China’s embassy in Britain on Sunday condemned a visit this week by British lawmakers to Taiwan, saying they were insisting on visiting the island despite China’s strong opposition.

Taiwan’s Presidential Office said the group of six lawmakers from the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group would meet President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei on Monday.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has been ramping up military, political and economic pressure to assert those claims.

A statement from China’s embassy in London said that the lawmakers have “insisted on visiting the Taiwan region of China despite China’s resolute opposition.”

This is a “gross interference in China’s internal affairs and a serious wrong signal to Taiwan independence separatist forces,” the embassy said.

“We want to tell the relevant British politicians that any act that harms China’s interests will definitely be vigorously countered by China,” it added, without elaborating.

Taiwan regularly hosts visiting foreign lawmakers, which China routinely condemns.

Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
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While American support for Ukraine is still strong, there are some fractures among members of the Republican and Democratic parties that are beginning to surface. And as VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains, those splits could deepen as other important policy decisions compete for attention with Ukraine. VOA footage by Saqib Ul Islam. Video editing by Marcus Harton.
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Every Sunday, Chinese tutor Kirill Burobin begins work in the early morning and is kept busy until midnight.

As Russia seeks to tighten ties with China amid Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine, the number of Burobin’s students has tripled over the past year.

“Sunday is the busiest,” 20-year-old Burobin, who makes a good living with his online lessons, told AFP. “I have 16 hours of classes virtually without a break.” 

The boom in demand for Chinese lessons in Russia illustrates the country’s pivot toward Asia as tensions build between Moscow and the West.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to Russia beginning Monday aims to deepen what the two countries have called a “no-limits” relationship, which is increasingly important for Russia as its international isolation deepens.

Pummeled by multiple rounds of Western sanctions, Russia’s economic and technological development is becoming more dependent on China. 

Natalia Danina, a manager at HeadHunter, the country’s top online recruitment company, said that last year there were nearly 11,000 vacancies requiring knowledge of the Chinese language, a 44% increase compared to 2021.

Over the same period, the number of jobs for Chinese speakers in Russia has doubled in sales, transport and logistics, said Danina, pointing to an “accelerated transition” to Chinese-made equipment and spare parts. 

Demand for Chinese speakers in energy jobs has tripled, she added.

Just the start

Burobin, who also studies Eastern civilizations at a top Moscow university, said that he was happy to help his students learn more about “a whole new world.

“Russians are taking up Chinese because Beijing has become our main partner for decades to come,” he said. “And this is just the beginning.”

In August, Avito, Russia’s leading online classified ads platform, reported a 138% increase in requests for Chinese lessons in Moscow in one year. 

The same figure stood at 350% for the far eastern city of Vladivostok. 

The popularity of Chinese classes might be starting to catch up with demand for English lessons in the country.

Alina Khamlova, 26, who teaches both languages, said she had only three English language students this year, compared to 12 who are learning Chinese. 

One of her students is Maria, a 22-year-old designer who dreams of traveling to China to make her clothes there because it is “cheaper than in Russia.”

Another student is a 25-year-old gym coach, Ivan, who wants to work in China because Europeans “are paid very well” there.

Khamlova also said that many young people in Russia hope to study in Chinese universities now that many European establishments had become “inaccessible to them.” 

While English still retains a dominant position, the number of high school students who chose Chinese as a foreign language during their final school exams has doubled in one year to 17,000, according to the state education watchdog Rosobrnadzor.

No one will defeat us

Russia’s growing isolation from the West has prompted many language schools to revise their curricula and invite teachers of the Chinese language.

Founded in 2017, the ChineseFirst language center has seen twice as many registrations this year, said its co-founders, Wang Yinyu, 38, and his Russian wife Natalia, a 33-year-old Chinese speaker.

Wang’s family business is booming, and he is planning to open two new branches and a kindergarten in Moscow.

In Russia, “many companies have rushed to Chinese factories to order goods that have become unavailable in Russia due to sanctions,” he told AFP in Russian.

And Chinese entrepreneurs, who are interested in exporting to Russia, are looking for bilingual employees.  

Wang is glad that China and Russia are becoming closer.

“China has powerful industry and Russia is rich in resources, which means that our two countries can build their own internal economy,” he said. “If we stand back-to-back, no one will defeat us.”
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The white-colored humanoid “Garmi” does not look much different from a typical robot — it stands on a platform with wheels and is equipped with a black screen on which two blue circles acting as eyes are attached.

But retired German doctor Guenter Steinebach, 78, said: “For me, this robot is a dream.”

Not only is Garmi able to perform diagnostics on patients, it can also provide care and treatment for them. Or at least, that is the plan.

Garmi is a product of a new sector called geriatronics, a discipline that taps advanced technologies like robotics, IT and 3D technology for geriatrics, gerontology and nursing.

About a dozen scientists built Garmi with the help of medical practitioners like Steinebach at the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence.

Part of the Technical University of Munich, the institute based its unit specializing in geriatronics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a ski resort that is home to one of the highest proportion of elderly people in Germany.

Europe’s most populous country is itself one of the world’s most rapidly ageing societies.

With the number of people needing care growing quickly and an estimated 670,000 carer posts to go unfilled in Germany by 2050, the researchers are racing to conceive robots that can take over some of the tasks carried out today by nurses, carers and doctors.

“We have ATMs where we can get cash today. We can imagine that one day, based on the same model, people can come to get their medical examination in a kind of technology hub,” said Abdeldjallil Naceri, 43, the lead scientist of the lab.

Doctors could then evaluate the results of the robot’s diagnostics from a distance, something that could be particularly valuable for people living in remote communities.

Alternatively the machine could offer a more personalized service at home or in a care home — by serving meals, opening a bottle of water, calling for help in case of a fall or organizing a video call with family and friends.

‘We must get there’

In the Garmisch laboratory, Steinebach sat down at a table equipped with three screens and a joystick as he got ready to test the robot’s progress.

At the other end of the room, a researcher designated as a test model took his spot in front of Garmi, which poses a stethoscope on his chest — an action directed by Steinebach from afar via the joystick.

Medical data immediately appear on the doctor’s screen.

“Imagine if I had had that in my old practice,” Steinebach said, while moving the joystick.

