Zelensky: Russia ‘will try to hide the traces of their crimes’
Niamh Cavanagh, Producer – April 5, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russian military of plotting to cover up the mass killing of his country’s civilians in a bid to “distort the facts.”
Speaking in an emotional address to the nation in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Zelensky warned that Kremlin-led forces were attempting to hide the atrocities that were committed in the areas still occupied by Moscow. His speech comes days after hundreds of Ukrainian civilians were reportedly found dead in Kyiv suburbs like Bucha in the aftermath of the recent withdrawal of Russian troops in the region.
In his 10-minute speech, Zelensky accused Russia of using the same propaganda tactics it used when a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight was shot down in 2014 over eastern Ukraine. An independent Dutch investigation found that Russian-backed rebels downed the plane with a surface-to-air missile, killing 298 people. Russia blamed the Ukrainian government for the tragedy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks from Kyiv on Monday. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
“They used the same tactics when the occupiers shot down a Malaysian Boeing over Donbas,” Zelensky said. “They blamed Ukraine. They even came up with various conspiracy theories. They even went so far as to claim that the corpses were ‘thrown’ on board the plane before it crashed.”
Zelensky made his comments undoubtedly aware that the Russian government is already promoting implausible theories to explain the images and video of bodies littering the streets of Bucha. The Russian Defense Ministry suggested that some of the dead civilians were actually actors pretending to be dead, claiming that the video shows the bodies still moving. Independent media fact checkers and satellite images contradict Russia’s claims; the many journalists documenting the aftermath of the killings also undermine Russia’s case.
Ukrainian servicemen carry a dead body found in a basement in the city of Bucha, Ukraine, on Monday. (Marko Djurica/Reuters)
“We must also be aware that after the revealed mass killings of civilians in the Kyiv region, the occupiers may have a different attitude to their crimes in another part of our country where they came,” Zelensky said. “They are already launching a false campaign to conceal their guilt in the mass killings of civilians in Mariupol. They will do dozens of stage interviews, reedited recordings, and will kill people specifically to make it look like they were killed by someone else.”
He added: “Probably now the occupiers will try to hide the traces of their crimes. They did not do this in Bucha when they retreated. But in another area it is possible.”
Last week, the head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine told Reuters that thousands of civilians may have died in the besieged port city of Mariupol since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24. The estimate includes around 210 children. Russian forces have blockaded the city, which has spent weeks without access to food, water or electricity, and it may be some time before the full extent of the devastation there is known.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted on Monday that he had spoken to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and told him that Ukraine would “collect evidence and hold Russian war criminals to account.”
President Biden said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin should face a war crimes investigation for the deaths in Bucha.
Zelensky is due to address the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday. His office said he “will give all the evidence” to the international community.
Zelensky, center, walks through Bucha on Monday. (Ronaldo Schemidy/AFP via Getty Images)
PRAGUE (Reuters) -The Czech Republic has sent T-72 tanks and BVP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, a Czech defence source told Reuters on Tuesday, confirming a local media report.
Public broadcaster Czech Television initially reported the shipment, showing footage on Twitter of a train loaded with five tanks and five fighting vehicles. It said the shipment was a gift agreed with NATO allies.
The broadcaster said the information was confirmed by the head of the Czech lower house’s European Affairs Committee Ondrej Benesik, who told Reuters he received the information from his Christian Democrat Party’s expert on defence.
The source, from the Czech defense community, also confirmed that the tanks and fighting vehicles had been sent but declined to give any further details, citing security concerns.
Defence Minister Jana Cernochova told parliament she would not confirm or deny details of Czech aid to Ukraine.
“I will only assure you that the Czech Republic … is helping Ukraine as much as it can and will continue to help by (supplying) military equipment, both light and heavy,” Cernochova said.
A spokesperson for the Defence Ministry said the Czech Republic had sent military aid worth nearly 1 billion crowns ($45 million) to Ukraine since the beginning of the war on Feb. 24 but declined to give any further details.
The Czech vehicles are only the latest example of military equipment coming from the West. Germany on April 1 approved the delivery to Ukraine of several dozen infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) amid criticism that Berlin has not been sending enough military aid to Kyiv.
NATO allies will discuss the delivery of more weapons to Ukraine when foreign ministers meet on Wednesday and Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
($1 = 22.1960 Czech crowns)
(Reporting by Robert Muller and Jan Lopatka; Editing by David Goodman and David Holmes)
Explainer: could Vladimir Putin be prosecuted for war crimes?
