Europe
Migrant boat breaks up off Italian coast, killing nearly 60
A wooden boat crowded with migrants smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart before dawn Sunday off the Italian coast, authorities said. Rescuers recovered nearly 60 bodies, and dozens more people were missing in the rough waters.
Officials feared the death toll could top 100 since some survivors indicated the boat had as many as 200 passengers when it set out from Turkey, United Nations refugee and migration agencies said.
At least 80 people were found alive, including some who reached the shore after the shipwreck just off Calabria’s coastline along the Ionian Sea, the Italian Coast Guard said. One of the agency’s motorboats rescued two men suffering from hypothermia and recovered the body of a boy.
As sundown approached, firefighters said 59 bodies had been found.
One man was taken into custody for questioning after fellow survivors indicated he was a trafficker, state TV said.The boat collided with the reefs in rough, wind-whipped seas. Three big chunks of the vessel ended up on the beach near the town of Steccato di Cutro, where splintered pieces of bright blue wood littered the sand like matchsticks.
“All of the survivors are adults,″ Red Cross volunteer Ignazio Mangione said. ”Unfortunately, all the children are among the missing or were found dead on the beach.” A baby was reported among the dead.
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.
Read More: Nearly 1 million asylum requests in the EU in 2022
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.
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.
China issues peace plan; Zelenskyy says he'll await details
China called for a cease-fire and peace talks between Ukraine and Russia on Friday, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cautiously welcomed Beijing’s involvement -- but said the plan’s success would depend on actions not words.
Beijing claims to have a neutral stance in the war that began one year ago, but has also said it has a “no limits friendship” with Russia and has refused to criticize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, or even refer to it as an invasion. It has accused the West of provoking the conflict and “fanning the flames” by providing Ukraine with defensive arms.
“China has shown its thoughts. I believe that the fact that China started talking about Ukraine is not bad,” Zelenskyy told a news conference on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion.
“But the question is what follows the words. The question is in the steps and where they will lead to.”
He said there are points in the Chinese proposals that he agrees with, and some he doesn't. But China's involvement could be useful in isolating Russia, he said.: “Our task is to gather everyone to isolate the one.”
Zelenskky said his main goal was making sure China doesn't supply weapons to Russia, he said.
"It is Point No. 1,” he said.
He also said he’d like to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping: “I believe that it will benefit our countries and the security of the world."
The plan released by China’s Foreign Ministry mainly reiterated long-held positions, and analysts said Beijing would be an unlikely broker.
It calls for the “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries” to be respected, but does not say what will happen to the territory Russia has occupied since the invasion. It also calls for an end to “unilateral” sanctions on Russia, indirectly criticizes the expansion of the NATO alliance, and condemns threats of nuclear force.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry welcomed China’s proposal, and said it remains open to political and diplomatic efforts. Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova praised the plan for, among other things, “implying halting the flow of Western weapons” and “acknowledging the territorial realities that have emerged.” That would include Russia’s illegal annexation of parts of Ukraine.
Ukraine has said it will not agree to any peace without the return of all its territory.
The proposal is “an attempt for public relations on the part of China,” said Li Mingjiang, a professor and international security expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. “I’m not convinced that this policy is going to improve their credibility in being an honest broker.”
Read more: What is China’s peace proposal for Ukraine War?
Speaking after China issued the paper, but without referring to it, Zhanna Leshchynska, charge d’affaires at the Ukrainian embassy in Beijing, said her country doesn't want peace at any price.
“We will not agree to anything that keeps Ukrainian territories occupied and puts our people at the aggressor’s mercy,” Leshchynska told a gathering at the EU mission to China marking the anniversary of the invasion.
Leonid Slutsky, a senior Russian lawmaker, said the plan contains moves that would mark “an end of the hegemony of the collective West."
Ukraine's allies expressed skepticism. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN that his first reaction to the proposal was that “it could stop at point one, which is: Respect the sovereignty of all nations.”
He added: “This war could end tomorrow if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine and withdrew its forces.... This was a war of choice.”
German government spokesman Wolfgang Buchner said the Chinese proposal contained several important points, but was missing a key one: “first and foremost the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.”
China abstained Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution that calls for Russia to end hostilities in Ukraine and withdraw its forces.