Besides the retired doctor, other medical practitioners also visit the lab regularly to offer their ideas and feedback on the robot.

“It’s like a three-year-old child. We have to teach it everything,” Naceri said.

It’s anyone’s guess when Garmi might be ready on a commercial scale.

But Naceri is convinced that “we must get there, the statistics are clear that it is urgent.”

“From 2030, we must be able to integrate this kind of technology in our society.”

Question of trust

And if it is indeed deployed one day, residents of the Sankt Vinzenz retirement home in Garmisch, a partner of the project, will likely see Garmi whizzing down the corridors.

Just thinking about it made Mrs Rohrer, a 74-year-old resident at the home, smile.

“There are things that a robot can do, for example, serve a drink or bring meals,” she said as Eva Pioskowik, the director of the home, did her nails.

Pioskowik, who battles with staffing shortages on a daily basis, said she did not expect the robot to take the place of health workers.

“But it could allow our staff to spend a bit more time with the residents,” she said.

For Naceri’s team, one of the major challenges is not technological, medical or financial.

Rather, it remains to be seen if most patients will accept the robot.

“They need to trust the robot,” he said. “They need to be able to use it like we use a smartphone today.”
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PARIS, March 19 (Reuters) – President Emanuel Macron faces a critical moment on Monday when the National Assembly is due to vote on no-confidence motions filed after his government bypassed parliament on Thursday to push through an unpopular rise in the state pension age.   

The move, which followed weeks of protests against the pension overhaul, triggered three nights of unrest and demonstrations in Paris and throughout the country, reminiscent of the Yellow Vest protests that erupted in late 2018 over high fuel prices.   

However, while Monday’s votes may put on display anger at Macron’s government, they are unlikely to bring it down.   

Opposition lawmakers filed two motions of no-confidence in parliament on Friday.   

Centrist group Liot proposed a multiparty no-confidence motion, which was co-signed by the far-left Nupes alliance. Hours later, France’s far-right National Rally party, which has 88 National Assembly members, also filed a no-confidence motion.   

But even though Macron’s party lost its absolute majority in the lower house in elections last year, there was little chance the multi-party motion would go through — unless a surprise alliance of lawmakers from all sides is formed, from the far-left to the far-right.   

The leaders of the conservative Les Republicains (LR) party have ruled out such an alliance. None of them had sponsored the first no-confidence motion filed on Friday.   

But the party still faced some pressure.   

In the southern city of Nice, the political office of Eric Ciotti, the Les Republicains leader, was ransacked overnight and tags were left threatening riots if the motion was not supported.   

“They want through violence to put pressure on my vote on Monday. I will never yield to the new disciples of the Terror,” Ciotti wrote on Twitter.   

Macron’s overhaul raises the pension age by two years to 64, which the government says is essential to ensure the system does not go bust.   

“I think there will be no majority to bring down the government. But this will be a moment of truth,” Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told Le Parisien newspaper, commenting on prospects for Monday’s votes.   

“Is the pension reform worth bringing down the government and political disorder? The answer is clearly no. Everyone must take his responsibilities,” he added. 

 
…

The Vatican Museums officially reopened its African and American ethnographic collections Thursday by showcasing intricately restored Rwandan raffia screens that were sent by Catholic missionaries to the Vatican for a 1925 exhibit.

The display at the Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum featured a scientific presentation of the restoration process as well as the research that preceded it, with consultations with Rwanda’s own ethnographic museum, a UCLA graduate student and Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa. It came as ethnographic museums in Europe and North America are grappling with demands from Indigenous groups and former colonies to return artifacts dating from colonial times.

The Rev. Nicola Mappelli, curator of the Anima Mundi museum, declined to comment on calls for restitution of the Vatican’s own ethnographic holdings, saying these were questions for the museum leadership. Speaking to The Associated Press during a visit to the new exhibit, he noted that the Vatican last year returned three mummies to Peru and a human head to Ecuador in 2017.

The museum director, Barbara Jatta, didn’t refer to the issue in her remarks at the opening, emphasizing, however, what she said was the Anima Mundi’s commitment to transparency and “dialogue with different cultures.”

She said the unveiling of the Rwandan panels was a moment to celebrate the reopening of the African and American section of the museum as well as the 50th anniversary of the transfer of the entire collection into the Vatican Museums itself.

The issue of the Vatican’s ethnographic collection came into the spotlight last year, when Indigenous groups from Canada came to the Vatican to receive an apology from Pope Francis for Canada’s church-run residential school system.

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has said the policy of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families in a bid to assimilate them into Christian Canadian society amounted to “cultural genocide.” The First Nations, Metis and Inuit delegations visited the Anima Mundi and were shown several Indigenous items in the collection, and representatives later said they wanted them back or, at the very least, to have access to them so Indigenous researchers could study them.

The Vatican has long insisted that the basis of its ethnographic collection stemmed from “gifts” to Pope Pius XI, who in 1925 staged a huge exhibit in the Vatican gardens to celebrate the church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized. Catholic missionaries around the globe sent him artifacts, but some researchers today question whether Indigenous peoples were able to consent to such “gifts” given the power dynamics of the time.

The informational labels on the new exhibits emphasize the Vatican’s view. The Canada label, for example, reads: “There is a long tradition of gifts sent by the Indigenous peoples of Canada to the popes,” noting that a headdress in the exhibit was given to Francis during his 2022 trip to Canada by Chief Wilton Littlechild.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to a report Sunday from the Russian state news agency Tass.

Putin traveled to Crimea on Saturday on the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded Russia’s withdrawal from Crimea and all areas it has occupied since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which entered its second year in February.

Saturday’s trip also came the day after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest, charging him with being personally responsible for the abduction of children from Ukraine in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader visited an art center and a children’s center in Crimea.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday its executive board has approved changes to its financing policy aimed at countries facing “exceptionally high uncertainty.”

The measure is widely viewed as a way to open a new loan program for Ukraine as it enters the second year of fighting Russia.

The IMF said in a statement, “The changes apply in situations of exceptionally high uncertainty, involving exogenous shocks that are beyond the control of country authorities and the reach of their economic policies, and which generate larger-than-usual tail risks.”
…

Three senior U.S. security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said Saturday.