David Smith in Washington – April 4, 2022
Photograph: Sputnik/Reuters
Joe Biden has called for the prosecution of Vladimir Putin for war crimes after the discovery in Bucha, Ukraine, of mass graves and bodies of bound civilians shot at close range. But bringing the Russian president to trial would be far from simple.
What are war crimes?
The international criminal court (ICC), the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal, defines them as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions, a set of humanitarian laws to be observed in war.
Jonathan Hafetz, an international criminal law and national security scholar at Seton Hall University School of Law, told the Reuters news agency that the execution of civilians as alleged in Bucha was a “quintessential war crime”.
Russia continues to deny culpability. Its defence ministry insisted on Sunday that “not a single civilian has faced any violent action by the Russian military”.
How can a case pointing to war crimes be built?
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, told reporters on Monday that there were four main sources of evidence: information gathered by the US and its allies including from intelligence sources; Ukraine’s own efforts on the ground to develop the case and document forensics from the killings; material from international organisations including the UN and NGOs; and findings by global independent media with photos, interviews and documentation.
Can Putin be held personally responsible for his troops’ actions?
The prosecution could argue that Putin and his inner circle committed a war crime by directly ordering an illegal attack or knew crimes were being committed and failed to prevent them. This case may be hard to prove in isolation but if it fits a wider pattern across Ukraine, it becomes more compelling. The US had accused Russia of war crimes even before Bucha.
Philippe Sands, a professor at University College London, told the Associated Press: “You’ve got to prove that they knew or they could have known or should have known. There’s a real risk you end up with trials of mid-level people in three years and the main people responsible for this horror – Putin, Lavrov, the minister of defence, the intelligence folks, the military folks and the financiers who are supporting it – will get off the hook.”
Who would run such a trial?
The ICC opened 20 years ago to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity. But the US, China, Russia and Ukraine are not members of the court, which has been criticised for focusing too heavily on Africa and applying “selective justice”.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, said in February he had opened a war crimes investigation in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Although it is not a signatory, Ukraine previously approved an investigation dating back to 2013, which includes Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The ICC will issue arrest warrants if prosecutors can show “reasonable grounds” to believe war crimes were committed. But there is little chance that Russia would comply and the ICC cannot try someone in absentia. The US’s unwillingness to join the court is also diplomatically awkward and likely to prompt cries of western hypocrisy.
Donald Trump once told the UN general assembly: “As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.” His administration announced that the US would impose visa bans on ICC officials involved in the court’s potential investigation of Americans for alleged crimes in Afghanistan.
But Sullivan said on Monday: “The US has in the past been able to collaborate with the international criminal court in other contexts despite not being a signatory. But there’s a variety of reasons one might consider alternative venues as well.”
What are these “alternative venues”?
The UN seems an obvious starting point. But one problem with going through the UN security council is that Russia is a permanent member. “It would be difficult to imagine that they would not attempt to exercise their veto to block something,” Sullivan observed.
Another option might be a special tribunal organised by a group of countries. The Nuremberg tribunal was established by the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union to hold Nazi leaders to account after the second world war.
Potential models for Ukraine could include the tribunals set up to prosecute war crimes committed during the Balkan wars in the early 1990s and the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Another example was the UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone, established in 2002 to bring to justice those responsible for atrocities perpetrated during the country’s country’s civil war in 1996.
What about a different charge?
It would be easier to prosecute Putin for the crime of aggression after he waged an unprovoked war against another sovereign country. The ICC does not have jurisdiction over Russia for the crime of aggression because Russia is not a signatory.
Last month dozens of prominent lawyers and politicians, including the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown, launched a campaign to create a special tribunal to try Russia for the crime of aggression in Ukraine.
How long would a prosecution take?
Probably many years. The international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicted its first head of state, the then Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milošević, in 1999 and took him into custody in 2001. His trial began in 2002 and was under way when he died at the Hague in 2006.
Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, was found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting rebels who carried out atrocities after four years of hearings at the special court for Sierra Leone in the Hague.
