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March 17, 2023, 2:16 p.m. ET13 minutes ago
13 minutes ago
Live Updates: International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin
The court at The Hague accused the Russian president of bearing criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. Human rights groups praised the move, though the likelihood of an imminent arrest appeared slim.
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ImageA seated leader in a suit with flags behind and a Russian placard in front.
The International Criminal Court on Friday issued a war crimes arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin.Credit...Sergei Bobylev/Sputnik, via Associated Press
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Anushka Patil
Here are the latest developments.
The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for war crimes, a move that Ukrainian officials and human-rights groups hailed as an important step in holding Moscow to account for abuses during its yearlong war.
The court issued the warrant just days before Mr. Putin is scheduled to receive China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Russia. There was no immediate comment from Beijing on the arrest warrant.
The likelihood of a trial while Mr. Putin remains in power appears slim, because the court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia has said it will not surrender its own officials. Still, the warrant deepens Mr. Putin’s isolation from the West and could limit his travel overseas.
Here are other developments:
Mr. Putin will receive China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for a state visit to Russia starting on Monday. While Beijing said Mr. Xi’s visit would seek to promote peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine, U.S. officials have questioned whether the Chinese leader can play a mediating role given his nation’s close partnership with Russia.
Turkey announced that it would move to ratify Finland’s application to join NATO, clearing a significant hurdle for the Nordic nation’s bid to join the alliance but leaving neighboring Sweden on the sidelines for now.
The government of Slovakia said that it would send 13 Soviet-designed fighter jets to Ukraine, a day after a similar announcement by Poland’s president, marking a possibly significant shift from NATO allies in increasing arms supplies for Kyiv. But most of Slovakia’s MIG-29 warplanes are not in working order so their delivery to Ukraine, likely to provide spare parts for Ukraine’s own fleet of Soviet-era jets, will not change the balance of force on the battlefield.
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Steven Erlanger
March 17, 2023, 2:12 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes ago
Steven Erlanger
A top E.U. official, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said in a tweet on Friday that the I.C.C.’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin represented “the start of the process of accountability,” adding, “There can be #noimpunity.”
March 17, 2023, 2:05 p.m. ET24 minutes ago
24 minutes ago
Marlise Simons
Lawyers familiar with the I.C.C.'s case recently said they expected prosecutors to proceed with the arrest warrants because there was a strong trail of public evidence. The two people named by the court are Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who has appeared many times on television to promote the adoption of Ukrainian children; and President Putin, who signed a decree in May to speed up access to Russian citizenship for Ukrainians.
Emma Bubola
March 17, 2023, 2:00 p.m. ET29 minutes ago
29 minutes ago
Emma Bubola
Children described coercion, deception and force as they were taken to Russia from Ukraine.
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Snow-covered roofs are visible through a window shattered by a bullet.
A broken window at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, in March 2022.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press
The International Criminal Court said that the two Russians named in the arrest warrant it issued on Friday — President Vladimir V. Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights — bore individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.
The court did not give many more details about the accusations, but in October, The New York Times reported on evidence that pro-Russian forces had intercepted children who were trying to flee the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and put them on buses headed deeper into Russian-held territory.
One girl, originally from eastern Ukraine but living in a group home in Mariupol when the war started, was later taken to Russia, placed in a Russian foster family and given Russian citizenship.
“I didn’t want to go,” said the girl, Anya, 15. “But nobody asked me.”
Other children described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force as they were moved to Russia from Ukraine.
Ivan Matkovsky, 16, who lived in a government boarding school in Mariupol, was also rerouted at a checkpoint after trying to flee and ended up in a hospital in Russian-controlled Ukraine.
He and one of his schoolmates eventually managed to contact their school’s headmaster and arrange their return, but the other children were put on a bus for Russia. They protested. “No one listened to them,” Ivan said. “They had no choice.”
Among the other children in the hospital, Ivan said, was an 8-year-old boy named Nazar, who never found his mother after the Mariupol theater in which they had been hiding was pummeled by airstrikes in one of the war’s defining atrocities.
In Russia, the authorities were not hiding that they were taking these children. Instead, they promoted the efforts as a humanitarian mission, parading the children on television and welcoming them with teddy bears.
“We are not taking what is not ours,” said Olga Druzhinina, a woman from the Siberian city of Salekhard, along the Arctic Circle, who said she adopted four children, ages 6 to 17, from around the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, more than 1,600 miles away. She drew parallels to Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, a move widely seen as illegal.
“Our family is like a small Russia,” she said. “Russia took in four territories, and the Druzhinin family took in four children.”
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Emma Bubola
March 17, 2023, 2:00 p.m. ET29 minutes ago
29 minutes ago
Emma Bubola
“This makes Putin a pariah,” said Stephen Rapp, a former ambassador at large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the US State Department. “If he travels, he risks arrest. This never goes away. Russia cannot gain relief from sanctions without compliance with the warrants.” Either Putin is placed on trial in The Hague, he said, or “he is increasingly isolated, and dies with this hanging over his head.”
Carlotta Gall
March 17, 2023, 1:55 p.m. ET34 minutes ago
34 minutes ago
Carlotta Gall
A research project published in February by Yale University explored Russia's dealings with Ukrainian children, the focus of the arrest warrant the I.C.C. issued on Friday. The project identified 6,000 Ukrainian children who were held in 43 children’s homes and other facilities in Russia and in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine since the war began last year. Among them were orphans, those being cared for Ukrainian state institutions and those who were separated from their parents or legal guardians.
Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 1:45 p.m. ET44 minutes ago
44 minutes ago
Marc SantoraReporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
The International Criminal Court‘s arrest warrant focuses on the Russia's wartime abduction of children, but Ukrainian prosecutors said on Friday that they were aware of more than 72,000 Russian war crimes, which includes acts that led to almost 10,000 civilian deaths, according to Mykola Govorukha, a representative of the Office of the Prosecutor General. The photograph shows the exhumation of a 15-year-old girl in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian village of Pravdyne in November.
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Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
March 17, 2023, 1:43 p.m. ET46 minutes ago
46 minutes ago
Marlise Simons
In the past, the judges at the International Criminal Court have taken months to review charges before issuing arrest warrants. But the devastation taking place in Ukraine has put the court under pressure to act swiftly. More than 40 countries that are parties to the court have requested its intervention.
Charlie Savage
March 17, 2023, 1:35 p.m. ET54 minutes ago
54 minutes ago
Charlie Savage
In an internal fight, the Pentagon has objected to sharing evidence with the I.C.C.
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The Pentagon.
The Pentagon in Arlington, Va., in 2021.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times
The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner come as the Biden administration has been engaged in an internal dispute over whether to provide evidence gathered by the American intelligence community about Russian war crimes — including the kidnapping of Ukrainian children — to the court at The Hague.
While most of the Biden administration, including the State and Justice Departments, favor transferring the evidence, according to people familiar with internal deliberations, the Pentagon has balked because it does not want to set a precedent that it fears could pave the way toward eventual prosecutions of Americans.
Under administrations of both parties, the United States has taken the position that the court should not exercise jurisdiction over citizens of countries that are not parties to the treaty that created the International Criminal Court — like Russia and the United States — even if the alleged war crimes took place on the territory of a country that is a member, like Ukraine and Afghanistan.