The 12-point paper also urges measures to prevent attacks on civilians and civilian facilities, keep nuclear facilities safe, establish humanitarian corridors for civilians and ensure the export of grain. It called for an end to the “Cold War mentality” — China’s standard term for what it regards as U.S. hegemony, and maintenance of alliances such as NATO.
“Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis.” the proposal said. It offered no details on what form talks should take but said “China will continue to play a constructive role in this regard.”
While neither Kyiv nor Moscow might pay much heed to the Chinese proposal, Beijing needed to clarify its stance, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University.
“China feels it necessary to repeat its self-perceived neutrality at this juncture, to save some international inference by not only criticizing NATO but also distinguishing itself from Russia’s behavior,” Shi said.
The proposal comes as U.S.-China relations have hit a historic low over Taiwan, disputes over trade and technology, human rights, and China’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea.
The U.S. recently said China may be preparing to provide Russia with military aid, an allegation that Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called “nothing more than slander and smears.”
On Friday he referred to a “massive disinformation in this respect against China.”
Wang was responding to a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel that Russia’s military was negotiating with a small Chinese drone manufacturer for the “components and know-how” to allow the country to manufacture about 100 suicide drones a month.
People across the world gather to mark war anniversary
A wrecked Russian tank put on display in Berlin, a bloody cake with a skull on top of it left in a Belgrade street and Ukraine’s yellow-and-blue flag held aloft in the sizzling Bangkok sun were among the memorials, stunts and ceremonies held across the world Friday to mark the anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
Commemorations of a grim year for Ukraine spread across the globe, drawing people to peace rallies and other events in the Middle East, Asia, Australia and Latin America.
A rusting T-72 tank was placed outside the prominent Russian Embassy building on the German capital’s Unter den Linden boulevard.
The tank was struck in the Kyiv region in the early stages of the war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022. It was taken to Berlin by a private group, which said that the Ukrainian defense ministry’s Military History Museum loaned it. Destroyed Russian armor litters parts of Ukraine after months of battlefield setbacks for the Kremlin’s forces.
“The whole world should see that there are many people in Germany who stand behind Ukraine, so that’s why we’re putting the Russians’ scrap tank in front of their door,” said Wieland Giebel of the Berlin Story group, who was one of the exhibit’s organizers.
In Serbia, whose government has maintained friendly relations with Russia and has refused to join Western sanctions designed to punish Moscow for its invasion, police moved in to stop a group of anti-war activists from reaching the Russian Embassy in the capital, Belgrade.
The activists wanted to hand over a demand for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be put on trial for genocide in Ukraine. They left a cake, covered with red icing representing blood and with a skull on top of it, on the pavement near the embassy.
Read more: What is China’s peace proposal for Ukraine War?
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stepped outside his office at No. 10 Downing Street, joining Ukraine’s ambassador and some Ukrainian soldiers being trained in the United Kingdom for a minute’s silence in commemoration of those killed in the fighting.
King Charles III published a message lauding the “remarkable courage and resilience” of the Ukrainian people.
A teenage Ukrainian pianist forced to flee her country with her mother when the war broke out gave a solo performance at a shopping mall in the city of Liverpool in northwest England.
Alisa Bushuieva, age 13, wore a traditional Ukrainian floral headband and dress as she played her country’s national anthem.
At a convention center in Utrecht, Netherlands, about 2,000 Ukrainian refugees gathered to hear by video link a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and in Brussels hundreds gathered to wave the Ukrainian flag and chant “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine).
In northern Europe, people placed candles on the steps of Helsinki Cathedral at a memorial event for Ukraine war victims, and in southern Europe peace quotations printed on jute bags were displayed in Rome as part of an installation by Italian artist Gianfranco Meggiato entitled “The Meeting: The Symbol of Peace.”
Moscow planned no special events for Friday, as most Russians took a nationwide day off amid an extended public holiday. As part of authorities’ relentless effort to prevent any sign of dissent, police in some areas visited activists’ homes to warn them against trying to stage any demonstrations.
Ukrainians living in Brazil protested outside the Russian Consulate in Sao Paulo, with one sign comparing Putin to Adolf Hitler.
Ukrainians in Lebanon chanted slogans during a Beirut rally and held up signs saying, “Stand strong with Ukraine” and “No terrorism.” Ukrainians and their supporters also marked the anniversary in Tel Aviv.
