Russia moves to extinguish pro-Navalny 'flashlight' protests

February 14, 2021

MOSCOW (AP) — When the team of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged people to come out to their residential courtyards and shine their cellphone flashlights in a display of unity, many responded with jokes and skepticism. After two weekends of nationwide demonstrations, the new protest format looked to some like a retreat.

But not to Russian authorities, who moved vigorously to extinguish the illuminated protests planned for Sunday. Officials accused Navalny’s allies of acting on NATO’s instructions. Kremlin-backed TV channels warned that flashlight rallies were part of major uprisings around the world. State news agencies cited unnamed sources saying a terrorist group was plotting attacks during unapproved mass protests.

The suppression attempts represent a change of tactics for the authorities who once tried to weaken Navalny's influence by erasing him. Kremlin-controlled TV channels used to largely ignore protests called by Navalny. Russian President Vladimir Putin has never mentioned his most prominent critic by name. State news agencies referred to the politician and anti-corruption investigator as “a blogger” in the rare stories they ran mentioning him.

“Navalny went from a person whose name is not allowed to be mentioned to the main subject of discussion” on state TV, Maria Pevchikh, head of investigations at Navalny’s Foundations for Fighting Corruption, said in a YouTube video Friday.

Pevchikh credited Navalny’s latest expose for the sudden surge in attention. His foundation's two-hour-long video alleging that a lavish palace on Black Sea was built for Putin through elaborate corruption has been watched over 111 million times on YouTube since it was posted on Jan. 19.

The video went up two days after Navalny was arrested upon returning to Russia from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. The Russian government denies involvement and has said it has no evidence that Navalny was poisoned.

While the high-profile arrest and the subsequent expose were a double blow to authorities, political analyst and former Kremlin speech writer Abbas Gallyamov says that keeping Navalny and his activity off the airwaves to deprive him of additional publicity no longer makes sense.

“The fact that this strategy has changed suggests that the pro-government television audience is somehow receiving information about Navalny’s activities through other channels, recognizes him, is interested in his work, and in this sense, keeping the silence doesn’t make any sense,” Gallyamov said.

The weekend protests in scores of cities last month over Navalny’s detention represented the largest outpouring of popular discontent in years and appeared to have rattled the Kremlin. Police reportedly arrested about 10,000 people, and many demonstrators were beaten, while state media sought to downplay the scale of the protests.

TV channels aired footage of empty squares in cities where protests were announced and claimed that few people showed up. Some reports portrayed police as polite and restrained, claiming officers had helped people with disabilities cross busy streets, handed out face masks to demonstrators and offered them hot tea.

Once the protests died down and Navalny ally Leonid Volkov announced a pause until the spring, Kremlin-backed media reported that grassroots flash mobs titled “Putin is our president” started sweeping the country. State news channel Rossiya 24 broadcast videos from different cities of people dancing to patriotic songs and waving Russian flags, describing them as a genuine expression of support for Putin.

Several independent online outlets reported that instructions to record videos in support of Putin came from the Kremlin and the governing United Russia party, and that people featured in some of the recordings were invited to shoots under false pretenses.

The Russian president's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin had nothing to do with the pro-Putin videos. After Navalny's team posted its video involving the palace allegedly built for Putin, state channel Rossiya aired its own expose of Navalny. Anchor Dmitry Kiselev said that while working on the investigation in Germany, Navalny lived “in the luxury he so much despises.”

The reporter sent to chronicle the allegedly luxurious lifestyle the politician maintained while abroad filmed inside a house Navalny rented but failed to capture any high-end items in the two-story building, which featured several bedrooms and a small swimming pool.

She pointed to “two sofas, a TV, fresh fruit on the table” in the living room and “a kitchen with a coffee machine,” and described a bedroom as “luxurious” even though it didn’t look much different from a room in a business hotel.

In recent days, official media coverage has focused on plans for this weekend's flashlights-in-courtyards protest. Reports extensively quoted Navalny ally Volkov’s social media post announcing the event and accused him of acting on instructions from his Western handlers, pointing to an online conference with European officials he took part in the day before.