‘Nobody negotiated with Hitler,’ Polish PM says, berating France’s Macron over Putin talks
April 4, 2022
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Biden visits Poland
WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland on Monday berated French President Emmanuel Macron for negotiating with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying “nobody negotiated with Hitler”, amid an international outcry over killings of civilians during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine on Sunday accused Russian forces of carrying out a “massacre” in Bucha and Western leaders reacted with outrage to images of bodies strewn across the streets of the town. Russia denies Ukraine’s accusation.
Poland has on many occasions called for harsher sanctions on Russia and supply more arms to Ukraine. It has also called for an international tribunal to investigate killings of civilians in Ukraine.
“Mr. President Macron, how many times have you negotiated with Putin, what have you achieved? Have you stopped any of the actions that have taken place?” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a press conference on Monday.
“One should not negotiate with criminals, one should fight them…Nobody negotiated with Hitler. Would you negotiate with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot?” he added.
Macron’s office said in a response that it is important for President Putin to understand the demands of Western countries and the cost for Russia of disregarding them.
“From the onset, the president has used all available means to make Putin stop the war: massive sanctions, support to Ukraine, demands made directly to President Putin during their calls,” a French presidential official said.
Macron has spared no effort to mediate between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, travelling to Moscow and Kyiv in early February and speaking to Putin 16 times since the start of the year in telephone conversations the Elysée says have been confrontational but offered an opportunity to keep a communication channel open and gauge Putin’s state of mind.
Elysée officials have in the past offered scathing readouts of the calls, saying Putin has appeared “paranoid” in these calls, has lied to the French leader and that Macron told him he made a serious mistake in invading Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Russia sent its forces into Ukraine on what Putin called a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” the country. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz in Warsaw and Michel Rose in Paris; Writing by Anna Koper and Michel Rose; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
The plane, 275 feet long with a wingspan stretching 290 feet, could carry 550,000 pounds of cargo, according to the aircraft’s manufacturer, Antonov Co., which would also make it the world’s heaviest aircraft. In comparison, the Boeing 747-8, one of the largest commercial planes in use, is 250 feet long with a 224-foot wingspan.
In use since 1988, Mriya was recently used mainly to transport medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Ukrainian aerospace and defense company Ukroboronprom confirmed the wreckage in a Feb. 27 Facebook post, saying the plane was undergoing repairs at the airport, so it didn’t have time to flee before the attack, But the company said the plane “will definitely be restored,” estimating it would take more than five years and cost about $3 billion.
“The invaders destroyed the plane, but they will not be able to destroy our common dream. She will surely be reborn,” Ukroboronprom wrote.
As Ukrainian troops guarded the entrance to Antonov Airport to protect the runway, the wreckage of the Mriya could be seen underneath a hangar, pockmarked with holes from the February attack.
A Ukrainian serviceman observes the Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft.A Ukrainian serviceman touches the nose of the destroyed Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft.Ukrainian servicemen stand next to the destroyed Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft.A Ukrainian serviceman walks past the Antonov An-225 aircraft.Ukrainian servicemen walk by an Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft.Ukrainian servicemen shout patriotic slogans backdropped by the destroyed Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft.Ukrainian servicemen walk by the destroyed Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft.
Contributing: Ella Lee, Karina Zaiets, George Petras, Javier Zarracina, USA TODAY; Associated Press
Bucha mayor: Russians ‘will never be forgiven, on this earth or in heaven,’ for Ukraine atrocities
Colin Campbell, Managing Editor – April 4, 2022
The mayor of Bucha, Ukraine, forcefully condemned all of Russia on Monday for the widespread civilian deaths in his town, the full extent of which became apparent only amid the withdrawal of Russian forces from the region.
Anatoliy Fedoruk, the mayor of the city on the northwestern outskirts of Kyiv, told CNN that he had remained in Bucha during the Russian occupation and witnessed the subsequent atrocities.
“We all were witnesses to the horrific events and the horrific crimes that the Russians committed here. And we will never forgive the Russian people — not personally, not individually, but on the whole — we will not forgive the Russian people for the atrocities that happened here,” Fedoruk said, speaking through an interpreter.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian officials and various media outlets shared shocking scenes emerging from Bucha, one of a number of suburbs abandoned by Russian forces as they’ve pulled back from the capital, Kyiv. Dead bodies littered the streets, some with their hands tied behind their backs, apparently shot at close range.
The images sparked a fresh wave of condemnation from European leaders, who called for investigations into the alleged war crimes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was more blunt, saying, “This is genocide.” Russia denied responsibility.