Dozens of South Koreans and Ukrainian expatriates gathered outside the Russian Embassy in Seoul. They held candles and banners demanding the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
A peace rally was also held in Tokyo, and people placed flowers outside the Ukrainian consulate in Bali, Indonesia in tribute to those killed in the war.
Ukrainians living in Thailand gathered outside their embassy in Bangkok. About 50 people, many wearing their national colors, sang the national anthem as an embassy official raised the flag. Several wept during a speech by the embassy’s charge d’affaires, in which he urged them to stay strong.
Iliana Martsenyak, originally from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which has been pummeled by Russian barrages, wiped tears from her eyes as she spoke of how the anniversary made her feel.
“Honestly, I cannot find any words to describe how me and every single Ukrainian feels today because of this absolutely irrational, cruel and awful war that has been brought to our land,” she said.
The group marched to a nearby city park, holding Ukrainian flags and protest signs aloft. They stopped at the library of Lumpini park, largely in silence as a mother embraced her young daughter and others stared resolutely into the distance.
Some of the anniversary commemorations began Thursday evening, when the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Portuguese parliament building in Lisbon were lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. The Sydney Opera House followed suit on Friday.
A vigil took place in London’s Trafalgar Square, organized by the Ukrainian and U.S. embassies, and 461 paper angels were hung from the roof of the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London to commemorate each Ukrainian child that has died in the past year.
Germany expels 2 Iranian diplomats over death sentence
Germany said Wednesday that it is expelling two Iranian diplomats over the death sentence imposed in Iran against one of its citizens.
Authorities in Iran announced Tuesday that Jamshid Sharmahd, a 67-year-old Iranian-German national and U.S. resident, was sentenced to death after being convicted of terrorist activities.
Iran claims Sharmahd is the leader of the armed wing of a group advocating the restoration of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but his family say he was merely the spokesman for the opposition group and deny he was involved in any attacks.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Berlin and informed him that “we will not accept this massive breach of a German citizen’s rights.”
Also Read: Ausbildung in Germany for Non-EU Students including Bangladesh
“As a consequence the German government has declared two members of the Iranian embassy unwanted persons and asked them to leave Germany at short notice,” she said. “We demand that Iran revokes the death sentence against Jamshid Sharmahd and allows him to have an appeal that is fair and in line with the rule of law.”
Baerbock has said that Sharmahd, who lives in Glendora, California, did not have “even the beginning of a fair trial” and that consular access and access to the trial had been repeatedly denied. She has also alleged that he had been arrested “under highly questionable circumstances,” without elaborating.
Sharmahd's family accuse Iranian intelligence of abducting him from Dubai in 2020.
Also Read: Iran International moves shows to Washington, citing threats
The official website of Iran’s judiciary said Sharmahd was convicted of plotting terrorist activities. He was tried in a Revolutionary Court, where proceedings are held behind closed doors and where rights groups say defendants are unable to choose their lawyers or see the evidence against them.
The death sentence — which can be appealed — comes against the backdrop of months of anti-government protests in Iran sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman who was detained by the morality police for allegedly violating the country's strict Islamic dress code.
The protesters have called for the overthrow of the country’s ruling clerics. Monarchists based outside Iran support the protests, as do other groups and individuals with different ideologies.
Security forces have attacked the demonstrators with live ammunition, bird shot and batons, rights groups say. At least 530 protesters have been killed and nearly 20,000 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group monitoring the unrest.
Iranian authorities have blamed the protests on hostile foreign powers, without providing evidence, and have not released official figures for those killed or arrested.
Iran has executed four men accused of violence linked to the protests, and activists say at least 16 others have been sentenced to death.
No economic ‘knockout’ yet from West’s sanctions on Russia
One month into the invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden stood in the courtyard of a grand Polish castle and laid out the punishing economic costs that the U.S. and its allies were inflicting on Vladimir Putin’s Russia, declaring that the ruble is almost immediately “reduced to rubble.”
Russia is now the world’s most heavily sanctioned country, according to U.S. officials. The ruble did in fact take a temporary dive and has been slipping again in recent months. But as the war nears its one-year mark, it’s clear the sanctions didn’t pack the instantaneous punch that many had hoped.
The ruble trades around the same 75-per-dollar rate seen in the weeks before the war, though Russia is using capital controls to prop up the currency. And while Russia’s economy did shrink 2.2% in 2022, that was far short of predictions of 15% or more that Biden administration officials had showcased. This year, its economy is projected to outperform the U.K.’s, growing 0.3% while the U.K. faces a 0.6% contraction, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The West’s export controls and financial sanctions appear, instead, to be gradually eroding Russia’s industrial capacity, even as its oil and other energy exports last year enabled it to keep funding a catastrophic war.
Also Read: EU prepares more Russia sanctions; Kremlin readies offensive
Large American multinationals like McDonald’s, Citibank and General Electric fled the country, and some of the country’s richest citizens are forbidden from traveling to the U.S. But if Muscovites can’t get a latte at Starbucks, there’s an imitation waiting for them at the knockoff Stars Coffee as Russia has adapted.
U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo stressed in an interview that the Western sanctions are only one “tool as part of a larger strategy” and that the U.S. continues to adjust its sanctions to outmaneuver Russia’s own shifts in strategy.
“You look at the exodus, the brain drain from Russia,” Adeyemo said. “The Russian economy is far smaller, far more closed and will look more like Venezuela, North Korea and Iran than like a major G-7 economy.”
Still, a December Congressional Research Service report drew an underwhelming conclusion from all the economic parrying, stating that “the sanctions have created challenges for Russia but to date, have not delivered the economic ‘knockout’ that many predicted.”
A closer look at what’s been done so far and what lies ahead:
WHAT’S BEEN SANCTIONED, BY WHOM AND WHY?
Biden last year called the West’s sanctions “a new kind of economic statecraft with the power to inflict damage that rivals military might.”
The sanctions, imposed largely through executive orders, are meant to punish Russia and block its access to the international financial systems and bank accounts that it needs to finance its war effort. Export controls also limit its access to computer chips and other products needed to equip a modern military.
Simultaneously, the U.S. and its allies devoted billions to provide Ukraine with weapons, munitions and other military aid and direct financial assistance.
More than 30 countries, including the U.S., EU nations, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan and others — representing more than half the world’s economy — are part of the unprecedented effort. They’ve imposed price caps on Russian oil and diesel, frozen Russian Central Bank funds and restricted access to SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
Beyond targeting key institutions and economic sectors, the West has directly sanctioned roughly 2,000 Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families. The sanctions are depriving them of access to their American bank accounts and financial markets, preventing them from doing business with Americans and traveling to the U.S, and more.
Unlike the countrywide sanctions on Iran and North Korea, the restrictions placed on Russia target specific industry sectors, firms and individuals. This approach was designed to keep Russian oil and natural gas flowing, in order to limit disruptions to the wider global economy. But energy exports also enabled Russia to replenish its finances and stave off a sharp decline.
An industrialized country of its size — the 11th largest economy in the world in 2021 — has never faced such financial pressure. Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said that “policy making of this kind is always a shot in dark.”
“You’re looking for hits on the Russian economy, it doesn’t happen overnight,” Fried said, noting that military aid was far more important as Ukrainian troops have performed better in repelling Russian attacks than U.S. and European officials expected.
DIFFERENCES EMERGE
While there has largely been unity among Western governments on the necessity to punish Russia, there have been differences in the lengths to which countries are willing to go.
European and Asian countries are more dependent on Russian oil and natural gas than was the U.S. That made a ban on Russian exports hard for the alliance and forced compromises that took months to forge.
Ultimately, the countries in December settled on a $60 price cap, which some critics said came too late and was too high to significantly hurt Russia.
Experts and administration officials have said putting greater downward pressure on the sale of oil and other energy products from Russia would make sanctions more effective.
To Marshall Billingslea, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing in the Trump administration, the sanctions were far from bulletproof and easy for the Kremlin to elude.
“Russia has shot holes through the administration’s sanctions,” Billingslea said.
Tom Firestone, a sanctions attorney, said more time is needed for the sanctions to take their course.
“Anyone who expects massive sanctions on Monday, and on Tuesday the Russian regime would fall is not reasonable,” Firestone said. “It’s a large economy that has large reserves. It has a large variety of trading partners. What we’re seeing and what the government is saying is they’re on track and it’s seriously curtailed Russia’s ability to operate.”
Russia is also seeking deeper ties with countries that have refused to join the sanctions effort. Its exports to Brazil, China, India and Turkey have increased by at least 50% since the war started compared with the previous year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
HOW RUSSIA HAS BEEN IMPACTED
“Russia is a different country today than it was just a year ago,” says Adeyemo, “and they’ve given up almost 30 years of progress in terms of their economic policy in the course of one year.”
But on a day-to-day consumer level, it’s a mixed picture.
Shopping centers have a lot of shuttered shops, but Russian entrepreneurs are helping fill the gaps. One Russian startup has created a reasonably convincing analogue of McDonald’s.
Some sectors have suffered greatly from sanctions and the departure of foreign companies.
Russia’s automobile sector, for example, has taken a particular hit. A market analysis from the Association of European Businesses, representing European companies in Russia, said sales of new cars in January were 63% lower than a year earlier.
Still, Russia continues to export some lumber, aluminum and other goods to the U.S., based on the need for the products in America.
Russian goods imported to the U.S. totaled $14.5 billion in 2022. That’s less than 1% of all U.S. imports and about half the $30 billion imported from Russia in 2021.
The Justice Department last year formed a task force to target the ill-gotten proceeds of Russian oligarchs, whom the U.S. sees as enabling Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
As part of that effort, the department has seized two luxury yachts — in Fiji and Spain — alleged to belong to oligarchs. Prosecutors have also brought criminal charges against oligarchs accused of sanctions violations, including Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and close Putin associate. Deripaska remains at large.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The U.S. government is not finished by any means.
Expect the Treasury Department to impose another large round of sanctions on Russia around the invasion’s anniversary on Friday, with a likely focus in 2023 on logistics and manufacturing firms.
Daniel Pickard, a sanctions attorney, said it’s a safe bet that sanctions “will continue to be used with greater frequency with this administration and other administrations. It allows the president to take action without having to consult Congress and can be adjusted with regard to changing events on the ground.”
Nearly 1 million asylum requests in the EU in 2022
Nearly 1 million people applied for international protection in the European Union in 2022, according to data published Wednesday, bringing the number of asylum requests to a level not seen since the refugee crisis of 2015-2016.
The EU agency for asylum said 966,000 asylum applications were made in the 27 EU countries as well as in Norway and Switzerland last year, up 50% from 2021. That doesn't include more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees who were granted temporary protection in the EU, a special mechanism activated to avoid collapsing already backlogged asylum systems.
The European agency linked the increase to continuing easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions, increasing food insecurity and conflicts in many parts of the world. Though most asylum-seekers enter the EU legally, mainly by plane with travel visas, some also crossed the EU's land and sea borders without permission, mainly through the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean.
After more than a decade of war and economic collapse in their country, Syrians continued to be the top nationality of asylum-seekers in Europe with more than 130,000 applications. They were followed closely by Afghans fleeing the spiraling security, humanitarian and financial troubles that followed the Taliban takeover in August 2021, with 129,000 requests.
Also Read: Migrants seeking US sponsors find questionable offers online
Coming in third were applicants from Turkey who doubled in numbers with 55,000 requests. Soaring inflation and “democratic backsliding” were among the factors believed to have caused the increase, the agency said.
In many places, reception centers are overwhelmed, leaving asylum-seekers in the streets.
The recent earthquake that killed nearly 46,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless in Turkey and Syria has raised fears of a potential surge in irregular border crossings into Greece. Germany offered earlier this month to temporarily ease visa restrictions to some quake survivors while Spain promised to resettle a small group of 100 vulnerable Syrian refugees from Turkey, which is home to 4 million refugees.
Venezuelans, Colombians, Bangladeshis and Georgians applied for asylum in record numbers last year, as did Moroccans, Tunisians and Egyptians. Some 4% of asylum-seekers in 2022 claimed to be unaccompanied minors.
The European agency didn't say which EU countries received the most applications last year. But an internal EU migration report seen by the Associated Press lists Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Italy as the top five.
Asylum authorities issued decisions on more than 600,000 applications last year but they received even more new cases, adding to the existing backlog. Of the applications analyzed, 40% were granted refugee status or subsidiary protection, mostly for Syrian, Belarusian, Eritrean, Yemeni, and Malian applicants, as well as for most of the Ukrainians who chose to apply for asylum instead of temporary protection.