The political talk show “60 Minutes" devoted nearly a half-hour to the topic, calling the flashlight rally an idea from a handbook on revolutions. It aired footage of protesters shining flashlights during the 2014 Maidan protests in Ukraine, mass rallies in Belarus last summer and other uprisings around the world.

On Thursday, state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti reported, citing anonymous sources, that a terrorist group from Syria was training insurgents for possible terrorist attacks in Russian cities “at locations of mass rallies.”

The reports didn’t refer to any specific protests. Neither did public warnings against “unauthorized public events” the Prosecutor General’s office and Russia’s Interior Ministry issued Thursday, although the ministry mentioned events "planned for the nearest time.”

“The Kremlin is awfully scared of the flashlight action,” because such a peaceful, light-hearted event would allow the opposition to build a rapport with new supporters who are not ready to be more visible and involved in the protests, Volkov said in a YouTube video.

He suggested that the heavy-handed response to the announcement actually helped dispel skepticism about the courtyard demonstrations. “I saw many posts on social media (saying) ‘When Navalny’s headquarters announced the flashlight rally, I thought what nonsense… But when I saw the Kremlin’s reaction, I realized they were right to come up with it.’”

Russia equipping Syria air base to receive nuclear bombers

February 12, 2021

Russia has been developing the Hmeimim Air Base in Latakia in western Syria in preparation for it to receive strategic nuclear bombers as part of plans to strengthen the Russian presence in the country, Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

The paper said Russia is modernizing the Hmeimim Air Base by rebuilding the runway to receive long-range strategic aircrafts capable of carrying nuclear weapons, adding that the strategic bombers would be able, if necessary, to strike "Syrian terrorists" and support the Russian-Mediterranean squadron.

The paper quoted American analyst Joseph Trevithick as saying that Russia is making the runway longer which will allow it to swing the geopolitical balance in the Middle East in its favour.

"The Hmeimim base is an important tool for the Russian presence in Syria, and it is more correct to say here that Russia is trying to expand its geopolitical and military influence to include the entire Mediterranean," Trevithick said, pointing out that, "Russian bombers equipped with winged missiles, launched from the Hmeimim air base, would be able to endanger targets in Europe and strike at the enemy's navy in the event of a conflict."

According to the American analyst, these aircrafts will also be able to respond more effectively to crises and unexpected situations in the Middle East and North Africa.

Last year, Syrian authorities agreed to give Russia additional land and coastal waters in order to expand its military air base at Hmeimim, Reuters reported at the time.

The agreement, signed by representatives of the two countries on 21 July and which became effective on 30 July, concerns an area of land and sea near the Latakia province where the air base is located.

Russia has supported the incumbent Bashar Al-Assad government of Syria since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011. In September 2015, it entered into direct military involvement in the civil war and shifted the balances, allowing the regime to recoup some of its losses.

Source: Middle East Monitor.

Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210212-russia-equipping-syria-air-base-to-receive-nuclear-bombers/.

NATO weighs Afghan lessons of waging major ops abroad

October 21, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO defense ministers are weighing Thursday what lessons to draw from the almost two-decade-long military mission in Afghanistan, including whether the world’s biggest security organization should even undertake major operations outside Europe and North America.

Ahead of the meeting at the U.S.-led military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the way the organization’s biggest-ever operation ended shows that the challenges of such endeavors should not be underestimated.

“It highlights the challenges and the risks to engage in big missions and operations outside NATO territory,” Stoltenberg told reporters. At the same time, he said, “the lesson cannot be that we will never engage.”

“We should not draw the wrong conclusion on Afghanistan and think that NATO allies and NATO should never again engage in military operations to fight extremism, or terrorism,” he said. NATO took the lead on international security efforts in Afghanistan in 2003 but ended combat operations in 2014 to focus on training local security forces. It helped build up an Afghan army of some 300,000 troops, but that force withered in just days in August in the face of a Taliban offensive.

More than 100,000 people were evacuated from the Afghan capital Kabul during the frenzied final days of a U.S. airlift after President Joe Biden said American troops would leave. Thousands of Afghans remained, desperate to escape the uncertainty of Taliban rule.

