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      ‘He’s not broken’: a year later, Evan Gershkovich is still in Russian prison

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 06:00

    The US journalist was seized by officials and charged with espionage, and friends and family say he has kept his spirits up

    Friday marks the grim first anniversary of the day when masked Russian officers grabbed Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist, at a steakhouse in Yekaterinburg where he was waiting to eat on a reporting trip.

    Gershkovich, a 32-year-old reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has not seen a day of freedom since. He has been held in the infamous Lefortovo prison on the outskirts of Moscow, where the Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was once detained.

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      Russian police detain journalist who filmed last video of Alexei Navalny alive

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 04:22

    Rights groups say Antonina Favorskaya is accused of links to Alexei Navalny’s ‘extremist organisation’ and is one of six journalists held this month

    A journalist who filmed the last video of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny before he died, Antonina Favorskaya, has been detained by authorities.

    Favorskaya covered the trials of Navalny for several years and media freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders said on Thursday she was one of six journalists across the country held this month.

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      Ukraine war briefing: Russian fighter jet crashes off Crimea

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 02:35 · 3 minutes

    US pushes exporters to cut off clients who might sell weapons parts on to Russia; Zelenskiy insists Putin a threat to Nato countries. What we know on day 765

    A Russian SU-35 Flanker fighter jet has crashed into the sea off Sevastopol, Crimea . Footage online showed a jet on fire, spiralling into the ocean and exploding. The Russian-installed governor of the illegally occupied region, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Thursday the pilot ejected and was picked up by rescuers but gave no details as to the cause of the crash. Maria Avdeeva, a Ukrainian security expert, claimed that it had been shot down, while other pro-Ukraine Telegram channels speculated that the cause was friendly fire. Ukrainian officials have not commented on the claims, which cannot be independently verified. The region has come under frequent Ukrainian attack during the two-year conflict.

    Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, told the speaker of the US House of Representatives during a phone call on Thursday that it was vital for Congress to pass a new military aid package for Ukraine . Mike Johnson, the speaker, has held up a bill for months that would supply $60bn in military and financial aid .
    “We recognise that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelenskiy said.

    Zelenskiy said he briefed Johnson about the situation on the battlefield and also spoke about “the dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror” . The Ukrainian military later said that its top commander, Oleksander Syrskyi, spoke to the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Charles Brown, about battlefield issues .

    Zelenskiy, in a CBS interview, has warned that Vladimir Putin will push Russia’s war “very quickly” on to Nato soil unless he is stopped in Ukraine. Zelenskiy acknowledged that his troops are not prepared to defend against another imminent major Russian offensive, and highlighted the urgency for American Patriot missile defence systems and more artillery .

    The US is telling American companies making and selling parts that can be used in missiles and drones to stop shipping their goods to more than 600 foreign parties who might divert them to Russia . The parts have been found in Russian munitions recovered in Ukraine. “In the last several weeks, we’ve sent letters to more than 20 American companies , each containing a list of more than 600 foreign parties,” said Matthew Axelrod, assistant secretary at the commerce department. Axelrod said senior US officials have also been contacting company bosses directly to discuss further steps to prevent their products ending up inside Russia.

    A Russian court on Thursday sentenced journalist Mikhail Feldman to two years in prison for denouncing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive on Ukraine . Police in Moscow detained five other reporters over a 24-hour period.

    Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, several central and eastern European countries began marking on Thursday the 20th anniversary of the largest expansion of Nato when formerly socialist countries became members. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined Nato on 29 March 2004. Other former Soviet satellites including Poland and the Czech Republic had been admitted several years earlier.

    Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, on Thursday hosted his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, for talks designed to ease friction over Ukrainian farm imports and border blockades by disgruntled Polish farmers . On Thursday, Polish prime minister welcomed his counterpart to Warsaw.

    “We are close to a solution,” Tusk said. “This applies to the amount of products that can flow into Poland, once we determine it, we are close to ensuring that transit does not disturb the Polish market. ” Shmyhal said the talks were “extremely constructive” and intensive. “Today I can say that we definitely have progress regarding lifting of the blockade .”

    Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) has carried out searches as part of an investigation with other European security services into alleged Russian espionage , the agency said on Thursday.

    French authorities uncovered a website containing a fake recruitment drive for French volunteers to join the war in Ukraine , the defence ministry said on Thursday. The site was taken down by French services, said a government source, who asked not to be named.

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      Russia criticised for blocking renewal of UN monitors of North Korea

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 21:28

    Ukraine’s foreign minister calls veto ‘guilty plea’ amid claims Pyongyang is aiding Moscow’s war against Kyiv

    Russia has blocked the renewal of a UN panel monitoring sanctions against North Korea , weeks after the body said it was investigating reports of arms transfers between Moscow and Pyongyang.

    The move was met with a flurry of criticism, including by Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who took to social media to call the veto “a guilty plea” amid allegations that Pyongyang is aiding Moscow in its war against Kyiv.

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      US repeatedly warned Russia ahead of Moscow attack, White House says

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 17:57

    National security spokesperson says US passed on warnings and dismissed Russian allegations Ukraine was involved as ‘nonsense’

    The US repeatedly alerted Russia that extremists were planning to attack large gatherings in Moscow ahead of last week’s concert hall attack that claimed more than 140 lives, the White House has said.

    The national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday that US officials passed on warnings – including one in writing – and dismissed Russian allegations that Ukraine was involved as “nonsense”.

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      Islamic State advance could lay ground for new wave of attacks, say analysts

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 16:27

    IS has stalled in Iraq and Syria, but officials believe it has been planning new operations against European targets

    Islamic State (IS) remains defeated in its core strongholds of the Middle East but has made significant progress in Africa and parts of south Asia, winning territory and resources that could serve as a launchpad for a new campaign of extremist violence, analysts and officials believe.

    European governments have moved to their highest levels of alert for years after the attack on a concert hall in Moscow last week by militants from IS which killed 140 people .

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      Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine destroys drones as Putin rules out attacks on Nato countries

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 08:31


    Kyiv’s forces shoot down 26 drones overnight as Russian president dismisses idea of attacking nearby Nato states

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      Ukraine war briefing: ‘Russian terror’ as guided bombs hit Kharkiv

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Yesterday - 02:00


    Ukrainian spy chief hints at assassination of traitors; Putin claims F-16 fighter jets won’t make a difference. What we know on day 764

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      The Guardian view on Evan Gershkovich’s year behind bars: Moscow should free him now | Editorial

      news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · 2 days ago - 18:38 · 1 minute

    The Wall Street Journal correspondent is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately from his Russian jail

    Evan Gershkovich , a Wall Street Journal reporter, has spent nearly a year in a Moscow prison, awaiting trial for a crime he did not commit. Mr Gershkovich was arrested last March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and jailed on espionage charges. He is not a spy. He is a journalist, and should be released immediately. Hostage diplomacy lies behind his incarceration. As the US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy , said, Mr Gershkovich’s case “is not about evidence, due process, or rule of law. It is about using American citizens as pawns to achieve political ends”.

    Vladimir Putin indicated in February that a prisoner exchange could lead to the release of Mr Gershkovich. There have been high-profile prisoner swaps in the past. In December 2022, Moscow traded a US basketball star convicted of a drugs offence in Russia for a Russian arms trafficker. But a journalist’s detention to secure the release of a Russian hitman would underscore Russia’s retreat into a Soviet past. In 1986 an American journalist, Nicholas Daniloff , was arrested and charged with espionage. He was let go after two weeks when the US released a Soviet diplomat accused of spying. Mr Gershkovich has been inside for nearly 12 months.

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