A mass grave behind a church in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, on Sunday. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)
Ukrainian officials said a total of 410 dead civilians were found in Kyiv region towns like Bucha that were recaptured from Russia in recent days. “They shot everyone they saw,” a Bucha resident told the New York Times.
Fedoruk said both elderly and children were among the victims in his city.
“It was impossible not to see that they were children, not to see that a mother is carrying a child. These cynical atrocities is what the Russian troops are all about; that’s what Russia is all about. And we shall never forgive them. They will never be forgiven, on this earth or in heaven,” he told CNN.
Zelensky similarly addressed his condemnations to the broader Russian people, asking how they were capable of such violence.
Soldiers walk amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha on Sunday. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
“Russian mothers! Even if you raised looters, how did they also become butchers?” he asked in a Sunday speech. “You couldn’t be unaware of what’s inside your children. You couldn’t overlook that they are deprived of everything human. No soul. No heart. They killed deliberately and with pleasure.”
Zelensky said his government would set up a special investigative unit for the alleged war crimes, with the goal of bringing “concrete justice” to the perpetrators.
Cover thumbnail photo: Bucha City Council/Handout via Reuters
Donbas Conscripts Given Guns From 1800s and Forced to Drink Water From Ponds Infested With Dead Frogs
Tom Sykes – April 4, 2022
Maximilian Clarke/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Some conscripts to the Russian war effort from the Donbas region are turning on their commanders and refusing to fight on, after being handed antiquated rifles designed in the 19th century, and forced to drink from ponds littered with dead frogs.
One student draftee was given an automatic weapon but no instructions on how to fire it. The student, speaking to Reuters, said he was ordered to repel an attack by Ukrainian forces, but told a reporter: “I don’t even know how to fire an automatic weapon.”
The student said he was put in a mortar unit but was “taught nothing… Up to that point I had only seen mortars in movies. Obviously, I didn’t know how to do anything with them.”
The wife of another untrained Donbas draftee told Reuters: “He doesn’t even really know how to hold an automatic weapon.”
The report follows dozens of Western intelligence briefings and information shared by Ukrainian officials, which suggest that morale within the Russian forces is at breaking point and supply lines are a disaster.
Last week, a Russian soldier was caught on tape lamenting the huge losses they were taking and complaining that the army was full of “morons.”
“Our brigade has totally shit themselves. There are losses, many wounded,” he told his wife. “It’s unclear why we are even here,” he said.
Ukraine has made advances in dozens of regions where Russian forces made initial inroads, revealing the true scale of the horror perpetrated in President Putin’s name.
Reuters said that it spoke to six people for the report. In addition to the student it spoke to “three wives of conscripts who have mobile phone contact with their partners, one acquaintance of a draftee, and one source close to the pro-Russian separatist leadership who is helping to organize supplies for the Donbas armed forces.”
Draftees from the separatist Donbas region are not part of the Russian army but are fighting alongside them.
The overall picture that emerges from the report is of untrained and expendable conscripts providing ineffective support to their Russian counterparts. Reuters says Donbas conscripts “were given the highly dangerous mission of drawing enemy fire onto themselves so other units could identify the Ukrainian positions and bomb them.”
The claim tallies with a video published by Ukraine on March 12 in which a prisoner of war, who said he was an untrained civil servant from Donbas, said he was ordered to draw enemy fire in Mariupol to give away Ukrainian positions.
Reuters said that “several” of the draftees have been armed with bolt action Mosin rifles, which were first produced in the 1880s by the Russian Empire, and were the workhorse firearm of the Russian army for decades. Production ceased after World War II, however large stockpiles of the weapon survive. They were last manufactured, in small numbers, by Finland in 1973.
The student conscript said: “It’s like we’re fighting with World War II muskets,” adding, “I hate the war. I don’t want it, curse it. Why are they sending me into a slaughterhouse?”
In another episode that clearly illustrates weak morale, Reuters says a group of some 135 Donbas conscripts in Mariupol mutinied by putting down their weapons and refusing to continue to fight. The men were kept in a basement by their commanders before being released.
The report also highlights the widely reported supply-line issues affecting the Russian war effort, with three sources saying draftees had to drink untreated water, and scavenge for food.
“We drank water with dead frogs in it,” the student said, while a source described as being “close to the Donetsk separatist leadership” told Reuters: “Supplies for the soldiers right now are a disaster.”
The Kremlin told Reuters that the issues raised were for the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) to answer. The DNR did not comment.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu Gets Laughs, Applause for Calling Trump ‘F—ing Crazy’ at D.C. Roast
Aaron Parsley – April 4, 2022
Christopher Sununu, Donald Trump
Scott Eisen/Getty; Brandon Bell/Getty
At a white-tie gathering of politicians and members of the press, Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu cracked that former President Donald Trump was “f—ing crazy,” delighting guests at the Gridiron Club’s roast-like dinner on Saturday night.
The annual event is a Washington, D.C., tradition that brings together members of both major political parties as well as the media to enjoy a night of laughs at their own expense.
“You know, he’s probably going to be the next president,” Sununu, 47, said of Trump, adding that Trump’s “experience,” “sense of integrity” and “rationale” came through in his tweets, according to Politico. “Nah, I’m just kidding. He’s f—ing crazy!”
“The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy,” Sununu continued, according to The Washington Post, which also reported laughs and applause in the audience but no booing for the jokes. “And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out!”
The Associated Press reports that speakers, which typically includes the sitting U.S. president, are expected to “singe” but “not burn” high-profile political figures.
(Sununu, for example, also riffed on Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki‘s reported plans to leave the White House for a role with NBC and MSNBC.)
Joe Biden
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden did not attend the event in person but delivered remarks via video.
“I really wanted to be with you tonight, but the truth is I just couldn’t find a seven-hour-and-37-minutes gap in my schedule,” Biden joked, referencing an unusual, hours-long omission in Trump’s call logs from Jan. 6, 2021, while the U.S. Capitol was engulfed in pro-Trump violence.
“I get the sense even if I’m not at the dinner,” the president also said, the Post reports, “I’m going to be on the menu.”
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo did attend on behalf of the Biden administration and delivered a line that met the expectation that speakers make fun of themselves even as she jokingly complained about it.
“Self-deprecating jokes?” she said, according to the Post. “No one knows who I am.”
Ukraine morning briefing: Five developments as Russians forced to retreat from key northern areas
Our Foreign Staff – April 4, 2022
Tanya Nedashkivs’ka, 57, mourns the death of her husband, killed in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv – AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
Good morning. Russian troops are preparing for a big attack in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, officials warned on Monday night, urging a mass evacuation.
However, in the North the Ukrainians are pushing back their adversaries.
1. MoD: Ukraine gains back ground
Ukrainian forces have retaken key northern terrain, forcing Russian troops to retreat from areas around the city of Chernihiv and north of Kyiv, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday.
Low-level fighting is likely to continue in some of the recaptured areas, it warned, but will reduce this week as the remainder of the Russian forces withdraw.
Many Russian units withdrawing from northern Ukraine are likely to require significant re-equipping and refurbishment before being available to redeploy for operations in eastern Ukraine, such as an expected attack on the Luhansk region.
2. Zelensky to address UN today
Volodymyr Zelensky will address the UN Security Council for the first time at a meeting on Tuesday that is certain to focus on what appears to be deliberate killings in the town of Bucha on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv.
The discovery after the withdrawal of Russian troops has sparked global outrage and vehement denials from the Russian government.
According to Ukraine’s prosecutor-general Iryna Venediktova, the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns that were recently retaken from Russian forces.
Mr Zelensky said his government was “doing everything possible to identify all the Russian military involved in these crimes as soon as possible”.
He added: “The time will come when every Russian will learn the whole truth about who of their fellow citizens killed, who gave orders, who turned a blind eye to the murders. We will establish all of this – and make it known to the world.”
3. Kick Russia off UN council, says Ukraine
There should be no place for Russia on the UN Human Rights Council, Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Monday night.
“Spoke with UN Secretary General @AntonioGuterres on the current security situation and the Bucha massacre,” Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.
“Stressed that Ukraine will use all available UN mechanisms to collect evidence and hold Russian war criminals to account. No place for Russia on the UN Human Rights Council.”
Russia will respond proportionately to the expulsion of its diplomats from a number of Western countries, its ex-president Dmitry Medvedev said late on Monday.
“Everyone knows the answer: it will be symmetrical and destructive for bilateral relations,” Mr Medvedev said in a posting on his Telegram channel. “Who have they punished? First of all, themselves.”
Volodymyr Zelensky visited Bucha on Monday – AP
On Monday, France said it would expel 35 Russian diplomats over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Germany declared a “significant number” of Russian diplomats as undesirable.