Stoltenberg suggested that part of the problem for NATO might have been that its role became more demanding as the major international effort to rebuild Afghanistan developed, shifting the organization away from its original task of destroying the al-Qaida network.

“We started with a very limited, narrow, military mission, fighting terrorism, degrading al-Qaida,” Stoltenberg said. But NATO then became “only one of many players or actors,” including the EU and United Nations, in a broader “nation building effort,” he said.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said it was important to learn “that purely military aims alone are not sufficient” when the ultimate goal is to foster democracy and stabilize a country wracked by decades of conflict.

“If you are pursuing longer-term political aims with this, possibly you need even more patience than 20 years, and above all … you have to describe the aims in very concrete and realistic terms, because otherwise you get what we saw in Afghanistan -- that we achieved our military aims over 20 years but nation-building ultimately failed in the long term,” she told reporters.

The actual job of identifying lessons is being handled by NATO’s 30 deputy national envoys, under the lead of Assistant Secretary General for Operations John Manza. Manza was to submit his initial findings in a report to the ministers. A final report is due to be debated by NATO foreign ministers in early December.

Explaining the process to lawmakers earlier this month, Manza said that it’s important to have a “wide-eyed discussion” about hot-spot countries before NATO deploys troops there, and to establish whether those countries constitute a vital interest for the alliance, or just a peripheral one.

“From what I can see there was no such discussion at NATO headquarters about the level of interest in Afghanistan. I would argue that Afghanistan isn’t and never was in the vital interest of the United States or any of our allies,” he said.

Manza noted that the mission was initially small and focused on anti-terror work in Kabul, but that as it began to expand to a country-wide counter-insurgency operation — climbing up to around 140,000 NATO troops — “our level of investment began to exceed our interests.”

“We didn’t see how difficult that was going to make it to get out because the sum costs became the strategy; the strategic driver if you’re not careful,” he said. Other problems were that important military reports meant for civilian decision-makers were “delayed and watered down” by committees, while international Provincial Reconstruction Teams meant to foster economic growth in Afghanistan’s regions became a kind of local government.

The enforcement of a U.N. women in security initiative aimed at ensuring that 8% of Afghan security personnel were female may have actually put them at risk because there was no infrastructure within the armed forces to protect them.

Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Scientists urge UK to prep rapid return of COVID measures

October 22, 2021

LONDON (AP) — The British government’s scientific advisers urged the government on Friday to ensure coronavirus restrictions can be introduced rapidly, as the rate of new infections continues to grow.

Britain has recorded an average of 47,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day in the past week, up 18% from the week before, according to figures released on Friday. There was an average of 135 deaths a day, a 16% rise from the previous week. Britain has recorded more than 139,000 coronavirus deaths during the pandemic, the highest toll in Europe after Russia.

Many scientists are urging the government to reintroduce some of the measures that it lifted three months ago when more than a year of restrictions ended, including mandatory mask-wearing indoors, social distancing and work-from-home advice.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, a body of scientists that advises the government, says “policy work on the potential reintroduction of measures should be undertaken now so that it can be ready for rapid deployment,” according to minutes of a meeting held last week.

The group said that of all the measures the government is considering, the “re-introduction of working from home guidance is likely to have the greatest individual impact on transmission.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government says it may reimpose some restrictions as part of a fall and winter “Plan B” — but not yet.

Britain is relying almost exclusively on vaccines to keep the virus at bay during the fall and winter months, when respiratory viruses circulate most widely. Almost 80% of people 12 and over in the U.K. have received two vaccine doses and millions are being offered a booster shot, including everyone over 50.

Scientific modelers in the advisory group said a big spike in hospitalizations like the one seen last winter was increasingly unlikely, and that booster vaccines could keep the spread of the virus “at levels similar to or lower than currently observed.” But they said there could still be thousands more coronavirus deaths in the coming months.

The prime minister, who visited a vaccination center in London on Friday, said the current infection level was “not outside the parameters of what was predicted." Johnson urged people to take “commonsensical” precautions such as wearing a mask, and to get a booster shot as soon as they were eligible — six months after the second dose.