The Russian government cited that interpretation of the treaty on Friday in dismissing the significance of the arrest warrants. Some American legal specialists have urged the Defense Department to abandon that position, arguing that it will do little to deter future prosecutions of Americans because that interpretation is not widely shared around the world.
The legal specialists have said that the United States could instead argue that the International Criminal Court should only be used against nationals of countries that lack functioning investigative systems capable of addressing serious international crimes by their citizens. Under that criteria, Russia qualifies but the United States does not, they say.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in a phone interview that the warrants were “more than justified based on the evidence,” adding that “for the world to forgive and forget Putin’s war crimes, which are being committed on an industrial scale, would irrevocably undercut the rule-of-law-based world order since the end of World War II.”
Mr. Graham added: “I am hoping that the intelligence information available to the United States that would aid the I.C.C. in their prosecutions of Russian war crimes against Ukraine will flow unencumbered. The Department of Defense’s reluctance to share information is undercutting our efforts to hold Putin accountable.”
Glenn Thrush
March 17, 2023, 1:14 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Glenn ThrushReporting from Washington
The U.S. Department of Justice, which has been investigating several cases in which Americans were killed, injured or mistreated in Ukraine, is not currently investigating Mr. Putin for war crimes, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. But that could change, even if the possibility remains remote: Late last year, Congress gave prosecutors broader power to pursue cases involving non-American victims, provided that the perpetrator travels to the U.S. or is extradited by an ally.
Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 1:04 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Marc SantoraReporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
The I.C.C.’s arrest warrants can be kept secret to protect victims and witnesses, but the court said that in this case it was “in the interests of justice to publicly disclose the existence of the warrant.” The court added it was mindful “that the conduct addressed in the present situation is allegedly ongoing, and that the public awareness of the warrants may contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes.”
March 17, 2023, 12:57 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
The New York Times
‘The Daily’ explored how Russia is turning Ukrainian children into spoils of war.
As Russian troops pushed into Ukraine last year, children who were fleeing newly occupied territories were swept up. Many became part of a Russian effort to portray itself as a savior. In this episode of “The Daily,” New York Times reporter Emma Bubola tells the story of Anya, a child who was taken from Ukraine.
The Daily Poster
Listen to ‘The Daily’: Why Russia Is Taking Thousands of Ukrainian Children
The story of one girl who ended up in a Russian foster family shows the damage done by a mass transfer of children, part of a vast propaganda campaign.
TRANSCRIPT
0:00/32:22
Listen to ‘The Daily’: Why Russia Is Taking Thousands of Ukrainian Children
The story of one girl who ended up in a Russian foster family shows the damage done by a mass transfer of children, part of a vast propaganda campaign.
[MUSIC PLAYING] This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.
Sabrina Tavernise
From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”
[MUSIC PLAYING]
As Vladimir Putin makes his case for the war in Ukraine to the Russian people, he’s using an unexpected tool — Ukrainian children. Ukraine says thousands of them, mostly orphans, have been relocated to Russia, where they’re placed in Russian families and paraded on Russian television. Today, my colleague, Emma Bubola, tells the story of one of those children.
It’s Friday, March 3.
So Emma, usually, when we talk about the war in Ukraine, we talk about battles, and weapons, and military strategy. But you’ve been reporting on a very different kind of campaign by Russia, and this campaign involves children. Tell me about this reporting.
Emma Bubola
Yes, so I was covering the news about Ukraine last summer, and I started seeing this pretty shocking allegations by Ukrainian authorities that Russia was taking Ukrainian children without their parents to Russia, and sometimes placing them in Russian families and giving them up for adoption.
Sabrina Tavernise
And Emma, to be clear, the accusations were that Russian soldiers were taking Ukrainian children back to Russia?
Emma Bubola
Now, at that time, the accusations were really vague. So it was, Russia is taking Ukrainian children. But we did not know exactly where they were taking them to, where they were taking them from, how they were being taken, and who was taking them. And that’s what I wanted to figure out — to identify at least some cases, to report if this was happening and how.
Sabrina Tavernise
And when you started looking into it, what were you seeing?
Emma Bubola
So Sabrina, it looked like there was a pattern of systematic removal of Ukrainian children, many from group homes that are very common in Ukraine — orphanages or institutions that care for children who are not necessarily orphans. And they were relocating them to Russia with the plan to give them Russian citizenship and placing them in Russian families.
And Ukrainian authorities say that while the majority of these children who have been forcibly taken to Russia were orphans, there were many who were also taken from their parents, separated from their parents at filtration points, or who have relatives or family who would be ready to take them back in Ukraine.
Sabrina Tavernise
So essentially, not all of these children were necessarily abandoned? In some cases, Ukraine is actually saying Russia separated them from their parents?
Emma Bubola
Yes, they’re saying that in some cases, their parents were imprisoned and the children were taken to Russia.
Sabrina Tavernise
Wow. What’s the scale? How many children are we talking about?
Emma Bubola
Yes, so from the beginning, it seemed like a pretty serious problem because both Russia and Ukraine did not deny that it was at least a thousand children, probably many more. But Ukraine says that Russia has taken 16,000 children.
Sabrina Tavernise
Oh, wow, that’s a lot of children.
Emma Bubola
Yeah, this is just the number that Ukraine has been able to verify — they know exactly the name of these children, where they were from, where they are. And they say these children are mostly orphans.
Sabrina Tavernise
So Russia says it’s at least a thousand. Ukraine says it’s more like 16,000. So at the very least, we can say this is thousands of children?
Emma Bubola
Yeah, but I wanted to understand what was the actual experience of one of these children. Because Russians, they agreed that this was happening and on a big scale, but they were portraying what was happening in very different ways. So to Ukraine, these were stolen, kidnapped children, and to Russia, these were rescued children. So I wanted to speak to one child and to understand what was their actual experience of this.
Sabrina Tavernise
Interesting, because both sides essentially did not disagree that this was a big thing that was going on, but they totally disagreed about what it that was going on.
Emma Bubola
Yeah, exactly. So I started reaching out to children who had had some experience with this transfer to Russian-controlled areas. And as I interviewed them, many of them seem to point me in the direction of one girl who was still in Russia, Anya. And with my colleague Alina Lobzina from the Moscow Bureau, we managed to find Anya on social media. And slowly, over weeks, she told us her story.
Sabrina Tavernise
Tell me about Anya.
Emma Bubola
So Anya is a 14, now 15-year-old girl. And to reconstruct Anya’s story, we spoke to her over months. But we also spoke to her friends, and we had access to some court documents. And so her story is the story of a child from Eastern Ukraine who, some months before the war started, was actually flagged to Ukraine social services as living in a family in which parents avoided fulfilling parental responsibilities.
Sabrina Tavernise
And what does that mean?
Emma Bubola
According to court documents, they describe her house as being unfit to welcome children. Her mother was disabled and she was out of work. So they moved her to this sanatorium. This is something that is very common in Ukraine.
So before the war, more than 90,000 children were living in institutions. This is a heritage from the Soviet era in which there was a kind of idea that the state can care for the children of families who cannot afford to care for them. Or, if the child is disabled or has other issues, the state can care for them better than their family.
Sabrina Tavernise
And so Anya was among those 90,000 Ukrainian children who were wards of the state or were living in institutions for some other reason?
Emma Bubola
Yes, so Anya was living in a group home in the city of Mariupol. And so children who were with her in this group home described her as a shy girl with a passion for drawing and for reading fairy tales, either by herself or to a younger child that she was kind of being like an older sister for. And she was like really caring with her and affectionate.
Sabrina Tavernise
So what happens to Anya when the war breaks out? I mean, we know that Mariupol was just pummeled by Russian forces.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Emma Bubola
Yes, so some children managed to reconnect with their parents and leave this group home in Mariupol. But Anya, who had had sporadic contact with her mother, does not manage to make contact with her or get picked up by her. So together with about 16 other children, she hides in the basement of this group home. And that actually turns out to be a smart idea because shells fall near some of the buildings of this group home.
And after some days of hiding, one volunteer from Mariupol finds the children in this group home and decides to evacuate them, to bring them away, because it was extremely dangerous at the time. And so he puts them on an ambulance and wants to take them to Zaporizhia. It’s another city in Ukraine that was considered safer then.
But as they head out of the city, they get stopped at a checkpoint because Mariupol was already under Russian siege. And they are not let through.
So as the children wait for a decision to be made about what’s going to happen to them, everyone whom I spoke to who was there described the group of pro-Russian officials storming in and kind of deciding that these children are going to go into Russian-controlled territory instead of going to a safer part of Ukraine.
Sabrina Tavernise
Wow.
Emma Bubola
And Anya and the other children were put on a bus headed deeper into Russian-controlled territory.
Sabrina Tavernise
So these kids who were in a vehicle headed toward Ukrainian territory were actually taken out of that vehicle and put on a bus headed to Russian territory?
Emma Bubola
Yes, exactly. From there, Anya is taken to Russia. So Anya told us that no one really asked her if she wanted to go to Russia. And she called a friend and she cried because she didn’t want to be there. So first, she spent some time in some camps or rehabilitation facilities, as they call them. And then, she gets moved into a foster family.
Sabrina Tavernise
And what was that foster home like?
Emma Bubola
Yes, so in her foster home, there are six more children, four dogs. Anya shared her room with two boys, which she says is fun and not scary because she says she’s often scared to be alone. She called her foster parents aunt and uncle. She said they treat her nicely, they do crafts together, they go to parks, walk the dogs in the evenings. But when we spoke to her last fall, she still very much wanted to go back to her home and be reunited with her family.
Sabrina Tavernise
So on the one hand, Anya has been forced to go to Russia, a place she didn’t want to go in the first place. But on the other hand, it’s a less dire and desperate picture than I was imagining. I mean, she likes her foster family.
Emma Bubola
Yeah, I mean, they’re not bringing children to prison camps. They are very much placing them into families. And many times, these families are very well-meaning. They have a mix of patriotism and love for these children.
Sabrina Tavernise
And does she go to school?
Emma Bubola
Yes, at the same time, she told us that she went to school and that she had these classes, that are basically patriotism classes, called “Conversations about Important Things,” that were recently introduced in Russia. And they’re given — in these classes, they teach topics like the geopolitical situation or traditional values. It’s basically to teach children how to be proud of Russia.
Sabrina Tavernise
The geopolitical situation as in the war in Ukraine?
Emma Bubola
Yeah, they do talk about the war, and they are given virtual tours of Crimea, for example.
Sabrina Tavernise
And what did they tell her about the war in Ukraine?
Emma Bubola
So we don’t know this from Anya, because it was really hard to get information from her about these classes. But what we do know is that when she was at one of these centers where she was staying in Russia before she went into the family, she told us the teachers knew more than I do about Ukraine. They tell me that Ukraine is really bad. But she said, I don’t believe it. For me, Ukraine will always be good.
Sabrina Tavernise
So they’re really trying to teach her that her own country is a bad place and she should be glad she’s in Russia?
Emma Bubola
Yeah, for sure. I think the purpose is to integrate her completely into Russian society. And I mean, the, maybe, strongest evidence of that is the fact that she was given Russian citizenship. So she has the Russian passport now.
Sabrina Tavernise
So she was given Russian citizenship. Is that usual?
Emma Bubola
Yeah, there is a clear intention by Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, to give citizenship to orphans from Ukraine. And he did a decree to streamline this procedure in May. And so this is just another indication of how systematic Russia wants this Russification of Ukrainian children to be.
Sabrina Tavernise
So it’s not just Anya. It’s all of these other children, and it’s directed by Putin himself. But why is Russia doing this? Like what’s in it for them?
Emma Bubola
I think a lot of the answer to this question might be in the way that Russia is not hiding the transfer of at least more than a thousand children from Ukraine. That kind of shows that Russia is using these children as part of a propaganda campaign to portray Russia as saviors of Ukrainian children and of Ukraine.
We’ll be right back.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Sabrina Tavernise
So Emma, before the break, you were telling me that there had been thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russian territory, and that this act by Russia was largely for propaganda purposes. You said that they were trying to frame their war as a humanitarian mission. Who, exactly, is Russia talking to here, and what is it trying to sell?
Emma Bubola
So this relocation of Ukrainian children fits really nicely into a propaganda targeted at domestic audience in Russia because this war is premised on the idea that Ukraine doesn’t really exist and that Ukraine is just a part of Russia, that Ukrainian identity isn’t real, and that all Russia is doing is correcting a historical mistake by making Ukraine a part of Russia again. So the message is that these children are Russian and going back to where they belong.
Sabrina Tavernise
So this is something that Putin has been arguing all along — that, essentially, there is no Ukraine, that it’s just Russia — and that it has these strange habits, but it really is Russia and belongs to Russia.
Emma Bubola
Yeah, I spoke to a mother who told me that she took into her family four children from Ukraine. And she told me we’re not taking anything that is not ours. And she even likened what her family did to what Russia is doing because Russia annexed four territories, and our family took in four children. So it’s there is really like a parallel between this broader idea of a war in which Russia is rescuing Ukraine, and these families are rescuing these children.
And I think that these children are actually a very effective way of doing this because, often, they were not torn from perfect families. Many of them were orphans or living in state-run facilities before the war. So they have even a stronger case, arguing that Russia is giving a family — and a loving family — to children who would otherwise have none.
Sabrina Tavernise
So then, Russia really is using these kids to make an argument to the Russian people about why their war is just and right. What forms does that take? What are they saying exactly, and where are they saying it?
Emma Bubola
Yes, there is an abundance of videos and articles and state media that show how the children are arriving to Russia and placed in Russian families. So often, these children arrive by train or by airplane and are received by TV cameras. They’re given Teddy Bears.
Archived Recording 1
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
They’re interviewed saying how happy they are to be in a Russian family.
Archived Recording 2
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Sabrina Tavernise
Wow.
Emma Bubola
And they even did like a series of documentaries that was widely circulated.
Archived Recording 3
[MUSIC PLAYING]:
Emma Bubola
Especially in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, that —
Sabrina Tavernise
Documentaries about the kids?
Emma Bubola
Yeah, it’s a series of videos about several kids that were taken into Russian families.
Archived Recording 4
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
They describe their daily life and how, again, happy they are to be in a Russian family.
Archived Recording 5
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
And in this video, there is a lot of emphasis on the trauma that these children have been through. And for example, there is, in one of these videos —
Archived Recording 6
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
— some foster parents or adoptive parents take these children from Ukraine to — it looks like a war simulation, like a playful war simulation. But the children get really scared. And like —
[CHILDREN CRYING]
— the video shows the children crying. And it projects black and white images of war and destruction —
Archived Recording 7
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
— to advocate, maybe, what these children might be thinking about. And the Russian parent promptly comforts them.
Archived Recording 8
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
So it kind of feels like they want to emphasize the fact that Russian families are finally providing a safe, comfortable environment to these children.
Archived Recording 9
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Archived Recording 10
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Emma Bubola
I think that Russia forgets to say that while helping these children a few months before, like in the case of Anya, it was bombing the homes where they were staying.
Sabrina Tavernise
I mean, it’s just very deeply cynical use of these children.
Emma Bubola
One of the, I think, egregious examples is this Russian official who has coordinated this relocation effort by Russia. And she herself adopted a child from Mariupol. And she talks about him a lot on state media.
And she detailed how this child in the beginning was talking about the fact that he went to pro-Ukraine protest, and how in the beginning he was sitting alone, missing his home and his friends from Mariupol. But then, how with time, he came to appreciate his new home in Russia.
And in July, when the first batch of Ukrainian children obtained Russian citizenship in the Moscow region, and officials posed in these photo ops with them, the Russian official, in an official statement, she said, I didn’t recognize these kids from when we traveled in April on the train. Now they’re our little fellow citizens.
Sabrina Tavernise
It just seems like fundamentally, it’s bringing the whole mythology and thrust of the war and why Putin started it full circle, right? Ukraine isn’t a place that exists at all. Ukrainians don’t exist. They’re actually Russians. And look what we have here — we have a bunch of little Russians.
Emma Bubola
Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s quite interesting how she herself illustrates what Russia wants to do with these children, which is basically cut them off from their original nation and just turn them into Russian citizens. And actually, that’s something that Ukrainian officials consider as a way in which Russia can make it even harder for them to claim them back because they’re saying, oh, they’re Russian now. Why are you asking for them? Why are you trying to get them back?
Sabrina Tavernise
So given that many of these children didn’t have guardians when they were taken to Russia, it probably complicates the effort to have them returned to Ukraine, right? So I guess I’m wondering, what are the Ukrainians doing to get these kids back?
Emma Bubola
It really depends. The Ukraine authorities are urging parents, guardians, family members to show up and to make appeals, because to start this process to return children, it usually starts from an appeal from a family member or someone who’s looking for this child. So children who don’t have anyone, of course, it’s much harder to return them because no one is actively looking for them.
Sabrina Tavernise
And how many kids are in that category — I mean, who have a parent or guardian step forward and claim them?
Emma Bubola
I don’t know in total how many have parents looking for them, or guardians. But what we know is that 300 children have already been returned out of a total of 16,000 that the Ukrainian authorities have identified. So this number is very small.
Sabrina Tavernise
So Emma, stepping back here, I mean, these were children, for the most part, like Anya, who were taken from group homes and orphanages and placed in families in Russia. And you know, yes, they’re being fed this Russian propaganda about their own native-born country and about Russia. But it seems like, just to play devil’s advocate here for a second, they’re in potentially better and safer environments than they were before, even if it’s not necessarily what they themselves would have chosen.
Emma Bubola
Yeah.
Sabrina Tavernise
What do you make of that?
Emma Bubola
Yeah, I think it’s very complicated. And yeah, we did speak to a child who was happy to be in Russia. But I think, yeah, I think it’s really not for me or for Russia to decide what’s better for Ukrainian children. The fact that some of these children might be placed in nice families is not a justification to remove masses of children from a national group to another and have them change nationality, erase their heritage, grow up in a country that, in some cases, has bombed the homes in which they were living.
And adding to that, I think that we actually don’t know much about the family situation or potential family ties of these children. And we actually have the Chief of the UN Refugee Agency said that in a situation of war, you cannot really know if a child has a family. And until that is verified, you cannot give them another nationality or have them adopted in another family because it goes against the fundamental principles of child protections in situations of war.
Sabrina Tavernise
Emma, is this a war crime?
Emma Bubola
Well, yeah. The United States recently said that this unlawful transfer of children is a breach of the Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime. And in general, more widely, the international community has really condemned this practice. And this Russian official who has been coordinating, organizing these transfers was put on the sanctions list of several Western countries.
But prosecuting war crimes is really hard and takes a lot of time. And in the meantime, these children might grow up. And for now Stephen Rapp, the former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, told me that for now, there is not much that Ukraine can do to legally compel Russia to return these children.
Sabrina Tavernise
And what about Anya? What’s happened to her? Does her mother know where she is?
Emma Bubola
Yes, so Anya’s situation is very different and very difficult. So I was able to connect with her mother last fall, and she had no idea that Anya was in Russia. And even after I told her, she still couldn’t really believe it. Also, Anya’s mom is out of work. She doesn’t really have internet at home. And for her, just fathoming a trip to Russia to get her back would be like going to the moon.
But despite this, in the meantime, Anya’s mom was also officially deprived of parental rights, meaning that the government has taken away her custody. So I mean, I think she doesn’t have even much of a claim at this point. So yeah, it looks like the odds of her returning are not very high right now.
Sabrina Tavernise
Emma, thank you.
Emma Bubola
Thank you, Sabrina. [MUSIC PLAYING]
Sabrina Tavernise
We’ll be right back.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Here’s what else you should know today. In an unexpected meeting on Thursday at the Group of 20 conference in New Delhi, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confronted his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and demanded that Russia end its war against Ukraine. It was the first private face-to-face exchange between a US Cabinet member and a top Russian official since the invasion last year.
The meeting happened at Blinken’s request suggesting that the Biden administration wants to keep lines of communication open with Russia. It came as the White House prepares to announce another round of military aid for Ukraine when President Biden meets with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday. And —
Archived Recording (Clifton Newman)
The defendant will rise.
Archived Recording
The State versus Richard Alexander Murdaugh, Defendant, indictment for murder, guilty verdict.
Sabrina Tavernise
Alex Murdaugh, the fourth-generation lawyer whose family long exerted influence in small-town South Carolina courtrooms, was convicted on Thursday of murdering his wife and his son. The verdict sealed the dramatic downfall of a man who had substantial wealth and powerful connections, but who lived a secret life in which he stole millions of dollars from clients and colleagues and lied to many of those closest to him.
The guilty verdict in Walterboro, South Carolina followed a closely-watched trial that lasted nearly six weeks and came more than 20 months after the June, 2021 fatal shootings of Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and their younger son, Paul.
Today’s episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson with help from Mooj Zadie. It was edited by MJ Davis Lin and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly
“The Daily is” made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, MJ Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sofia Landman, Shannon Lin, and Diane Wong.
Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julius Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Des Ibekwe, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, and Isabella Anderson.
That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you on Monday.
Charlie Savage
March 17, 2023, 12:46 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Charlie Savage
The U.S. has long been wary of the I.C.C., but relations have been thawing.
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A blue sign in front of a modern building says International Criminal Court, in English and French. It has a logo with a scales surrounded with laurels.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.Credit...Peter Dejong/Associated Press
The International Criminal Court was created two decades ago as a standing body to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity under a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute. In the past, the United Nations Security Council had established ad hoc tribunals to address atrocities in places like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Many democracies joined the International Criminal Court, including close American allies like Britain. But the United States has long kept its distance, concerned that the tribunal could someday try to prosecute Americans.
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have taken the position that the court should not exercise jurisdiction over citizens of countries that are not a party to the treaty.
President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000 but, calling it flawed, did not send it to the Senate for ratification. In 2002, President George W. Bush essentially withdrew that signature. Congress, for its part, enacted laws in 1999 and 2002 that limited what support the government could provide the court.
Still, by the end of the Bush administration, the State Department declared that the United States accepted the “reality” of the court and acknowledged that it “enjoys a large body of international support.” And the Obama administration took a step toward helping the court by offering rewards for the capture of fugitive warlords in Africa whom the court had indicted.
In 2017, however, the top prosecutor for the court tried to investigate the torture of detainees accused of terrorism during the Bush administration as part of a larger inquiry into the war in Afghanistan. In response, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the court’s personnel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced it as corrupt.
A thaw in relations returned in 2021, when the Biden administration revoked President Trump’s sanctions, and a newly appointed prosecutor, Karim Khan, dropped the investigation.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine last year, prompting a bipartisan push to hold President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and others in his military chain of command to account for reported atrocities — and setting off debates inside the administration and in Congress about whether and how to help the court.
In late December, Congress included a provision about the International Criminal Court embedded in the large appropriations bill it passed in late December.
It created an exception to the general prohibition on providing certain funding and other aid to the court, enabling the government to assist with “investigations and prosecutions of foreign nationals related to the situation in Ukraine, including to support victims and witnesses.”
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Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 12:39 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Valerie Hopkins
The I.C.C. also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who sounded defiant in an interview with the Russian outlet RBC. “It is great that the international community has appreciated our work to help the children of our country,” she said.
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Credit...Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via Getty Images
Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 12:43 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Valerie Hopkins
Lvova-Belova has been the public face of the Russian effort to transfer Ukrainian children, which the Kremlin describes as a humanitarian gesture amid the war. She added: “There were the sanctions of all countries, even Japan, against me. Now there is an arrest warrant. I wonder what will happen next. Well, we will continue to work.”
Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 12:33 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Marc SantoraReporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, said the arrest warrant was “a big step in restoring world justice.” “From now on, the world will never shake hands with the one who decided to start an unprovoked brutal war in Ukraine,” he said.
March 17, 2023, 11:34 a.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Anushka Patil and Marlise Simons
The International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Putin.
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Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on Thursday.
Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on Thursday.Credit...Sputnik, via Reuters
The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for war crimes, saying that he bore individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children since Russia’s invasion last year.
Human rights groups hailed the warrant as an important step toward ending impunity for Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The likelihood of a trial while Mr. Putin remains in power appears slim, because the court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia has said it will not surrender its own officials.
Still, the warrant deepens Mr. Putin’s isolation in the West and could limit his movements overseas.
The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights. She has been the public face of a Kremlin-sponsored program in which Ukrainian children and teenagers have been taken to Russia.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry quickly dismissed the warrants, noting that it is not a party to the court.
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1:40
Arrest warrants were issued for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.CreditCredit...@IntlCrimCourt, via Twitter
The court said in a statement “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The I.C.C. does not recognize immunity for heads of state in cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
The Kremlin has denied accusations of war crimes, but has not been secretive about the transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia, depicting them as adoptions of abandoned children and promoting the program as a patriotic and humanitarian effort.
“This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014,” said Balkees Jarrah, the associate director for international justice at Human Rights Watch. “With these arrest warrants, the I.C.C. has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said the announcement had “no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view.”
“Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it,” she said. “Russia is not cooperating with this body,” calling any efforts by the I.C.C. to make arrests “legally null and void for us.”
Ukrainian officials said the decision in effect branded Russia a criminal government and made the world a much smaller place for Mr. Putin. If the Russian leader travels to a state that is party to the I.C.C., that country must arrest him, according to its obligations under international law.
“This is just the beginning,” Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said in a statement.
But the court’s limitations are well known — although it can indict sitting heads of state, it has no power to arrest them or bring them to trial, instead relying on other leaders and governments to act as its sheriffs around the world. This has been most prominently illustrated by the case of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the court but has been not been arrested in other countries where he has traveled.
A New York Times investigation published in October identified several Ukrainian children who had been taken away under Russia’s systematic resettlement efforts. They described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force, and upon arrival in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, are often placed in homes to become Russian citizens and subjected to re-education efforts. Russia has defended the transfers on humanitarian grounds.
On Thursday, a United Nations commission of inquiry said that Russia’s transfer of children and other civilians from Ukraine to Russia may amount to a war crime, observing that none of the cases they investigated were justified under international law. Ukraine has reported the transfer of 16,221 children to Russia, but the commission said it had not been able to verify the number.
The I.C.C.’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has said the illegal transfers of children were a priority for his investigators. “Children cannot be treated as the spoils of war,” he said after visiting a children’s home in southern Ukraine this month that he said had been emptied as a result of alleged deportations.
Valerie Hopkins and Marc Santora contributed reporting.
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Michael D. Shear
March 17, 2023, 11:31 a.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Michael D. Shear
The U.S. says it opposes China’s proposal for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine.
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An official in a blue suit gestures in front of the White House seal and an American flag.
John F. Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, at the White House. Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The United States on Friday said it was opposed to a Chinese proposal for an immediate cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine because it would cement the position of the troops of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“A cease-fire now is, again, effectively the ratification of Russian conquest,” John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters, responding to an expected meeting next week between Mr. Putin and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.
“It would, in effect, recognize Russia’s gains and its attempt to conquer its neighbor’s territory by force, allowing Russian troops to continue to occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory,” Mr. Kirby said.
The call for a cease-fire is part of a multipart peace proposal put forward by Mr. Xi, who heads to Russia for the meeting next week. The United States has long encouraged the Chinese government to play a constructive role in helping to end the war in Ukraine.
But Mr. Kirby expressed doubt that Mr. Xi’s meeting next week in Russia represents a genuine effort at peacemaking. He repeated that American officials were concerned that China is seriously considering an effort to directly provide lethal weapons to Russia for use in the war.
And he said that any meaningful meeting about peace would have to include President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as well.
“We also hope that President Xi will reach out to President Zelensky directly because we continue to believe that it’s very important that he hears from the Ukrainian side as well,” Mr. Kirby added. “And not just from Mr. Putin and not just from a Russian perspective.”
Mr. Kirby said he would not speak for Mr. Zelensky, who has in the past rejected the idea of an immediate cease-fire for similar reasons. But he made clear that the United States would counsel the leader of Ukraine to be wary of signing on to one at this point in the conflict.
“We certainly don’t support calls for a cease-fire that would be called for by the P.R.C. and a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia,” Mr. Kirby said, using the acronym for the Chinese government.
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Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 8:44 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Marc SantoraReporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
More MIG fighters will help Ukraine, but what Kyiv really wants are F-16s.
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Two gray F-16 jets flying in clear skies above Poland.
F-16 fighter jets taking part in a NATO exercise in Poland, in October 2022.Credit...Radoslaw Jozwiak/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s fighter pilots have helped to keep Russia from controlling the skies above the battlefield in the yearlong war. But the fact remains that Russia’s air force dwarfs Ukraine’s and its pilots have far superior technology.
The addition of more than a dozen Soviet-designed MIG fighter jets from Poland and Slovakia will certainly help Ukraine, which has seen dozens of aircraft shot down or worn out after more than a year of combat. But Ukrainian officials and military analysts do not expect the MIGs pledged so far to fundamentally alter the battle in the skies.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, said new MIGs would not “radically change” the situation on the front lines. Most of Slovakia’s MIG-29 warplanes are not working, so they are likely to be used mainly for spare parts.
“To some extent, this will increase our combat capabilities,” he said in an appearance on Ukrainian national television Friday morning. “But one should not forget that these are still Soviet and not modern Western aircraft.”
Ukraine primarily uses its limited number of fighter jets to provide cover for bombers and assault aircraft striking Russian positions, Mr. Ihnat said in a recent interview with Channel 24, a Ukrainian news outlet.
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A MIG-29 jet with a digital camouflage pattern sits on a runway.
A MIG-29 fighter jet in Slovakia.Credit...Jaroslav Novak/TASR Slovakia, via Associated Press
Ukrainian engineers have also figured out how to attach Western-made anti-radar missiles to its existing fleet of MIGs, allowing Kyiv to better target Russian radar and air-defense systems. The High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, known as HARMs, pose a threat to Russian air defense operators, in many cases forcing them to turn off their radar and lie low while Ukrainian MIGs are in the air — thus creating more freedom of movement for other Ukrainian aircraft.
But these missions are still fraught with danger for Ukrainian pilots.
“To successfully complete the task, they must go deep into the enemy’s defenses,” Mr. Ihnat said. “It is very dangerous to fly deep into the enemy’s defenses and you need to stick closer to the ground. And if you don’t do this, you will easily become prey.”
Ukraine has lost 61 planes since the war began, including 18 MIG-29s, according to the military analysis site Oryx, which only counts losses that it has visually confirmed. Over the same period, Russia has lost 79 aircraft, according to the group, whose analysts believe the real numbers for both sides are most likely far greater.
Mr. Ihnat said that Moscow’s fleet of attack aircraft is five times larger than Ukraine’s, and “much more technological.”
He and other Ukrainian officials have said that the country should focus on acquiring one type of advanced fighter, and that the F-16 remained the best option. Many nations employ the F-16, meaning the United States would not have to supply them directly, although it does need to approve any transfers to Ukraine from other countries. The Biden administration has declined to send F-16s but has not ruled out deciding later to provide them or allowing another country to do so.
The Ukrainian argument is that the F-16 is better than the MIG at shooting down cruise missiles because of its powerful radar and modern missiles, and could offer vastly more protection from Russian bombardment.
“It has a weapons system tied to that radar that can engage the vast majority of Russian aircraft long before they can attack it,” Greg Bagwell, a former British Royal Air Force commander who is president of the Air and Space Power Association, said in a recent interview with Radio Liberty.
“It’s tiny, it’s hard to see on radar, it’s even harder to see in the air with the naked eye,” he said of the F-16, adding: “It’s a vicious, nasty, dangerous little airplane.”
A correction was made on March 17, 2023:
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article described incorrectly MIG-29 fighter jets. They are Soviet-designed, not American-designed.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
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Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 7:22 a.m. ETMarch 17, 2023
March 17, 2023
Valerie Hopkins
Russia plans to give awards to the fighter pilots who took on the U.S. Reaper drone.
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A screen grab shows a Russian fighter jet flying over the Black Sea.
A Russian Su-27 fighter approaching the back of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday as seen in a still image taken from a government handout video.Credit...U.S. Department of Defense, via Associated Press
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday it would give state awards to the pilots of two Su-27 fighter jets that forced a $32 million American reconnaissance drone into the depths of the Black Sea on Tuesday, an incident that escalated tensions between the two superpowers.
The ministry announced in a statement that Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu would decorate the pilots for preventing “the violation by the American MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle of the boundaries” of airspace that Russia says it has restricted.
The Kremlin has said that the incident was caused by U.S. noncompliance with a flight restriction zone declared by Russia. The United States has said the drone was flying in international airspace and called its interception “unsafe” and “unprofessional.”
The Pentagon released video of the incident on Thursday showing two high-speed passes by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets, which spray a substance the Defense Department says is jet fuel on the MQ-9 Reaper drone. On a final pass, one of the Russian jets collides with the drone, the Pentagon says, and the camera feed is lost for about 60 seconds. The footage that was released does not show the collision.
The video then resumes, showing the aircraft’s damaged propeller, which the Pentagon said was struck by the Russian jet. Moscow has denied that its planes came into contact with the drone.
On Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it would try to salvage the downed drone. State news media, citing an unnamed official, said an underwater robot had detected the remnants of the drone about 40 miles from the port city of Sevastopol, on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, at a depth of about half a mile underwater.
Steven Erlanger
March 17, 2023, 5:42 a.m. ETMarch 17, 2023
March 17, 2023
Steven Erlanger
Turkey’s Erdogan endorses Finland’s NATO bid.
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Two leaders holding umbrellas in the rain while flanked on either side in a ceremony.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, in Ankara, Turkey, on Friday.Credit...Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Office, via Reuters
Turkey announced on Friday that it would move to ratify Finland’s application to join NATO, clearing a significant hurdle for the Nordic nation’s bid to join the alliance but leaving neighboring Sweden on the sidelines for now.
“We decided to start the ratification process in our Parliament for Finland’s membership,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey told a news conference, saying he hoped the vote would take place before elections in mid-May.
The announcement came as Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, met in Ankara with Mr. Erdogan. The leaders had both telegraphed that the announcement was coming, with Mr. Erdogan saying this week that Turkey would “keep our promise.”
For Finland to join NATO after decades of military nonalignment would be a major shift in the balance of power in the region between the Western military alliance and Russia. It represents a significant diplomatic and strategic defeat for Moscow and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Mr. Putin made clear before invading Ukraine last year that his intention was to block NATO’s expansion. But his invasion instead convinced Finnish and Swedish leaders that there was no real security guarantee for them outside the alliance.
Finland has a border of 830 miles with Russia, Europe’s longest, and an extensive history of resisting Moscow’s hegemony. Favoring self-reliance, Finland did not shrink its military after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 10 months ago it pulled a more reluctant Sweden along to apply to join NATO.
But Mr. Erdogan has been blocking them, claiming that Sweden has become a haven for Kurdish separatists and other dissidents he considers terrorists. So far, Stockholm’s efforts to satisfy him, including a new terrorism law, have failed.
The Turkish president has intermittently demanded the extradition of more than 120 people now in Sweden, as he did again on Friday. Talks will likely continue in the hope that Turkey will finally approve Sweden’s membership bid after the Turkish elections in May, but before NATO’s summit meeting in Lithuania in mid-July.
Mr. Erdogan’s decision opens the way for Turkey’s Parliament to ratify Finland’s membership in the alliance, which requires unanimous approval from the 30 nations in the bloc. Hungary is the only other country whose Parliament has not ratified the bids by Finland or Sweden. Its leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has vacillated on when the Hungarian Parliament will vote, although he insists that Hungary has no objection to membership of either Nordic country.
With elections in Finland on April 2, the country’s current government decided to pass all necessary legislation to join NATO in order to prevent any period of uncertainty while a new government is formed. So the only votes outstanding rest with the Turkish and Hungarian Parliaments.
On Friday, Mr. Niinisto thanked Mr. Erdogan for the move to ratify but told the news conference that Finland’s membership “is not complete without Sweden.”
The Turkish leader faces a tough election battle in mid-May with a ropy economy and high inflation, as well as criticism about his government’s handling of the recent devastating earthquake. The battle against Kurdish terrorism is popular politics in Turkey and plays well among opposition voters, too. And Turks in general like the attention and leverage that Mr. Erdogan’s unpredictability often provides.
Hungary has wielded its veto power within the European Union over sanctions against Russia to try to secure concessions on other issues, and analysts say Mr. Orban appears to be doing the same thing over Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Mr. Orban is also known to be annoyed by criticism of Hungary within the European Union from Sweden and Finland.
Johanna Lemola, Gulsin Harman and Anushka Patil contributed reporting.
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March 17, 2023, 5:16 a.m. ETMarch 17, 2023
March 17, 2023
Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Lara Jakes and Eric Schmitt
Ukraine is burning through artillery shells in Bakhmut, which could jeopardize any spring push.
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A dark, smoky scene of soldiers among trees firing a howitzer.
Ukrainian troops firing toward Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, this month.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
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Two soldiers in military camouflage standing near howitzer ammunition, with one soldier holding a howitzer shell.
The 80th Air Assault Brigade fired a British howitzer toward Russian positions in Bakhmut recently.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
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Empty shells and wooden boxes filling a dirt trench that two soldiers stand on either side of.
Soldiers from the 71st Separate Hunting Brigade of the Air Assault Forces on the front line in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
The Ukrainian military is firing thousands of artillery shells a day as it tries to hold the eastern city of Bakhmut, a pace that American and European officials say is unsustainable and could jeopardize a planned springtime campaign that they hope will prove decisive.
The bombardment has been so intense that the Pentagon raised concerns with Kyiv recently after several days of nonstop artillery firing, two U.S. officials said, highlighting the tension between Ukraine’s decision to defend Bakhmut at all costs and its hopes for retaking territory in the spring. One of those officials said the Americans warned Ukraine against wasting ammunition at a key time.
With so much riding on a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the United States and Britain are preparing to ship thousands of NATO and Soviet-type artillery rounds and rockets to help shore up supplies for a coming Ukrainian offensive.
But a senior American defense official described that as a “last-ditch effort” because Ukraine’s allies do not have enough ammunition to keep up with Ukraine’s pace and their stocks are critically low. Western manufacturers are ramping up production, but it will take many months for new supplies to begin meeting demand.
This has put Kyiv in an increasingly perilous position: Its troops are likely to have one meaningful opportunity this year to go on the offensive, push back Russian forces and retake land that was occupied after the invasion began last year. And they will probably have do it while contending with persistent ammunition shortages.
Natalia Yermak contributed reporting.
BATTLE FOR BAKHMUTRead the full article about how future offensives are being put at risk by ammunition consumption.
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March 17, 2023, 3:40 a.m. ETMarch 17, 2023
March 17, 2023
David Pierson and Vivian Wang
Xi and Putin will meet and hold a news conference on Monday.
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Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, both wearing dark suits, speak to each other in front of the Russian and Chinese flags.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing last year, in a photo from Russian state news media.Credit...Sputnik, via Reuters
China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, will travel to Russia to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin next week in a visit that could have broad implications for Moscow’s war in Ukraine and the troubled relationship between Beijing and Washington.
Mr. Xi is expected to make a state visit to Russia from Monday to Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin said in statements. It will be his first visit to Russia since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.
Mr. Xi’s trip will be watched closely by leaders in the United States and Europe who are frustrated with China’s diplomatic and economic support for Russia. Although the two nations have not declared a formal alliance, Beijing maintains deep strategic ties with Moscow as a like-minded nuclear-armed power that seeks to weaken Washington’s geopolitical dominance. Just three weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin visited Beijing, where the two leaders declared a “no limits” friendship.
In recent weeks, the Biden administration has warned that China is considering escalating its support for Russia by providing weapons for it to use in Ukraine, an accusation that Beijing has denied.
Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin will meet on Monday afternoon in Moscow for a one-on-one conversation and lunch, and the two leaders will also hold a news conference, said the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said that Mr. Xi would use the visit to increase the “mutual trust and understanding” between the two countries, which he said had “established a new paradigm for international relations.”
At the same time, China would seek to play a mediating role between Russia and Ukraine, he said.
“President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia this time is also for peace,” Mr. Wang said when asked whether Mr. Xi would try to push Mr. Putin to seek a political settlement with Ukraine. “China’s proposition can be summed up in one sentence, which is to persuade peace and promote talks.”
He also implicitly criticized Western nations’ tough approach to punishing Russia, saying that “unilateral sanctions” and “extreme pressure” would only worsen the crisis. The Kremlin said that talks between Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi would center on the “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” between the two countries.
China has cast itself as a rare neutral party well positioned to negotiate a political settlement between Ukraine and Russia. The country recently released a position paper calling for an end to the war, but the document was widely criticized by Western leaders for lacking concrete plans and avoiding demands that could hurt China’s close ties with Russia.
Mr. Xi has sought to burnish his image as a global statesman, most notably with the announcement last week that Beijing had brokered a surprise deal to restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. That agreement came after extensive talks in which both sides had expressed a willingness to mend ties.
Mediating in the war in Ukraine would be a far greater challenge, with neither Ukraine nor Russia appearing ready to negotiate an end to the fighting. Many Western leaders are skeptical about Mr. Xi’s intentions because of his conflicting goals and interests. Beijing has never criticized Russia’s invasion and parrots the Kremlin’s assertion that NATO provoked the war.
It is unclear whether Mr. Xi will also meet or speak separately with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
On Thursday, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and China spoke over the phone in a rare official contact. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said the two discussed “the principle of territorial integrity.” China said its foreign minister, Qin Gang, told his Ukrainian counterpart that Beijing would “continue to play a constructive role in bringing an end to the conflict, mitigating the crisis and restoring peace.”
Mr. Qin said China was concerned the conflict was dragging on and could “spiral out of control.” He urged both sides to “exercise restraint” and “resume peace talks as soon as possible,” according to the ministry, while referring to the situation in Ukraine as a “crisis” rather than a war.
Mr. Wang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, did not directly answer when asked if the foreign ministers had discussed potential contact between Mr. Xi and Mr. Zelensky, saying only that China continued to “maintain communication with all parties.”
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said on Monday that the United States had been encouraging Mr. Xi to speak to Mr. Zelensky, in part to discourage China from supplying Russia with arms.
“It would potentially bring more balance and perspective to the way that the P.R.C. is approaching this,” Mr. Sullivan said, using an abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. “And we hope it would continue to dissuade them from choosing to provide lethal assistance to Russia.”
In addition to the war in Ukraine, Mr. Xi will also discuss with Mr. Putin how to continue strengthening cooperation between their countries, Mr. Wang said. Asked whether Russia and China would seek a formal alliance, Mr. Wang said they were interested in a “new type of major power relations.”
“This is completely different from the practice of some countries, which cling to a cold war mentality, gang up, engage in ‘small circle’ and factional confrontations, and bully all over the place,” he said.
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.
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Andrew Higgins
March 17, 2023, 1:59 a.m. ETMarch 17, 2023
March 17, 2023
Andrew Higgins
Slovakia follows Poland in pledging warplanes for Ukraine, but most of its jets are in disrepair.
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A pair of fighter planes fly low over land.
Two MIG-29 fighter jets during NATO exercises near an air base in Lask, in central Poland, last year.Credit...Radoslaw Jozwiak/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The government of Slovakia said on Friday that it would send 13 Soviet-designed fighter jets to Ukraine, a day after a similar announcement by Poland’s president, marking a possibly significant shift from NATO allies in increasing arms supplies for Kyiv.