Global impact: 5 ways war in Ukraine has changed the world
War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. The world is a more unstable and fearful place since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022.
One year on, thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Tens of thousands of troops have been killed or seriously wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy.
Here are five ways the war has changed the world:
THE RETURN OF EUROPEAN WAR
Three months before the invasion, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scoffed at suggestions that the British army needed more heavy weapons. “The old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European landmass,” he said, “are over.”
Johnson is now urging the U.K. to send more battle tanks to help Ukraine repel Russian forces.
Despite the role played by new technology such as satellites and drones, this 21st-century conflict in many ways resembles one from the 20th. Fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region is a brutal slog, with mud, trenches and bloody infantry assaults reminiscent of World War I.
Read more: Biden to meet eastern flank NATO leaders amid Russia worries
The conflict has sparked a new arms race that reminds some analysts of the 1930s buildup to World War II. Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of conscripts and aims to expand its military from 1 million to 1.5 million troops. The U.S. has ramped up weapons production to replace the stockpiles shipped to Ukraine. France plans to boost military spending by a third by 2030, while Germany has abandoned its longstanding ban on sending weapons to conflict zones and shipped missiles and tanks to Ukraine.
Before the war, many observers assumed that military forces would move toward more advanced technology and cyber warfare and become less reliant on tanks or artillery, said Patrick Bury, senior lecturer in security at the University of Bath.
But in Ukraine, guns and ammunition are the most important weapons.
“It is, for the moment at least, being shown that in Ukraine, conventional warfare — state-on-state — is back,” Bury said.
ALLIANCES TESTED AND TOUGHENED
Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped the invasion would split the West and weaken NATO. Instead, the military alliance has been reinvigorated. A group set up to counter the Soviet Union has a renewed sense of purpose and two new aspiring members in Finland and Sweden, which ditched decades of nonalignment and asked to join NATO as protection against Russia.
The 27-nation European Union has hit Russia with tough sanctions and sent Ukraine billions in support. The war put Brexit squabbles into perspective, thawing diplomatic relations between the bloc and awkward former member Britain.
“The EU is taking sanctions, quite serious sanctions, in the way that it should. The U.S. is back in Europe with a vengeance in a way we never thought it would be again,” said defense analyst Michael Clarke, former head of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.
NATO member states have poured weapons and equipment worth billions of dollars into Ukraine. The alliance has buttressed its eastern flank, and the countries nearest to Ukraine and Russia, including Poland and the Baltic states, have persuaded more hesitant NATO and European Union allies, potentially shifting Europe’s center of power eastwards.
There are some cracks in the unity. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has lobbied against sanctions on Moscow, refused to send weapons to Ukraine and held up an aid package from the bloc for Kyiv.
Western unity will come under more and more pressure the longer the conflict grinds on.
“Russia is planning for a long war,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of 2022, but the alliance was also ready for the “long haul.”
A NEW IRON CURTAIN
The war has made Russia a pariah in the West. Its oligarchs have been sanctioned and its businesses blacklisted, and international brands including McDonald’s and Ikea have disappeared from the country’s streets.
Yet Moscow is not entirely friendless. Russia has strengthened economic ties with China, though Beijing is keeping its distance from the fighting and so far has not sent weapons. The U.S. has recently expressed concern that may change.
China is closely watching a conflict that may serve as either encouragement or warning to Beijing about any attempt to reclaim self-governing Taiwan by force.
Putin has reinforced military links with international outcasts North Korea and Iran, which supplies armed drones that Russia unleashes on Ukrainian infrastructure. Moscow continues to build influence in Africa and the Middle East with its economic and military clout. Russia’s Wagner mercenary group has grown more powerful in conflicts from the Donbas to the Sahel.
In an echo of the Cold War, the world is divided into two camps, with many countries, including densely populated India, hedging their bets to see who emerges on top.
Tracey German, professor of conflict and security at King’s College London, said the conflict has widened a rift between the “U.S.-led liberal international order” on one side, and angry Russia and emboldened rising superpower China on the other.
A BATTERED AND RESHAPED ECONOMY
The war’s economic impact has been felt from chilly homes in Europe to food markets in Africa.
Before the war, European Union nations imported almost half their natural gas and third of their oil from Russia. The invasion, and sanctions slapped on Russia in response, delivered an energy price shock on a scale not seen since the 1970s.
The war disrupted global trade that was still recovering from the pandemic. Food prices have soared, since Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers of wheat and sunflower oil, and Russia is the world’s top fertilizer producer.
Grain-carrying ships have continued to sail from Ukraine under a fragile U.N.-brokered deal, and prices have come down from record levels. But food remains a geopolitical football. Russia has sought to blame the West for high prices, while Ukraine and its allies accuse Russia of cynically using hunger as a weapon.
The war “has really highlighted the fragility” of an interconnected world, just as the pandemic did, German said, and the full economic impact has yet to be felt.
The war also roiled attempts to fight climate change, driving an upsurge in Europe’s use of heavily polluting coal. Yet Europe’s rush away from Russian oil and gas may speed the transition to renewable energy sources faster than countless warnings about the dangers of global warming. The International Energy Agency says the world will add as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the last 20.
A NEW AGE OF UNCERTAINTY
The conflict is a stark reminder that individuals have little control over the course of history. No one knows that better than the 8 million Ukrainians who have been forced to flee homes and country for new lives in communities across Europe and beyond.
For millions of people less directly affected, the sudden shattering of Europe’s peace has brought uncertainty and anxiety.
Putin’s veiled threats to use atomic weapons if the conflict escalates revived fears of nuclear war that had lain dormant since the Cold War. Fighting has raged around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising the specter of a new Chernobyl.
But the conflict has also brought reminders that, sometimes, individual human actions make all the difference. Defense analyst Clarke said one such moment occurred a day after the invasion, when Zelenskyy filmed himself outside in Kyiv and vowed not to leave the city.
“That was critical in showing that Kyiv would fight,” Clarke said. “And with that, of course, the United States, Joe Biden fell in behind it. If those two things hadn’t happened — Zelenskyy and then Biden’s decision — the Russians would have won.
“That Zelenskyy moment will go down in history as very, very important.”
Biden to meet eastern flank NATO leaders amid Russia worries
President Joe Biden is wrapping up his whirlwind, four-day visit to Poland and Ukraine by reassuring eastern flank NATO allies that his administration is highly attuned to the looming threats and other impacts spurred by the grinding Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Before departing Warsaw on Wednesday, Biden will hold talks with leaders from the Bucharest Nine, a collection of nations on the most eastern parts of the NATO alliance that came together in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
As the war in Ukraine drags on, the Bucharest Nine countries’ anxieties have remained heightened. Many worry Putin could move to take military action against them next if he’s successful in Ukraine. The alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
“When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages,” Biden said in an address from the foot of Warsaw's Royal Castle on Tuesday to mark the somber milestone of the year-old Russian invasion. “Europe was being tested. America was being tested. NATO was being tested. All democracies were being tested.”
Biden met Tuesday in Warsaw with Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who last week claimed Moscow was behind a plot to overthrow her country’s government using external saboteurs.
Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and one of Europe’s poorest countries, the Eastern European nation has had historic ties to Russia but wants to join the 27-nation European Union. Biden in his remarks endorsed Moldova's bid to join the EU
“I’m proud to stand with you and the freedom-loving people of Moldova,” Biden said of Sandu and her country in his Tuesday address.
Read more: Putin raises tension on Ukraine, suspends START nuclear pact
Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought to forge closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was granted EU candidate status, the same day as Ukraine.
Sandu spoke out last week about a Russian plot “to overthrow the constitutional order.” She spoke out after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intercepted plans by Russian secret services to destroy Moldova. Those claims were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.
Biden's speech on the Ukraine war came one day after he made a surprise visit to Kyiv, a grand gesture of solidarity with the Ukraine. The address was part affirmation of Europe's role in helping Ukraine repel Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and part sharply worded warning to Putin that the U.S. won't abide Moscow defeating Ukraine.
The White House has praised several eastern flank countries, including Lithuania, Poland and Romania, over the last year for stepping up efforts to back Ukraine with weapons and economic aid and taking in refugees.
Biden has given particular attention to Poland's efforts. The country is hosting about 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees and has committed $3.8 billion in military and economic assistance to Kyiv.
"The truth of the matter is: The United States needs Poland and NATO as much as NATO needs the United States," Biden said during talks with Duda on Wednesday.