“We discussed the further provision of necessary assistance to our country, in particular vehicles, weapons and ammunition,” Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Yermak said he, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, top general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, and several other senior commanders and officials had attended the meeting Friday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, top military commander Mark Milley, and the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan represented the other side.

“The Ukrainian officials provided an update on battlefield conditions and expressed appreciation for the continued provision of U.S. security assistance,” according to a White House statement released Friday.

Yermak did not give details of specific requests to the U.S. side.

The meeting took place as Kyiv seeks to gather sufficient supplies of arms from its Western backers, of which the U.S. has been the most significant, to mount a counter-offensive and try to take back territory captured by Moscow last year.

Yermak added that Zelenskyy had joined the meeting at the end to give his views on the liberation of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since its invasion nearly 13 months ago.

“We briefed our allies in detail about the current situation at the front, combat operations in the most difficult areas, as well as the urgent needs of the Ukrainian army,” Yermak said.

Ukrainian forces continued Friday to withstand Russian assaults on the ruined city of Bakhmut, the focal point for eight months of Russian attempts to advance through the industrial Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine bordering Russia.
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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited Cairo on Saturday to push to restore full diplomatic relations between the two countries despite Ankara’s ongoing support for the Muslim Brotherhood group.

During a joint news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Cavusoglu said that Turkey was “using its influence to extend a Black Sea grain deal permitting the export of grain from Ukraine” in its role as mediator between Moscow and Kyiv.

The fact that Shoukry and Cavusoglu held a joint news conference indicates a sea change between the two countries after almost 10 years of mutual recriminations and frazzled relations that followed the ouster from power of the Muslim Brotherhood and former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

Both diplomats hinted that full diplomatic relations will be restored soon amid a general thaw of hostilities throughout the Middle East following the recent agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to resume diplomatic ties severed in 2016.

One of the key points Cavusoglu stressed to journalists in Cairo was the dangerous ramifications of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the need to avoid a more serious — potentially nuclear — conflict. He said that Ankara has pushed to gain Russia’s agreement on renewing a Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export grain to various Middle Eastern and Third World countries, including Egypt.

Cavusoglu said that while Ankara is hosting talks over the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, it also is making an effort with Russia to permit the extension of the grain sale agreement.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations has said that Moscow agreed to extending the agreement for two months, rather than the 120 days that was requested.

Egyptian political sociologist Said Sadek told VOA there is a move afoot in the Middle East to ease tensions that have been brewing between regional states — such as Egypt and Turkey — and that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is especially eager to demonstrate his ability to bridge the gap between hostile states, both regionally and internationally.

“Turkey wants to say that ‘I am an important card in regional and international political affairs, and I play a very important strategic role in mediating between the East and the West. Despite the fact that I’m a member of NATO, I can also speak to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin when many Western leaders cannot today speak directly to Putin.’”

Paul Sullivan, a Washington-based Middle East analyst on the Atlantic Council, told VOA that an extension of the Black Sea grain agreement is a major relief for Egypt, because “the Russian war on Ukraine has caused great shocks to food, energy and other markets.”

“Egypt’s runaway inflation can be traced back to the war, [creating] a huge burden for Egyptians,” he said. “Even the mothers and dads in neighborhoods in the countryside [understand] how the war has made their lives more difficult.”

Egypt buys much of its grain and sunflower oil from Ukraine and is the world’s largest wheat importer, ahead of even China.

“Keeping the Black Sea deal going,” he argued, “is important for the health and well-being of all Egyptians … [who] have had enough shocks lately [and] need a break from food prices and food insecurity.”

Egyptian Member of Parliament Mustafa Bakri told Saudi-owned al Arabiya TV that restoring normal relations with Turkey is important for several strategic reasons, including “using Turkey’s good relations with Ethiopia to ease tensions over the Renaissance Dam,” which has caused consternation in Egypt because of its potential to disrupt the flow of water on the Nile.

Latent tensions between Cairo and Ankara over who controls parts of Libya and undersea natural gas resources in the eastern Mediterranean also have made relations between the two countries acrimonious, and improved relations between the two countries could avoid potential conflict in those areas, as well.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine Saturday, the day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.

Putin visited an art school and a children’s center that are part of a project to develop a historical park on the site of an ancient Greek colony, Russian state news agencies said.

On Friday, the court accused Putin of bearing personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine during Russia’s invasion of the neighboring country starting almost 13 months ago.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded that Russia withdraw from the peninsula as well as the areas it has occupied since last year.

Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin’s gains. Instead, he stressed Friday the importance of holding Crimea.

“Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he said, referring to Crimea’s largest city. “We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.”

Putin took a plane to travel the 1,821 kilometers (1,132 miles) from Moscow to Sevastopol, where he took the wheel of the car that transported him around the city, according to Moscow-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.

The ICC’s arrest warrant was the first issued against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow, but welcomed by Ukraine as a breakthrough. However, the chances of Putin facing trial at the ICC are highly unlikely because Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.

Despite the court’s action and its implications for Putin, the United Nations and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Saturday that a wartime deal that allowed grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia was extended, although neither said for how long.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov tweeted that the deal had been renewed for 120 days, the period that Ukraine, Turkey and the U.N. wanted. But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian news agency Tass that Moscow agreed to a 60-day extension.

Russia and Ukraine are both major global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other affordable food products that developing nations depend on. They signed separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey last year to allow food to leave Ukraine’s blockaded ports.

Russia has complained that shipments of its fertilizers — which its deal was supposed to facilitate — are not getting to global markets. The country briefly pulled out of the agreement in November before rejoining and agreeing to a 120-day renewal.

Meanwhile, Putin signed a law Saturday that imposes stiff fines for discrediting or spreading misleading information about volunteers or mercenaries fighting in Ukraine. The law calls for a fining individuals 50,000 rubles ($660) for a first offense and up to 15 years in prison for repeated offenses.

The measure mirrors one passed in the early days of the war that applied to speaking negatively about soldiers or the Russian military in general.

Fighters from the Wagner Group, a private Russian military company known for fierce tactics, have taken key roles in Ukraine, particularly in Russia’s grinding campaign to seize the eastern Donetsk province town of Bakhmut.

In Ukraine, authorities reported widespread Russian attacks between Friday night and Saturday morning. Writing on Telegram, the Ukrainian air force command said 11 out of 16 drones were shot down during attacks that targeted the capital, Kyiv, and the western Lviv province, among other areas.

