against their own people by silencing dissenting voices, including those of journalists.”

On his VKontakte page, Novashov frequently shares news and commentary about Russian politics and the war in Ukraine. His March 10 post has about 580 views. At Sibir.Realii, Novashov has covered local news in Kemerovo, including protests against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing police crackdown.

CPJ emailed the Kemerovo regional prosecutor’s office for comment, but did not immediately receive any reply.

Separately, on March 18, Russian authorities questioned Sibir.Realii reporter Svetlana Prokopyeva, a recipient of CPJ’s 2020 International Press Freedom Award, according to a report by RFE/RL, which said she is a witness in a libel case against the governor of the Pskov region.

Another RFE/RL report states that authorities in Kaliningrad summoned Yulia Paramonova to the local prosecutor’s office for questioning about her work with the RFE/RL affiliate Sever.Realii, including about its status as a “foreign agent.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.