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5 dead, including patient, in medical flight crash in USA
All five people aboard a medical transport flight, including a patient, were killed in a plane crash Friday night in a mountainous area in northern Nevada.
The Lyon County Sheriff’s office said authorities began receiving calls about the crash near Stagecoach, Nevada, around 9:15 p.m. and found the wreckage two hours later. Stagecoach, a rural community home to around 2,500 residents, is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Reno.
Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, said the dead included the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient’s family member.
Barry Duplantis, president and CEO of the company, said Saturday afternoon that relatives of all five victims had been notified, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. “We send our deepest condolences to their families,” Duplantis said.
The crash occurred amid a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Reno for large swaths of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County.
The weather service said it was expecting heavy snow, wind gusts of up to 65 mph (105 kph) and periods of whiteout conditions between 4 a.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Sunday.
“It’s a pretty mountainous region,” Lyon County Sgt. Nathan Cooper said. “Especially with the weather being the way it is right now, it’s not very good.”
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The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday morning on Twitter that it is sending a seven-member team of investigators to the crash site. The NTSB is expected release more information Sunday at a news conference.
Care Flight identified the downed aircraft as a Pilatus PC-12 airplane. Federal Aviation Administration records show the aircraft was manufactured in 2002.
The company said in a statement that it is halting flights to focus on helping responding agencies, team members and the families.
Turkey launches investigation into 612 people after quake
Investigations have been launched against more than 600 people in relation to buildings that collapsed in Turkey’s catastrophic earthquake earlier this month, a government official said Saturday.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 184 of the 612 suspects had been jailed pending trial. Those in custody include construction contractors and building owners or managers, he said in televised comments from a coordination center in Diyarbakir in southeast Turkey.
“The detection of evidence in the buildings continues as a basis for criminal investigation,” Bozdag added.
The aftermath of the 7.8-magnitude quake on Feb. 6, which led to nearly 48,000 deaths in southern Turkey and northern Syria, has seen Turks question the structural integrity of many of the 173,000 buildings that collapsed or were seriously damaged.
Also Read: Death toll from Turkey, Syria earthquake tops 47,000
Experts have said many toppled structures were built with inferior materials and methods and often did not comply with government standards. Opposition parties have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration of failing to enforce building regulations.
The mayor of a town close to the epicenter of the earthquake was detained as part of an investigation into collapsed buildings, the Cumhuriyet newspaper and other outlets reported Saturday.
Okkes Kavak, who heads the district of Nurdagi in Gaziantep province and is a member of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), is said to have failed to ensure construction inspections were carried out.
AFAD, Turkey’s disaster management agency, said that 9,470 aftershocks had hit the region affected by the quake.
“This will continue for a long time… we expect these aftershocks to last for at least two years,” AFAD General Manager Orhan Tatar said in a media briefing in Ankara. He said a 5.3-magnitude quake that hit Bor, a town around 150 miles (about 245 kilometers) west of the Feb. 6 epicenter, was considered “independent” of earlier temblors.
EU slaps sanctions on top Russia officials, banks, trade
The European Union agreed Saturday to impose new sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine targeting more officials and organizations accused of supporting the war, spreading propaganda or supplying drones, as well as restricting trade on products that could be used by the armed forces.
The EU’s Swedish presidency said the sanctions "are directed at military and political decision-makers, companies supporting or working within the Russian military industry, and commanders in the Wagner Group. Transactions with some of Russia’s largest banks are also prohibited.”
Asset freezes were slapped on three more Russian banks and seven Iranian “entities” — companies, agencies, political parties or other organizations — that manufacture military drones, which the EU suspects have been used by Russia during the war.
The new measures, proposed by the EU’s executive branch three weeks ago, were only adopted after much internal wrangling over their exact make-up, and made public one day after the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the intended target date.
The delay, which was minor but symbolically important, is yet more evidence of how difficult it has become for the 27-nation bloc to identify new targets for restrictive measures that are acceptable to all member nations.
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The sanctions are meant to undermine Russia’s economy and drain funds for its war effort, but they are also increasingly inflicting pain on European economies already hit by high inflation and energy prices and still suffering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before this latest round of measures, the EU had already targeted almost 1,400 Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, government ministers, lawmakers and oligarchs believed loyal to the Kremlin, but also officers believed responsible for war crimes or targeting civilian infrastructure.
The bloc had also frozen the assets of more than 170 organizations, ranging from political parties and paramilitary groups to banks, private companies and media outlets accused of spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda.
Russia’s energy sector was hit, too — notably oil and coal — and the bloc, through its own measures and political decisions combined with retaliation from Moscow, was rapidly weaned off its dependence on Russian natural gas.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the new package in his nightly address on Saturday.
“Sanctions will continue to be introduced so that nothing remains of the potential of Russian aggression,” he said.
“There are new sanctions steps in the 10th package, powerful ones, against the defense industry and the financial sector of the terrorist state and against the propagandists who drowned Russian society in lies and are trying to spread their lies onto the whole world,” Zelenskyy said.
G-20 meeting in India ends without consensus on Ukraine war
A meeting of finance chiefs of the Group of 20 leading economies ended on Saturday without a consensus, with Russia and China objecting to the description of the war in Ukraine in a final document.
The meeting hosted by India issued the G-20 Chair’s summary and an outcome document stating that there was no agreement on the wording of the war in Ukraine. The first day of the meeting took place on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Group of Seven major industrial nations announced new sanctions against Russia on Friday, just as the talks of the G-20 group wrapped up in confusion in the Indian technology hub of Bengaluru.
Also Read: German leader Scholz arrives in India to boost economic ties
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen condemned the “illegal and unjustified war against Ukraine” at a session attended by Russian officials and reiterated calls for G-20 nations to do more to support Ukraine and hinder Moscow’s war effort.
At the last major G-20 meeting, in Bali, Indonesia, in November, leaders had strongly condemned the war, warning that the conflict was intensifying fragilities in the world’s economy. The group includes Russia and also countries like China and India that have significant trade with Moscow.
India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters that the communique prepared for the Bengaluru meeting carried two paragraphs from the Bali declaration, but Russia and China demanded they be deleted and said they could not be part of the final document this time.
Their contention was they had approved the Bali declaration under the then prevailing circumstances, she said. "Now they didn't want it," Sitharaman said. She didn't give any other details.
The Bali declaration said that “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy – constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity, and elevating financial stability risks.”
The declaration also said: "There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions. G-20 is not the forum to resolve security issues, we acknowledge that security issues can have significant consequences for the global economy."
The second paragraph of the declaration, which is now unacceptable to Russia and China, said, "It is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability. ... The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible. The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today’s era must not be of war."
Sitharaman said the meeting could not issue a communique because of the objections raised by Russia and China and decided to opt for a summary and an outcome document.
Ukraine: Zelenskyy seeks more sanctions, fighting grinds on
Fighting is grinding on in Ukraine after the country marked the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, with Ukrainian authorities on Saturday reporting dozens of new Russian strikes and attacks on cities in the east and south.
After a somber and defiant day of commemorations on Friday and a marathon news conference, Ukraine’s seemingly indefatigable president followed up with new video posts a day later in which he declared that “Russia must lose in Ukraine” and argued that its forces can be defeated this year.
In a separate tweet, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also pushed for more sanctions pressure on Russia after the U.K., U.S. and the European Union all announced new measures aimed at further choking off funding and support for Moscow.
“The pressure on Russian aggressor must increase,” Zelenskyy tweeted in English.
He said that Ukraine wants to see “decisive steps” against Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, and the Russian nuclear industry as well as “more pressure on military and banking.”
Also Read: China issues peace plan; Zelenskyy says he'll await details
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Rosatom and his Defense Ministry need to work on ensuring that Russia is ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if needs be. He alleged that the U.S. is working on nuclear weapons and that some in the U.S. are pondering plans to carry out nuclear tests banned under the global test ban that took effect after the end of the Cold War.
“If the U.S. conducts tests, we will also do it,” Putin said.
Russia has already become the most sanctioned nation in the world over the past year, targeted with sanctions by more than 30 countries representing more than half of the world’s economy. But the squeeze on its economy, trade and firms has yet to deliver a knockout blow.
Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, called the latest U.S. sanctions “thoughtless.”
Also Read: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy makes emotional appeal for EU membership
“We have learned to live under economic and political pressure,” Antonov said. “The experience of previous sanctions has shown that they harm the world market to a greater extent, worsen the situation of ordinary citizens in states that initiate or support reckless sanctions.”
The Feb. 24 anniversary of last year’s invasion brought no respite in Russian attacks.
Still, in one of his video posts on Saturday, Zelenskyy asked: “Is it possible for us to win?”
“Yes,” he said. “We are capable of this in unity, resolutely and unyieldingly, to put an end to Russian aggression this year.”
Ukraine’s military on Saturday reported 27 Russian airstrikes and 75 attacks from multiple rocket launchers in the most recent 24-hour spell. It said Russian offensive efforts continue to be concentrated in Ukraine’s industrial east and northeast. Five wounded civilians were reported in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where territory is roughly split between Russian and Ukrainian control.
In the southern Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin also reported 83 Russian shelling attacks, with the regional capital, also called Kherson, hit nine times, and residential buildings, a preschool and a medical institution struck. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office reported three civilian wounded in the region.
Beijing official in Hong Kong warns US envoy after speech
A Chinese diplomat accused the U.S. consul general in Hong Kong of interfering in its affairs after he said the city's freedoms were eroding and warned the American not to cross political “red lines.”
Consul General Gregory May gave a video address last month in which he expressed concern over diminished freedoms in Hong Kong and said its reputation as a business center depended on adherence to international standards and the rule of law.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office in Hong Kong said its commissioner Liu Guangyuan met with May recently to express objections to his “inappropriate” words and deeds.
“Liu also drew three red lines for US consul general and US consulate general in Hong Kong, which is not to endanger China’s national security, not to engage in political infiltration in Hong Kong, and not to slander or damage Hong Kong’s development prospect,” his office said in reply to inquiries from The Associated Press.
Liu also urged May to abide by diplomatic ethics, the office added.
Also Read: China issues peace plan; Zelenskyy says he'll await details
An unidentified U.S. consulate spokesperson said that while they do not generally comment on private diplomatic meetings, they will not hesitate to express publicly or privately the United States' deep concern over the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy.
May, in his address to the U.S. Center for Strategic & International Studies, also cited a decision by China’s legislature that lets Hong Kong's executive branch decide whether foreign lawyers can be involved in national security cases in the city.
The decision was made after the city's top court allowed pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai to hire a British lawyer to represent him as he fights collusion charges that could bring a life prison sentence if he is convicted.
Liu's office accused May of slandering the rule of law and freedom in Hong Kong when he questioned the legal decision made in Beijing and other changes in Hong Kong's governance.
Read More: What is China’s peace proposal for Ukraine War?
The U.S. and other democracies have been critical of China’s crackdown on political freedoms in the former British colony, which was handed back to China in 1997 with a promise by Beijing to keep Western-style liberties under a “one country, two systems” framework.
Hong Kong is among a raft of issues that have sent ties between Beijing and Washington to their lowest level in years, including technology and trade, human rights, threats against Taiwan, and China’s claims in the South China Sea.
German leader seeks Indian support for Russia's isolation
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Saturday that Germany wants to get India to support, or at least not block, Western efforts to isolate Russia for waging a devastating war against Ukraine.
Following his talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Scholz stressed that developing countries were being negatively impacted by energy and food shortages resulting from the war and hopes that India will help secure critical supplies to Asia, Africa and the Americas.
Modi maintained his cautious approach and said India wanted the conflict to be ended through dialogue and diplomacy. "India is ready to make its contribution to any peace initiative," he added.
He has refrained from any overt criticism of Russia as Moscow is a major supplier of arms, oil and India’s other economic needs.
Scholz said that Russia's war against Ukraine "violated the fundamental principle to what we all agree of not changing borders through the use of violence."
Also Read: German leader Scholz arrives in India to boost economic ties
Scholz, who arrived in the Indian capital on Saturday, also discussed with Modi ways to boost bilateral economic cooperation.
He said he supported a free trade agreement between the European Union and India and he “personally will make sure that this does not drag on.”
The trip is Scholz's first official visit to India, though it is his fourth meeting with Modi since taking office in 2021, underlining Germany’s interest in reaching out to Delhi.
“There is huge potential for intensified cooperation in sectors such as renewables, hydrogen, mobility, pharma and digital economy” with India, Scholz said in an interview published by The Times of India newspaper on Saturday.
After a videoconference with fellow leaders from the Group of Seven industrial powers on Friday, Scholz said before leaving Berlin that “internationally, we are endeavoring to make clear that Russia stands alone in the world with its aggression against Ukraine.”
Philipp Ackermann, the German ambassador to India, said he understands why India is buying large quantities of oil from Russia.
"That’s something that the Indian government decides and as you get it at a very, very low price, you know I cannot blame the Indian government for buying it,” New Delhi Television cited Ackermann as saying.
Germany has been pushing to diversify its economic relations as European countries try to decouple from China, a German official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
Modi said the business delegation accompanying Scholz was firming up agreements with India in digital technology, the telecommunication sector and diversification of supply chains.
Scholz reiterated that Germany welcomes skilled workers from India, especially in information technology and software industries.
"We want to benefit from the Indian talent employed in Germany in the industrial sector," he said.
India is set to receive $10.5 billion in aid by 2030 to boost the use of clean energy under agreements the two sides signed in May last year.
The two-day visit will also take Scholz to India’s information technology hub Bengaluru on Sunday.
More than 70 soldiers killed in Burkina Faso, extremists say
The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for killing more than 70 soldiers, wounding dozens and taking five hostage, in an ambush on a military convoy in northern Burkina Faso.
The statement, posted Friday by Amaq, the group’s news agency, said it attacked a convoy trying to advance to areas under its control near Deou, in the Sahel's Oudalan province. It said it seized weapons and chased retreating soldiers for miles into the desert.
Images released by the group show 54 slain bodies in military uniform lying in the bloodstained dirt, as well as more than 50 seized assault rifles and images of the five soldiers it said were taken prisoner.
Read More: Burkina Faso says 66 women, children freed from extremists
The announcement comes one week after the attack in Deou and days after another attack in Tin-Akoff town, where locals and civil society groups say dozens more soldiers and civilians were killed when a military outpost was hit.
It's unclear how many people have been killed in the two incidents. Last week the government confirmed that 51 soldiers died in the Deou ambush but it has not responded to requests for updated numbers or commented on the attack in Tin-Akoff.
Violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group has wracked the country for seven years killing thousands and displacing nearly 2 million people. Frustration at the government's inability to stem the violence led to two coups last year, each one preceded by a major attack on the military.
This is the deadliest ambush on soldiers since the new junta leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traore, seized power in September and analysts say it could threaten his grip on power.
“There’s a persistent stream of militant attacks north of the country and the public is undoubtedly taking notice of their government's inability to provide security. Any further attacks this colossal could threaten a public scene and even threaten to unseat the junta,” said Laith Alkhouri, CEO of Intelonyx Intelligence Advisory, which provides intelligence analysis.
One soldier involved in the ambush in Deou, who was not authorized to speak to the media, said their convoy was outnumbered as more than 300 jihadis encircled them, firing rockets and mortars. “We lost many men”, he said.
The large number of jihadis and the different colored headscarves they were wearing appeared like a coalition of many extremist franchises that he hadn't seen before, he said.
The Islamic State and an al-Qaida linked group, known by its acronym JNIM, are not known to work together, but rather have been fighting each other for territory and influence in the country as well as in neighboring Mali where they operate. Analysts say it's extremely unlikely they would have joined forces.
Some locals say the increase of jihadi violence against the military is revenge for torture and extrajudicial killings by soldiers against people presumed to be jihadis.
Hamadou Boureima Diallo, a local journalist in the Sahel's Dori town, told The Associated Press by phone that he spoke with locals who witnessed the latest attack in Tin-Akoff and were able to flee and that they blamed the killings on revenge.
“These recent bloody attacks against soldiers is because when the soldiers arrest terrorists or presumed terrorists they torture them and make photos or videos that circulate on social media," said Diallo, recounting what the locals said. "We have seen some of the videos where presumed terrorists are being tortured. ... This is not good,” he said.
Russians mark Ukraine war anniversary with flowers, arrests
Russians in Moscow and other cities brought flowers to Ukrainian poets and held one-person pickets with antiwar slogans Friday to mark the first anniversary of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Russian media and civil rights groups reported at least a dozen detentions, part of the Kremlin's sweeping crackdown on dissent that has spiked to unprecedented levels since the start of the war.
At least eight people were detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, according to OVD-Info, a legal aid group that tracks political arrests. They all had brought flowers to the city’s monument to victims of political repression, the group said.
Online news outlet Sota filmed at least seven people getting detained in St. Petersburg after they brought flowers to a monument for the renowned Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Footage posted by the outlet showed a police officer explaining to a couple that they had violated coronavirus restrictions.
Sota also reported a person detained in Moscow, where people flocked to the monument of Lesya Ukrainka, another renowned Ukrainian poet, to lay flowers. A contingent of police officers monitored the group but left mostly didn't interrupt.
Also Read: Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina seeking new passports
Five people were detained in the Siberian city of Barnaul, according to the Sibir.Realii news outlet, including a man who picketed a central square with a placard reading “Stop being silent.” In another Siberian city, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a woman was detained for protesting with a banner that read, “We’re mourning. Forgive us, we screwed up our country,” the outlet reported.
Russians all across the country actively protested against the war in Ukraine during the first week of the invasion. Large rallies quickly fizzled after thousands were detained, but solo pickets -- and detentions -- have persisted throughout the year.
Russian authorities have enforced a law enacted soon after the invasion that effectively criminalizes any public expression against what the Kremlin refers to as a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Russian parliament rubber-stamped a bill that outlawed discrediting the Russian military or spreading false information a week after Moscow's troops rolled into Ukraine.
OVD-Info said in a statement Friday that “for 305 out of 365 days of the war, security forces detained people for their anti-war position in various cities of Russia and the annexed Crimea.”
As of mid-December, the group had counted 378 people facing criminal prosecution for their antiwar positions in 69 Russian regions and the Crimean Peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. The group also counted more than 5,500 administrative cases on the charge of discrediting the Russian army.
Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina seeking new passports
Shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Alla Prigolovkina and her husband, Andrei Ushakov, decided they had to flee their Sochi, Russia, home.
Ushakov had been detained for holding up a sign that read “Peace,” and Prigolovkina, a pregnant ski instructor, feared he would soon be drafted and potentially killed, leaving their baby fatherless.
The original plan was to stay in Europe, but anti-Russian sentiment discouraged them.
“We chose Argentina because it has everything we needed: Fantastic nature, a large country, beautiful mountains,” Prigolovkina, 34, told The Associated Press inside the home her family is renting in Argentina’s western Mendoza province. “We felt it would be ideal for us.”
They were hardly alone.
Over the past year, Argentine immigration authorities have noticed flights packed with dozens of pregnant Russians. But whereas Prigolovkina said her family intends to build a life here at the foot of the Andes mountains, local officials believe many of the other recent Russian visitors are singularly focused on receiving one of Argentina’s passports.
Also Read: Europe bans Russian diesel, other oil products over Ukraine
All children born in Argentina automatically receive citizenship and having an Argentine child speeds up the process for the parents to obtain residency permits and, after a couple of years, their own passports.
Crucially, the navy blue booklets allow entry to 171 countries without a visa, a backup plan that Russians believe could come in handy in the ever-uncertain future. Due to sanctions, Russians have also had trouble opening bank accounts in foreign countries, something an Argentine passport could solve.
According to official figures, some 22,200 Russians entered Argentina over the last year, including 10,777 women — many of whom were in the advanced stages of pregnancy. In January, 4,523 Russians entered Argentina, more than four times the 1,037 that arrived in the same month last year.
After an investigation, Argentine officials concluded that Russian women, generally from affluent backgrounds, were entering the country as tourists with the plan to give birth, obtain their documentation and leave. More than half of the Russians who entered the country in the last year, 13,134, already left, including 6,400 women.
“We detected that they don’t come to do tourism, they come to have children,” Florencia Carignano, the national director for migration, said during a meeting with international media.
Although Argentina generally has a relatively permissive immigration process, the recent arrest of two alleged Russian spies who had Argentine passports in Slovenia raised alarms in the South American country, where officials reinforced immigration controls.
“We canceled residencies of Russians who spent more time outside than in,” Carignano said, expressing concern the Argentine “passport will cease to have the trust it enjoys in all countries.”
Immigration authorities have also called on the justice system to investigate agencies that allegedly offer assistance to Russian women who want to give birth in Argentina.
It’s unclear how many women have left Russia to give birth in the last year, but the issue is big enough that lawmakers in Moscow this month raised the question of whether those who choose to give birth abroad should be stripped of the so-called maternity fund that all Russian mothers receive — a financial benefit of almost $8,000 for the first child and about $10,500 for the second.
There is no discussion on whether to cut off access to the maternity fund for Russian mothers who give birth abroad, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
The phenomenon also is not entirely new. Prior to the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian women were part of a wave of “birth tourists” in the U.S. and many paid brokers tens of thousands of dollars to arrange their travel documents, accommodations and hospital stays, often in Florida.
Embarking on a long journey during an advanced pregnancy can be particularly perilous, and Russians in Argentina insist that their decision to leave their homes goes beyond a new passport. Despite the government’s claims, some at least seem eager to make Argentina their new home.
In spite of the language barrier and the unfamiliar, stifling summer heat, Prigolovkina and Ushakov have quickly adopted Argentine customs since their July move. Prigolovkina said they especially enjoy spending time in the park with their dogs. And while the family may not have been interested in soccer in Russia, they happily cheered when their newly adopted country won the World Cup late last year.
Still, she also concedes that obtaining a passport for their newborn son, Lev Andrés, was a motivating factor for the move: “We wanted our baby to have the chance to not just be Russian and have a single passport.”
Some experts say a country in which migrants once made up as much as 30% of the population should be particularly sensitive to the plight of Russians trying to start a new life. The South American country was transformed in the late 19th and early 20th century by the influx of millions of European migrants, including many from Italy and Spain.
“Given our history of migration, a country like ours should empathize more with the humanitarian dimension” of these recent immigrants, Natalia Debandi, a social scientist and migrations expert who is a researcher at the publicly funded CONICET institute, said. “They are not terrorists, they are people.”
A study by immigration agents based on interviews with 350 newly arrived Russians concluded that most are married and largely well-off professionals who have remote jobs in finance and digital design or live off savings.
Days before giving birth to a boy named Leo, 30-year-old Russian psychologist Ekaterina Gordienko lauded her experience in Argentina, saying “the health care system is very good, and people are very kind. My only problem is Spanish. If the doctor doesn’t speak English, I use the (Google) translator.”
Gordienko arrived in the nation's capital of Buenos Aires in December with her 38-year-old husband, Maxim Levoshin. “The first thing we want is for Leo to live in a safe country, without a war in his future,” Levoshin said.
In Mendoza, Prigolovkina is excited for her family’s new life in Argentina and optimistic they will be able to give back to the country that has welcomed them.
“We have left everything behind to live in peace. I hope that Argentines understand that Russians can be very useful in different areas of life, in business, the economy, in science,” she said. “They can help make Argentina better.”