The head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko, said Ukrainian air defenses shot down all drones heading for the capital. Lviv Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said Saturday that three of six drones were shot down, with the other three hitting a district that borders Poland.

According to the Ukrainian air force, the attacks were carried out from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov and Russia’s Bryansk province, which also borders Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military reported that between Friday morning and Saturday morning, Russian forces launched 34 airstrikes, one missile strike and 57 rounds of anti-aircraft fire. It said falling debris hit southern Ukraine’s Kherson province, damaging seven houses and a kindergarten.

Russia is still concentrating the bulk of its offensive operations in Ukraine’s industrial east, focusing attacks on Bakhmut and other parts of Donetsk province.

Regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said one person was killed and three wounded when 11 towns and villages in the province were shelled Friday.

Further west, Russian rockets hit a residential area overnight in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional capital of the partially occupied province of the same name. No casualties were reported, but houses were damaged, Anatoliy Kurtev of the Zaporizhzhia City Council said.

British military officials said Saturday that Russia was likely to expand mandatory conscription to replenish its troops fighting in Ukraine. The U.K. Defense Ministry said in its latest analysis that deputies in the Russian Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, introduced a bill to change the draft ages for men to 21-30, from the current 18-27.

The ministry said many Russian men ages 18-21 claim exemptions from military service because they are enrolled in higher education institutions. The wider age range would mean they would have to serve eventually. British officials said the law would likely pass and take effect in January 2024.
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Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk’s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

Some of the claims pushed by the pro-Russian accounts were verifiably false, such as the suggestion that the news media had covered up the disaster or that environmental scientists traveling to the site had been killed in a plane crash. But most were more speculative, seemingly designed to stoke fear or distrust. Examples include unverified maps showing widespread pollution, posts predicting an increase in fatal cancers, and others about unconfirmed mass animal die-offs.

“Biden offers food, water, medicine, shelter, payouts of pension and social services to Ukraine! Ohio first! Offer and deliver to Ohio!” posted one of the pro-Moscow accounts, which boasts 25,000 followers and features an anonymous location and a profile photo of a dog. Twitter awarded the account a blue check mark in January.

Social accounts spread propaganda

Regularly spewing anti-U.S. propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploit social media platforms like Twitter to steer domestic discourse.

The accounts were identified by Reset, a London-based nonprofit that studies social media’s impact on democracy and shared with The Associated Press. Felix Kartte, a senior advisor at Reset, said the report’s findings indicate Twitter is allowing Russia to use its platform like a bullhorn.

“With no one at home in Twitter’s product safety department, Russia will continue to meddle in U.S. elections and in democracies around the world,” Kartte said.

Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

The 38-car derailment near East Palestine, Ohio, released toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to a national debate over rail safety and environmental regulations while raising fears of poisoned drinking water and air.

The disaster was a major topic on social media, with millions of mentions on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, according to an analysis by San Francisco-based media intelligence firm Zignal Labs, which conducted a study on behalf of the AP.

Online comments try to affect opinions

At first, the derailment received little attention online but mentions grew steadily, peaking two weeks after the incident, Zignal found, a time lag that gave pro-Russia voices time to try to shape the conversation.

The accounts identified by Reset’s researchers received an extra boost from Twitter itself, in the form of a blue check mark. Before Musk purchased Twitter last year, its check marks denoted accounts run by verified users, often public figures, celebrities or journalists. It was seen as a mark of authenticity on a platform known for bots and spam accounts.

Musk ended that system and replaced it with Twitter Blue, which is given to users who pay $8 per month and supply a phone number. Twitter Blue users agree not to engage in deception and are required to post a profile picture and name. But there’s no rule that they use their own.

Under the program, Twitter Blue users can write and send longer tweets and videos. Their replies are also given higher priority in other posts.

The AP reached out to several of the accounts listed in Reset’s report. In response, one of the accounts sent a two-word message before blocking the AP reporter on Twitter: “Shut up.”

While researchers spotted clues suggesting some of the accounts are linked to coordinated efforts by Russian disinformation agencies, others were Americans, showing the Kremlin doesn’t always have to pay to get its message out.

One account, known as Truth Puke, is connected to a website of the same name geared toward conservatives in the United States. Truth Puke regularly reposts Russian state media; RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is one of its favorite groups to repost, Reset found. One video posted by the account features ex-President Donald Trump’s remarks about the train derailment, complete with Russian subtitles.

In a response to questions from the AP, Truth Puke said it aims to provide a “wide spectrum of views” and was surprised to be labeled a spreader of Russian propaganda, despite the account’s heavy use of such material. Asked about the video with Russian subtitles, Truth Puke said it used the Russian language version of the Trump video for the sake of expediency.

“We can assure you that it was not done with any Russian propagandist intent in mind, we just like to put out things as quickly as we find them,” the company said.

Other accounts brag of their love for Russia. One account on Thursday reposted a bizarre claim that the U.S. was stealing humanitarian earthquake relief supplies donated to Syria by China. The account has 60,000 followers and is known as Donbass Devushka, after the region of Ukraine.

Another pro-Russian account recently tried to pick an online argument with Ukraine’s defense department, posting photos of documents that it claimed came from the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by a Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Putin ally. Prigozhin operates troll farms that have targeted U.S. social media users in the past. Last fall he boasted of his efforts to meddle with American democracy.

A separate Twitter account claiming to represent Wagner actively uses the site to recruit fighters.

“Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere,” Prigozhin said last fall on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. “Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.” 
…

A spattering of protests were planned in France over the weekend against President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reform, as garbage continued to reek in the streets of Paris and beyond amid a strike by refuse collectors.

An eerie calm, returned to Paris Saturday after two nights of thousands-strong protests across the French capital, with one flash point at the elegant Place de la Concorde where angry protesters tossed an effigy of Macron into a bonfire to cheers from the crowd. Police dispersed people with tear gas and water cannons and there were hundreds of arrests.

Protesters are trying to pressure lawmakers to bring down Macron’s government and doom an unpopular retirement age increase he’s trying to impose without a vote in the National Assembly.

Further protests were planned Saturday in Paris as well as in the cities of Marseille and Nantes, but they were expected to be smaller than in previous days.