“If this continues, it will be fitting, as I wrote back on 26th February – to slam shut the door on Western embassies,” Mr Medvedev said. “It will be cheaper for everyone. And then we will end up just looking at each other in no other way than through gunsights.”
5. Russia nears default as US stops bond payments
Russia’s latest sovereign bond coupon payments have been stopped, a spokesman for the US Treasury said, putting it closer to a historic default.
The latest payments have not received authorisation by the US Treasury to be processed by correspondent bank JPMorgan, Reuters reported.
The payments were due on bonds due in 2022 and 2042. The correspondent bank processes the coupon payments from Russia, sending them to the payment agent to distribute to overseas bondholders.
A US Treasury spokesman said: “Today is the deadline for Russia to make another debt payment. Beginning today, the US Treasury will not permit any dollar debt payments to be made from Russian government accounts at US financial institutions. Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default.”
Why Putin faces “more NATO” in the Arctic after Ukraine invasion
Robin Emmott, Essi Lehto and Simon Johnson – April 4, 2022
“Cold Response 2022” NATO military exercise, in SetermoenA general view of Imatra“Cold Response 2022” NATO military exercise, in SetermoenA view of the border crossing point with Russia in Imatra
BARDUFOSS, Norway (Reuters) – The sound of gunfire echoed around the Norwegian fjords as a row of Swedish and Finnish soldiers, positioned prone behind banks of snow, trained rifles and missile launchers on nearby hills ready for an enemy attack.
The drill, in March, was the first time forces from Finland and Sweden have formed a combined brigade in a scheduled NATO exercise in Arctic Norway known as “Cold Response.” Neither country is a member of the NATO alliance. The exercise was long planned, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 added intensity to the war game.
“We would be rather naive not to recognise that there is a threat,” Swedish Major Stefan Nordstrom told Reuters. “The security situation in the whole of Europe has changed and we have to accept that, and we have to adapt.”
That sense of threat means President Vladimir Putin, who embarked on what he calls a “special operation” in Ukraine partly to counter the expansion of the NATO alliance, may soon have a new NATO neighbour.
Finland has a 1,300 km (810 mile) border with Russia. In a March 28 phone call, the country’s President Sauli Niinisto asked NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg for details on principles and steps for accepting new members, he wrote on Facebook. Finland’s leaders have discussed possible membership with “almost all” NATO’s 30 members, and will submit a review to parliament by mid-April, Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told Reuters.
Sweden – home of the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize and a country which has not fought in a war since 1814 – is more hesitant. But a recent opinion poll for a major Swedish TV station found 59% of Swedes wanted to join NATO, if Finland does.
For some in the alliance, the two countries sandwiched between Russia and NATO-member Norway are already partners. U.S. General David Berger, who is the commandant of the U.S. Marines Corps, told reporters at the drill that – putting the politics of membership aside – they were brothers-in-arms during training.
“For marines, at the tactical level … there’s no difference,” Berger said. “I just have to know that the unit over there, they have my back. They’ve got me covered.”
Stoltenberg announced in early March that NATO was now sharing all information on the war in Ukraine with Sweden and Finland. Both countries regularly attend NATO meetings. At the exercises in Norway, Stoltenberg said “no other countries in the world” are closer partners.
But he noted an important difference: “The absolute security guarantees that we provide for NATO allies, are only for NATO allies.”
As non-members, Finland and Sweden’s combined population of 16 million don’t have the protection of NATO’s guarantee that an attack on one ally is an attack on all.
Moscow did not respond to a request for comment for this story. It has repeatedly warned both countries against joining NATO. On March 12, the Russian foreign ministry said “there will be serious military and political consequences” if they do, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
Stoltenberg has said it would be possible to allow Finland and Sweden in “quite quickly.” NATO has not commented on what a fast-track process would be; a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Defense said any decision would be taken by the countries themselves but their accession would need to be agreed by all 30 allies.
“President Putin wants less NATO on Russia’s borders,” Stoltenberg said in January, also referring to more allied troops in southeastern Europe, Poland and the Baltics. “But he is getting more NATO.”
MEMORIES OF WAR
More than 1,000 km to the southeast of the NATO drill, 80-year-old Markku Kuusela knows real war. The pensioner, who lives in Imatra, a town on Finland’s border with Russia, was evacuated to Sweden with his brother as an infant after his father was killed fighting a Russian invasion.