Most of Slovakia’s MIG-29 warplanes are not in working order so their delivery to Ukraine, most likely to provide spare parts for Ukraine’s own fleet of Soviet-era jets, will not change the balance of force on the battlefield. But it could add momentum to a Polish-led push within NATO, of which both Slovakia and Poland are members, to break a taboo on sending Ukraine warplanes to defend against Russia’s invasion.
Until Poland’s surprise announcement on Thursday that it would send a first batch of four MIG-29s within days, NATO countries, including the United States, had refrained from providing jets, even aging or damaged Soviet-era ones.
With Russia expected to mount spring offensives, the push to provide Ukraine with more sophisticated weapons has been accelerating, particularly in Europe’s former Soviet eastern edge, which has been especially vocal about opposing Russia’s aggression.
But Slovakia’s planes had required servicing by Russia engineers to keep flying and have all been grounded for months because of concerns over their airworthiness. And domestic political wrangling is likely to complicate execution of the pledge by the government, a caretaker administration with limited powers.
Slovakia first raised the possibility of sending MIG-29s a year ago, but the government behind that offer collapsed in December, leaving the country in the hands of the interim administration. Opposition politicians against helping Ukraine and some constitutional experts have argued that a decision on sending jets must wait until after new elections later this year or gain approval from Slovakia’s Parliament, in which the current government does not have a majority.
The announcement on Friday, which Ukraine’s government welcomed, defied those who insist the interim leadership cannot take such an important decision. The acting prime minister, Eduard Heger, wrote on Twitter: “Promises must be kept.” He did not specify the timing of any delivery of warplanes.
The Russian Embassy in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, contended that such a transfer would be illegal, saying in a statement that “relevant Russian-Slovak agreements explicitly prohibit any transfer of weapons and military hardware to third countries without consent from the country of origin,” Russia’s Tass news agency reported.
Robert Fico, who resigned as Slovakia’s prime minister in 2018 amid corruption allegations involving organized crime, has insisted that the constitution bars the acting prime minister from taking a decision on warplanes. He told a recent news conference that Mr. Heger is “either completely stupid” or taking orders from the U.S. Embassy in Bratislava.
If, as many expect, Mr. Fico’s party performs well in a general election this autumn, Slovakia could join Hungary, currently the only country within the European Union opposed to arming Ukraine, in an alliance of Ukraine skeptics.
Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, has so far been out of step with fellow leaders within NATO and the European bloc because of his equivocal stance over the war in Ukraine. But the possible return of Mr. Fico as prime minister or as a significant force in Slovakia’s government afer elections could give the Hungarian leader new clout and weaken Europe’s solidarity with Ukraine.
Russia, calculating that it can outlast the West, has been banking for months on a gradual crumbling of European resolve under public pressure over inflation and other economic pain. It was bitterly disappointed this month when voters in Estonia gave a big election victory to a staunchly pro-Ukrainian government.
If political uncertainty in Slovakia gives Moscow a new opportunity to undermine Western resolve, it would be the opposite of the outcome Poland wanted when it on Thursday announced its decision to send MIG-29s to Ukraine, a move that appeared intended to open the door to more advanced warplanes from NATO allies and entrench a more hawkish line against Russia.
The Kremlin on Friday brushed off Poland’s pledge, saying the jets would not affect the war’s outcome.
“All this equipment will be subject to destruction,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters. “It seems that these countries really want to dispose of their old unnecessary equipment this way.”
Ivan Nechepurenko, Matt Surman and Lara Jakes contributed reporting.
Salvaging the drone that crashed in the Black Sea presents big obstacles, experts say.
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An MQ-9 Reaper drone was forced into the Black Sea on Tuesday after a Russian fighter jet damaged its propeller, the Pentagon said.Credit...Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images
Moscow will face formidable obstacles if it tries to retrieve the wreckage of a U.S. Reaper drone that crashed into the Black Sea after a high-altitude collision with a Russian fighter jet, maritime rescue experts said on Thursday.
The operation could take weeks and cost tens of millions of dollars, they said. And just locating the drone might not be easy, given that it is most likely scattered on the seabed.
“The initial challenge is finding it,” said Iain Butterworth, a lawyer and engineer with extensive experience in maritime salvage operations. “It may be broken up into a number of pieces. With currents, it could be over a significant area.”
The Ukrainian military reported unusual Russian naval activity in the Black Sea on Thursday, with ships deployed in a way suggesting that they were searching for the drone, which crashed on Tuesday after an incident involving two Russian jets.
A successful salvage could be used by Moscow for propaganda purposes, but Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that Russia’s military would only raise the drone if necessary for security reasons.
The drone would most likely have a beacon, but it was unclear whether Russian vessels would be able to gain access to its signal, given that it was a U.S. military aircraft, Mr. Butterworth said. The Pentagon has said that the drone’s wreckage would be of limited military value.
The next challenge is the depth of the water. The Pentagon said that the drone crashed around 75 miles southwest of Ukraine’s Crimea region, which Russia annexed illegally in 2014. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the drone went down in waters 4,000 to 5,000 feet deep.
That depth — the equivalent to approximately five Eiffel Towers standing end to end — is far beyond the range at which commercial divers can operate.
As a result, underwater robots, called Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicles, would have to be deployed. The devices, widely used in the offshore oil and gas industry, often have a claw that can be used to grab onto objects.
“They would probably send mini subs to locate the things, hook it and winch it up to the surface,” said Anthony Desbrousses, the director of Marine Recoveries, a marine liability insurance firm.
“You have to collect pieces, using different sling systems, with as little impact as possible,” he said. “You are going to winch something from more than a kilometer down, so there will be currents and waves.”
Any winch would need to be attached to a vessel and, to prevent it from moving in the water as the slow process unfolds, it would need to have a dynamic positioning system, which involves engines and satellites, to keep it stable, said Mr. Desbrousses, who has extensive involvement with marine salvage.
Such systems are also widely used in the offshore energy industry and a prerequisite to any rescue attempt would be assembling the right team of experts as well as an array of complex equipment. That would probably take weeks and the costs could rise to tens of millions of dollars, the experts said. Any salvage could also be delayed by bad weather.
Russia most likely has the expertise for this kind of operation, Mr. Butterworth said, though the fact that the operation would take place in what is effectively an active military zone would make it more difficult.
Moscow also had prior experience of high-profile underwater salvage operations in difficult conditions, though not all had been successful. No survivors were found aboard the Kursk, a Russian Navy submarine that sank in around 360 feet of water in the Barents Sea in 2000. The submarine was eventually salvaged.
A Year of War in Ukraine
The Future of Ukraine: The European Union and NATO have promised a path to membership for the country. But real partnership will hold risks and benefits.
Weaponization of Adoptions: Since the invasion began, Moscow has transferred thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia to be adopted. Here is why.
Western Companies: Hundreds of Western businesses are still in Russia. Some say Moscow has tied their hands, while others have chosen to stay put.
Defying Isolation: After the invasion of Ukraine, the West tried to cut Russia off from the rest of the world. Here is why it didn’t work.
A Wartime Partnership: The alliance between President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has become critical to the world order.
Zelensky’s Rise: The Ukrainian president, once brushed off as a political lightweight, has become a household name, representing his country’s tenacity.
Reshaping Russia: President Vladimir V. Putin has suffered setback after setback in Ukraine. But at home, the war has let him craft the country he craves.
Ukrainians’ Texts: The messages that Ukrainians wrote to loved ones as Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022, are a snapshot of a turning point in modern history.
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