In Paris’ 12th district Saturday, trash piled up meters away from a bakery, wafting fumes encouraged by the mild weather and sunshine. Some Parisian residents buying their weekend baguette blamed Macron’s administration.

“The government should change its position and listen to the people because what is happening is extremely serious. And we are seeing a radicalization,” said Isabelle Vergriette, 64, a psychologist. “The government is largely responsible for this.”

The district’s mayor, Emmanuelle Pierre-Marie, was out and about from the crack of dawn voicing concern in her neighborhood about the consequences of the refuse pile-up, which has become a visual and olfactory symbol of the anti-pension action.

“Food waste is our priority because it is what brings pests to the surface,” said Pierre-Marie. “We are extremely sensitive to the situation. As soon as we have a dumpster truck available, we give priority to the places most concerned, like food markets.”

Strikes in numerous sectors, from transport to energy, are planned for Monday. The Civil Aviation authority asked that 30% of flights be canceled at Orly, Paris’ second airport, and 20% in Marseille. 

Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, said the retirement reform “must be withdrawn.”

“We condemn violence. … But look at the anger. It’s very strong, even among our ranks,” he said on RMC radio.

On Friday, one day after Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne invoked a special constitutional power to skirt a vote in the chaotic lower chamber, lawmakers on the right and left filed no-confidence motions to be voted on Monday.

 
…

Russia is “likely” gearing up to cast a wider net to increase its military forces, according to the British Defense Ministry’s daily Intelligence update on Ukraine.

Earlier in the week, the report says, Russian Duma deputies introduced a bill changing the age requirement for conscription to men 21 years of age to 30 years.  Currently, the age bracket is 18 to 27.

The law will “likely” pass, the ministry said, and would go into effect in January. “Russia continues to officially bar conscripts from operations in Ukraine, though at least hundreds have probably served through administrative mix ups or after being coerced to sign contracts,” the ministry said in the update.

The report said many 18- to 21-year-old men are claiming exemptions to continue their education.

The International Monetary Fund said Friday its executive board has approved changes to its financing policy aimed at countries facing “exceptionally high uncertainty.”

The measure is widely viewed as a way to open a new loan program for Ukraine as it enters the second year of fighting back a Russian invasion.

The IMF said in a statement, “The changes apply in situations of exceptionally high uncertainty, involving exogenous shocks that are beyond the control of country authorities and the reach of their economic policies, and which generate larger than usual tail risks.”

Meanwhile, Florida-based app developer and sleep research company DreamApp recently conducted a sleep quality research study on 745 Ukrainians and how the Russian invasion has affected their sleep, dreams and mental health.

A little more than 82% of the participants said they remembered their dreams, which is an indication, DreamApp said, of “superficial sleep that does not provide a full rest.”

“When the brain does not receive enough sleep, traumatic experiences cannot be processed adequately, causing further strain on mental health,” according to Jesse Lyon, DreamApp’s chief dream scientist.  “It effectively traps these experiences in the brain causing a state of constant tension and heightened fight-or-flight response.” 
…

Russia, China and Iran have completed three-way naval exercises in the Arabian Sea that included artillery fire at targets on the sea and in the air, the Russian defense ministry said on Saturday.

The exercises, off the Iranian port of Chabahar, took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Moscow for a three-day state visit starting on Monday.

Russia has continued to stage military exercises with partners, especially China, despite the strain on its armed forces from the year-long war in Ukraine, where it has failed to achieve any major advance since last summer.

The Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the Chinese destroyer Nanjing were involved in the drills that took place on Thursday and Friday, the defense ministry said.

The Gorshkov, which is equipped with Russia’s latest-generation Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, also took part in joint naval exercises last month with China and South Africa.
…

In October last year, a Russian news site published a short video of Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary army, sitting with four men on a rooftop terrace in the resort town of Gelendzhik, on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Two are missing parts of a leg. A third has lost an arm. They are identified as pardoned former convicts, returned from the front in Ukraine after joining Wagner from prison.

“You were an offender, now you’re a war hero,” Prigozhin tells one man in the clip. It was the first video to depict the return of some of the thousands of convicts who joined Wagner in return for the promise of a pardon if they survived six months of war.

Reuters used facial recognition software to examine this video and more than a dozen other videos and photographs of homecoming convict fighters, published between October 2022 and February 2023. Reporters were able to identify more than 30 of the men by cross-checking the images with social media and Russian court documents.

In their ranks are murderers, thieves and a self-declared “Satanist.” Several are in hospital recovering from wounds sustained in the fighting. Reuters managed to make contact with 11 of these men. Five agreed to be interviewed by phone and messaging app. What follows is the most detailed insider account yet of Wagner’s convict army: the fighters’ recruitment and training, the combat they saw in Ukraine, and their uncertain future in a Russia turned upside down by war with its neighbor.

Four of the men said they were personally recruited by Yevgeny Prigozhin as he toured Russia’s prison system to bolster his private army. Some of the men were deployed to Ukraine’s eastern Bakhmut region, site of some of the most intense fighting of the one-year-old conflict, where one man described the “utter hell” of the battlefield. Thousands have been killed on both sides. The battle for the city of Bakhmut now hangs in the balance. A former Wagner commander who fled to Norway in January has said he witnessed members of Wagner’s internal security administering brutal treatment to prisoner recruits, including executions for desertion.

Combat training, some conducted by veterans of Russia’s special forces, was short but intensive, according to the men. Ukrainian and Western officials say Wagner is sending poorly prepared fighters to certain death in eastern Ukraine. Mike Kofman, an expert in the Russian military at the Arlington County, Virginia-based CNA think tank, told Reuters the two to three weeks of training received by the convict recruits would be unlikely to bring them up to speed, even if some of the men had prior military experience.

“It takes time to learn combat basics, receive individual training, and you also need some collective training as a unit on top of it – a couple of weeks alone isn’t going to do that much for you,” Kofman told Reuters. A more rigorous training scheme would last several months.

All five ex-prisoners expressed a fierce loyalty to Prigozhin for giving them a second chance at life. Though Reuters could not independently confirm the men’s accounts of their service, many of the details were consistent with one another. Russia’s Defense Ministry and penal service did not respond to detailed questions for this article, nor did Prigozhin and Wagner. Prigozhin has previously described Wagner as “probably the most experienced army that exists in the world today” and said its casualty rate is comparable with other Russian units.

