Explosion destroys supermarket building in southern Russia

February 12, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — A gas explosion destroyed a supermarket building in Vladikavkaz, a city in southern Russia, on Friday morning, local officials said. Russian news agencies reported that no one was appeared to be wounded in the blast. A man who was inside the building at the time of the explosion was rescued from under the rubble and didn't sustain any injuries, the state Tass news agency reported.

According to Tass, the explosion occurred early in the morning in a three-story building housing a supermarket, as well as several shops and offices. Media reports said a gas leak was the likely cause. The blast completely destroyed the building and shattered windows in several residential buildings close by.

Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a preliminary inquiry into the incident.

Top EU diplomat to propose new sanctions against Russia

February 09, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that the 27-nation bloc must take a firm stance in its future relations with Russia including through the use of new sanctions, in the wake of the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Borrell said that he will submit proposals for such action when he chairs the next meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers on Feb. 22. EU countries are divided in their approach to Russia, and no member state has yet made a demand for such measures.

“It will be for the member states to decide the next step, but yes, this could include sanctions. And I will put forward concrete proposals, using the right of initiative the high representative has,” Borrell told EU lawmakers.

“Containment efforts should include combining robust actions against disinformation, cyberattacks and other possible hybrid challenges,” he said. Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile political foe, was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow after spending months in Germany recovering from a poisoning in Russia with what experts say was the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.

The EU has imposed sanctions on those responsible for his poisoning, but Navalny has urged the Europeans to slap travel bans and asset freezes on several Russian oligarchs close to Putin. Borrell didn't elaborate on the details of his proposal.

Germany, Poland and Sweden on Monday each declared a Russian diplomat in their country “persona non grata,” retaliating in kind to last week’s decision by Moscow to expel diplomats from the three EU countries, accusing them of attending a rally in support of Navalny.

Moscow’s decision on Friday was as an extra slap in the face for the Europeans because it came as Borrell — the EU’s top diplomat — was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Borrell said he learned about the expulsions on social media.

Several lawmakers on Tuesday criticized the former Spanish foreign minister for the timing of his visit, and for not doing enough to rebut Lavrov at a media conference that some described as an “ambush.”

“The behavior of Foreign Minister Lavrov was unfriendly, uncooperative and unacceptable,” German conservative parliamentarian Michael Gahler said. “But was it not to be expected that Lavrov would produce an attack on the EU?”

The trip wasn't just about Navalny. Russia is a major trading partner and the EU depends on the country for natural gas. It’s also a key player in talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has a central role in conflicts that impact on European interests, like those in Syria and Ukraine.

But EU countries are deeply divided over their approach to Moscow. European heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and a number of countries are reluctant to wade into any sanctions battle over Navalny.

Borrell said one aim of his visit was “to test if the Russian authorities are interested in a serious attempt to reverse the deterioration of our relations.” But, he said, “the answer has been clear. No, they are not. They are not if we continue to put the political situation and human rights issues in the package.”

“Russia has been trying to divide us. They seek to divide us,” he warned. “This seemed to be a clear objective during my visit. We should not fall into these traps.” EU leaders plan to debate in what direction to take Europe’s troubled ties with Russia during a March 25-26 summit. The chairman of that meeting, European Council President Charles Michel, agreed Tuesday that Moscow does not appear to want to improve relations.

“The aggressive Russian stance during the visit of the high representative shows that Russia is not interested in dialogue even in those areas where cooperation could be of mutual - or global - interest,” Michel’s spokesman, Barend Leyts, said Tuesday. “The EU will not be intimidated.”

Michel intends to travel to Ukraine and Georgia next month to show EU support for the territorial integrity of the two former Soviet republics, which had parts of their territories either annexed by Russia or seized by pro-Russian separatists.

In new tactic, Navalny supporters to rally in courtyards

February 09, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — A top ally of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday announced a new anti-government protest, urging residents of big cities to briefly gather in residential courtyards this weekend with their cellphone flashlights on.

Navalny strategist Leonid Volkov said the protest will start at 8 p.m. Sunday and last 15 minutes. The new rally format — similar to the tactics opposition supporters employed during protests in neighboring Belarus — could prevent Russian riot police from interfering and allow anyone to participate, Volkov wrote in a Facebook post.

The protest will coincide with Valentine's Day, and Volkov titled his announcement “Love is stronger than fear.” “You will raise your phone flashlights — and someone, maybe, will bring candles — and form a heart shape with them ... You will take a picture of it from above, from one of the apartments, and post it on Instagram. Let’s have social media feeds filled with thousands of shining hearts from dozens of Russian cities,” Volkov wrote. “No OMON (riot police), no fear.”

Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.

His arrest and jailing sparked nationwide protests, with tens of thousands of people rallying across Russia for two weekends in a row in the largest outpouring of discontent in years. Russian authorities responded with a harsh crackdown. More than 11,000 people have been detained, and hundreds were handed jail terms. Several of Navalny’s close allies face criminal charges and are under house arrest.

Last week, a Moscow court ruled that while Navalny was recovering in Germany, he violated the probation terms of his suspended sentence from a 2014 money-laundering conviction and ordered him to serve two years and eight months in prison. Even before that ruling, Navalny rejected the 2014 conviction political persecution and the European Court of Human Rights called it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”

In the wake of the heavy police crackdown, Volkov said that protests should pause until spring, as trying to maintain rallies every weekend would only lead to many more arrests. However, on Tuesday he cited the need to “adopt something that is stronger than fear” of repressions and to hold a demonstration that police wouldn't be able to derail.

“We have already become the majority, but Putin divides us by (riot police) cordons so that we can't see each other and see how many of us there are. We need to find a way to overcome that,” Volkov wrote.

Asked whether the opposition's call to gather in courtyards can be viewed as inciting unauthorized protests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “hard to say," but assured reporters that if someone in Russia violates the law, they will be held accountable by law enforcement.

Navalny’s arrest and jailing heightened tensions between Russia and the European Union. European leaders demanded the release of the opposition leader, and the Kremlin has said it won’t listen to Western criticism of Navalny’s sentencing and police action against his supporters.

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Tuesday charged that Navalny's allies were “agents of influence” of NATO and that they changed their mind about putting protests on pause after receiving instructions from the bloc's members “on how to be ‘smarter' about continuing the subversive work.”

Zakharova pointed to an online conference with EU, U.S. and U.K. officials that Volkov and another Navalny associate, Vladimir Ashurkov, took part in on Monday. Volkov said on Twitter on Monday that sanctions against individual Russian officials and tycoons were discussed at the event and called it "a sore spot” for Russian officials.

EU countries expel Russian diplomats in Navalny dispute

February 08, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — Germany, Poland and Sweden on Monday each declared a Russian diplomat in their country “persona non grata,” retaliating in kind to last week’s decision by Moscow to expel diplomats from the three European Union countries over the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russia had accused diplomats from Sweden, Poland and Germany of attending a demonstration in support of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile political foe. “We have informed the Russian Ambassador that a person from the Russian embassy is asked to leave Sweden,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter. “This is a clear response to the unacceptable decision to expel a Swedish diplomat who was only preforming his duties.”

Germany’s foreign ministry said Russia’s decision to expel the European diplomats “was not justified in any way,” insisting that the German Embassy staffer had been acting within his rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to "inform himself about developments on site."

The ministry added that the decision was taken in close coordination with Poland, Sweden and the EU's diplomatic service. Poland's foreign ministry tweeted that “in accordance with the principle of reciprocity" it considers "the diplomat working at the Consulate General in Poznan as a persona non grata.”

In a statement, EU lawmakers also appealed to “all EU Member States to show maximum solidarity with Germany, Poland and Sweden and take all appropriate steps to show the cohesiveness and strength of our Union.”

The parliamentarians called for “a new strategy for the EU’s relations with Russia, centered around support for civil society, which promotes democratic values, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and human rights.”

The tit-for-tat expulsions come as EU officials ponder the future of the 27-nation bloc's troubled relations with Moscow amid deep concern that their large eastern neighbor sees democracy as a threat and wants to distance itself further from the EU.

Moscow's decision Friday was as an extra slap in the face for the Europeans because it came as the bloc’s top diplomat — foreign policy chief Josep Borrell — was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Borrell said he learned about the expulsions on social media.

“The messages sent by Russian authorities during this visit confirmed that Europe and Russia are drifting apart,” Borrell wrote in a blog on his return to Brussels. “It seems that Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe and looking at democratic values as an existential threat.”