They returned to Finland only after the war was over.
“It is always in the back of my mind,” said Kuusela, visiting the cemetery where his father is buried. Tears welled in his eyes. “How it would have been to have a father.”
Some 96,000 Finns, or 2.5% of the population, died fighting the Russian invasion, in two wars between 1939 and 1944. A total of 55,000 children lost fathers and over 400,000 people lost homes as territory was conceded.
But the Finns, fighting under cover of dense forest, repelled the Russians and ever since, Finland has had a clear goal: strong defence and friendly relations with Russia.
The country built a conscript army – it has about 900,000 men and women in reserves – and according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, one of the largest artilleries in Europe.
For years, Finns and Russians have interacted extensively. This year, Imatra was planning to celebrate a 250-year history of Finnish tourism since a visit by Catherine the Great, the Russian empress, in 1772.
Now the Imatra border station is deserted, its stalls unused. Finland’s security service, known as Supo, says Russia’s military resources are currently focused on Ukraine and its own domestic operations, but warns the situation may change quickly.
The Ukraine invasion triggered almost 3,000 applications from Finns to join local associations of reservists as well as almost 1,000 to women’s emergency preparedness groups, the groups said.
One applicant was Pia Lumme, a 48-year-old coordinator for the Finnish National Agency for Education who lives near Imatra. She recalled her grandmother’s war memories.
“I think we Finns all share … the will to uphold this country,” Lumme said.
Finland is one of few European countries to maintain a national emergency supply of fuel, food and medicine. Building emergency shelters beneath every major building has been mandatory since World War Two. The country says its 54,000 shelters have room for 4.4 million of the 5.5 million population.
Finns’ backing for joining NATO has risen to record numbers over the past month, with the latest poll by public broadcaster Yle showing 62% of respondents in favour and only 16% against.
Supo, the security service, said on March 29 Finland must guard against potential Russian retaliation to Helsinki’s discussions on joining NATO, or interference in the public debate.
“We don’t need to make any quick decisions on our own defence, but certainly a possible membership application could lead to making us a target of interference or hybrid actions,” Haavisto told Reuters in an interview. “Finland needs to prepare for that and also listen to how NATO countries would react.”
CRISIS KITS
Sweden, which has argued that non-alignment has served its people well, has been slower to see Russia as a threat – for example, it allowed defence spending to slip and emergency shelters to fall into disrepair after the Cold War. But the mood there is also changing.
After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the government speeded up rearmament and boosted military strength on the island of Gotland, near the headquarters of Russia’s Baltic Fleet. It also reintroduced limited conscription that year.
Stockholm said earlier this month it would almost double defence spending to around 2% of GDP and is refurbishing a network of emergency bunkers, to shelter up to seven million people. It says there are currently around 65,000 shelters, mostly in private homes.
Around 71% of Swedes are worried about an increased military threat from Russia – up from 46% in January – according to a survey by pollsters Demoskop for daily Aftonbladet on March 2.
Three retail chains told Reuters sales of products to prepare for emergencies had accelerated again after picking up at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Sales of crisis kits, wind-up radios, water filters and water containers – pretty much everything – have increased,” said Fredrik Stockhaus, founder of Criseq, a Swedish online store. Sweden’s statistics office does not measure sales at this level of detail.
If either country does go for NATO membership, Finland looks set to move first, diplomats and politicians say. Foreign Minister Haavisto said he is in “almost daily” talks with his Swedish counterpart on the topic.
“It wouldn’t be ideal for Finland to go alone, because then all the risks in the application process would be on Finland,” said Matti Pesu, a foreign policy analyst at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
In Sweden, the government and opposition are conducting an analysis of security policy which is expected in May. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson stressed on national TV on March 30 it was important to wait and see what conclusions that reaches. The ruling Social Democrats oppose joining, but four opposition parties support it.
Even so, Sweden’s non-aligned status is increasingly blurred, said Anna Wieslander, Northern Europe Director at the Atlantic Council think-tank.
“If you look at it, we are preparing to meet the adversary together and I think there is no doubt in which camp we are,” she said. “You can see the warnings Russia has given so there is no doubt on their side as well.”
(This story refiles to clarify that Nobel Peace Prize was conceived in Sweden — it is awarded in Norway)
(Additional reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki; Edited by Sara Ledwith)