From jail to the Ukraine front

When Prigozhin began touring Russia’s sprawling penal system in summer 2022 offering pardons to those who agreed to fight in Ukraine, word quickly spread among prisoners.

Rustam Borovkov, from the small town of Porkhov, near Russia’s border with Estonia, was one of the four men filmed on the rooftop terrace. Court records show that the 31-year-old was six years into a 13-year term for manslaughter and theft in late July when Prigozhin reached his prison, Penal Colony No. 6 in Russia’s western Pskov region. Borovkov and two friends had broken into a house to steal homebrewed alcohol, according to the court papers. One of them struck the homeowner, who died as a result.

Borovkov had heard from inmates in St Petersburg that Prigozhin was traveling from prison to prison in search of recruits. “I knew right away that I would go,” he told Reuters, “even before he came to us.”

Borovkov said he stood with several hundred other prisoners to hear Prigozhin speak. They were given three days to decide whether to join Wagner in return for freedom. About 40 signed up and after three days and a polygraph test, aimed at rooting out drug addicts, they were on their way to war.

Two months later, in September, as a Ukrainian counter-offensive gathered pace, a film emerged on social media of Prigozhin telling convicts in the Volga River region of Mari El that they had only five minutes to make a decision – and those who changed their minds after joining would be shot as deserters.

In another video, published in February this year, Prigozhin tells convicts that fighters are paid 100,000 rubles ($1,300) monthly, with the possibility of additional bonuses. That’s far above Russia’s average monthly wage of around 65,000 rubles . But Borovkov told Reuters his only motivation for joining Wagner was the promise of a pardon. “I have a small child. I wanted to get back to my family.” He said prison officers tried to persuade him not to go because he played an important role as head of his cellblock’s medical unit.

Six-time convicted thief Yevgeny Kuzhelev said a sense of patriotic duty drew him to Wagner. The 29-year-old was serving time in Russia’s southwestern Samara region for stealing cognac, beer and instant coffee from supermarkets in the Volga car-making city of Togliatti, according to court papers.

“I was sentenced to 3 years and 7 months and I’d already served two years. So I didn’t have long left. But I went anyway. Why? I thought about it, and I am sure that if I had been free at the time, I would have one hundred percent gone to fight. I would have gone as a volunteer,” he said. “I remember how from February, when it all started, I called my aunt from time to time from prison. She kept telling me that this friend of yours went [to Ukraine], then another one, then a third, a fourth … And I knew that I would have done the same.”

Kuzhelev said the recruitment process took about two weeks, and during this time inmates were free to back out without consequence. Those who enlisted were moved to separate accommodation in the prison, where they encountered a new respect from the prison officers.

“Among us there was a man who was serving a 25 year sentence,” Kuzhelev said. “He had a few months left of his term and he signed up. The prison officers asked him: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ And he told them: ‘Everything is fine, I’m going.’ How can you not respect such a decision?”

Reuters was unable to establish the identity of the prisoner or what happened to him.

‘It was clear they were going to die’

Prigozhin has said previously that Wagner’s convict fighters spend a month undergoing rigorous combat drills, sleeping for only four hours a day. The fighters who spoke to Reuters said they received two to three weeks of intensive and well-organized training. Some credited it with saving their lives.

The war in Ukraine is straining Russia’s military capacity. Late last year, Putin announced the mobilization of reservists into the army. They would receive just 10 to 20 days’ training before deployment to the front. Basic training for infantrymen in the U.S. and British armies is around 22 weeks.

One of the convict recruits told Reuters he traveled to a Wagner training camp in the Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk region. Borovkov said training was conducted by former members of Russia’s special forces. “Everything was organized at the highest level,” said Borovkov, who previously served with the military force that secures Russia’s railways. “It wasn’t that they gave me a machine gun, showed me how to shoot and that’s it. No, they explained everything, and in great detail. Mining, demining, tactics, shooting, physical training. Everything.”

The men who spoke to Reuters said that most of the inmates who joined Wagner had some kind of military experience. They had previously served as conscripts under Russia’s one-year military draft or as professional soldiers. The convicts with the most military experience were appointed squad commanders, two of the men said.

“When we got to training, we were asked in detail who knew what, who had served, where they served,” said 38-year-old Dmitry Yermakov, who joined Wagner 10 years into a 14-year sentence for kidnapping. He declined to discuss his criminal record. “And then, when we had been divided into units, they let the lads choose their own commanders. By that time I had already earned some kind of authority, so I was chosen.”

Yermakov said the recruits who realized the gravity of the situation and asked instructors to repeat drills were the best prepared for what was to come. “Those were the men who were genuinely ready to go to war,” he said. Others hoped merely to run down the clock on their six-month stints, hoping that they would receive their pardon having seen as little combat as possible. Of these men, Yermakov said: “It was absolutely clear they were going to die.”

Paralyzing fear and adrenaline

Of the five men who spoke to Reuters, three said that they had fought in the area around the eastern city of Bakhmut, where intense fighting has cost thousands of lives on both sides. Wagner is spearheading Russia’s months-long push to take the city, which had a pre-war population of 75,000 but is now in ruins. Prigozhin has referred to Bakhmut as a “meat grinder,” and said his men’s task there is to bleed the Ukrainian army dry.

Ukrainian and Western officials have compared the battles around Bakhmut to the First World War, and accused Wagner of using convicts in human wave attacks. According to the United States, by mid-February Wagner had suffered more than 30,000 casualties in Ukraine, including 9,000 dead, almost all of them convicts. Prigozhin has insisted, however, that the casualty rate among convict fighters is comparable to other Russian units.

Yermakov, the convicted kidnapper, said that some fighters lost their nerves in the first hours of battle. “What do they see there? Corpses ripped to shreds. And what do they do? Some of them vomit, some of them cry, and some of them don’t want to climb out of the trench. Fear takes over.”

Other fighters recalled only the thrill of combat.

“It was amazing,” said Andrei Yastrebov, a 22-year-old native of St Petersburg, who was serving time for car theft when he joined Wagner. Yastrebov also goes by the name Andrei Kiriyenko on social media. “So much adrenalin. I wish all real men would join Wagner. You can write that. The Ukies ran and Wagner fucked them up.”

Four of the men interviewed by Reuters were seriously injured and invalided out of Ukraine long before completing their stints. They said Wagner had told them that time spent in hospital and rehabilitation would be counted towards their six-month terms and they would receive clemency regardless. Two said they have already got their pardons.

Yermakov lasted only four days before receiving a serious wound to his arm and groin in mid December while dragging a wounded comrade to safety. He said his squad had been tasked with taking and holding a road junction near the village of Pokrovske, on the eastern approach to Bakhmut. He described his final day on the front as “utter hell,” lying flat on the ground for 24 hours as Ukrainian tanks and mortars shelled his squad’s position and drones flew overhead.

“In a war, you’re almost always lying flat on the ground. It’s the only way to survive,” said Kuzhelev, the convicted thief. He told Reuters he spent two months at the front before receiving a shrapnel wound to his arm. “We always wish people ‘Happy Birthday’ after they have been wounded” because they have dodged death. “That’s what they said to me,” he added.

A new start

Now free years ahead of schedule, whether at home or facing long periods of treatment and rehabilitation, the surviving fighters are returning to a country where their actions on the frontline are lionized by many. Prigozhin has previously said that he is giving convicts who join Wagner a “second chance” at life, and an opportunity to redeem themselves.

Earlier this month the State Duma passed a law making it a crime to “discredit” Wagner fighters. The law, which previously applied more narrowly to Russia’s armed forces, was extended at Prigozhin’s request.

Prigozhin’s growing power has not been greeted warmly by all sections of the Russian elite. In February, a long-running feud between the Wagner leader and Russia’s military chiefs exploded into open hostility. Prigozhin accused Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of “treason,” saying they were starving Wagner of munitions out of personal animosity towards him. Shoigu and Gerasimov could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier the same month, Prigozhin said he had ended Wagner’s recruitment of prisoners, hinting in an interview that he was forced to do so by unnamed officials.

The five fighters interviewed by Reuters felt a deep personal gratitude to Prigozhin for recruiting them and wiping their criminal records.

“We’re better than ordinary citizens,” said Yastrebov, the car thief, now at home in his native St Petersburg. “We are not ex-convicts now, thanks to Wagner.”

In a January video, Prigozhin is shown telling injured convict fighters: “The police must treat you with respect. Everything has already been agreed at various levels, so that there is no nit-picking… If necessary, I myself will call and talk to the governors and so on, and we will find a solution.”

For Kuzhelev, who as of February had been in a Krasnodar region hospital for four months, Prigozhin had given him a new lease on life. Court documents show he spent almost seven of his 29 years in prison for six separate convictions. “The last time I was sent to prison, I was thinking: ‘Well, here I am again, what’s next?'” he said. “I’ll serve a year, another, a third, and then what? I’ll go out, and what am I going to do on the outside? What am I going to do with myself, given my background?”

“Well, now I’m clean. I have some money. I can think about the future. Think about getting a mortgage to buy an apartment … I have all this thanks to our esteemed Yevgeny Viktorovich,” Kuzhelev added, using Prigozhin’s patronymic as a sign of respect.

All five of the men who spoke to Reuters said either that they would remain with Wagner after their six month service, or were seriously considering doing so.

Some said they wanted to get back to the frontlines as soon as they were able to. Nikita Lyubimov, a native of the Volga city of Cheboksary who had been serving a four and a half year sentence for grievous bodily harm, said his first priority was “to support the lads, to recover as soon as possible, and get back to the front line.” The 23-year-old had received a shrapnel wound two months into his initial stint in Ukraine, and was invalided out.

The men said that the able-bodied among them were offered the chance to sign on as professional full-time mercenaries, while the injured were offered supporting roles. Borovkov, who is getting a prosthetic arm after amputation, said that he had been offered a job at a Wagner hospital in Luhansk when he recovers.

Yermakov said he hoped to recover sufficiently to re-enroll as a contract mercenary, and hoped to be deployed in future to Libya, Syria or the Central African Republic, where Wagner operations predate the group’s present campaign in Ukraine. He cited limited prospects available in Russia’s civilian economy as pushing him towards returning to Wagner.

“People work hard without days off for 12-14 hours a day, and at best they earn 50-60,000 rubles ($672-$806) a month,” said Yermakov, who told Reuters he has two small daughters. “I will return to the (Wagner) company and I will definitely be able to earn 150,000 rubles ($2,000) a month.”

For others, a return to Wagner offers an alternative to sinking back into a life of crime. Kuzhelev, who has spent almost seven of his 29 years in prison, told Reuters that he hoped that service in Wagner would enable his young daughter to build a career in future, without the stigma of her father’s criminal past.

“My daughter, when she grows up, can go on to study banking, or attend the police academy,” said Kuzhelev. “And she will not have problems because her father was in prison. Isn’t that motivation? Of course it is.”
…

The International Monetary Fund said Friday its executive board has approved changes to its financing policy aimed at countries facing “exceptionally high uncertainty.”

The measure is widely viewed as a way to open a new loan program for Ukraine as it enters the second year of fighting back a Russian invasion.

The IMF said in a statement, “The changes apply in situations of exceptionally high uncertainty, involving exogenous shocks that are beyond the control of country authorities and the reach of their economic policies, and which generate larger than usual tail risks.”

Meanwhile, DreamApp recently conducted a sleep quality research study on 745 Ukrainians and how the Russian invasion has affected their sleep, dreams and mental health.

A little more than 82% of the participants said they remembered their dreams, which is an indication, DreamApp said, of “superficial sleep that does not provide a full rest.”

“When the brain does not receive enough sleep, traumatic experiences cannot be processed adequately, causing further strain on mental health,” according to Jesse Lyon, Dream App’s chief dream scientist. “It effectively traps these experiences in the brain causing a state of constant tension and heightened fight-or-flight response.”
…

John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, speaks with VOA Chinese Service White House correspondent Paris Huang, March 17, 2023.
…

The White House is rejecting Beijing’s proposal for a truce in Ukraine, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week and a subsequent phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“We’d be concerned if coming out of this meeting there was some sort of call for a cease-fire,” said John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications in an interview with VOA on Friday. “While a cease-fire sounds good, it actually ratifies Russia’s gains on the ground.”

Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, earlier Friday said the talks with Xi could yield new approaches to the war in Ukraine.

“I’m sure that our leader and the Chinese leader will exchange their assessments of the situation there,” he said. “We shall see what ideas will emerge after that.”

Kirby suggested that a cease-fire could provide Moscow with the opportunity to prepare for a more effective assault on Ukraine in the future. A cease-fire at this point, he added, “doesn’t serve Ukraine’s interest” and “would be a violation of the U.N. Charter” as it would take away from the recognition that Russia is illegally inside Ukraine.

Cautiously welcoming Beijing’s involvement, Zelenskyy said success would depend on actions not words.

Last month Beijing released its 12-point framework for a political settlement in Ukraine, calling for a “direct dialogue as quickly as possible” to reach a “comprehensive cease-fire.”

The document lacked specifics about resolving Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory or security guarantees for Ukraine. It did not call for the withdrawal of Russian forces.

Chinese motives

By proposing a cease-fire, the Chinese appear to be trying to “salvage something for Putin,” said David Kramer, executive director of the George W. Bush Institute.

“The Russian forces are not doing well,” he told VOA. “And we don’t need the Chinese intervention at this point.”

Not all observers are quick to dismiss Beijing’s diplomatic overtures. Given that Putin has burned his bridges with the West and become more dependent on China, Xi may have a decent chance of brokering peace, said George Beebe, director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank that advocates restraint in U.S. foreign policy.

“He has limited room for maneuver[ing] in rejecting the Chinese involvement altogether,” Beebe told VOA.

On the Ukrainian side, Beebe noted that while they are not dependent on Beijing, they realize that China is potentially an important wild card. Zelenskyy would want to engage with Xi if only to prevent Beijing from supporting Putin militarily, which could alter the war’s outcome.

Slim prospects

The prospects for a cease-fire acceptable to the warring parties at this point are slim.

Recent polls show that 85% of Ukrainians believe no territorial concessions are acceptable even if that means a longer war. Kyiv is demanding that Russia pull back from areas taken since its February 2022 invasion as well as from the Crimean Peninsula, which Putin illegally annexed in 2014.

Meanwhile, Moscow would oppose any truce that would require it to withdraw from newly annexed Ukrainian territories, said James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It is even less likely to agree to withdraw from Crimea.

“It’s held it since 2014,” Acton told VOA. “It is a crowning achievement of Putin’s reign.”

Even with no prospects of a concrete outcome, the announcement of the meeting with Xi provided a diplomatic boost to Putin on the same day the International Criminal Court announced it wants to put the Russian leader on trial for alleged war crimes.

Because of the warrant, should Putin travel to a country that is party to the ICC, that country has the legal obligation to arrest and surrender him to the court, ICC President Piotr Hofmanski told VOA.

Growing diplomatic ambition

Xi’s plan to visit Moscow is the latest sign of the Chinese leader’s growing diplomatic ambition, following last week’s announcement of a Beijing-brokered deal that allowed Iran and Saudi Arabia to reestablish diplomatic relations after seven years of hostility.

China is signaling that it wants to be involved in a future peace process, said Moritz Rudolf, a fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.

“Part of it is to be perceived as an ‘international responsible great power,’” he told VOA.

This makes Washington uncomfortable. “I don’t think the United States wants to be in a situation where China develops a reputation around the world for being a peacemaker,” Beebe said.

Kirby insisted that the administration’s opposition to the cease-fire is not because it was proposed by China.

“I’ve been very clear. It’s about the principle of a cease-fire called for right now, which would essentially just ratify Russia’s gains,” he said.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Friday, part of the longstanding White House tradition of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations of Irish culture in the United States.

“It’s a big day in my grandparents’ household, our household, big day here,” Biden told Varadkar in reference to his Irish heritage. “Ireland and the United States share great friendship and long, long traditions,” added the president, who was wearing a green tie and shamrock in his suit pocket, traditional Irish symbols.

Varadkar thanked Biden for his “support and understanding for our position on Brexit.”

During negotiations on the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, also known as Brexit, the Irish government pushed to include the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to maintain an open border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.

The Irish government feared that a hard border could threaten the U.S.-brokered Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 peace deal that ended decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland over the question of whether it should unify with Ireland or remain part of the UK.

Under the 2021 protocol, Northern Ireland remains in UK customs territory, but it follows many EU rules and regulations.

“And we’ve got to a good place now I think with the Windsor framework, where we can have an agreement that lasts,” Varadkar noted, referring to the post-Brexit deal designed to fix trade issues under the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The White House said the framework is an important step in maintaining the peace accord.

Biden is expected to visit Ireland in coming weeks to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The White House has not officially announced the trip, but Varadkar said he was looking forward to it.

“I promise you that we’re going to roll out the red carpet and it’s going to be a visit like no other,” Varadkar said.

Support for Ukraine

Biden thanked Varadkar for his support in Ukraine. “It means a great deal, speaking out against Russian aggression,” he said.

The taoiseach, as the Irish prime minister is officially known, in turn thanked Biden for his leadership against Moscow.

“I never thought we’d see a war like this happen in Europe in my lifetime,” Varadkar said, repeating a line often used by Western leaders that his country will stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

After their meeting, Biden and Varadkar headed to Capitol Hill for a Friends of Ireland Caucus luncheon hosted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, before returning to the White House for a St. Patrick’s Day reception in the evening, where the taoiseach presents the president with a crystal bowl full of shamrocks, as per tradition.

St. Patrick’s Day in-person meetings at the White House and lunch with congressional leaders at the Capitol were suspended the past two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 44-year-old Varadkar served as prime minister from 2017 to 2020 before returning to the office in December 2022 and was the last Irish leader to visit the White House in person in March 2020 under former president Donald Trump. Biden met with Varadkar’s predecessor, Micheal Martin, virtually in 2021 because of the pandemic, and virtually in 2022, after Martin tested positive for COVID-19 while already in Washington.

With Indian heritage from his father’s side, Varadkar is the first minority taoiseach in the country’s history. He also is the first openly gay Irish leader.

Prior to his White House engagement, Varadkar and his partner, Matthew Barrett, attended a breakfast with Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, at the vice president’s official residence.
…