He said the trip left him “with deep concerns over the perspectives of development of Russian society and Russia’s geostrategic choices,” and the expulsions, which he requested be dropped, “indicate that the Russian authorities did not want to seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue.”

Some EU lawmakers criticized Borrell for going, or for not insisting on visiting Navalny, who was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow after spending months in Germany recovering from a poisoning in Russia with what experts say was the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. On Feb. 2, a Moscow court ordered Navalny to prison for more than 2 1/2 years for violating the terms of his probation while in Germany.

Borrell tried to arrange a prison meeting through Lavrov but was told to take it up with the courts. “If you are familiar with the court procedures in Russia, you will know that it would take much more time than the duration of the visit,” Borrell’s spokesman, Peter Stano, said Monday.

Ultimately, the trip was never uniquely about Navalny. Russia is a major trading partner and the EU depends on it for natural gas. It’s also a key player in talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has a central role in conflicts that impact on European interests, like those in Syria and Ukraine.

Borrell’s aim was to “deliver firm messages” on the broad state of EU-Russia ties as much as on the imprisonment of Navalny, Stano said. EU foreign ministers will debate the issue Feb. 22 in preparation for the bloc’s leaders to weigh Europe’s Russia strategy at a summit on March 25-26.

But the real challenge is overcoming the vast divisions between countries on how to approach Russia. EU heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and German and other ambassadors are reluctant to rapidly wade into any sanctions battle over Navalny.

Despite calls for such punitive measures, particularly among some of Russia’s close but small EU neighbors like Lithuania, Borrell said Friday that no country has officially raised any proposals on who or what organizations to hit with sanctions.

Cook reported from Brussels. Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed.

Russian court rejects Navalny's appeal; allies detained

January 28, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Thursday rejected opposition leader Alexei Navalny's appeal against his arrest while authorities detained several of his allies and issued warnings to social media companies after tens of thousands swarmed the streets in over 100 Russian cities last weekend demanding his release.

Speaking to court via video link from jail, Navalny denounced criminal proceedings against him as part of the government's efforts to intimidate the opposition. “You won't succeed in scaring tens of millions of people who have been robbed by that government,” he said.

The 44-year-old Navalny, the most well-known critic of President Vladimir Putin’s government, was arrested Jan. 17 upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusations.

Navalny was jailed for 30 days on request by Russia's penitentiary service, which charged that he had violated probation terms from a suspended sentence on a 2014 money-laundering conviction, which he rejected as politically driven. He now also faces accusations in two separate criminal probes.

The Moscow Region Court on Thursday rejected his appeal against the arrest. During the court hearing, Navalny’s defense argued that he was undergoing rehabilitation in Germany and was unable to register with authorities as required by probation terms during the period. His lawyers also contested his arrest, charging that due process was repeatedly violated.

In his remarks during the hearing, Navalny denounced his jailing during a court hearing quickly staged at a police station as a mockery of justice. “It was demonstrative lawlessness intended to scare me and all others,” he said.

In an apparent effort to thwart the next wave of rallies set for Sunday, police on Wednesday searched Navalny’s apartment, a rented accomodation where Navalny’s wife, Yulia, has been living and residences of several of his associates and supporters.

Navalny's brother Oleg, his top ally Lyubov Sobol, Dr. Anastasia Vasilyeva from the Navalny-backed Alliance of Doctors and Maria Alyokhina from the Pussy Riot punk collective were detained for 48 hours as part of a criminal probe into alleged violations of coronavirus regulations during the weekend's protests.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the searches and detentions were a legitimate part of police efforts to investigate the alleged violations during Saturday's rallies. “Law enforcement agencies are doing their job,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “There were numerous violations of Russian laws, and law enforcement agencies are at work.”

Russian prosecutors on Thursday also issued warnings to Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok and Russian social networks demanding that they block calls for more protests. “The state doesn't want the social networks to become a platform for promoting such illegal actions,” Peskov said.

Asked if their refusal to remove such content could prompt Russian authorities to block them, Peskov responded it would be up to relevant government agencies to consider a response. “All pros and cons will be weighed and, if necessary, measures envisaged by the law will be taken,” he said.

Earlier this week, Russia's state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said it would fine Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and two Russian social networks for their failure to block calls on minors to join Saturday's protests.

Also Thursday, Russia's Investigative Committee said it opened a criminal probe against Navalny's top strategist Leonid Volkov, accusing him of encouraging minors to participate in unauthorized rallies. Volkov, who currently stays abroad, rejected the charges.

Moscow police on Thursday issued a notice to the public not to join protests Sunday, warning that it would act resolutely to disperse unsanctioned rallies and bring participants to justice. In a challenge to Putin two days after Navalny's arrest, his organization released an extensive video report on a palatial seaside compound allegedly built for the president. It has been viewed over 98 million times, further stoking discontent.

Demonstrations calling for Navalny's release took place in more than 100 cities across the nation last Saturday, a strong show of rising anger toward the Kremlin. Nearly 4,000 people were reported detained at those protests and some were handed fines and jail terms.

Speaking during Thursday's court hearing, Navalny thanked his supporters, saying “they are the last barrier preventing our country from sliding into the degradation.” Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities have refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned. Navalny’s arrest and the harsh police actions at the protests have brought wide criticism from the West and calls for his release.

Kremlin: US comments on protests support law-breaking

January 24, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin says the U.S. Embassy’s statements about the nationwide protests, in which more than 3,500 people reportedly were arrested, interfere in the country’s domestic affairs and encourage Russians to break the law.

Dmitry Peskov made the criticism on Sunday, a day after protests took place across the country demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption activist who is Putin's most well-known critic.

During the protests, embassy spokeswoman Rebecca Ross said on Twitter that “the U.S. supports the right of all people to peaceful protest, freedom of expression. Steps being taken by Russian authorities are suppressing those rights.” The embassy also tweeted a State Department statement calling for Navalny’s release.

Peskov said the statements “indirectly constitute absolute interference in our internal affairs” and are “direct support for the violation of the law of the Russian Federation, support for unauthorized actions.”

The protests attracted thousands of people in Russia's major cities, including an estimated 15,000 in Moscow, and demonstrations occurred in scores of other cities. Peskov, however, dismissed the turnout as insignificant.

“Now many will say that many people came out for the illegal actions. No, few people came out; many people vote for Putin,” he said. The 44-year-old Navalny, Putin's most prominent and persistent foe, was arrested Jan. 17 when he returned to Russia from Germany, where had been recovering from severe nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin and that Russian authorities deny.

Authorities said his five-month stay in Germany violated terms of a suspended sentence that was imposed in a 2014 fraud and money-laundering conviction, which he says is fraudulent and politically motivated.

He is to appear in court on Feb. 2 for a hearing on whether the suspended sentence will be converted to 3 1/2 years in prison.

3,000 arrested at protests demanding Navalny's release

January 23, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian police arrested more than 3,000 people Saturday in nationwide protests demanding the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin's most prominent foe, according to a group that counts political detentions.

The protests in scores of cities in temperatures as low as minus-50 C (minus-58 F) highlighted how Navalny has built influence far beyond the political and cultural centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In Moscow, an estimated 15,000 demonstrators gathered in and around Pushkin Square in the city center, where clashes with police broke out and demonstrators were roughly dragged off by helmeted riot officers to police buses and detention trucks. Some were beaten with batons.

Navalny’s wife Yulia was among those arrested. Police eventually pushed demonstrators out of the square. Thousands then regrouped along a wide boulevard about a kilometer (half-mile) away, many of them throwing snowballs at the police before dispersing.

Some later went to protest near the jail where Navalny is held. Police made an undetermined number of arrests there. The protests stretched across Russia’s vast territory, from the island city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk north of Japan and the eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk, where temperatures plunged to minus-50 Celsius, to Russia’s more populous European cities. Navalny and his anti-corruption campaign have built an extensive network of support despite official government repression and being routinely ignored by state media.

“The situation is getting worse and worse, it’s total lawlessness," said Andrei Gorkyov, a protester in Moscow. "And if we stay silent, it will go on forever.” The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests, said at least 1,167 people were detained in Moscow and more than 460 at another large demonstration in St. Petersburg.

Overall, it said 3,068 people had been arrested in some 90 cities, revising the count downward from its earlier report of 3,445. The group did not give an explanation for its revision. Russian police did not provide arrest figures.