Though some have suggested a new lockdown may be needed if cases continue to rise, Johnson dismissed the idea. “At the moment that we see absolutely nothing to indicate that that’s on the cards at all,” he said.

Belarus scraps short-lived mask mandates amid virus surge

October 22, 2021

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarusian authorities on Friday horrified doctors by abolishing mask mandates, less than two weeks after their introduction for the first time during the pandemic and a day after the country registered a record number of new coronavirus infections.

The decision came after Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko dismissed the measures as unnecessary during a meeting with officials earlier this week. “It’s just over the top to send police to track down those who aren’t wearing masks,” Lukashenko said. “We aren’t the West.”

The mask mandates were introduced on Oct. 9 amid a new wave of contagion. Belarusians had been required to wear medical masks in all indoor public areas, including public transport and stores. On Thursday, the country officially reported 2,097 new confirmed infections, the highest number so far. Many have criticized the official figures as an undercount.

Dr. Nikita Solovei, a leading Belarusian infectious disease expert in the capital, Minsk, sharply criticized the decision to abolish mask mandates. He described it as “madness” amid soaring contagion, and warned that “officials will bear responsibility for that before law and the Belarusian people in the near future.”

“Clinics and hospitals in all regions of the country have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients and suffered shortages of oxygen and medicines,” he wrote on Facebook. When the pandemic struck, Lukashenko had dismissed concern over the coronavirus as “psychosis” and refused to impose any restrictions. The country was the only one in Europe to keep holding professional soccer games with fans in the stands while the outbreak was in full swing.

The 67-year-old former state farm director advised Belarusians to “kill the virus with vodka,” go to saunas and work in the fields to avoid infection. “Tractors will cure everybody!” he proclaimed. His cavalier attitude to the coronavirus amid soaring contagion and deaths angered many Belarusians and contributed to the public outrage over Lukashenko's re-election to sixth term in an August 2020 vote — which the opposition and the West have rejected as a sham.

Belarusian authorities responded to months of massive protests with a ferocious crackdown that saw more than 35,000 people arrested and thousands beaten by police — a repression that triggered bruising Western sanctions.

While announcing the abolition of the short-lived mask mandates, Lukashenko, who has run the ex-Soviet nation of 9.3 million for more than 27 years with an iron hand, earning the nickname of “Europe's last dictator” in the West, added a touch of sardonic humor, saying: “This is the advantage of a dictatorship — whoosh, and a wrong decision is no longer valid.”

Lukashenko's statement came even as daily infections have topped 2,000 in recent days, prompting Belarusian authorities to halt other medical services to allow hospitals to concentrate on treating COVID-19 patients.

Lukashenko offered his own advice to medical workers to avoid hospitals from being overwhelmed, suggesting they should discharge patients more quickly. “You shouldn't keep people who don't need long hospitalization for 7-10 days,” he said. “If you see that a patient is getting better and no longer needs intravenous injections and other things, just send him home.”

In a further bizarre twist, Lukashenko said Belarus has seen a reduction in the number of cancer patients during the pandemic and speculated that COVID-19 could be a “remedy from oncological diseases.”

He added that doctors first thought the drop in cancer patients was linked to fewer people turning for medical assistance during the pandemic, but claimed that the explanation wasn't sufficient. He didn't provide any facts to support the strange claim, which has caused a barrage of critical comments.

Andrei Tkachev, the coordinator of Belarus' Medical Solidarity Foundation — an association of volunteers and doctors that helps medical workers who faced reprisals from the regime — rejected Lukashenko's assertions as absurd. He also denounced the authorities' decision to abolish mask mandates.

“Lukashenko's claims about the alleged link between COVID-19 and oncology, his statements on the abolition of the mask mandates and reduction of hospital terms cause laughter and tears at the same time,” Tkachev told the AP in a telephone interview. “Doctors understand the absurdity of those claims, but they are afraid to speak out against them for fear of finding themselves behind bars.”