Undeterred, Navalny's supporters called for protests again next weekend. Navalny was arrested on Jan. 17 when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a severe nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin and which Russian authorities deny. Authorities say his stay in Germany violated terms of a suspended sentence in a 2014 criminal conviction, while Navalny says the conviction was for made-up charges.

The 44-year-old activist is well known nationally for his reports on the corruption that has flourished under President Vladimir Putin's government. His wide support puts the Kremlin in a strategic bind — officials are apparently unwilling to back down by letting him go free, but keeping him in custody risks more protests and criticism from the West.

In a statement, the U.S. State Department condemned “the use of harsh tactics against protesters and journalists this weekend in cities throughout Russia” and called on Russian authorities to immediately release Navalny and all those detained at protests.

Navalny faces a court hearing in early February to determine whether his sentence in the criminal case for fraud and money-laundering — which Navalny says was politically motivated — is converted to 3 1/2 years behind bars.

Moscow police on Thursday arrested three top Navalny associates, two of whom were later jailed for periods of nine and 10 days. Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities insisted that the doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was airlifted to Germany found no traces of poison and have challenged German officials to provide proof of his poisoning. Russia refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.

Last month, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB dismissed the recording as fake.

Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for a decade, unusually durable in an opposition movement often demoralized by repressions. He has been jailed repeatedly in connection with protests and twice was convicted of financial misdeeds in cases that he said were politically motivated. He suffered significant eye damage when an assailant threw disinfectant into his face. He was taken from jail to a hospital in 2019 with an illness that authorities said was an allergic reaction but which many suspected was a poisoning.

Russia arrests 350 protesters demanding Navalny's release

January 23, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian police on Saturday arrested hundreds of protesters who took to the streets in temperatures as low as minus-50 C (minus-58 F) to demand the release of Alexei Navalny, the country’s top opposition figure.

Navalny, who is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent and durable foe, was arrested on Jan. 17 when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a severe nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.

Authorities say his stay in Germany violated terms of a suspended sentence in a criminal conviction in a case that Navalny says was illegitimate. He is to appear in court in early February to determine if he will serve the 3 1/2-year sentence in prison.

More than 350 people were detained in protests in the Far East and Siberia, according to the arrests-monitoring group OVD-Info, and large demonstrations were expected in the afternoon in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities in the European section of the country.

Several thousand people turned out for a protest in Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city, and demonstrations took place in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, the island city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and the country's third-largest city of Novosibirsk, among other locations.

Thirteen people were reported arrested at the protest in Yakutsk, a city in eastern Siberia where the temperature was minus-50. In Moscow, thousands of people were converging on the downtown Pushkin Square as the protest's planned start neared. A police public-address system repeatedly blared messages telling people not to gather closely because of pandemic health concerns and warning that the protest was unlawful.

Helmeted riot officers sporadically grabbed participants and pushed them into police buses. Moscow police on Thursday arrested three top Navalny associates, two of whom were later jailed for periods of nine and 10 days.

Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities insisted that the doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was airlifted to Germany found no traces of poison and have challenged German officials to provide proof of his poisoning. Russia refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.

Last month, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of officers of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB dismissed the recording as fake.

Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for a decade, unusually durable in an opposition movement often demoralized by repressions. He has been jailed repeatedly in connection with protests and twice was convicted of financial misdeeds in cases that he said were politically motivated. He suffered significant eye damage when an assailant threw disinfectant into his face and was taken from jail to a hospital in 2019 with an illness that authorities said was an allergic reaction but that many suspected was poisoning.

Russia will not allow Syria to be arena for Israel-Iran conflict, says Lavrov

January 21, 2021

Russia's Foreign Minister insists that Moscow refuses to allow Syria to be used as an arena for confrontation between Israel and Iran, as tensions continue to escalate in the country with Israeli air strikes on Iranian targets. Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Sergey Lavrov assured Israel that Russia would not allow threats and attacks to be directed towards the occupation state from Syria.

"Our dear Israeli colleagues," said Lavrov, "if you have facts that your state is facing threats from Syrian territory, report the facts urgently and we will take every measure to neutralize the threat."

Lavrov's assurances followed a series of major air strikes by the Israelis on Iranian military sites within Syria. Israel has been targeting these regularly over the past few years in efforts to prevent the strengthening of Iran's presence in the war-torn country.

The Russian Foreign Minister added that his country will not "chase" the US military out of Syria, nor will it engage in hostilities despite being opposed to its presence. US troops are largely based in south-east and east Syria where they guard the oilfields in Deir Ez-Zor province.

Lavrov reiterated that although Russia will not attack the US military, it will not engage in any dialogue with Washington on a political or diplomatic level with regard to Syria.

"We have contacts with the United States through military channels," he explained, "not because we acknowledge the legitimacy of their presence in Syria, but simply because they must act within the framework of specific rules."

While Russia supports the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the US largely supports the Kurdish militias in the north-east of the country along with some elements of the opposition, Iran has also been a key supporter of Assad. However, Tehran but is often seen as a threat to Moscow's interests and influence in the country.

Moscow and Tehran have been seen as competitors for long-term interests in terms of their relations with the Assad regime, their economic stakes in the country and their military involvement. While both have assisted the regime militarily throughout the ongoing civil war – Russia in aerial power and mercenaries, and Iran in its funding of Damascus and the deployment of Shia militias – they have developed different economic strategies within the country, especially for the post-conflict period.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210121-russia-will-not-allow-syria-to-be-arena-for-israel-iran-conflict-says-lavrov/.

Russia suspends its mission at NATO, shuts alliance's office

October 18, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia on Monday suspended its mission at NATO and ordered the closure of the alliance's office in Moscow in retaliation for NATO's expulsion of Russian diplomats. Earlier this month, NATO withdrew the accreditation of eight Russian officials to its Brussels headquarters, saying it believes they have been secretly working as Russian intelligence officers. NATO also halved the size of Moscow’s team at its headquarters from 20 to 10.

Moscow has dismissed the accusations as baseless. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered Moscow's response Monday, announcing the suspension of Russia's mission at NATO and the closure of the alliance's military liaison and information offices in the Russian capital.

He charged that the alliance's action has confirmed that “NATO isn't interested in any kind of equal dialogue or joint work,” adding that “we don't see any need to keep pretending that there could be any shift in the foreseeable future.”

Lavrov added that contacts between the Western military alliance and Russia could be maintained through the Russian Embassy in Belgium. "As a result of NATO’s deliberate moves, we have practically no conditions for elementary diplomatic work and in response to NATO’s actions we suspend the work of our permanent mission to NATO, including the work of the chief military envoy, probably from Nov. 1. Or it may take several more days,” Lavrov said.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement that NATO's actions “confirm that they are not interested in an equal dialogue and joint work to deescalate military-political tensions." “The alliance’s line towards our country is becoming more and more aggressive,” the ministry noted. "The ‘Russian threat’ is inflated in order to strengthen the internal unity of the alliance, to create the appearance of its ‘relevance’ in modern geopolitical conditions.”

NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said: "We regret these steps. NATO’s policy towards Russia remains consistent. We have strengthened our deterrence and defense in response to Russia’s aggressive actions, while at the same time we remain open to dialogue, including through the NATO-Russia Council.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in Luxembourg that “this decision taken in Moscow will further prolong the difficult situation we’re in, this frosty period that’s been going on for some time,” adding that “this will put a further serious strain on relations.”

“Germany has repeatedly pushed for dialogue with Russia within NATO over the past years,” Maas noted. "We have to recognize once more, that Russia apparently no longer is. That is more than regrettable.”

The Russian mission isn’t based at NATO’s headquarters, but in a leafy neighborhood in the south of the Belgian capital, Brussels. NATO suspended practical cooperation with Russia in 2014 after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, but has kept channels open for high-level meetings and for military-to-military cooperation. But the NATO-Russia Council, their preferred forum, has only met sporadically since then.

Amid a strain in ties, Moscow has repeatedly voiced concerns over the deployment of NATO forces near Russian borders, describing it as a threat to its security. Russia and the alliance also have blamed each other for conducting destabilizing military exercises near the borders.

India, China army talks to defuse border tensions fail

October 11, 2021

NEW DELHI (AP) — Talks between Indian and Chinese army commanders to disengage troops from key friction areas along their border have ended in a stalemate and failed to ease a 17-month standoff that has sometimes led to deadly clashes, the two sides said Monday.

The continuing standoff means the two nations will keep troops in the forward areas of Ladakh for a second consecutive winter in dangerously freezing temperatures. India's defense ministry, in a statement, said it gave “constructive suggestions” but the Chinese side was “not agreeable” and “could not provide any forward-looking proposals.” A statement from a Chinese military spokesperson said “the Indian side sticks to unreasonable and unrealistic demands, adding difficulties to the negotiations.”

The commanders from both armies met for the talks Sunday after a gap of two months at Moldo on the Chinese side in the Ladakh area. Since February, both India and China have withdrawn troops from some faceoff sites on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but they continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multi-tier deployment.

Troops have been added at Demchok and Depsang Plains, Indian media reports say. Sunday's talks came amid frustration expressed by the Indian army chief at what he called the massive deployment of troops and weaponry by the Chinese side.

“Yes, it is a matter of concern that the large-scale buildup has occurred and continues to be in place, and to sustain that kind of a buildup, there has been an equal amount of infrastructure development on the Chinese side,” Gen. M.M. Naravane said on Saturday.

“So, it means that they (China) are there to stay. We are keeping a close watch on all these developments, but if they are there to stay, we are there to stay, too,” he said. The Chinese statement from Senior Col. Long Shaohua of the Western Theater Command said “China’s determination to safeguard its sovereignty is unwavering, and China hopes India will not misjudge the situation.”

Temperatures in the forward areas in Ladakh drop to 30 below zero Celsius (22 below zero Fahrenheit) around January. The troops from both sides used to retreat to their traditional summer holding positions around this time, but since the faceoff started in May 2020 have continued to remain close to the disputed border.

Both countries have stationed tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along the de facto border called the Line of Actual Control. Last year, 20 Indian troops were killed in a clash with Chinese soldiers involving clubs, stones and fists along the disputed border. China said it lost four soldiers.

The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war over the border in 1962.

Since the standoff began last year, the Chinese have been building build dozens of large weather-proof structures along the LAC in eastern Ladakh for their troops to stay in during the winter. New helipads, widening of airstrips, new barracks, new surface-to-air missile sites and radar locations have also been reported by Indian media.

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

Police arrest Indian minister's son in killing of farmers

October 10, 2021

LUCKNOW, India (AP) — Indian police on Saturday arrested the son of a junior minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government as a suspect days after nine people were killed in a deadly escalation of yearlong demonstrations by tens of thousands of farmers against contentious agriculture laws in northern India, a police officer said.

Four farmers died Sunday when a car owned by Junior Home Minister Ajay Mishra ran over a group of protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, a town in Uttar Pradesh state, officials and farm leaders said.

Farm leaders alleged that Mishra’s son was in the car when it ran over the protesters, but Mishra denied it. His driver and three members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, who were in a car, were all killed by the protesters by beating them with sticks in the violence that broke out after the incident.

Police officer Upendra Agarwal said on Saturday that Ashish Misra was arrested following day-long questioning in the town after "he failed to furnish any supportive evidence to prove that he was not present in any of the three vehicles that plowed through a crowd of farmers killing four of them."

His father Ajay Mishra said that his son was innocent and that he was not present. The arrest came a day after India’s top court criticized the state government for not arresting Ashish Mishra against whom a criminal case of murder is being investigated by the police. On Friday, Mishra made the police wait for hours for questioning before sending a message that he was unwell and couldn’t make it.

Darshan Pal, a farmers’ leader, and Akhilesh Singh, an opposition Congress party leader, demanded the removal of his father from Modi’s government. Police earlier this week said they had so far arrested six people and filed a criminal complaint against 14 more, including the minister’s son, in connection with the deaths of the four farmers. The BJP also lodged a criminal complaint against the farmers over the deaths of its members and the car driver, said Arvind Chaurasia, a senior official in charge of the district.

Police also said they recovered the body of a local journalist where violence ensued Sunday but did not provide further details on how he was killed. The violence marked an escalation in ongoing protests against agriculture laws that farmers say will shatter their livelihoods. The protests have lasted since the government passed the laws last September and have been one of the biggest challenges to Modi.

Last week, thousands of farmers gathered at the edges of the capital New Delhi to mark one year of demonstrations. The government says the changes in the laws were needed to modernize agriculture and boost production through private investment. But the farmers say the laws will devastate their earnings by ending guaranteed pricing and will force them to sell their crops to corporations at cheaper prices.

Russians to stay off work for a week as virus deaths rise

October 20, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered most Russians to stay off work for a week starting later this month amid rising COVID-19 infections and deaths, and he strongly urged reluctant citizens to get vaccinated.

The government coronavirus task force reported 1,028 deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. That brought Russia's death toll to 226,353, by far the highest in Europe.

Putin said he supports the Cabinet’s proposal to introduce a nonworking period starting Oct. 30 and extending through the following week, when four of seven days are already non-working, including a two-day state holiday. In some regions where the situation is the most threatening, he said the nonworking period could start as early as Saturday and be extended past Nov. 7.

“Our task today is to protect life and health of our citizens and minimize the consequences of the dangerous infection,” Putin said in a video call with top officials. “To achieve that, it's necessary to first of all slow the pace of contagion and mobilize additional reserves of the health care system, which is currently working under a high strain.”

Russia’s daily coronavirus mortality numbers have been surging for weeks and topped 1,000 for the first time over the weekend amid sluggish vaccination rates, lax public attitudes toward taking precautions and the government’s reluctance to toughen restrictions. Only about 45 million Russians — roughly a third of its nearly 146 million people — are fully vaccinated.

The nonworking period should help limit the spread by keeping people out of offices and off crowded public transportation, but Moscow and many other cities haven’t curbed access to restaurants, cafes, bars, theaters and gyms.

When the Cabinet proposed the measure Tuesday, many Russians rushed to book flights to Black Sea resorts to take advantage of the break. Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who leads the task force, emphasized that the nonworking week should imply limiting access to restaurants, theaters and other entertainment venues, adding that regional authorities will be expected to impose restrictions.

She particularly urged Russians to refrain from traveling to other regions during the period and emphasized the need for relatives of those infected to stay home. It wasn’t immediately clear what private businesses would be required to stop working in line with Putin’s decree, in addition to state workers and employees of state-owned companies. During a similar measure early in the pandemic, many private and state-owned companies in “vital” economic sectors were allowed to keep operating.

The Cabinet has drafted measures on compensation to businesses to help absorb the economic blow, including one-time payments equivalent to a minimum monthly pay per worker and low-interest credits. In urging Russians to get the shots, Putin said “it's a matter of your life and security and the health of your dear ones.”

“There are only two ways to get over this period — to get sick or to receive a vaccine,” he said. "It's better to get the vaccine. Why wait for the illness and its grave consequences? Please be responsible and take the necessary measures to protect yourself, your health and your close ones.”

The Russian leader, who got the domestically developed Sputnik V vaccine earlier this year, said he's puzzled by the vaccine hesitancy, even among his close friends, who told him they would get the shot after he does and then kept delaying it.

“I can't understand what's going on,” Putin said. “We have a reliable and efficient vaccine. The vaccine really reduces the risks of illness, grave complications and death.” He approved a Cabinet proposal giving two days of paid leave to those getting the shot to help encourage vaccination.

Even though Russia in August 2020 became the first country in the world to authorize a coronavirus vaccine and has plentiful supplies, there has been reluctance among its citizens to get the shots, a skepticism blamed on conflicting signals from authorities.

While extolling Sputnik V and three other domestic vaccines, state-controlled media often criticized Western-made shots, a message that many saw as feeding doubts about vaccines in general. Golikova emphasized that most of those who have died recently were unvaccinated. She said 87% of hospital beds allocated for COVID-19 patients are filled, with the number reaching 95% in some provinces.

Rising infections forced some regional authorities to suspend certain medical services as health care facilities were focusing on coronavirus patients. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted the situation is “very sad,” noting that the level of vaccination in those regions was particularly low.

Putin warned regional leaders against trying to embellish statistics, saying a “high number of new infections doesn't mean poor work" by the authorities. “It shows the efficiency of regional teams, not the other way round," he said.

Until now, the Kremlin ruled out a nationwide lockdown like the one early in the pandemic that dealt a heavy blow to the economy and sapped Putin’s popularity, instead empowering regional authorities to decide on local restrictions.

Many of Russia’s 85 regions already have restricted attendance at large public events and introduced digital codes proving vaccination or past illness for access to restaurants, theaters and other venues. Some have made vaccinations compulsory for certain public servants and people over 60.

In Moscow, however, life has continued as usual, with restaurants and movie theaters brimming with people, crowds swarming nightclubs and karaoke bars, and commuters widely ignoring mask mandates on public transportation even as ICUs have filled.

Medical workers expressed bewilderment over the vaccine skepticism and lax attitude to precautions. “I think about sleepless nights when we get a huge number of patients who didn’t even bother to use banal protective means,” said Dr. Natavan Ibragimova of Moscow's Hospital No. 52, where an ICU was filled to capacity.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said unvaccinated people over 60 will be required to stay home. He also told businesses to keep at least a third of their employees working remotely for three months starting Oct. 25.

Dr. Catherine Smallwood, the COVID-19 incident manager at the World Health Organization’s European branch, said vaccination levels at or below 30% in Russia and eastern European countries like Bulgaria and Romania were “particularly concerning.”

“It’s very clear that in countries that have lower vaccine uptake, that’s where we’re seeing the serious pandemic effects at the moment in terms of deaths and people ending up in hospital,” she said. The government task force has registered more than 8 million total infections and its official COVID-19 death toll ranks Russia as having the fifth-most pandemic deaths in the world, behind the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.

However, state statistics agency Rosstat, which also counts deaths in which the virus wasn’t considered the main cause, has reported a much higher death toll — about 418,000 as of August.

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Kostya Manenkov in Moscow contributed.

UK faces calls for 'Plan B' with virus cases high and rising

October 19, 2021

LONDON (AP) — Life has returned to normal for millions in Britain since coronavirus restrictions were lifted over the summer. But while the rules have vanished, the virus hasn't. Many scientists are now calling on the government to reimpose social restrictions and speed up booster vaccinations as coronavirus infection rates, already Europe’s highest, rise still further.

The U.K. recorded 43,738 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, slightly down from the 49,156 reported Monday, which was the largest number since mid-July. New infections have averaged more than 44,000 a day over the past week, a 16% increase on the week before.

Last week, the Office for National Statistics estimated that one in 60 people in England had the virus, one of the highest levels seen in Britain during the pandemic. In July, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government lifted all the legal restrictions that had been imposed more than a year earlier to slow the spread of the virus, including face coverings indoors and social distancing rules. Nightclubs and other crowded venues were allowed to open at full capacity, and people were no longer advised to work from home if they could.

Some modelers feared a big spike in cases after the opening-up. That didn't occur, but infections remained high, and recently have begun to increase — especially among children, who largely remain unvaccinated.

Also rising are hospitalizations and deaths, which have averaged 130 a day over the past week, with 223 reported Tuesday alone. That is far lower than when cases were last this high, before much of the population was vaccinated, but still too high, critics of the government say. Britain has recorded more than 138,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest total in Europe after Russia.

Against that backdrop, some feel Britons have been too quick to return to pre-pandemic behavior. Masks and social distancing have all but vanished in most settings in England, including schools, though Scotland and other parts of the U.K. remain a bit more strict. Even in shops, where masks are recommended, and on the London transit network, where they are mandatory, adherence is patchy.

A plan to require proof of vaccination to attend nightclubs, concerts and other mass events in England was dropped by the Conservative government amid opposition from lawmakers, though Scotland introduced a vaccine pass program this month.

Some scientists say a bigger factor is waning immunity. Britain’s vaccination program got off to a quick start, with shots given to the elderly and vulnerable beginning in December 2020, and so far almost 80% of eligible people have received two doses. The early start means millions of people have been vaccinated for more than six months, and studies have suggested vaccines’ protection gradually wanes over time.

Millions of people in Britain are being offered booster shots, but critics say the program is moving too slowly, at about 180,000 doses a day. More than half of the people eligible for a booster dose haven't yet received one.

The U.K. also waited longer than the U.S. and many European nations to vaccinate children ages 12-15, and only about 15% in that age group in England have had a shot since they became eligible last month.

“It’s critical we accelerate the booster program,” said epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. Ferguson said one factor influencing the U.K.'s high case numbers was that it has relied heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine, “and, while that protects very well against very severe outcomes of COVID, it protects slightly less well than Pfizer against infection and transmission, particularly in the face of the delta variant.”

He also noted that “most Western European countries have kept in place more control measures, vaccine mandates, mask-wearing mandates, and tend to have lower case numbers and certainly not case numbers which are going up as fast as we’ve got.”

“But at the end of the day this is a policy decision for government to make,” he told the BBC. Scientists in the U.K. are also keeping an eye on a new subvariant of the dominant delta strain of the virus. The mutation, known as AY4.2, accounts for a small but growing number of cases in Britain.

Francois Balloux, director of the University College London Genetics Institute, said the subvariant might be slightly more transmissible and was being “closely monitored." But he said evidence suggested “it hasn’t been driving the recent increase in case numbers in the U.K.”

A report by lawmakers released last week concluded that the British government waited too long to impose a lockdown in the early days of the pandemic, missing a chance to contain the disease and leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Critics say it is repeating that mistake.

Last month, the prime minister said the country might need to move to a “Plan B” — reintroducing measures such as mandatory masks and bringing in vaccine passes — if cases rose so high in the fall and winter that the health system came under “unsustainable” strain.

For now, the government says it won’t change course, but will try to boost vaccination rates, with a new ad campaign and an increased number of sites outside of schools where kids can receive their shots.

Johnson’s spokesman, Max Blain, said “we always knew the next few months would be challenging.” But he said the government was trying to protect “both lives and livelihoods.” “Clearly we are keeping a very close eye on rising case rates,” Blain said. “The most important message for the public to understand is the vital importance of the booster program.

But, he added: “There are no plans to move to Plan B.”

As deaths rise, Russian doctors despair at low vaccine rate

October 19, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — Dr. Georgy Arbolishvili doesn’t need to see government statistics or hear about the records being broken every day for infections and deaths to know that Russia is struggling through a particularly alarming phase of the coronavirus pandemic.

He simply looks around his filled-to-capacity intensive care unit at Moscow’s Hospital No. 52. With only about a third of Russia's 146 million people vaccinated against COVID-19, the country has hovered near 1,000 reported deaths per day for weeks and surpassed it on Saturday — a situation that Arbolishvili says “causes despair.”

“The majority of ICU patients in grave condition are unvaccinated," he told The Associated Press. These illnesses “could have been very easily avoided if a person had been vaccinated.” With a record 1,015 fatalities reported Tuesday, the country's death toll is now 225,325 — by far the highest in Europe, even though most experts agree even that figure is an undercount.

Those statistics “are directly linked to vaccinations,” Arbolishvili said. "The countries with a high share of those vaccinated don't have such bad mortality numbers.” Even though vaccines are plentiful, Russians have shown hesitancy and skepticism when it comes to getting vaccinated, which has been blamed on conflicting signals sent by authorities since the pandemic began last year.

Even as ICUs have filled in recent weeks, life in Moscow has continued as usual, with restaurants and movie theaters brimming with people, crowds swarming nightclubs and karaoke bars and commuters widely ignoring mask mandates on public transportation.

That makes medical workers like Dr. Natavan Ibragimova shudder. “I think about sleepless nights when we get a huge number of patients who didn't even bother to use banal protective means,” the internist at Hospital No. 52 said.

Patients who have gotten the vaccine usually don't have serious symptoms, Ibragimova added, while the unvaccinated come to regret it. “Patients who survive after a grave course of illness tell us when they are discharged, 'Doctor, you were right and I will tell everyone that it's necessary to get the vaccine,'" she said.

Until now, the Kremlin has ruled out a new nationwide lockdown like the one imposed early in the pandemic that dealt a heavy blow to the economy and sapped President Vladimir Putin’s popularity. The surging infections have raised the pressure on Russia's health care system and prompted Cabinet officials to suggest that most public sector workers take a week off.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, who heads the coronavirus task force, suggested Tuesday that such a nonworking period start Oct. 30 and last through the following week, when four of seven days already are state holidays. The Cabinet will ask Putin to authorize the move, which would still keep many businesses in the service sector open.

Authorities also have raised the pressure on medical workers, teachers and public servants to get vaccinated, but the pace has stayed sluggish. Putin has underlined the importance of vaccinations but has emphasized that it should be voluntary.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted that while the government has done everything to make vaccinations easily available, it should have been more proactive in encouraging them. “Obviously, more should have been done to explain the lack of alternative to vaccination,” Peskov told reporters.

Authorities have set up vaccination sites in shopping malls and other facilities at clinics where shots are offered without any advance booking. They also have used lotteries, bonuses and other incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated, without much success.

Russia is the only place “where you can easily come and get the shot while passing by,” said Dr. Irina Beloglazova, a pulmonary specialist at Hospital No. 52. “A vaccine offers a clear chance to survive. I wonder why people don’t take that chance.”

In August 2020, Russia boasted of being the first country in the world to authorize a coronavirus vaccine even though it was only tested on a few dozen people at the time, proudly naming the shot Sputnik V in honor of its pioneering space program.

While extolling Sputnik V and three other domestic vaccines developed later, state-controlled media derided Western-made vaccine shots, a controversial message that many saw as feeding public doubts about vaccines in general.

Asked if authorizing imports of foreign vaccines would help, Peskov said the skepticism isn't limited to domestic shots. So far, the World Health Organization and the European Union have not authorized the use of Sputnik V, and Peskov emphasized that the issue should be resolved on an equal basis.

While resisting a nationwide lockdown, the Kremlin empowered regional authorities across the country to decide on local restrictions, depending on their situation. Many of Russia’s 85 regions already have restricted attendance at large public events and limited access to theaters, restaurants and other venues. Some have made vaccinations compulsory for certain public servants and people over 60.

Golikova urged the regions to move quickly on using digital codes for access to public areas. Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg joined others Monday in ordering digital codes so people can prove their vaccination or their recovery from infection to access conferences and sports events beginning Nov. 1. As of Nov. 15, those codes will also be required at movies, theaters, museums and gyms, and on Dec. 1, they will be mandatory at restaurants, cafes and some stores.

The city reported the second-largest number of new infections after Moscow, where authorities so far have refrained from tightening restrictions despite the mounting caseload. Moscow this week moved to tighten mask mandates on public transportation.

On Tuesday, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said unvaccinated people over 60 will be required to stay home. He also told businesses to keep at least a third of their employees working remotely for three months starting Oct. 25.

Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at Britain’s University of Southampton, said the almost daily record-breaking virus numbers in Russia are hardly surprising, given the lack of restrictions and the highly contagious delta variant.

“We have seen time and again that if you let susceptible people mix, the delta variant is very, very adept at spreading in communities,” he said. Experts at the WHO and elsewhere estimate that might require more than 80% of a population to be immunized.

The government's task force has registered more than 8 million infections and ranks Russia as having the fifth-most COVID-19 deaths in the world after the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico. However, state statistics agency Rosstat, which also counts deaths in which the virus wasn’t considered the main cause, has reported a much higher death toll — about 418,000 as of August. Based on that number, Russia would be the fourth hardest-hit nation.

Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the situation was extremely worrying for Russia and the rest of the world. Even high rates of vaccination elsewhere in Europe won't prevent the virus from being reimported from Russia, particularly if worrisome new variants emerge, he said.

“Until we have control of the virus everywhere, there’s a risk of importation and the pandemic will not be under control,” he said.

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed.

Russians flock to Serbia for Western-made COVID-19 vaccines

October 09, 2021

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — When Russian regulators approved the country's own coronavirus vaccine, it was a moment of national pride, and the Pavlov family was among those who rushed to take the injection. But international health authorities have not yet given their blessing to the Sputnik V shot.

So when the family from Rostov-on-Don wanted to visit the West, they looked for a vaccine that would allow them to travel freely — a quest that brought them to Serbia, where hundreds of Russian citizens have flocked in recent weeks to receive Western-approved COVID-19 shots.

Serbia, which is not a member of the European Union, is a convenient choice for vaccine-seeking Russians because they can enter the allied Balkan nation without visas and because it offers a wide choice of Western-made shots. Organized tours for Russians have soared, and they can be spotted in the capital, Belgrade, at hotels, restaurants, bars and vaccination clinics.

“We took the Pfizer vaccine because we want to travel around the world,” Nadezhda Pavlova, 54, said after receiving the vaccine last weekend at a sprawling Belgrade vaccination center. Her husband, Vitaly Pavlov, 55, said he wanted “the whole world to be open to us rather than just a few countries.”

Vaccination tour packages for Russians seeking shots endorsed by the World Health Organization appeared on the market in mid-September, according to Russia’s Association of Tour Operators. Maya Lomidze, the group’s executive director, said prices start at $300 to $700, depending on what’s included.

Lauded by Russian President Vladimir Putin as world's first registered COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V emerged in August 2020 and has been approved in some 70 countries, including Serbia. But the WHO has said global approval is still under review after citing issues at a production plant a few months ago.

On Friday, a top World Health Organization official said legal issues holding up the review of Sputnik V were “about to be sorted out,” a step that could relaunch the process toward emergency use authorization.

Other hurdles remain for the Russian application, including a lack of full scientific information and inspections of manufacturing sites, said Dr. Mariangela Simao, a WHO assistant director-general. Apart from the WHO, Sputnik V is also still awaiting approval from the European Medicines Agency before all travel limitations can be lifted for people vaccinated with the Russian formula.

The long wait has frustrated many Russians, so when the WHO announced yet another delay in September, they started looking for solutions elsewhere. “People don’t want to wait; people need to be able to get into Europe for various personal reasons,” explained Anna Filatovskaya, Russky Express tour agency spokeswoman in Moscow. “Some have relatives. Some have business, some study, some work. Some simply want to go to Europe because they miss it.”

Serbia, a fellow-Orthodox Christian and Slavic nation, offers the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Chinese Sinopharm shots. By popular demand, Russian tourist agencies are now also offering tours to Croatia, where tourists can receive the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, without the need to return for a second dose.

“For Serbia, the demand has been growing like an avalanche," Filatovskaya said. "It’s as if all our company is doing these days is selling tours for Serbia." The Balkan nation introduced vaccination for foreigners in August, when the vaccination drive inside the country slowed after reaching around 50% of the adult population. Official Serbian government data shows that nearly 160,000 foreign citizens so far have been vaccinated in the country, but it is unclear how many are Russians.

In Russia, the country's vaccination rate has been low. By this week, almost 33% of Russia’s 146 million people have received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, and 29% were fully vaccinated. Apart from Sputnik V and a one-dose version known as Sputnik Light, Russia has also used two other domestically designed vaccines that have not been internationally approved.

Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko recently said administrative issues were among the main holdups in the WHO’s review process. Judy Twigg, a political science professor specializing in global health at Virginia Commonwealth University, expects Sputnik V to be approved eventually, but “maybe not by the end of this year.”

“The WHO has said that it needs more data, and it needs to go back and inspect some production lines where it saw issues early on. Those re-inspections are a multiweek process, with good reason. It’s not something that they just gloss over lightly."

Amid low vaccination rates and reluctance by the authorities to reimpose restrictive measures, both Russia and Serbia have seen COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations reach record levels in the past weeks.

The daily coronavirus death toll in Russia topped 900 for a second straight day on Thursday — a day after reaching a record 929. In Serbia, the daily death toll of 50 people is the highest in months in the country of 7 million that so far has confirmed nearly 1 million cases of infection.

Pavlova said the “double protection” offered by the Pfizer booster shots would allow the family "to not only travel around the world, but also to see our loved ones without fear.” Since the vaccine tours exploded in popularity about a month ago, they have provided welcome business for Serbian tour operators devastated by the pandemic in an already weak economy. The owner of BTS Kompas travel agency in Belgrade, Predrag Tesic, said they are booked well in advance.

“It started modestly at first, but day by day numbers have grown nicely,” Tesic said. He explained that his agency organizes everything, from airport transport to accommodations and translation and other help at vaccination points. When they return for another dose in three weeks, the Russian guests also are offered brief tours to some of popular sites in Serbia.

Back in Russia, some Moscow residents said they understood why many of their fellow Russians travel abroad for vaccines. But Tatiana Novikova said homegrown vaccines remain her choice. "I trust ours more, to be honest,” she said.

Associated Press writers Dusan Stojanovic and Ivana Bzganovic in Belgrade, Serbia, and Daria Litvinova and Daniel Kozin reported from Moscow.

Chinese vaccine arrives in Hungary, a first in the EU

February 16, 2021

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A shipment of COVID-19 vaccines produced in China arrived in Hungary on Tuesday, making it the first of the European Union's 27 nations to receive a Chinese vaccine. A jet carrying 550,000 vaccine doses developed by the Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm landed at Budapest’s international airport after flying in from Beijing. The shipment is enough to treat 275,000 people with the two-dose jab, Dr. Agnes Galgoczy of the National Public Health Center told a press conference.

“With this vaccine, five different types are now available in Hungary so that we may get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible,” Galgoczy said, adding that vaccine shots won't begin until the shipment is evaluated by the National Public Health Center.