He said that many medical workers who were critical of the authorities have been fired, raising the strain on the nation's health care system. “The authorities’ careless attitude encourages citizens’ carelessness and exacerbates the catastrophic situation, the scale of which can only be guessed,” said Tkachev, who is currently out of Belarus.

Belarusian authorities have registered a total of more than 580,000 infections and 4,482 deaths. Only about 20% of the population have been vaccinated, with Russian and Chinese vaccines. The authorities have stopped reporting daily deaths, and Tkachev and others rejected government coronavirus statistics.

“Official statistics can’t be trusted, it’s falsified,” Tkachev said. “Overcrowded hospitals are a testimony of that. Real numbers are several times higher.” Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the main opposition challenger in the August 2020 election, who was forced to move to neighboring Lithuania after the vote under official pressure, also dismissed the official numbers.

“People don’t believe the government and official statistics and they see huge lines at (clinics) and hospitals,” Tsikhanouskaya said during an online conference. “Belarus faces the worst wave of the coronavirus, and it’s not ready for that.”

Romania revives restrictions as hospitals struggle, jabs lag

October 22, 2021

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Doctor Petruta Filip is working 100-hour weeks at a Bucharest hospital which, like hospitals throughout Romania, is struggling under an onslaught of COVID-19 patients in a country with worryingly low vaccination rates.

The European Union country of around 19 million has only 35% of its adults fully inoculated against COVID-19 compared to an EU average of 74%, and is the second-least vaccinated nation in the 27-nation bloc in front of Bulgaria. That's crippling Romania's creaking health care system, which is also facing record-high death and infection numbers.

In an attempt Friday to curb the deadly surge and relieve pressure on hospitals, authorities approved tighter restrictions set to take effect on Monday. Vaccination certificates will be required for many day-to-day activities, such as going to the gym, the cinema, or a shopping mall.

For everyone, there will be a 10 p.m. curfew, shops will be shuttered at 9 p.m., bars and clubs will close for 30 days, and schools will close for an additional week over half-term starting Monday. Masks will be mandatory for everyone in public.

“I would bring people (who don’t believe in the virus or vaccines) here for a day, and maybe they’ll change their opinion,” Filip told The Associated Press Friday. She works at the capital's Bucharest University Emergency Hospital in a COVID-19 ward packed with patients receiving oxygen treatment.

Romania on Tuesday registered record highs of nearly 19,000 infections and 574 deaths. More than 1,800 coronavirus patients are currently receiving intensive care treatment. Data from Romania's health authorities indicate that more than 90% of those dying of COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

“All the stories on TV are about morgues filled with dead people and relatives crying outside," said Filip, on a day that Romania registered 16,110 new COVID-19 infections and 448 deaths. It was a week in which dark scenes emerged of ambulances queued for hours outside hospitals waiting for beds to be made available. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called it a “national drama of terrible proportions” and said there has been a “lack of concrete action” by authorities on preparing for the latest surge.

“A real catastrophe has been triggered in Romania and unfortunately until people convince themselves to get vaccinated, measures are needed,” he said Wednesday. Earlier this month, Romanian doctors issued an open letter to Romanians titled “a cry of despair” to highlight the plight they face and urged people to get vaccinated.

The rapidly deteriorating situation in Romania, which now has one of the worst COVID-19 death rates in the EU, prompted the World Health Organization to send a senior expert, Dr. Heather Papowitz, to assist in strengthening its pandemic response.

Papowitz attended on Friday the opening of a three-day round-the-clock vaccination ‘marathon’ in Bucharest, which authorities hope will stimulate jab uptake. In the first eight hours more than 13,000 people received a vaccine, authorities said.

“It's really exciting that we see so many people here," Papowitz told a press conference. “We've heard that a lot of people are getting vaccinated, that more are getting vaccinated.” For 51-year-old Emilia, who got inoculated at the vaccination marathon in Bucharest Friday, the population was not well-informed about vaccines — for which she blames the authorities.

“There was a great deal of ignorance, people were not well informed,” she said. Vaccination uptake in Romania has risen since the end of September, from around just 10,000 doses a day to a record high Friday of 128,000. But the WHO estimates that, at the current rate, it could take Romania nearly three years to pass the key 70% threshold of vaccination coverage.