Hungarian health authorities were the first in the EU to approve the Sinopharm jab for emergency use on Jan. 29. That came after a government decree streamlined Hungary’s vaccine approval process by allowing any vaccine administered to at least 1 million people worldwide to be used without undergoing review by the country’s medicines regulator.

The country expects to receive 5 million total doses of the Sinopharm vaccine over the next four months, enough to treat 2.5 million people in the country of nearly 10 million. Hungarian officials, including Prime Minister Viktor Orban, have been critical of the EU's common vaccine procurement program, claiming the bloc's slow rollout of shots is costing lives.

“If vaccines aren’t coming from Brussels, we must obtain them from elsewhere ... One cannot allow Hungarians to die simply because Brussels is too slow in procuring vaccines,” Orban said last month. Hungary has also agreed to purchase 2 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, which hospitals began administering in Budapest last week.

On Friday, Orban claimed these additional vaccines from Russia and China will enable Hungary to vaccinate millions more people by the end of May than other European countries with similar populations.

“As things stand now, (we can vaccinate) 6.8 million people by the end of May or beginning of June,” Orban said in a radio interview. “I think this is huge.” Orban earlier said he would personally choose to be inoculated with the Sinopharm vaccine since he trusts it the most.

“I think the Chinese have known this virus for the longest and they probably know it the best,” he said last month. The Sinopharm vaccine, which the developer says is nearly 80% effective, is already in use in Hungary’s non-EU neighbor Serbia, where around half a million people, including ethnic Hungarians, have already received the jab. The company has not yet released data on the results of the vaccine's Stage 3 trials.

The new vaccines shipment represents around 40% of all COVID-19 vaccine doses that Hungary has received so far, and makes Sinopharm nearly equally prevalent in Hungary as the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. But recent polling shows that some Hungarians are reluctant to receive the Sinopharm jab. A survey of 1,000 people in the capital of Budapest by pollster Median and the 21 Research Center showed that among those willing to receive a vaccine, only 27% would take a Chinese vaccine, compared to 43% a Russian vaccine and 84% a jab developed in Western countries. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

Dutch begin COVID-19 vaccinations; last EU nation to do so

January 06, 2021

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Nearly two weeks after most other European Union nations, the Netherlands on Wednesday began its COVID-19 vaccination program, with nursing home staff and front-line workers in hospitals first in line for the shot.

Sanna Elkadiri, a nurse at a nursing home for people with dementia, was the first to receive a shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a mass vaccination center in Veghel, 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of the capital, Amsterdam.

“This is a very important moment for me as a person who works in the care sector. You want to provide the care knowing that your clients are safe,” Elkadiri said. ”Without the vaccine that is not possible, but from now on I can do it."

The Dutch government has come under fierce criticism for its late start to vaccinations. Prime Minister Mark Rutte told lawmakers in a debate Tuesday that authorities had focused preparations on the easy-to-handle vaccine made by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which hasn't yet been cleared for use in the EU, and not the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge didn't comment on the criticism as he spoke before Elkadiri rolled up the left sleeve of her purple nurse's uniform to receive the first shot. Instead, he looked forward to a future with the virus under control.

“Finally, after 10 months of crisis, today we are starting to end this crisis," De Jonge said. But he warned that, "it will take a while before we have all the misery behind us. ” The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultra-cold storage before it's used, is the only shot that has been approved so far by the European Medicines Agency. On Wednesday, the agency was considering approving another coronavirus vaccine, one made by Moderna.

“I’m very disappointed that we are two weeks behind other countries,” Rutte said in the Dutch parliament. The country's public health institute said that about 300,000 carers and hospital staff are first in line for shots. Two more large-scale vaccination centers are due to open Friday and by the end of next week, 25 should be open across the country, the institute said.

Health authorities plan to be able to vaccinate a maximum of 66,000 care workers per week from Jan. 18. In a tweet thanking staff involved in the rollout, Dutch King Willem-Alexander called the start of vaccinations “a turning point that provides hope of a way out of this crisis.”

The Netherlands is in the midst of a five-week tough lockdown imposed when infection rates were spiking across the country. In recent days, infection rates have been edging lower, but the country's public health institute said Tuesday that the lockdown hasn't yet produced a clear effect on infection rates.

Nearly 12,000 people are confirmed to have died of COVID-19 in the Netherlands since the pandemic started, though the true number is higher because not all people who died with symptoms were tested. Andre Rouvoet, chairman of the umbrella organization of local health authorities, welcomed the first vaccinations, which were aired live on Dutch television.

“It is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands — millions — of vaccinations that will be administered in the Netherlands in coming months,” he said.

Hungary gives 1st vaccine shots a day before EU's rollout

December 26, 2020

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Hungarian doctors and health care workers began getting vaccinated Saturday with one of the continent's first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, upsetting the European Union's plans for a coordinated rollout of the first shots across the 27-nation bloc on Sunday.

The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers late Friday and early Saturday after being sent from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas. It was not immediately clear why Hungarian authorities began their vaccinations a day early. Authorities in Slovakia also announced that they planned to begin administering their first doses on Saturday evening.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it “a touching moment of unity.” “Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU," she said.

The rollout marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the world's earliest and worst-hit virus hot spots — Italy and Spain — and others like the Czech Republic, which were spared early on only to see their health care systems near their breaking point in the fall.

Altogether, the EU's 27 nations have seen at least 16 million coronavirus infections and more than 336,000 deaths. The vaccine rollout will help the bloc project a sense of unity in a complex lifesaving mission after it faced a year of difficulties in negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain. It also brings a sigh of relief for EU politicians who were frustrated after Britain, Canada and the United States began their vaccination programs earlier this month.

“It’s here, the good news at Christmas," German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a news conference Saturday. "This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic.” “It is the key to getting our lives back,” Spahn said.

The first shipments, however, are limited just under 10,000 doses in most countries, with the mass vaccination programs expected to begin only in January. Each country is deciding on its own who will get the first shots — but they are all putting the most vulnerable first.

In Hungary, the first shipment of 9,750 doses — enough to vaccinate 4,875 people, since two doses are needed per person — arrived by truck early Saturday and were taken to the South Pest Central Hospital in Budapest. The government said four other hospitals, two in Budapest and two others in the eastern cities of Debrecen and Nyíregyháza, would also receive vaccines from the initial shipment.

French authorities said they will prioritize the elderly, based on the virus's deadly impact on older people in previous virus surges in France. The French medical safety agency will monitor for any potential problems.

Germany, where the pandemic has cost more than 30,000 lives, will begin with those over 80 and people who take care of vulnerable groups. Spanish authorities said the first batch of the vaccine to reach the country had arrived in the central city of Guadalajara — where the first shots will be administered on Sunday morning at a nursing home.

In Italy, which has Europe's worst virus death toll at over 71,000 people, a nurse in Rome at Spallanzani Hospital, the main infectious diseases facility in the capital, will be the first in the country to receive the vaccine, followed by other health personnel.

In Poland, the first two people to be vaccinated on Sunday will be a nurse and a doctor at the Interior Ministry hospital in Warsaw, the main coronavirus hospital in the capital, followed by medical personnel in dozens of other hospitals.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called it the patriotic duty of Poles to get vaccinated — a message directed at a society where there is a high degree of vaccine hesitancy born from a general distrust of authorities.

In Bulgaria, where vaccine hesitancy also runs high, the first person to get the shot will be Health Minister Kostadin Angelov, who has promised an aggressive campaign to promote the benefits of the shots.

In Croatia, where the first batch of 9,750 vaccines arrived early on Saturday, a care home resident in Zagreb, the capital, will be the first to receive the vaccine on Sunday morning, according to state HRT TV. Authorities also planned to involve celebrities and other public figures in a pro-vaccination campaign.

“We have been waiting for this for a year now,” Romanian Prime Minister Florin Catu said on Saturday after the first batch of the vaccine arrived at a military-run storage facility there. The vaccinations begin as the first cases of a new variant of the virus that has been spreading in the U.K. have now been detected in France and Spain. The new variant, which British authorities said is much more easily transmitted, has caused European countries, the United States and China to put new restrictions on travel for people from Britain.

A French man living in England arrived in France on Dec. 19 and tested positive for the new variant Friday, the French public health agency said. He has no symptoms and is isolating in his home in the central city of Tours.

Meanwhile, health authorities in the Madrid region said they had confirmed the U.K. variant in four people, all of whom are in good health. Regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero said the new strain had arrived when an infected person flew into Madrid’s airport.

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech is confident that its coronavirus vaccine works against the new U.K. variant, but further studies are needed to be completely certain.

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, Angela Charlton in Paris, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this report.

La Palma's volcanic eruption is going strong 3 weeks later

October 10, 2021

LOS LLANOS DE ARIDANE, Canary Islands (AP) — Three weeks since its eruption upended the lives of thousands, the volcano on Spain’s La Palma island is still spewing out endless streams of lava with no signs of ceasing.

Authorities on Sunday monitored a new stream of molten rock that has added to the destruction of over 1,100 buildings. Anything in the path of the lava — homes, farms, swimming pools and industrial buildings in the largely agricultural area — has been consumed.

The collapse Saturday of part of the volcanic cone sent a flood of bright red lava pouring down from the Cumbre Vieja ridge that initially cracked open on Sept. 19. The fast-flowing stream carried away huge chunks of lava that had already hardened. An industrial park was soon engulfed.

“We cannot say that we expect the eruption that began 21 days ago to end anytime soon,” said Julio Pérez, the regional minister for security on the Canary Islands. La Palma is part of Spain’s Canary Islands, an Atlantic Ocean archipelago off northwest Africa whose economy depends on the cultivation of the Canary plantain and tourism.

The new rivers of lava have not forced the evacuation of any more residents since they are all so staying within the exclusion zone that authorities have created. Some 6,000 residents were promptly evacuated after the initial eruption.

Government experts estimated that the largest of the lava flows measures 1.5 km (.9 miles) at its widest point, while the delta of new land being formed where lava is flowing into the Atlantic has reached a surface of 34 hectares (84 acres).

The scientific committee advising the government said that if the delta continues to grow outwards into the sea, parts of it could break off. That would generate explosions, gas emissions and large waves, committee spokeswoman José María Blanco said, but should not represent a danger to those outside the no-go zone.

The Canary Islands' tourism industry was already hard hit by the pandemic, and officials were urging tourists not to keep staying away. “This eruption is impacting a part of the island, but La Palma is still a safe place and can offer a lot to those who visit,” said Mariano Hernández, the island’s leading authority.

The last eruption on La Palma 50 years ago lasted just over three weeks. The last eruption on all the Canary Islands occurred underwater off the coast of El Hierro island in 2011 and lasted five months.

What Peace Prize says about freedom in Russia, Philippines

October 08, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — The Nobel Peace Prize sometimes recognizes groundbreaking efforts to resolve seemingly intractable conflicts, such as once-sworn enemies who sat down and brokered an end to war. In other years, the recipient is someone who promoted human rights at great personal cost.

The prestigious award also can serve as a not-so-subtle message to authoritarian governments and leaders that the world is watching. What does the selection of two journalists, Maria Ressa, 58, of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov, 59, of Russia, say about freedom of expression and the history of dissent in the countries of the 2021 peace prize winners?

“It is a battle for facts. When you’re in a battle for facts, journalism is activism," Ressa said Friday.

RUSSIA

Dmitry Muratov is part of a historic cycle that links him to two other Russian winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

When Andrei Sakharov, a prominent Soviet nuclear physicist turned political dissident, received the prize in 1975, the Cold War was at its height and the Soviet Union seemed invincible. The country's Communist leaders tolerated no dissent. Five years after becoming a Nobel laureate, Sakharov’s bold criticism of the Soviet regime got him sent into internal exile.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Sakharov to return from exile in 1986, and went on to win the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Cold War. But while he was earning international accolades, Gorbachev was under attack from both members of the Communist old guard who opposed his reforms and democracy champions such as Sakharov who accused him of being indecisive.

The Soviet Union collapsed after a string of Soviet republics declared their independence and Gorbachev stepped down as president on Dec. 25, 1991. The former leader would use some of his Nobel Prize money to help a group of Russian journalists, including Muratov, buy computers and office equipment for their new independent newspaper in 1993. Gorbachev eventually became Novaya Gazeta's co-owner; Muratov was its editor from 1995 to 2017, and returned to the post in 2019.

Under his leadership, the publication has become the country’s top independent newspaper, broadly acclaimed internationally for its fearless reporting on the bloody separatist war in the Russian republic of Chechnya and on official corruption. The paper has taken a consistently critical look at the rollback of post-Soviet freedoms during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more than two decades in power.

Several Novaya reporters and contributors were killed. The paper's leading reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, who relentlessly covered human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.

A Moscow court convicted the gunman and three other Chechens in the killing, as well as a former Moscow police officer who was their accomplice. But on Thursday, the 15th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s slaying, Muratov noted that the Russian authorities never tracked down the person who ordered it.

“Regrettably, there is no probe going on now,” Muratov said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We don’t even know when an investigator last touched that criminal case.” He vowed that the newspaper would continue working to track down the mastermind of Politkovskaya’s killing on its own.

Muratov also pledged to use his Nobel Prize to help independent Russian journalists. Many people in Russia voiced hope that the prize, by emphasizing global support for media freedom, would help restrain the government's multi-pronged crackdown on independent media.

PHILIPPINES

The Philippines was one of the few places in Asia where freedom of the press seemed assured when Maria Ressa and other journalists founded the online magazine Rappler in 2012. The government of long-time dictator Ferdinard Marcos had muzzled the media, imprisoned opponents and tortured activists. But after the 1986 “people power” revolution toppled Marcos, a myriad of newspapers, lively radio stations and closely watched TV channels sprang up to chronicle the new chapter in the Philippines.

Their mission: delivering timely information to a Filipino population hungry for news. In the following years, the Philippines remained a dangerous place for journalists, a free-wheeling country where retaliatory violence often accompanied the freedom to speak up due to an abundance of firearms, legal impunity and political instability. It had one of the highest numbers of reporters killed each year.

Then came the election of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. After campaigning on a promise to deal with widespread crime, he launched a bloody crackdown on illegal drugs, enlisting police and unidentified gunmen who became the judge and jury for thousands of mostly poor suspects in Manila’s sprawling urban slums.

Rappler CEO Ressa and other staff members took to reporting the nighttime raids that left hundreds and then thousands dead in overwhelmed morgues. Police said they were acting in self-defense when officers gunned down alleged drug dealers. Few suspects were questioned in what human rights activists soon described as extrajudicial executions.

As the death toll mounted, so did Rappler’s stories, some of which suggested that weapons could have been planted on the people killed. In a Nov. 9, 2020, story, Rappler reporter Rambo Talabong quoted the last words of Vicent Adia, a 27-year-old man who was labeled a drug pusher and initially survived “a vigilante execution” only to be slain by a gunman at a hospital near Manila. According to Rappler, Adia had told his close friend: “The police are about to kill me.”

Duterte’s fury at journalists increased as well. The tough-talking president declared that “corrupt” journalists were not “exempted from assassination.” “In 2016, it was really, really laughable. And I thought, ‘Oh, doesn’t matter.’ I laughed,” Ressa said in a 2020 interview, recalling her disbelief that the president would make good on his lethal threats in a country where democracy and human rights had been restored.

Any hint of humor evaporated when she became a target. She was arrested and held for a night, prosecuted in a series of criminal cases, including tax evasion, and convicted of libel. She remains free on bail while the libel case is on appeal, but faces up to six years in prison.

At about the same time, Ressa began wearing a bulletproof vest because of threats. In the 2020 documentary “A Thousand Cuts,” by Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz, she is seen pleading with Facebook representatives to delete violent posts against her and to remove livestreams of Duterte supporters protesting outside Rappler's offices.

“The Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against me. In the last year, the government has prevented my travel four times, including when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I needed to go to see my aging parents,” Ressa said in a Zoom interview after she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

In June, a Manila court dismissed a cyber-libel case against Ressa arising from a complaint filed by a wealthy businessman. A 2012 Rappler article included allegations that the businessman was linked to illegal drugs and human trafficking, and that a car registered in his name had been used by the country’s chief justice.

The law under which Ressa was charged by the government, the Cybercrime Prevention Act, did not go into effect until months after the article appeared, according to Rappler. In August, another case against her was dismissed. Ressa has pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching a ban on foreign ownership and control of media outlets in the Philippines, as well as tax evasion charges.

“You don’t know how powerful government is until you come under attack the way we have. When all the different parts of government work against you, it’s kind of shocking,” Ressa said.

Associated Press writer Hrvoje Hranjski reported from Bangkok and has previously reported from Manila. Anna Frants in Moscow contributed to this report.