“Romania has failed at vaccinating its population,” Dr. Marius-Ionut Ungureanu, director of the Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy at Babes-Bolyai University, told the AP. Ungureanu says that, while the new restrictions starting Monday are “vital” the response by the authorities during this latest deadly wave is “too little, too late.”

“The vaccination campaign, almost flawlessly organized and coordinated from a logistical perspective, has failed from a communication standpoint,” he said.

Stephen McGrath in Bucharest contributed to this story.

As virus cases rise, so do pleas for Russians to get vaccine

October 22, 2021

NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia (AP) — As she stood in the courtyard of the morgue holding the body of her grandmother who died of COVID-19, Ramilya Shigalturina had a message for anyone still resisting vaccinations.

“I'm begging all Russians: Please get vaccinated, because it's really dreadful and dangerous,” said the resident of Nizhny Novgorod, the country's fifth-largest city. Shigalturina said her 83-year-old grandmother “died right away after catching it. She wasn't vaccinated.”

When Russia last year became the first country to launch a coronavirus vaccine, called Sputnik V, it was hailed as a matter of national pride and a sign of its scientific know-how. But since the free immunization program began in December 2020, only about a third of the country's 146 million people have gotten fully vaccinated.

The low vaccine acceptance is of increasing concern as Russia suffers a sharp rise in cases, setting records for infections and deaths nearly every day this month. On Friday, the national coronavirus task force reported 1,064 deaths and more than 37,000 new infections over the past 24 hours, another pandemic high.

“I can't understand what's going on,” President Vladimir Putin said, a rare admission of bewilderment from the steely leader. “We have a reliable and efficient vaccine. The vaccine really reduces the risks of illness, grave complications and death.”

At Nizhny Novgorod's Infectious Hospital No. 23, where the seriously ill patients lie in wards with little space between their beds, Dr. Natalia Soloshenko is battered by the onslaught. “I can tell you that out of every 50 admitted, only one or two of them are vaccinated," the chief doctor told The Associated Press. “The whole ICU is full of highly critical patients; all of those patients are unvaccinated.”

“To be honest, we're not even outraged anymore; we just feel sorry for these people,” she said. Nina Pugacheva is still in the hospital, but is one of the lucky ones — she is recovering. “Tell everyone to get vaccinated,” she said.

Soloshenko said widespread misinformation appears to be driving the vaccine hesitancy. “It's a very sensitive issue, a burning issue for all health care workers. We read what's on social media and see the most negative information coming from the citizens of our country regarding vaccination,” she said.

Many Russians are suspicious of vaccines as a whole because of a distrust of authorities dating to the Soviet era. With Sputnik V, there was widespread concern that it was approved for use before the completion of full clinical trials.

Some critics also have blamed 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.

The vaccination rate in the Nizhny Novgorod region, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Moscow, is 44% higher than the national average, but it is seeing a high death rate. The coronavirus task force reported 40 new deaths in the past day — about twice the death rate recorded in Moscow.

As deaths spiked, regional Gov. Gleb Nikitin said new measures would be taken to curb the spread of the infections, but they haven't been announced yet. Putin on Wednesday ordered Russians to stay away from work from Oct. 30 to Nov. 7, a period that includes a four-day national holiday.

Moscow and St. Petersburg, the two most populous Russian cities and the country's key political, business and cultural centers, have gone further, announcing new restrictions following months of inaction.

In Moscow, gyms, cinemas, entertainment venues and most stores are to be closed from Oct. 28 to Nov. 7; and restaurants will be open only for takeout or delivery. The authorities in St. Petersburg on Monday introduced digital codes for proving vaccination that must be shown beginning Nov. 1 to enter conferences and sports events. Starting on Nov. 15, those codes will be required at movies, theaters, museums and gyms, and on Dec. 1 they will be mandatory at restaurants, cafes and some stores.

A similar code system was tried in Moscow over the summer but was abandoned after a few weeks amid complaints from restaurant owners about tanking revenue.

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed.