English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 29/2022
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2021/english.april29.22.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus Drives Out Of the Temple Sellers and Money Changers ..He said to them: “Stop making my Father’s house a market-place”
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 02/13-25:”The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 28-29/2022
Guila Fakhoury Presentation In The 26th of April 2022 Conference at Library of Congress “for a Free Lebanon”.
Search for boat victims continues for fifth day, Lebanon asks for int'l aid
General Security officially announces suspension of passport renewals
FPM, LF trade jabs as parliament adjourns Bou Habib session
Bassil says Lebanese political system cannot be sustained
Report: Bassil 'insists' on holding session over confidence in Bou Habib
Saniora meets Daryan, warns against 'falsifying will of Beirut's people'
UN, Lebanon sign UN Framework for sustainable development cooperation
What is Enough Reason for a Minister to Resign?/Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al Awsat/April 28/2022
Roger Edde’s Paper That Was Presented to The 26th of April 2022 Conference at Library of Congress “for a Free Lebanon”.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 28-29/2022
Iran's Shamkhani Receives Iraqi Speaker, Asserts Response to Any Action that Harms National Security
Iran Wants to Expand Strategic Ties with China to Confront US
Iran Executions See 'Alarming Rise' in 2021
Two 'powerful blasts' rock Russian city near Ukraine border
U.N. chief in Ukraine after EU-Russia gas row
Russia says Turkey warned in advance about Syria flights ban
Global Pledges of Justice for Ukraine War Crime Victims
UN Chief Tours Damaged Areas Outside Kyiv: War is an Absurdity in 21st Century
Stoltenberg: Finland and Sweden Could Join NATO Quickly
Another 52,000 Ukrainians Flee War as Refugees
EU Defies Gas 'Blackmail' as Russia Pushes Deeper into Ukraine
Israel Backs US Return to UNESCO, Says Blinken

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 28-29/2022'
China and Russia's 'Space War': Where Is The US?/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/April 28/2022
More Freedom of Speech in the West/Josef Zbořil/ Gatestone Institute/April 28/2022
Energy’s Future Is Both Cleaner and Dirtier/Tyler Cowen/Bloomberg/April, 28/2022
NATO Needs to Seal the Deal with Sweden and Finland Fast/Andreas Kluth/Asharq Al Awsat/April 28/2022

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 28-29/2022
Guila Fakhoury Presentation In The 26th of April 2022 Conference at Library of Congress “for a Free Lebanon”.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108332/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d8%ba%d8%aa%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%b1%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%86%d9%83%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%b2%d9%8a%d8%a9%d8%8c-%d9%83%d9%84%d9%85%d8%a9-%d8%a7/
Hello and thank you for inviting me to participate in this conference that aims to free Lebanon from Iranian occupation. I am the daughter of the late US hostage Amer Fakhoury who was kidnapped and tortured in Lebanon. Unfortunately, the maltreatment he faced in Lebanon, eventually led to his death. Today I will not talk about how my father was killed but I will focus more on how Amer Fakhoury was illegally detained and the impact Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, had on his illegal detention. This case is the perfect example of the corruption, and the lies that takes place in the judiciary system in Lebanon, specifically in the military tribunal.
Hezbollah’s influence runs very deep, it starts in the interrogation rooms in the Lebanese General security and all the way influencing public prosecutors and judges in the military court. The kidnapping, the accusations and the illegal detention used in my father’s case in Lebanon is very similar to hostage taking strategies used in Iran. Hezbollah heavily influences every sector of the Lebanese government especially the judicial system. we need to agree that Hezbollah is neither a Lebanese entity nor a Lebanese resistance but rather a Lebanese occupant that is leading Lebanon towards Iranian dictatorship.
Now let’s dive in to Amer Fakhoury’s case, a prime example of Hezbollah’s influence. A case that was so well rehearsed, a big play directed by Hezbollah and executed by members of the Lebanese government. Prior to his arrival in Lebanon in September, Amer Fakhoury did not have a single accusation against him, he participated in the 2016 Lebanese election just like any other Lebanese citizen, he also was able to freely enter and spend the first 10 days in Lebanon. In fact in August 2018 Amer received official acknowledgment in writing that there were no accusations against him in Lebanon from the military tribunal, the general directorate of general security, the ministry of justice, the internal security forces both in the form of attestation of no legal pursuits and in the form of standard record of no conviction. However, the minute Amer Fakhoury stepped foot in Lebanon, Hezbollah knew he was the perfect target, being Christian American and a member of the south Lebanese army, they knew they can use him as a political pawn against the US government. In the beginning His American passport was taken as what they claimed to be a routine background check, a week later an article in the “al-akhbar” newsletter a Hezbollah backed newspaper appeared with new accusations against Amer Fakhoury.
 When Amer went to retrieve his passport, He was taken and interrogated, even the US embassy was unable to locate him. Minutes after entering the LGS organized gathering was formed outside the Lebanese General security with professional posters with pictures from his facebook, this was not a spontaneous protest this was premeditated. If there was a valid and a true accusation against my father, then why was he forced to sign false documents under torture. The False Accusations that were used against my father included him having an Israeli citizenship, and other allegations that occurred during a period where he was not in the “khiam” prison. Not only was Amer Fakhoury illegally detained, he was held without bond presumably for accusations that even if it’s true cannot lead to charges under the Lebanon law because it is well outside the maximum non-tolling ten-year statute of limitations. Judges like Najat Abou chakra and other military judges were not able to take a decision based on evidence and facts alone. not only were accusations made more than two decades old, they were false and yet he remained uncharged and incarcerated without bond for 7 months.
He was not given appropriate due process before the military tribunal. Our lawyers spoke with Lebanese officials at the highest levels and they freely admitted that Amer’s files were empty, and there can be no legal charges against him, yet Amer remained in custody and was told that Wafiq Safa wants you in here we cannot do anything about it. The president Michel Aoun knew Amer was innocent, the prosecutor Peter Germanos at that time knew very well that Amer Fakhoury was innocent yet both along with judges on the case were unable to take a decision based on the facts they saw in front of them. In addition to this the release of our father happened because of negotiations between the US government and Hezbollah through their middle man General Abbas Ibrahim. Once negotiations were over, the judges were allowed to acquit Amer on all false charges however it was too late. It was very clear that if hezbollah did not approve the release it would not have happened.
We see similar hostage taking scenarios in Iran and in countries controlled by militias and terrorist organizations. The judiciary system does not have any say in the illegal detention because it is up to the militia to decide when they want to release their hostages. The judiciary system is simply for show. Unfortunately, Amer’s case is only one case amongst many similar cases, where innocent people are illegally detained in Lebanon. We are lucky we can use our voice here in the USA to shed light on the problem and openly speak about Hezbollah’s occupation in Lebanon. We need to continue to push the US administration to help Free Lebanon from Iranian control. Since Hezbollah does control every sector of the Lebanese govt, any money that does enter this country a portion of it will go into Hezbollah’s pocket. In a sense, our tax dollars are funding the illegal detention of Americans abroad. This is why conversations like these here in America are so crucial to our fight in ending Iranian occupation in Lebanon, so I want to thank you to blank for putting this conference together and thank you for having me today.

Search for boat victims continues for fifth day, Lebanon asks for int'l aid
Naharnet/Thursday, 28 April, 2022  
Lebanese rescue teams searched the Mediterranean by helicopters Thursday for dozens of bodies still missing at sea, after an overloaded people-smuggling boat capsized near Tripoli's coast. Some family members of the boat victims accompanied the rescue teams, while the hunt also continued by sea and land for the fifth consecutive day. Members of the Civil Defense Maritime Rescue Unit joined the Army naval units in the hunt from al-Abde to Jounieh, through Shekka and al-Batroun. The teams used a drone for accurate aerial images that would support the rescue operations. Meanwhile, Lebanon has requested international assistance to retrieve the boat. "We have asked world nations to provide us with the needed equipment to retrieve the boat," Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told al-Liwaa newspaper. "The ambassadors promised to ask their governments about the possibility of providing assistance," he added.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said the boat was carrying at least 84 people when it capsized about three nautical miles (3.5 miles, 5.5 kilometers) off the coast. Families of the victims had been protesting and blocking roads to urge authorities to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones. A man appeared in a video saying there would be no parliamentary elections in Tripoli on May 15 unless the bodies of all victims are retrieved from sea.
Families have reported at least 23 still missing, all women and children, according to Tripoli port director Ahmad Tamer.

General Security officially announces suspension of passport renewals
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Thursday, 28 April, 2022 
General Security said Thursday it has stopped taking appointments for passport renewals because of a rush that has depleted stocks of new passports. Since 2020, requests for passport renewals have been ten times higher than in previous years, which has piled pressure on passport centers and "affected available passport stocks," General Security said in a statement. Grappling with its worst-ever financial crisis, Lebanon has undergone a massive population exodus that is only worsening as politicians fail to chart a path towards recovery. Lebanese authorities have yet to pay for more passports to be produced "at a time when the available amount of passports has started to run out," the agency added. "Accordingly, General Security was forced to stop work on the passport appointment platform as of 27 April," it said, clarifying that those with pre-existing appointments are still eligible for new travel documents. The suspension will last until funds are paid to the company contracted to issue new passports, it said, meaning those without existing appointments are left with no idea as to when they might get a new passport. Even those able to gain appointments have often had to wait months.According to an Arab Barometer survey published this month, around half of Lebanon's population is looking to exit the country.

FPM, LF trade jabs as parliament adjourns Bou Habib session
Naharnet/Thursday, 28 April, 2022  
A parliament session for looking into a request for withdrawing confidence from Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib was adjourned Thursday due to lack of quorum. After the session was cancelled, Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan accused Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil of being the "de facto foreign minister," saying that his consultant Pascale Dahrouj is the one organizing the elections instead of Bou Habib. He added that the LF is not the only party who has objected the distribution of polling stations abroad, threatening with publishing documents and facts. Bassil, for his part, said that a "stupid person" from a political party -- apparently referring to the LF -- has done a mistake while registering the expats' zip codes. "Let them pay for their stupidity, instead of pointing fingers at any political side," Bassil lashed out. "The distribution of polling stations abroad was a decision taken by Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, so why are they requesting to withdraw confidence from Bou Habib" Bassil asked, claiming that the move is political and particularly targeting the FPM. Bou Habib fiercely mocked Adwan, saying that the latter was "a shadow" of his leader during the civil war, in response to Adwan considering Bassil to be the "de facto foreign minister." "He knows that I'm properly filling my post, and that no one tells me what to do," the foreign minister added. 53 MPs attended the session today, among which the FPM and Amal's MPs.

Bassil says Lebanese political system cannot be sustained
Naharnet/Thursday, 28 April, 2022  
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has said that Lebanon’s political system is “paralyzed” and “cannot be sustained.” In an interview with al-Mayadeen TV aired overnight, Bassil added that he believes that “there is integration between the project of protecting the arms that protect the state” and “the priority of building the state.” “Lebanon cannot stand idly by regarding Israel. As long as Israel is practicing its arrogance in the region and at Lebanon’s expense, Lebanon can only be at the heart of the conflict with it,” Bassil added. Separately, the FPM chief said that “there is a U.S. decision to prevent a total collapse of Lebanon while refraining from reviving it in a sufficient manner.” He added that he does not expect the U.S. sanctions on him to be lifted before Lebanon’s presidential election, describing them as a “political decision.”As for the parliamentary elections, Bassil said that “so far,” he does not see “any financial Saudi interference in the elections.” Asked about his expected visit to Syria, the FPM chief said “it will come at the appropriate time after the elections,” noting that it would be “in Lebanon’s interest at the economic and political levels.”
As for his tensions with Speaker Nabih Berri, Bassil said: “How can we consider that we are a majority along with Speaker Nabih Berri while we are extremely at odds in politics?”“Nothing necessitates re-electing Speaker Berri again for his post,” the FPM chief added.

Report: Bassil 'insists' on holding session over confidence in Bou Habib
Naharnet/Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is keen on holding a Parliamentary session to discuss withdrawing confidence from Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, OTV said Thursday. The TV station said that Bassil wants the session to be held, "despite that some parties are trying to strip the session of its quorum." The session will be held today, Thursday, after the Lebanese Forces MPs had called for it over accusations related to the distribution of polling stations abroad. "Expats must be distributed on the polling stations that are geographically closer to them," LF chief Samir Geagea said, accusing Bassil and "his team at the Foreign Ministry" of committing "a crime against expats abroad, instead of facilitating their voting process." Bou Habib for his part, said he is ready for the session "to answer all the questions with transparency." "The main goal is to hold the expats' polls," he said in a call with al-Jadeed. He explained that Geagea had talked to him about the issue but that he can not "take instructions" from a party. "They wanted me to do what they want," he said, adding that he only takes instructions from Cabinet or a court.

Saniora meets Daryan, warns against 'falsifying will of Beirut's people'
Naharnet/Thursday, 28 April, 2022 
Ex-PM Fouad Saniora has warned against “falsifying the will of the Lebanese and the people of Beirut,” following talks with Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan. “Beirut should not become a no man’s land that allows anyone to try and falsify its will,” Saniora added. Beirutis must “practice this right and duty” of voting, because “refraining from participation in the elections will practically lead to lowering the electoral quotients in all regions, consequently allowing all those who want to falsify the will of the Lebanese to win a bigger number of seats,” the ex-PM warned. “This should be the main concern of all Lebanese, specifically those who back sovereign lists. They must turn out heavily and not try to say that they cannot change anything,” Saniora went on to say. The ex-PM is backing the ‘Beirut Confronts’ electoral list in Beirut’s second electoral district. He has repeatedly called for Sunni participation in the parliamentary elections in defiance of ex-PM Saad Hariri’s boycott decision.

UN, Lebanon sign UN Framework for sustainable development cooperation
Naharnet/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Prime Minister Najib Miqati and U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi signed Thursday the “United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework” (UNSDCF). The framework is meant to strengthen the existing and ongoing cooperation between both parties on promoting the principles of sustainable development, and build the foundations for a prosperous and inclusive Lebanese society, where no one is left behind, the U.N. said in statement. "It aims to improve people’s lives and achieve a better future for Lebanon and its people, in addition to reaching a more comprehensive partnership between the United Nations and all concerned parties. It also constitutes a fundamental tool for planning and implementing UN development activities at the national level, in line with national development priorities and people's demands." Rochdi said that “today is a very important day in which we renew years of continuous cooperation between the United Nations system in Lebanon and the Government of Lebanon, through a new Cooperation Framework that exemplifies the spirit of partnership that is at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” She assured that reforms are the key to the successful implementation of the cooperation framework and lie at the core of the support intended within. Rochdi expressed hope that the reforms will be swiftly adopted in favor of the Lebanese people and contribute to accelerating the development process in the country. “The importance of this framework lies in the fact that it was based on an inclusive participatory process that involved a series of extensive consultations with a wide range of national and international stakeholders, including civil society organizations, private sector, the Lebanese government, donors, and religious leaders”. For his part, Miqati stressed that the U.N. emergency programs are important to address the primary challenges in Lebanon, calling for reflecting jointly on the long-term solutions presented in the Cooperation Framework to achieve sustainable development. “I see in this title [U.N. Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework] a positive message represented by the word “United Nations” which conveys peace, humanity, love, and cooperation for the well-being of the Lebanese citizen. We are in dire need for this cooperation today.” Miqati stressed the importance of implementing the required reforms in full cooperation with the Parliament and all private and public governmental bodies, considering these reforms as an imminent demand by the Lebanese before it is an international one. The implementation of the cooperation framework will kick off at the beginning of 2023 and will end in December 2025. "Together with the U.N., the Lebanese government will be responsible for leading the implementation of this framework, monitoring it, and preparing reports about its progress based on the four strategic development priorities that were identified in partnership with the government, civil society, the private sector, donors, and others," the U.N. said. The statement added that "these priorities revolve around four main pillars, namely the People, the Planet (environment), Prosperity, and Peace. The priorities consist of the following:
- Improved lives and well-being for all people in Lebanon.
- Improved resilient and competitive productive sectors for enhanced and inclusive-generating and livelihood opportunities.
- Third – Sustained peaceful and inclusive society for participatory and equitable development.
-Restored rich nature and ecosystem of Lebanon for inclusive green recovery."

What is Enough Reason for a Minister to Resign?
Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al Awsat/April 28/2022
The Lebanese political class’s performance has changed significantly since the October 17 revolution, and much of its behavior changed after the Beirut port blast. The deals they used to make in secret are not made in the open. They speak of Lebanon’s need for around 20 billion dollars to launch its recovery, betting on the IMF providing around 3 billion. Meanwhile, they squandered over 24 billion dollars, most of which were seized from citizens’ bank deposits. The disingenuity of reform claims has been exposed, as has the impossibility of this political class taking any initiative or decision to suggest it is trying to contain the ongoing collapses and save the country.
Their plunder and subordination have accelerated the implosion and exposed the parties to the sectarian-quota-based spoil-sharing regime and made it obvious that they are not concerned with the public interest in the slightest. The government led by Hassan Diab succumbed to the plot to drain deposits and walked back on its “monetary and financial recovery” plan, covering for smuggling and squander to fund monopolies and the Syrian regime’s militias.
The “counter-revolutionary” government led by Mikati did not deviate from this course. Indeed, it went further, removing all subsidies without ensuring alternatives. Is it not destructive that cancer patients await their deaths because they cannot find the medicine they need or a hospital to receive them? Is it not a travesty that death haunts the victims of the port blast and continues to claim the lives of those whom it injured 20 months after the fact? These facts affirm that the authorities have abandoned their responsibilities and are preoccupied with other matters. They do not care that the country went from being prosperous to poor at record speed or that it has become uninhabitable.
Three decades on from the law that granted amnesty for the crimes committed during the war, which goes up against the constitution and makes light of wartime atrocities, as well as entrenching the spoil-sharing regime, the political class seeks to pass a law granting amnesty for financial crimes, calling it “capital control!” This law should have been passed the moment the collapse began in 2019, but it wasn’t. Instead, the political class opted to grant bankers and large depositors the chance to smuggle their money out of the country! They thus discussed with the IMF a bill that would lead to a social explosion, as it protects the political banking cartel and the Banque du Liban, prevents their prosecution, legalizes plunder, and writes off $65 billion in citizens’ savings, including the savings of retirees and professional syndicates (doctors, engineers, lawyers and others...) destroying what remains of social security!
Seventeen years following the expulsion of the Syrian regime’s army that had been occupying Lebanon, the country’s people are extremely disappointed because their aspirations to restore the modern state, the constitution, justice and the rule of law have not been fulfilled because their subordinated tyrants prioritized their own interests and governed arbitrarily. Thus, Hezbollah seized the country’s decision-making and wealth, subordinating the Presidency of the Republic, which provided it with legal cover for its illegal weapons. Its task was facilitated by the cover and support provided by Hariri and his team under the pretext of “deescalating tensions,” and their facilitation persists with the decision to “suspend political action.” The Lebanese thus find themselves besieged by poverty, despair, and destitution, which has driven many of them to try to escape in the hope of finding a new lease on life behind the seas! They went aboard “death boats,” not because they are dreamers but because Lebanon has forced them out, and the displaced have certainly outnumbered the immigrants!
The calamity of the “death boat” drowning in the early hours of April 24 after departing from Tripoli placed Lebanon at the most dangerous turning point in its history as corpses, including those of children, were removed from the sea. We can be sure that no parent would put their children on such a boat unless the sea was more dangerous than their country. Nevertheless, the calamity did not change the officials’ actions in any way, standing like an observer as they pretended to search for the corpses and treated the victims like mere figures: 7, 9, or 14, and no government body has announced the number of passengers on the “death boat!” It decided to bribe the witnesses into silence instead of granting them their rights and working seriously to address the fury overwhelming broad segments of society. It did not admit to any mistake or apologize, overlooking its responsibility for the deaths.
To put things on the right track, the real perpetrator of the crime must be exposed, the party behind the plot to uproot Lebanon and turn it into an extension of the axis of resistance. It has grabbed the country by the throat and turned it into a slaughterhouse, imposing hollowness on its institutions and hindering the emergence of the truth about the port blast by deliberately obstructing justice! Hezbollah calls the shots. It has taken over the presidency and parliament, as well as forming all the country’s governments since 2011. It is responsible for Lebanon’s isolation, the evisceration of its borders, and its transformation into a hub for the export of poisons. It is pursuing a project to perpetuate its hegemony by impoverishing and oppressing the Lebanese people and suffocating them by starvation or drowning. It was among the primary beneficiaries of the “amnesty for war crimes” law, and through the “Qard al-Hasan” (Islamic bank controlled by Hezbollah), it will be among the primary beneficiaries of the law granting amnesty for financial crimes!
In any country governed by the rule of law, we would have seen official resignations fall like dominos from the top of the pyramid to the bottom. However, in places with law and order, families don’t throw themselves into the water, hoping for mercy from strangers across the sea. Let us remember that if it weren’t for the amnesty law, the many crimes perpetrated during the war and its collective graves would have been exposed. Those responsible would have been held accountable, and Lebanon would have avoided “Special Tribunals,” “immunity,” and impunity. The forensic audit would have been completed, and “banking secrecy” would have been suspended to expose webs of corruption. Riyad Salameh, who is being prosecuted by several countries for fraud and money laundering, would not head the central bank and squander depositors’ money with the protection of the state. No one accused of a serious crime would have dared to run for office!
The grounds for resignations are there, but we must acknowledge that Lebanon’s tyrants, in general, are in their positions thanks to laws that rigged elections, and they do not feel the pressure to resign. Nonetheless, the popular mood is changing despite dirty money’s influence on Lebanon’s politics, the “preferential vote” and the “threshold,” which tie voters’ to candidates in sectarian rather than national terms, which is constitutional. Because the flame of this revolution continues to burn, the anger of citizens is pushing them to cross sectarian lines, and with the availability of alternatives in almost every district, punitive votes can provide people with the chance to avenge those who starved and humiliated them. October 17 is an initial spark that will not fade, and May 15 will be a turning point on the path to crystallizing a political alternative that expels the corrupt who have racked up misdeeds and turned Lebanon into a society of paupers!

ورقة العمل التي قدمها المحامي روجيه اده للمؤتمر الذي عقد في مكتبة الكونغرس الأميركي بتاريخ 26 نيسان تحت عنوان “من أجل لبنان حر
Roger Edde’s Paper That Was Presented to The 26th of April 2022 Conference at Library of Congress “for a Free Lebanon”.
April 28/2022
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/108319/108319/
Through Hezbollah’s militias, Iran dominates Lebanon, defining its politics, its policies, and its dismal present state of advanced disintegration!
A State within the Failed State of Lebanon, Hezbollah has used Lebanon’s territory, as Iran’s base of operations to dominate the Levant.
After the withdrawal of Syria’s army from Lebanon in the aftermath of the assassination of PM Rafic Hariri in 2005, Hezbollah became the sole occupier of Lebanon. It dramatically consolidated its dominance, after the 2006 war which Israel failed to win at high cost for Lebanon. Today we are just left with the 1701 UNSC Resolution that reiterates the 1559 and 1680 resolutions. All affirm the UN and the International Community’s commitment to help the State of Lebanon to assert its sovereignty over all of its territory.
Hezbollah failed to abide by the Taef agreement that attempted to disarm and end all of Lebanon’s militias.
Hezbollah regularly reminded Lebanon and the International Community that it is a political and military organization, at the orders of the Supreme Leader of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard Qods Division.
The failure of the International Community to seriously attempt to implement the UNSC resolutions, or to place them under Chapter 7, empowered, de facto, Hezbollah to exercise absolute power. Political parties opposing Hezbollah can’t exist, or survive politically, or participate in Lebanon’s governance in any way or form, without compromising their patriotism and core beliefs and integrity, by partnering with Hezbollah directly or indirectly, openly or in the secrecy of a dark room.
This is how Lebanon’s governance became modeled after Mafiosi organizations worldwide. That governance is now widely called AlManzuma (the organization). It shares sectarian power and spoils of power, under Hezbollah’s leadership and protection. They share full responsibility for the bankruptcy of free enterprise Lebanon which survived, with amazing resilience, decades of civil and regional wars without losing the world’s trust in its banking and business industries, even after the Lebanese currency collapsed from 3 Liras to the dollar, to 1500 Liras to the dollar, between 1982 and 1992.
That is Lebanon’s road to serfdom!
What can be the road to freedom, national salvation, and sustainable national and regional, peace?
Can we liberate Lebanon from Iran’s Hezbollah dominance step by step? What will it take to Save Lebanon and restore the trust of its people and the world? What are its chances of survival as it was founded in 1920 as Greater Lebanon?
Is civil war inevitable? How can we stop Lebanon’s slide to the abyss of chaos?
Could we do it without negotiating a new deal, as we have done every twenty years since 1920?
Can we do it without neutralizing Iran’s control of Hezbollah’s militias and that of its allies among the Shiite Lebanese community and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon’s Camps? What are the US policies that can help the Lebanese succeed in the challenging endeavor to liberate Lebanon from occupation through Iran’s proxy militias? Let’s start to attempt answering these questions, one by one!
First: Yes we can liberate Lebanon from Iran’s occupation step by step!
We can promote a UNSC Resolution declaring Lebanon as a failed state, under Chapter7, while including in that resolution the previous resolutions 1559/1680/1701 which are related to helping the state of Lebanon disarm all militias, giving the state the monopoly of carrying arms. That de facto requires disarming Hezbollah and the Palestinians in their ghetto Refugee Camps. That in application of Lebanon’s laws and the international community UNCS Resolutions.
We shouldn’t disarm armed Shiite Hezbollah without simultaneously disarming the armed Sunni Palestinians. In fact, when the issue of disarming Hezbollah was discussed in the Iran nuclear negotiations between 2003 and 2005, (negotiations lead under the leadership of President Khatemi), the head of the Iranian negotiations team, was President Rouhani – a prominent successor of President Khatemi. At the time, both issues of nuclear armament and stopping the export of the Islamic Revolution through terror, as well as dismantling, the armed militias of the Qods Forces (a subsidiary of the Revolutionary National Gards of Iran), were indivisible between Iran and the International Community.
A draft agreement was already closed by January 2005, as I was informed by Ambassador Sadek Kharazi in Paris. The deal didn’t materialize because the Supreme Leader Khamenei argued that it’s better to leave the formal closing of the deal to the President who would be elected in June 2005. When Ahmadi Najad was elected, the negotiations were reset to start again from scratch. And Tehran started to insist on the separation of the nuclear issue from the export of the Revolution issue!
A month
A month after having received the “GOOD NEWS” of a draft agreement ready to be closed by the President scheduled to be elected in June of the same year 2005, PM Rafic Hariri was assassinated in Beirut by Hezbollah’s operatives. And they still haven’t been delivered to the International Court!
In short, I became convinced in the meantime, that Iran’s Islamic Regime would never give up willingly, neither nuclear armament, nor the export of its Islamist revolution, or terror!
That makes me doubtful of betting the fate of occupied Lebanon, on a comprehensive Iran deal.
Unless Iran changes course or leadership, we’re stuck with Hezbollah in Lebanon as it is in Syria and Iraq as well as elsewhere in the region and in the world. Especially in Venezuela, Santa Margarita, Brazil, Argentina and US-Mexico borders where all kinds of smuggling of people and lucrative drugs flourish.
Until change happens in Tehran with consequences in our part of the world, we have to consider how we can help the Lebanese Army and other security forces, to recover the State of Lebanon’s sovereignty over most of Lebanon, in two to three stages!
We should start by the liberation of Beirut and Mount Lebanon of the 19th Century, as well as North Lebanon, and the western flank of the Bekaa. That’s two thirds of Lebanon that could become fully under the exclusive sovereignty of the state without any armed Hezbollah or Palestinian paramilitary forces.
The most challenging place to be liberated is the Airport of Beirut and the neighboring Hezbollah illegal military port facility in Ouzahy as well as Dahieh southern suburb of Beirut.
If we’re unable to liberate that critical part of Beirut, then we need to develop the Hamat Military Airport in Batroun region, north of Mount Lebanon. An International Airport privately déveloped, funded, and operated on a BOO or BOT basis!
That would immediately revive the tourist industry that has been suffering from Hezbollah’s control of Beirut Airport, which is problematic to the historic Gulf Arab clientele of Lebanon’s big spending tourists! This would put a dramatic end to the isolation of Lebanon both politically and economically.
As for the Palestinian Camps, tens of thousands of Ain el Helwe (Sidon) inhabitants are applying and signing requests to be given a chance for compensation and asylum in Commonwealth and Arab countries, in application of UN Resolution 194 regarding the right to return or being compensated. The present economic collapse of Lebanon is motivating most of the Palestinian families to make that choice! That would remove a hurdle for regional peace as it would make it easier for the Lebanese army and security forces, to disarm and control the Palestinian Camps, one at a time!
Most, if not all, of the armed Palestinians in the camps in Lebanon are Hezbollah’s allies and Tehran’s clients, like Hamas, Jihad Islami, etc…
As for the region in the South that is on Israel’s boundaries, it is already under the control of UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army, legally denied to Hezbollah since the 2006, 1701 UNSC Resolution that ceased the hostilities!
We have recently witnessed, a Russian military withdrawal from Homs and other positions adjacent to Lebanon’s eastern borders with Syria. Hezbollah’s militias are filling the gap. Russia is keeping and consolidating its military presence in the Alawite region where they have a strategic maritime base in Tartous. Media reports are covering these redeployments of Russia’s military as well as the Hezbollah take over, and building of a munitions manufacturing facility!
Developments that can be interpreted as setting the stage for what is called « The Useful Syria ». In Arabic: «Syria Al Mufida». That is the western part of Syria, stretching from the Alawite province, down to Homs, Hama, Damascus, and further south to the occupied Golan. All of these provinces are along Lebanon’s borders!
Most of the two million plus, Syrian refugees in Lebanon are Sunnis from Homs, Hama, and Damascus provinces.
The Assad Regime isn’t prepared to allow them back! Nor will they allow them to rebuild or recover their properties!
We have many reasons to believe that the Assad Regime is determined to rely on Syria’s minorities – Alawites, Shiites, Christians and Druze – to be dominant in that part of Syria, as a long-term demographic strategy that would not allow a Sunni majority to take over the governance in Damascus in any way or form.
That strategy, vital for Syria’s minorities and the Regime’s survival, is in play in Lebanon as much as in Syria.
Syria’s successive leadership, objected since the founding of Greater Lebanon in 1920, to the adding to Lebanon of the 19th Century, the so-called four provinces (“Al Akdia al4”) (see attached map), especially Baalbek Province which is overwhelming Shiite, and is now Hezbollah’s fiefdom!
Hafez Assad didn’t make a secret of his willingness to take over those provinces from Greater Lebanon. He threatened often to do it, ever since he invaded Lebanon in 1976, “pretending” to protect Christian Lebanon from being taken over, and governed by the armed Palestinian resistance!
Now that the maps of the region, are under review, taking in consideration facts of civil wars, regional and international wars, what’s happening in Syria will impact what will happen in Lebanon. And vice versa!
The demographic change that occurred with Syria’s refugees, added to other demographic growth in Sunni and Shiite communities, that created an unbalance so huge, that it is feeding a sense of anxiety and fear of being squeezed out of Lebanon’s governance through unrest, paralysis of governance, change of culture and quality of life!
That widely spread sentiment is making families think hard about raising their young generations in a country where they don’t belong anymore! It’s quite similar to what happened to minorities that fled the region without being actually massacred or terrorized.
They just felt that they don’t belong anymore to what their home country had become!
In addition to the economic exodus that has been caused by Lebanon’s economic collapse, the fear of losing THEIR Lebanon, is becoming existential.
It’s as urgent to deal with Lebanon’s occupation, through proxy militias, as it’s urgent to declare Lebanon as a failed state, by the UNSC, and place all resolutions that are sovereignty-related. Under Chapter7.
Especially1559/1680/1701
And we should explore joining the leading Arab countries, on the ROAD TO THE ABRAHAMIC PEACE PROCESS.
An internationally sponsored conference should explore the formal declaration of Lebanon’s Military Neutrality. A well-armed Neutrality that can protect Lebanon from predators trying to use its multi-denominational system of governance, to dominate it or destabilize it, in one way or another!
The Taef Agreement of 1989 didn’t end Lebanon’s civil wars! Nor the withdrawal of Syria’s military forces in the aftermath of PM Hariri’s assassination in 2005. The Taef Agreement negotiated under the pressure of a constitutional crisis with two governments disputing legitimacy. It didn’t address the main issues threatening Greater Lebanon’s chances of survival. Whatever has been agreed wasn’t completed or implemented.
The road to abolishing the sectarian system in exchange for a geographic decentralization along the administrative maps of Lebanon’s regions, required a dialogue prepared by a Committee for Abolishing the Confessional System and another Committee for Decentralization!
Not even one step in that direction took place:
We could have voted a parliamentary election law acceptable to all communities, inspired by the French majority system, in a geographic district to each parliamentary seat. That, by districting according to the present distribution of seats between Christian and Moslem MPs in Parliament.
One district, one seat, one vote. The candidates are elected at first round if they get 50% of the votes. Otherwise the two candidates who got the highest votes in the first round will go for a runoff in a second round, two weeks later.
That would have liberated the election from being bound by confessional quotas; as is the case now!
I have explored that option in a workshop that included leadership of the political parties and the participation of Patriarch Rahi – with unanimous agreement!
None of the participants insisted on the necessity of having a confessional representation in a Senate that is elected by each denominational community; as it is envisioned in the Taef Agreement.
That step forward, combined with a step toward democratic and fiscal decentralization, could have helped us avoid the trap of a Federation of Warlords governing vertically, a highly centralized state! The worst option for a mafiosi kind of governance, with mafiocrats sharing power and the spoils of power, as representing their confessional power base!
It’s that MAFIOCRACY that has destroyed Lebanon’s free enterprise economy, its banking industry, while empowering Hezbollah as the most powerful and feared Organization in the Partnership that is now widely called, AlManzouma. Hezbollah, being a subsidiary of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has become Lebanon’s Supreme Leader, representing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. This state of affairs, should change radically. It’s as vital, as disarming Hezbollah. The armament of Hezbollah in itself can’t prevail by force in multi-denominational Lebanon. Neither militarily nor politically. Hezbollah is governing Lebanon through the manipulation of a failed constitutional system of governance, which is overwhelmingly rejected by the majority of each community, including the suffering Shiite community, that is subjected, exploited and terrorized by Hezbollah! Tackling these issues should be done in one package deal. It can’t be done step by step. Even if we consider expanding the sovereignty of the state though the exclusive power of the army and other security apparatus of the State of Lebanon.
In conclusion: We should evolve the constitution toward a “United Lebanon” that is fully decentralized and fully secular. As is the case of Switzerland.
*/Roger Edde/President, Peace Party/Lebanon

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 28-29/2022
Iran's Shamkhani Receives Iraqi Speaker, Asserts Response to Any Action that Harms National Security
Baghdad - London - Fadhel al-Nashmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, has warned that Tehran would react swiftly and decisively to any action to harm his country's security from Iraqi territory. Shamkhani spoke during his reception of the Iraqi Speaker, Mohammad al-Halbousi, who arrived on his first visit to Tehran since he was elected for a second term in January. The Speaker and the accompanying delegation met with senior officials in Tehran, including President Ebrahim Raisi. Shamkhani addressed the "unacceptable" moves made from inside Iraqi soil against Iran's security, stressing that Tehran adopts a conscious approach to threats and "fully monitors meddlesome activities of the Zionist regime, the US, and their affiliated currents and will react swiftly and decisively to any action meant to harm the security of Iran and the region." Halbousi announced that the Iraqi parliament is preparing a plan to criminalize cooperation and relations with Israel to prevent any possible steps from normalizing ties with the regime. He described the ongoing dialogue and cooperation between the main religious and ethnic groups in Iraq as a condition for forming an effective and strong government in this country.
"Iran can play an important role in creating political cohesion in this country because of its moral influence among some religious and political groups in Iraq," said Halbousi.
Halbousi said, during a press conference that he held with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, that the parliaments represent the peoples and strive to strengthen everything that can be reflected on their people. He referred to the relations between the two countries, saying they are intertwined and that the "stability of Iran reflects positively on Iraq" and vice versa. He stressed the respect for the other countries' sovereignty and the development of the ties between the regional countries. Halbousi stressed the importance of having common positions for regional countries in the international parliament because they face common challenges.Iran faces economic problems and sanctions, said Halbousi, adding that Iraq has been under terrorist attacks and faced global crises and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. He continued that it is not acceptable to impose sanctions on people, nor should it be intimidated by empowering armed gangs aspiring better future and relations. Halbousi hoped parliaments in both countries would take their role by pushing the government forward and removing the obstacles that faced previous governments. The head of the State of Law coalition, led by Nouri al-Maliki, announced he objected to the delegation that accompanied the Speaker in his visit to Tehran. In a statement, the head of the parliamentary bloc, Atwan al-Atwani, opposed the "discrimination" in choosing the delegation accompanying the Speaker on his visit, saying it was not based on professionalism and parliamentary benefits.
Atwani added that members of the parliament presidency were not aware of the visit, hoping it would not establish personal interests. Observers expect the visit to focus on the stalled government for more than six months, given Tehran's influence with most political forces and close relations, namely the "Shiite Coordination Framework."Meanwhile, the Iraqi Minister of Electricity, Adel Karim, met the Iranian Oil Minister, Javad Oji, in Tehran. The meeting addressed the development and consolidation of relations in energy and equipping the Ministry of Electricity with the necessary gas to operate the power plants ahead of summer 2022, according to a statement issued by the Ministry. The statement stated that the meeting was characterized by a positive atmosphere and the talks were productive to a large extent.
The statement indicated that "the two parties agreed to reach mutually satisfactory solutions regarding legal obligations and prices, and to pay the values of the supplied fuel, according to a mechanism that ensures the flow of processing during 2022."

Iran Wants to Expand Strategic Ties with China to Confront US
London -Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Tehran wanted to “expand its long-term strategic relations” with China at a meeting with Beijing’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe in Tehran on Wednesday. Raisi told Fenghe that Tehran sees its ties with Beijing as strategic. Closer cooperation would serve to confront what the Iranian president described as US “unilateralism” as talks to revive Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers have stalled, Associated Press reported. Raisi stressed that “regional and global developments show more than ever the value of Iran-China strategic cooperation.”“Confronting unilateralism and creating stability and order is possible through cooperation of independent and like-minded powers,” he added. Raisi said Iran’s “priority” was the “successful implementation of the 25-year comprehensive cooperation plan” it signed with China in March 2021. The deal includes “political, strategic and economic clauses,” according to Tehran. Wei in turn said improving ties between Iran and China would provide security, “particularly in the current critical and tense situation.”He said his visit was aimed at improving the bilateral strategic defense cooperation that would have a “remarkable” impact in defusing unilateralism and fighting terrorism. Wei also met with his Iranian counterpart, Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashtinai, who underscored “the need to counter the US hegemony in the world by strengthening multilateralism,” an Iranian defense ministry statement read. Ashtiani also slammed the US military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere, claiming that “wherever the US has had military presence, it has created waves of insecurity, instability, rifts, pessimism, war, destruction and displacement.” Wei reportedly invited Ashtiani to visit China, as well as with other Iranian military officials. Iran and China have increased their military ties in recent years, with their navies visiting each other’s ports and holding joint naval drills in the Indian Ocean. In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement that covered a variety of economic activities from oil and mining to promoting industrial activity in Iran, as well as transportation and agricultural collaborations. China is a signatory to the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, along with Russia, Britain, France and Germany. Figures published by Iran’s state media show that trade with China dropped after Washington reimposed biting economic sanctions on Iran in 2018, when then-president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal. But exports to China have surged by 58 percent in the past 12 months, while imports from China grew by 29 percent, AFP reported.

Iran Executions See 'Alarming Rise' in 2021
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Executions in Iran rose by 25 percent in 2021, a report by two leading NGOs said Thursday, expressing alarm over a surge in the numbers executed for drug offences and also the hanging of at least 17 women. The rate of executions in Iran also accelerated after the June election of hardline former judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi to the presidency, said the report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and France's Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM). The report urged world powers negotiating with Iran on reviving the deal on its nuclear program to put use of capital punishment in the Iranian republic -- which executes more people annually then any nation other than China -- at the center of the talks. At least 333 people were executed in 2021, a 25-percent increase compared to 267 in 2020, said the report, based on official media but also sources inside Iran. Meanwhile, at least 126 executions were for drug-related charges, five times higher than 2020's figure of 25. This marked a major reversal of a trend of a decline in drug-related executions since Iran in 2017 adopted amendments to its anti-narcotics law in the face of international pressure. Over 80 percent of executions were not officially announced, including all those for drug-related offences, it said. The report "reveals an increase in the number of executions, an alarming rise in the implementation of death sentences for drug offences and an ongoing lack of transparency", the NGOs said.
- 'Less scrutiny' -
IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam expressed concern that there was "less scrutiny" on Iran's rights record as powers focused on bringing the nuclear negotiations to a positive conclusion. "There will be no sustainable (deal)... unless the situation of human rights in general and the death penalty in particular, are central parts of the negotiations," he said. The report said at least 17 women were executed in 2021, compared to 9 in 2020. Twelve were sentenced for murder and five on drug-related charges. There has been growing concern over the numbers of women executed on charges of murdering a husband or relative who activists believe may have been abusive. It noted the case of one woman, Zahra Esmaili, who shot her husband dead in 2017. It said she was executed in February 2021 and may have had a heart attack before being hanged after watching others suffer the same fate before her. In another case, Maryam Karimi was convicted for the murder of her husband and was hanged in March 2021, with her daughter personally carrying out the execution by kicking away the stool as is allowed under Iranian law.
- 'Tool of repression' -
The report also expressed concern that the execution of ethnic minorities also continued to rise in 2021, accounting for a disproportionately large number of those hanged. Prisoners from the Baluch minority accounted for 21 percent of all executions in 2021, although they only represent 2–6 percent of Iran's population, it said. Most prisoners executed for security-related charges belonged to the ethnic Arab, Baluch and Kurdish minorities, it added. "We are alarmed at the disproportionate number of ethnic minority executions as evidenced in this report," said ECPM Director Raphael Chenuil-Hazan. In one welcome development, the report said that there were no public executions in Iran in 2021 for the first time in a decade but expressed concern they could start again. "A society routinely exposed to such organized violence has accepted the death penalty as a legal solution, and the death penalty has consequently become a tool of repression in the government's hands," the Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose films on the impact of the death penalty in Iran have won international prizes, wrote in a preface to the report.

Two 'powerful blasts' rock Russian city near Ukraine border
Reuters/Thu, April 28, 2022.
Two blasts have been reported in a Russian border city, the latest in a series of attacks on key sites within Russia's borders, two eyewitnesses have reported. The blasts were heard in the southern part of the Belgorod. It was not immediately clear what caused them and whether there were any casualties or damage. Russia has in recent days reported what it says are a series of attacks by Ukrainian forces in Belgorod and other southern regions which border Ukraine, and has warned that such attacks raise a risk of significant escalation. On Wednesday the Russian government said an ammunition depot in the south of the country had been attacked by Ukraine. The governor of the region of Wednesday's attack said no civilians had been injured. Ukraine has not directly accepted responsibility but has described the incidents as payback and "karma" for Russia, nine weeks after it invaded its neighbour.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said it was natural that Russian regions where fuel and weapons are stored were learning about "demilitarisation" but did not claim responsibility for the attack. The use of that word was a pointed reference to Moscow's stated objective for the nine-week-old war in Ukraine, which it calls a special military operation to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour. "If you (Russians) decide to massively attack another country, massively kill everyone there, massively crush peaceful people with tanks, and use warehouses in your regions to enable the killings, then sooner or later the debts will have to be repaid," Podolyak said. He added it was not possible to "sit out" the Russian invasion. "And therefore, the disarmament of the Belgorod and Voronezh killers' warehouses is an absolutely natural process. Karma is a cruel thing," he said. Earlier this month, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking a fuel depot in Belgorod with helicopters, which a top Kyiv security official denied, and opening fire on several villages in the province. The incidents have exposed Russian vulnerabilities in areas close to Ukraine that are vital to its military logistics chains. There have also been reports of attempted attacks on the Ukraine border region of Kursk and in the city of Voronezh. The fact Ukraine now appears to be capable of striking Russia will cause further headaches for Moscow, which convinced its population the war would be won quickly. The UK has backed up Ukraine's right to attack Russian soil with junior defence minister James Heappey saying on Tuesday it was "completely legitimate" for Kyiv to launch the strikes. He added that the weapons the West - including the UK - is giving to Ukraine "have the range to be used over the border" into Russia. The continued supply of western made weapons to Ukraine has infuriated the Kremlin. On Monday, Russian defence minister Sergei Lavrov said there was a "real danger" of the conflict slipping into a third world war, and said Russia viewed Nato as being “in essence” engaged in a proxy war as sovereign nations are supplying Ukraine with weapons.

U.N. chief in Ukraine after EU-Russia gas row
Associated Press/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
The U.N. chief called war "an absurdity" during a visit to Ukraine Thursday, after Brussels warned Russia it will not waver in its support for Kyiv following Russia's decision to cut gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called war "an absurdity in (the) 21st century" as he visited Borodianka outside Kyiv, the scene of alleged civilian killings by Russian forces. Guterres will later meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the visit, which follows talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Guterres is also expected to visit Bucha and Irpin, sites of further alleged Russian war crimes. Putin has said that if Western forces, which are supplying increasingly heavy weaponry to Kyiv, intervene in Ukraine, they will face a "lightning-fast" military response.
"We have all the tools for this, that no one else can boast of having," the Russian leader told lawmakers, implicitly referring to Moscow's ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal. "We won't boast about it: we'll use them, if needed," he said. The dire threats came as Moscow claimed to have carried out a missile strike in southern Ukraine to destroy a "large batch" of Western-supplied weapons. As the war, which has already claimed thousands of lives, entered its third month, Kyiv conceded that Russian forces had made gains in the east. Russia's military offensive saw it capture a string of villages in the Donbas region, now the focus of its invasion.
And in its economic standoff with the West, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, two EU and NATO members backing Ukraine in the conflict. However, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbors.
'Blackmail'
She described the announcement by Russia's state energy giant Gazprom as "another provocation from the Kremlin". "It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us... Our response will be immediate, united and coordinated. "Both Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbours," she said. "The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end."European powers have imposed massive sanctions on Russia since Putin's invasion, while shipping weapons to Ukraine's defenders. But they have moved slowly on hitting Moscow's vast exports, with many EU members -- notably industrial giant Germany -- reliant on Russian energy. Putin has intensified pressure by insisting on payments for gas in rubles -- hoping to force his foes to prop up his currency. Gazprom announced the halt of gas to both Poland and highly dependent Bulgaria, saying it had not received payment in rubles from the two EU members. But von der Leyen said that "about 97 percent" of all EU contracts explicitly stipulate payments in euros or dollars -- and warned importing firms paying in rubles would breach sanctions. The European Commission sought to lend Kyiv economic support by proposing a suspension of import duties on Ukrainian goods, though the idea still needs to be approved in a vote by the bloc's 27 members. Zelensky welcomed the plan, saying Russia was "trying to provoke a global price crisis" and stir "chaos" in the world's food market.
Missile strikes
The first phase of Russia's invasion failed to reach Kyiv or overthrow Zelensky's government after encountering stiff Ukrainian resistance reinforced with Western weapons. The campaign has since refocused on seizing the east and south of the country while increasingly using long-range missiles against west and central Ukraine. In Kharkiv, whose northern and eastern districts are less than five kilometers from the front, at least three people died and 15 were injured in shelling, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said Wednesday. Defenders of the besieged Azovstal factory in the strategic port city of Mariupol described massive bombardments, with Sergey Volyna of the 36th Marine Brigade pleading for extraction for the 600 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians he said remain trapped there. Russia's defense ministry, meanwhile, said its forces had destroyed a "large batch" of weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries. Russia hit hangars at an aluminum plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with "high-precision long-range sea-based Kalibr missiles", the ministry said. Local authorities denied that weapons had been stored at the factory, which they said had not been operational for six years. Tensions are also rising in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that borders southwestern Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists in the area claimed shots were fired across the border towards a village housing a Russian arms depot after drones flew over from Ukraine.
'Dangerous deterioration'
The unrecognized region has reported a series of explosions in recent days that it called "terrorist attacks", leading Kyiv to accuse Moscow of seeking to expand the war further into Europe. Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu called the events a "dangerous deterioration of the situation".
Popescu said the Transnistrian authorities announced they would prevent men of fighting age from leaving the region. Russia's targeting of Western-supplied arms came as the United States and Europe started to heed Zelensky's call for heavier firepower. Western allies remain wary of being drawn into war with Russia but have stepped up military support as Ukraine has maintained its fierce resistance. In a speech from London on Wednesday, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss made a fresh call for an increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine, including heavy weapons, tanks and planes. U.S. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is set to deliver remarks Thursday on "support for Ukrainians defending their country and their freedom against Russia's brutal war", the White House said.

Russia says Turkey warned in advance about Syria flights ban
Associated Press/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Turkey had warned Russia in advance before moving to bar Russian planes from flying to Syria over its territory, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday. The ministry's spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said that Turkey had asked Russia more than a month ago not to send Syria-bound planes over its territory. She added that "the reasons for that were clear to us and the Russian side isn't using that route." Zakharova made the comments at a briefing when asked about the Turkey's announcement over the weekend that it had halted Russian flights to Turkey over its territory from the start of this month. Her remarks follow a statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who said over the weekend that he asked Moscow to stop using the airspace during a visit there in March, and that Moscow agreed to the Turkish request. Russia and Turkey have backed the opposite sides in Syria's civil war, with Moscow joining efforts with Tehran to shore up President Bashar Assad's government, and Turkey backing the opposition. Despite the sharp differences, Moscow and Ankara worked together to negotiate a series of cease-fires in northern Syria.
Russia has used a shortcut through Turkish airspace to send warplanes to its base in Syria where they have been deployed since 2015 and fly cargo planes with supplies for troops stationed there. The Turkish ban would now force Russian planes to take a longer route via Iran and Iraq, forcing them to take more fuel and reduce the payload. The Russian planes already used that path during a period of high tensions with Turkey sparked by the 2015 downing of a Russian warplane by Turkish fighter jets on the border with Syria. Tensions later abated after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a series of talks to negotiate compromises on Syria and other issues. It wasn't clear if the latest Turkish ban on Russian flights to Syria was aimed to hinder the possible transfer of Syrian fighters to Ukraine. Russian officials have said that some Syrians have volunteered to join the Russian troops in Ukraine. Some observers said that the Turkish move reflected the weakening of Russia's positions as its troops have been bogged down in military action in Ukraine. NATO-member Turkey has been trying to balance its close relations with Moscow and Kyiv and has positioned itself as a mediator between the two, hosting a round of talks last month between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators. It hasn't joined international sanctions against Russia, but has closed the straits at the entrance of the Black Sea to some Russian warships.

Global Pledges of Justice for Ukraine War Crime Victims
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Several countries and organizations, including the UN, pledged on Wednesday to bring to justice any perpetrators of war crimes committed during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They were urged on by the Lebanese-British barrister Amal Clooney, who said she feared "politicians calling for justice but not delivering it," AFP reported. "My fear is that you will get busy and distracted and that each day there'll be a little bit less coverage of the war and people will become a little bit more numb to it," Clooney told an informal meeting of the Security Council. "And that Ukraine will end up alone in pursuing the perpetrators of these atrocities. We cannot let that happen," said the lawyer, who runs the Clooney Foundation for Justice with her husband, actor George Clooney. Albanian Foreign Minister Olta Xhacka said that the "perpetrators of these crimes must and will be held accountable." Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, insisted that victims and their families "need to obtain effective remedies for the harm and tragedy they have endured."She said that to date her office had "documented and verified 5,939 civilian casualties, with 2,787 killed and 3,152 injured." "Actual figures are considerably higher, and my office is working to estimate them," she added, pointing out that most of the dead and injured were victims of "the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas, such as shelling from heavy artillery, and missile and air strikes." Ukraine's prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said via video link that she had opened more than 8,000 investigations into alleged violations of war-related humanitarian law. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, said a record 43 countries had referred the situation in Ukraine to his organization. "The law applies equally to all sides. All parties to the conflict, whether Ukraine or the Russian Federation, whether they're state actors or non-state actors, have certain clear obligations," he said, promising to conduct "independent investigations." Russia, for its part, accused Ukraine of committing abuses and said it considers the ICC to be biased.

UN Chief Tours Damaged Areas Outside Kyiv: War is an Absurdity in 21st Century
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has toured areas outside the Ukrainian capital that suffered damage during the Russian advance there, calling war “an absurdity.”Speaking to journalists on Thursday at several points, Guterres urged Russia to cooperate with the International Criminal Court. That’s after the bodies of civilians were found in areas once held by Russian forces, some shot with their hands bound. Guterres also said that “civilians always pay the highest price” in any war. “When I see those destroyed buildings, I must say what I feel. I imagined my family in one of those houses that is now destroyed and black. I see my granddaughters running away in panic, part of the family eventually killed,” he said in Borodianka. “So, the war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil. And when one sees these situations our heart, of course, stays with the victims.”He also added: “When we talk about war crimes, we cannot forget that the worst of crimes is war itself.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that if Western forces, which are supplying increasingly heavy weaponry to Kyiv, intervene in Ukraine, they will face a "lightning-fast" military response.

Stoltenberg: Finland and Sweden Could Join NATO Quickly
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Finland and Sweden will be able to join NATO quickly should they decide to ask for membership in the Western military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. "If they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed and I expect the process to go quickly," Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, adding he planned to speak with the Finnish president later in the day. According to Reuters, he said he was sure arrangements could be found for the interim period between an application by the two Scandinavian countries and the formal ratification in the parliaments of all 30 NATO members. "I am confident that there are ways to bridge that interim period in a way which is good enough and works for both Finland and Sweden," Stoltenberg said. Russia, with which Finland shares a 1,300-km (border, has said it will deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden decide to join NATO. Finland and Sweden must prepare for increased Russian spy operations, cyber attacks and attempts to influence lawmakers as they consider joining NATO after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, the Nordic nations' intelligence chiefs said on Wednesday. Russia's invasion, which it calls a "special operation", has forced Sweden and Finland to reassess their longstanding military neutrality, and they are expected to announce in May whether they will join the alliance.

Another 52,000 Ukrainians Flee War as Refugees
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
More than 5.3 million Ukrainians have fled their country since Russia invaded two months ago, the United Nations said Wednesday, with more than 52,000 joining their ranks in the past 24 hours. In total, 5,317,219 people have fled Ukraine as refugees since February 24, according to the latest data from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. That marks an increase of 52,452 over the figure given on Tuesday, AFP said. While the outflow has slowed significantly since March, UNHCR has projected that three million more Ukrainians could become refugees by the end of the year. The exodus has been described as Europe's fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II, but a leading humanitarian warned Wednesday that even that was an understatement. Including the 7.7 million people estimated to be displaced within Ukraine, more than 12 million people were displaced in the first eight weeks of the war, he pointed out. "People talk about since the Second World War, (but) tell me when in the Second World War there were 12 million people displaced in eight weeks," Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told reporters. The large displacements back then happened "over a longer period," he said. In addition to the Ukrainian refugees, the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) said an additional 224,975 citizens of third countries -- largely students and migrant workers -- have also escaped to neighboring countries since the invasion began. Women and children account for 90 percent of the Ukrainians who have fled abroad, with men aged 18 to 60 eligible for military call-up unable to leave. Almost two-thirds of Ukrainian children have fled their homes. Before the invasion, Ukraine had a population of 37 million in the regions under government control, excluding Russia-annexed Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist-controlled regions in the east.Here is a breakdown of how many Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighboring countries, according to UNHCR:
- Poland -Nearly six out of 10 Ukrainian refugees -- 2,944,164 so far -- have crossed into Poland, according to UNHCR numbers up to April 26. Many of them have travelled on to other states in Europe's Schengen open-borders zone. Meanwhile, more than 800,000 people have crossed from Poland into Ukraine, Polish border guards said. Before the war, Poland was home to around 1.5 million Ukrainians, chiefly migrant workers.
- Romania -A total of 793,420 Ukrainians have entered the EU member state as of April 26, including a large number who crossed over from Moldova, wedged between Romania and Ukraine.
The vast majority are thought to have gone on to other countries.
- Russia -Another 627,512 refugees have sought shelter in Russia, according to data last updated on April 26.In addition, 105,000 people crossed into Russia from the separatist-held pro-Russian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine between February 18 and 23.
- Hungary -A total of 502,142 Ukrainians had entered Hungary as of April 26.
- Moldova -The Moldovan border is the closest to the major port city of Odessa. A total of 437,362 Ukrainians have crossed into the non-EU state, one of the poorest in Europe, with a population of 2.6 million. Most have moved on.
- Slovakia -A total of 360,458 people had crossed Ukraine's shortest border into Slovakia as of April 26.
- Belarus -Another 24,719 refugees made it north to Russia's close ally Belarus as of April 26.
- Returns -At the same time, many Ukrainians have also travelled back into Ukraine. UNHCR said that between February 28 and April 26, Ukrainian border guards had registered 1,209,500 Ukrainians returning to the country.
UNHCR stressed though that "this figure reflects cross-border movements, which can be pendular, and does not necessarily indicate sustainable returns as the situation across Ukraine remains highly volatile and unpredictable."

EU Defies Gas 'Blackmail' as Russia Pushes Deeper into Ukraine
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
The European Union has warned Russia it will not bend to "blackmail" over its support for Kyiv after the Kremlin cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland. The warning on Wednesday came ahead of UN chief Antonio Guterres arriving in Kyiv to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, AFP said. Putin issued his own warning the same day, saying that if Western forces intervene in Ukraine, they will face a "lightning-fast" military response. "We have all the tools for this, that no one else can boast of having," the Russian leader told lawmakers, implicitly referring to Moscow's ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal. "We won't boast about it: we'll use them, if needed. And I want everyone to know that," he said. "We have already taken all the decisions on this." The dire threats came as Moscow claimed to have carried out a missile strike in southern Ukraine to destroy a "large batch" of Western-supplied weapons. As the war, which has already claimed thousands of lives, entered its third month, Kyiv conceded that Russian forces had made gains in the east. Russia's military offensive saw it capture a string of villages in the Donbas region, now the focus of its invasion. And in its economic standoff with the West, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, two EU and NATO members backing Ukraine in the conflict. However, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbors.
- 'Blackmail' -
She described the announcement by Russia's state energy giant Gazprom as "another provocation from the Kremlin". "It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us... Our response will be immediate, united and coordinated. "Both Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbors," she said. "The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end."EU officials said energy ministers from across the bloc will meet in an extraordinary session on Monday to discuss the situation. European powers have imposed massive sanctions on Russia since Putin's decision to invade his neighbor, while shipping weapons to Ukraine's defenders. But they have moved slowly on hitting Moscow's vast exports, with many EU members -- notably industrial giant Germany -- reliant on Russian energy to keep their lights on. Putin has attempted to turn up the pressure by insisting that Russia will only accept payments for gas in rubles -- hoping to force his foes to prop up his currency. Gazprom announced the halt of gas to both Poland and highly dependent Bulgaria, saying it had not received payment in rubles from the two EU members. But von der Leyen said that "about 97 percent" of all EU contracts explicitly stipulate payments in euros or dollars -- and warned importing firms off paying in rubles. "This would be a breach of the sanctions," she told reporters. The European Commission, meanwhile, sought to lend Kyiv economic support by proposing a suspension of import duties on Ukrainian goods, though the idea still needs to be approved in a vote by the bloc's 27 members. President Zelensky welcomed the plan, saying Russia was "trying to provoke a global price crisis" and stir "chaos" in the world's food market. An IMF report issued Wednesday said the war had "significantly" impacted the Middle East and North Africa, with the crisis dealing a heavy blow to low-income countries dealing with surging inflation driven by rising food and fuel costs.
- 'Destruction and painful casualties' -
The first phase of Russia's invasion failed to reach Kyiv or overthrow Zelensky's government after encountering stiff Ukrainian resistance reinforced with Western weapons. The campaign has since refocused on seizing the east and south of the country while increasing the use of long-range missiles against west and central Ukraine. Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov predicted "extremely difficult weeks" for the country amid "destruction and painful casualties" during the offensive. In Kharkiv, whose northern and eastern districts are less than five kilometers from the front, at least three people died and 15 were injured in shelling, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said Wednesday. Defenders of the besieged Azovstal factory in the strategic port city of Mariupol described massive bombardments, with Sergey Volyna of the 36th Marine Brigade pleading for extraction for the 600 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians he said remain trapped there. Russia's defense ministry, meanwhile, said its forces had destroyed a "large batch" of weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries. Russia hit hangars at an aluminum plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with "high-precision long-range sea-based Kalibr missiles", the ministry said. Local authorities denied that weapons had been stored at the factory, which they said had not been operational for six years. Tensions are also rising in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that borders southwestern Ukraine.Pro-Russian separatists in the area claimed shots were fired across the border towards a village housing a Russian arms depot after drones flew over from Ukraine.
- 'Dangerous deterioration' -
The unrecognized region has reported a series of explosions in recent days that it called "terrorist attacks", leading Kyiv to accuse Moscow of seeking to expand the war further into Europe. Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu called the events a "dangerous deterioration of the situation". Popescu said the Transnistrian authorities announced they would prevent men of fighting age from leaving the region. Russia's targeting of Western-supplied arms came as the United States and Europe started to heed Zelensky's call for heavier firepower. Western allies remain wary of being drawn into war with Russia but have stepped up military support as Ukraine has maintained its fierce resistance. In a Wednesday evening speech from London, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss made a fresh call for an increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine, including heavy weapons, tanks and planes. The UN tourism body added to Russia's isolation on the international scene earlier in the day, as most of its 159 members voted to suspend it from the agency. US President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is set to deliver remarks Thursday on "support for Ukrainians defending their country and their freedom against Russia's brutal war," the White House said.
- Pledges of justice -
Several countries and organizations, including the United Nations, on Wednesday pledged to bring the perpetrators of any war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine to justice. Lebanese-British barrister Amal Clooney told an informal meeting of the UN Security Council she feared "politicians calling for justice but not delivering it." "My fear is that you will get busy and distracted and that each day there'll be a little bit less coverage of the war and people will become a little bit more numb to it," Clooney said. UN Secretary-General Guterres' Thursday trip to Kyiv is expected to include visits to the suburbs of Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka, sites of alleged war crimes attributed to Russian soldiers.

Israel Backs US Return to UNESCO, Says Blinken
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 28 April, 2022
Israel, which withdrew from the UN cultural agency UNESCO with the United States over alleged bias in 2019, has no objections to a US return, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. Questioned by lawmakers, Blinken called on Congress to give President Joe Biden the power to waive a US law that requires an end to US funding to any international organization, such as UNESCO, that recognizes Palestine as a state, AFP said. "We believe that having the waiver authority would be important and necessary and I can say with authority that our partners in Israel feel the same way. They would support our rejoining UNESCO," Blinken told the Senate Appropriations Committee. Blinken said that the United States has been harmed by its absence, pointing to UNESCO's role in education and the emerging field of artificial intelligence. "When we're not at the table shaping that conversation and so actually helping to shape those norms and standards, well, someone else is. And that someone else is probably China," Blinken said. The United States paid about 22 percent or $80 million of the Paris-based agency's budget until 2011 when its admission of a Palestinian state triggered an end to the contributions. Previous US and Israeli leaders Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu both fully withdrew from the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization eight years later. Israel was angered by decisions that included recognizing the old city of Hebron, home to Jewish and Muslim holy sites in the occupied West Bank, as a Palestinian world heritage site. Advocates for a US return say that the UN body's current leader, former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay, has successfully addressed charges of bias.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 28-29/2022
China and Russia's 'Space War': Where Is The US?
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/April 28/2022
"Evidence of both nations' intent to undercut the United States and allied leadership in the space domain can be seen in the growth of combined in-orbit assets of China and Russia, which grew approximately 70% in just two years." — Kevin Ryder, senior analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for space and counterspace, Air Force Magazine April 12, 2022.
Space has already become the scene of an ongoing "shadow war" in which China and Russia conduct attacks against U.S. satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber-attacks every day, according to General David Thompson, the U.S. Space Force's first vice chief of space operations.
"The threats are really growing and expanding every single day.... We're really at a point now where there's a whole host of ways that our space systems can be threatened.... Hostile action toward our space-based assets is not a question of 'if,' but instead, 'when.'" — General David Thompson, Washington Post, November 30, 2021.
"Fifteen years after China's ASAT strike, we still lack the ability to defeat an attack on our space systems or launch an offensive strike if circumstances warrant." — US Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton (Ret.), former commander of U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command, The Hill, April 12, 2022.
"The PLA [People's Liberation Army] will continue to integrate space services... to erode the U.S. military's information advantage." — Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2022.
"If deterrence were to fail, we would face an adversary that has integrated space into all aspects of their military operations.... Space provides the foundation of everything we do as a joint force, from delivering humanitarian assistance to combat on the ground, in the air, and at sea.... We cannot afford to lose space; without it we will fail." — General John W. Raymond, U.S. Chief of Space Operations, Space Force News, April 5, 2022.
Space has already become the scene of an ongoing "shadow war" in which China and Russia conduct attacks against U.S. satellites with lasers, radiofrequency jammers, and cyber-attacks every day, according to General David Thompson, the U.S. Space Force's first vice chief of space operations. Pictured: A Long March 3B rocket, carrying the Beidou-3GEO3 satellite, lifts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China's Sichuan province on June 23, 2020.
Space-based threats from China and Russia have grown exponentially in recent years, according to a new report on the issue by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), published April 12.
"Evidence of both nations' intent to undercut the United States and allied leadership in the space domain can be seen in the growth of combined in-orbit assets of China and Russia, which grew approximately 70% in just two years," noted Kevin Ryder, DIA senior analyst for space and counterspace. "This recent and continuing expansion follows a more than 200% increase between 2015 and 2018."
"Space is a warfighting domain now," said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in April.
"China's long-standing and extensive modernization program is the greatest challenge... Although China is the Department's pacing challenge, we also regard Russia as an acute threat."
Space has already become the scene of an ongoing "shadow war" in which China and Russia conduct attacks against U.S. satellites with lasers, radio frequency jammers, and cyber-attacks every day, according to General David Thompson, the U.S. Space Force's first vice chief of space operations. The attacks are "reversible" for now, which means that the damage to the attacked satellites is not permanent, but they amply demonstrate the intentions and abilities of the two main competitors of the United States in space.
"The threats are really growing and expanding every single day. And it's really an evolution of activity that's been happening for a long time," Thompson said in November 2021. "We're really at a point now where there's a whole host of ways that our space systems can be threatened."
China leads by far over Russia. "The Chinese are actually well ahead [of Russia]," according to Thompson. "They're fielding operational systems at an incredible rate." Some of those systems are ground-based, such as anti-satellite missiles (ASAT) and lasers intended to blind, damage, or destroy satellites. Others are space-based, such as orbiting "killer" satellites programmed to attack other satellites at a certain point in time, whether with blinding lasers, robotic arms or other means meant to destroy or incapacitate. According to the Pentagon's 2021 report to Congress on China's military capabilities:
"The PLA continues to acquire and develop a range of counterspace capabilities and related technologies, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counterspace actions."
In January 2007, China tested its first successful ASAT, destroying one of its own inactive weather satellites and creating one of the world's largest space debris incidents. According to the Pentagon's 2021 report:
"The PRC has an operational ground-based Anti-Satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites, and China probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit".
Russia tested another ASAT in November 2021, during which it successfully destroyed one of its inactive Soviet-era satellites, creating 1,500 pieces of debris in what General Thompson has called an "incredibly dangerous and irresponsible act." The ASAT was part of Russia's mobile missile defense complex known as Nudol, which, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency's new report, is "capable of destroying ballistic missiles and low-orbiting satellites." Russia is reportedly also developing an air-launched ASAT weapon that could be launched from aircraft, such as the Russian MiG-31, to target spacecraft in low earth orbit.
What is concerning is that the US appears to be at a grave disadvantage countering such attacks. "Fifteen years after China's ASAT strike, we still lack the ability to defeat an attack on our space systems or launch an offensive strike if circumstances warrant," Retired US Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command and Air Force Space Command, noted.
"Hostile action toward our space-based assets is not a question of 'if,' but instead, 'when.' Attacks are regularly occurring at lower thresholds. Our adversaries fully understand the U.S. military's reliance upon these systems and will seek to compromise or destroy them to gain a decisive advantage in any terrestrial conflict... The goal is to develop resilient, defendable capabilities that can withstand an attack, while also developing offensive options that will deter strikes against our systems in orbit."
While China has made it a goal to become the world's leading space power by 2045, China could overtake the United States by the end of the decade, according to General Thompson -- especially because China is putting up satellites at twice the rate of the United States.
"We are still the best in the world, clearly in terms of capability. They're catching up quickly... We should be concerned by the end of this decade if we don't adapt."
In addition, China's space station, Tinangong, is expected to become fully operational between 2022 and 2024. Three Chinese astronauts, one of them a former fighter pilot and another a People's Liberation Army (PLA) pilot, just landed back in China after spending six months in space working on the space station. China plans to continue conducting explorations on the moon, including establishing a robotic research station, and in March 2021 signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia on a joint lunar research station.
The latest threat assessment report of the US intelligence community, published in February, also makes it clear that while both Russia and China "increasingly see space as a warfighting domain", the greater threat comes from China. According to the report:
"The PLA will continue to integrate space services—such as satellite reconnaissance and positioning, navigation, and timing—and satellite communications into its weapons and command-and-control systems to erode the U.S. military's information advantage.
"Counterspace operations will be integral to potential military campaigns by the PLA, and China has counterspace-weapons capabilities intended to target U.S. and allied satellites. The PLA is fielding new destructive and nondestructive ground- and space-based antisatellite (ASAT) weapons."
In a recent speech, U.S. Chief of Space Operations General John W. Raymond described just how crucial space is to warfare and why it is paramount that the United States remain the preeminent space power:
"If deterrence were to fail, we would face an adversary that has integrated space into all aspects of their military operations. They use space to detect, track, and target our forces with long-range precision weapons. Space provides the foundation of everything we do as a joint force, from delivering humanitarian assistance to combat on the ground, in the air, and at sea. Our joint operational plans assume assured access to space. ... We cannot afford to lose space; without it we will fail."
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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More Freedom of Speech in the West
Josef Zbořil/ Gatestone Institute/April 28/2022
The possible redefinition of where this line [between censorship and disinformation] is drawn may be even more crucial for the future of the EU than economic issues. The question will be to what extent the [EU's] new code against disinformation fully preserves freedom of speech.
"Public discussions of public issues, together with the spreading of information and opinion bearing on those issues, must have a freedom unabridged by our agents." — Statement of the US Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Alexander Meiklejohn, "The First Amendment Is an Absolute", 1961.
For a democratic system to work, it is necessary to have an electorate that is informed – with no constraints on the free flow of ideas or information. Democracy will not be trustworthy or sustainable if those in power are able to manipulate the electorate by withholding information and stifling criticism.
"[T]he Internet, too, was hyped in its early days as a libertarian panacea that would free people from all centralized systems—but is now poised to make centralized authority more powerful than ever..." — Yuval Noah Harari, "Why Technology Favors Tyranny", October 2018.
"The system is opaque, it has its own political agenda... One day, for example, Facebook will remind half of the people to go to the polls and tell the other less popular half to have a fry-up. In this case, it has the ability to significantly influence the election." — Daniel Vávra, game developer and entrepreneur, cnn.iprima.cz, September 17, 2020.
The threat of censorship -- both at the national and European levels -- can be defined in three areas: a) The impact of "Big Tech" with its non-transparent algorithms in the digital environment; b) Decisions by politicians; c) Procedural actions by public officials.
If totalitarian societies are restricted -- for instance, by enforcing censorship based on alleged blasphemy -- then democratic states need to be even more open -- as open as possible -- to provide an alternative to them, so people can hear a wide variety of viewpoints instead of monopolistic indoctrination.
"The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong..." — Karl Popper, Austrian-British social philosopher, "On Freedom", August 25, 1958.
For a democratic system to work, it is necessary to have an electorate that is informed – with no constraints on the free flow of ideas or information. Democracy will not be trustworthy or sustainable if those in power are able to manipulate the electorate by withholding information and stifling criticism. Democratic states need to be as open as possible, so people can hear a wide variety of viewpoints instead of monopolistic indoctrination.
"Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?" The entrepreneur Elon Musk asked in a Twitter poll on March 25, 2022. The answer was 70% no, 30% yes.
On April 25, 2022, Musk struck a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, reportedly to build "arena for free speech". He has described himself as a free speech absolutist and has thankfully sparked a wider public discussion about free speech in a democracy. There are instances -- such as child-pornography, falsely "shouting fire in a crowded theater," or, to safeguard national security during a war (see Brandenburg v. Ohio for some of the legal reasoning) -- where there are and need to be constraints on free speech. Regarding false information, such as propaganda, Australian writer Caitlin Johnstone cautions against turning a free society into some kind of totalitarianism to fight an adversary:
"How much are we as a society willing to give up for the US government and its allies to win a propaganda war against Putin?... Are we willing to commit to being a civilization for which the primary consideration with any piece of data is not whether or not it's true, but whether it helps undermine Russia?..."
The Czech Republic will be holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union from July 1 to December 31, 2022. It currently looks as if it will not only follow up on crucial economic and security issues from its previous presidency in 2009, such as the Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis, but also on drawing a line between censorship and the fight against fake news and disinformation.
This issue arose not only because of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine also because of a report from February 8, 2022 by the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in All Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation. Among other things, it:
"... Calls on the Commission to set up a Commission taskforce led by Věra Jourová, as Vice-President of the Commission for Values and Transparency, dedicated to scrutinising existing legislation and policies to identify gaps that could be exploited by malicious actors, and urges the Commission to close these gaps..."
In 2018, a Code of Principles was created for online platforms, advertisers and other key players to commit to reducing misinformation and improving their online anti-misinformation strategies. On May 26, 2021, the Czech Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, said:
"The new code against disinformation fully preserves freedom of speech. We will not judge content, but we will focus on the tools used to spread disinformation and on empowering social media users to verify and control what they see and who paid for it."
The possible redefinition of where this line is drawn may be even more crucial for the future of the EU than economic issues. The question will be to what extent the EU's new code against disinformation will be in line with, for example, the statement of the US Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Alexander Meiklejohn (1872-1964):
"Public discussions of public issues, together with the spreading of information and opinion bearing on those issues, must have a freedom unabridged by our agents. Though they govern us, we, in a deeper sense, govern them. Over our governing, they have no power. Over their governing we have sovereign power."
For a democratic system to work, it is necessary to have an electorate that is informed -- with no constraints on the free flow of ideas or information. Democracy will not be trustworthy or sustainable if those in power are able to manipulate the electorate by withholding information and stifling criticism. Otherwise there is a very real probability of ending up with a repressive, autocratic government such as Castro's Cuba, Chávez and Maduro's Venezuela, Putin's Russia, Xi's China, Kim Jung-un's North Korea or Khamenei's Iran.
The desire to manipulate opinion can stem from seeking to benefit society, or, as we have too often seen, only to benefit oneself -- politically, economically, for a promotion in one's career, or all of the above. Choosing manipulation, however, kills democracy.
Meiklejohn argued that voters need to be free to engage in uninhibited discussion and debate to make informed choices about their self-government. Free speech, therefore, produces informed voters -- which individuals who possibly prefer a rigged result might not want.
In 2009, the Czech government collapsed during its EU presidency. The repetition of this event was brought closer by two events, oddly connected to Russia's current invasion of Ukraine:
1) Supreme State Attorney Igor Stříž of the Czech Republic announced that his country was moving to criminalize speech supporting Russia, with sentences of up to three years. The proposal, widely criticized, was probably best summarized by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley:
"...Ironically, there is no need to arrest the minority of voices supporting Putin or his war. Yet, people want the satisfaction of arresting those with opposing views. They are wrong. They degrade themselves, their country, and this cause with such anti-free speech measures."
2) The Czech government has caused selected websites to be shut down -- including opinion-only opposition websites -- and now no one from the government wants to take responsibility -- they know that they were wrong. There seems to have been the non-transparent cooperation of private companies, a few members of the government and public officials – all with unknown levels of responsibility. The closures drew criticism from journalists, conservative supporters, Czech patriots and supporters of direct democracy, lawyers, and NGOs such as the Society for the Protection of Freedom of Expression. The lawyer and chairman of the liberal opposition parliamentary party Freedomites, Libor Vondráček, told independent XTV on March 4:
"...it's censorship... if we were in a state of war that had been declared, or at least a state of danger to our country, and the courts got involved at least through some sort of interim measure, we could talk about it being within the law..."
In general, censorship -- both at the national and European levels -- seems to emerge from three areas:
The impact of "Big Tech" with its non-transparent algorithms in the digital environment;
Decisions by politicians;
Procedural actions by public officials.
As early as 1991, David Ronfelt, in "Cyberocracy, Cyberspace and Cyberology: Political Effects of the Information Revolution," described how a cyberocracy can affect those who govern and why.
In countries where democracy has deep roots, the information revolution can provide ordinary citizens with new tools and opportunities to exercise their freedoms, improve their way of life, make political decisions and protect their personal interests.
Elsewhere, however, the tools of a cyberocracy can provide the state apparatus and its rulers with new and effective means of controlling their citizenry, and with an official ideology that determines what information is allowed. The main threats to privacy and freedom, then, not only come from government agencies but from corporations that collect vast amounts of demographic data, including credit, and other types of personal information that can be used for marketing, public relations, and purposes possibly less benign. We are already seeing this form of repression in the Chinese Communist Party's "social credit system", in which the state, through detailed personal data on every citizen, determines, based on obedience to its dogma, who may go to a good school, get a job of his choosing, take a plane -- or be sent away for incarceration or even "disappeared."
The Czech cyberneticist Dr. Ivan M. Havel – who received computer science doctorate from the University of California, Berkley in 1971 and was a brother of the former Czech President Václav Havel -- in 1999 wrote an article, "The Advent of Cyberculture" about the self-organization of the European "Information Society" through communication networks:
"...There are all the users sitting at their terminals, enjoying interesting messages and entering their own messages. An obvious concern arises that anybody could enter non-verified, false, immoral, or dangerous information. This concern has to be taken seriously.... Our fantasies may look exaggerated to some but they may soon be part of the everyday world around us..."
An Israeli bestselling author, Yuval Noah Harari, who warned of the rise of digital dictatorship in a lecture at the Davos World Economic Forum in January 2020, had already, in October 2018, stated in an article, "Why Technology Favors Tyranny":
"... The main handicap of authoritarian regimes in the 20th century—the desire to concentrate all information and power in one place—may become their decisive advantage in the 21st century... Remember that the Internet, too, was hyped in its early days as a libertarian panacea that would free people from all centralized systems—but is now poised to make centralized authority more powerful than ever..."
Czech video game developer and entrepreneur Daniel Vávra also warned, on September 17, 2020, against non-transparent algorithms:
"The system is opaque, it has its own political agenda... One day, for example, Facebook will remind half of the people to go to the polls and tell the other less popular half to have a fry-up. In this case, it has the ability to significantly influence the election."
In 2021, Vávra founded the Society for the Protection of Freedom of Expression (SOSP). Its mission is promoting freedom of speech as a basic condition of democracy; collecting cases of censorship on social networks, and preventing new forms of censorship on social networks, which are becoming the main public forums for political discussion. SOSP has gained the support of MPs, senators, MEPs and mayors from six Czech parliamentary parties. On June 10, 2021, SOSP held a seminar in the Czech Chamber of Deputies.
Leading representatives of SOSP include, in addition to Vávra, Marian Kechlibar, a commentator and mathematician, and Gabriela Sedláčková, moderator and co-founder of the independent V.O.X. TV. Supporters include Martina Kociánová, a former television news presenter who now has her own independent talk show, Radio Universum, and collaborates with the Equilibrium Institute, a group that "inform[s] the professional and lay public in a timely and correct manner about emerging trends in society, technology and the environment".
Vávra, incidentally, is not only the creator of a successful Czech game, Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, in 2002, but also the most expensive Czech game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, in 2018. Kingdom Come raised £1,106,371 on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform, but also criticism from "woke" progressives who criticized the game's lack of diversity. Vávra, despite pressure, did not bow to the request to include historical fabrications in the game; later the game was used as teaching material in schools.
Another objective of SOSP is to "watch the watchers" -- to verify the verdicts of the so-called fact-checkers -- who all too often, evidently, are self-appointed, wrong and woefully subjective.
SOSP, in November 2021, also distributed a petition, signed by more than 30,000 people, including MPs across the Czech political spectrum, aimed at setting rules on social networks that are truly transparent.
The activities of SOSP, therefore, at least in the Czech Republic and the EU, will soon help to draw a line between "censorship by the digital dictatorship" on one side, and "fighting fake news in civilization based on truth", on the other side.
Where totalitarian societies are restricted -- for instance, by enforcing censorship based on alleged blasphemy -- then democratic states need to be even more open -- as open as possible -- to provide an alternative to them, so people can hear a wide variety of viewpoints instead of monopolistic indoctrination.
As Karl R. Popper argued:
"The true Enlightenment thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even want to convince; all the time he is aware that he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual independence of others too highly to want to convince them in important matters. He would much rather invite contradiction, preferably in the form of rational and disciplined criticism. He seeks not to convince but to arouse — to challenge others to form free opinions."
*Josef Zbořil, Ph.D., a Czech author, advocates a "SMART permanently sustainable free society with citizenship 4.0" and founder of Cyber-Citizens civic movement.
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Energy’s Future Is Both Cleaner and Dirtier
Tyler Cowen/Bloomberg/April, 28/2022
The green energy revolution is making greater progress than expected. Solar and wind power have seen exponential cost declines, and electric vehicles seem to be a market winner.
That’s all good news, but improving green energy is not the same as addressing climate change. There is good chance that even optimistic projections for green energy will come true — and carbon emissions will continue to increase.
That’s in part because of innovation not only in green energy but also in the fossil-fuel industry. The fracking revolution in the US has been a positive development, if only because gas is usually cleaner than coal. Nonetheless burning gas (and the fracking process itself) creates environmental problems, including carbon emissions. It is easy to imagine the US fracking revolution spreading to more countries, thereby boosting the use of natural gas. In the short run gas will substitute for the much dirtier coal, but over the longer term fracking is competing with greener forms of energy production.
The bottom line: If you are bullish on green innovation, perhaps you should be bullish on innovation in fossil fuels as well.
One notable feature of energy is that it is easy to use more of it. If energy were truly cheap, people would take more plane trips, build more robots, desalinate more water and terraform more of the earth’s surface. These are wonderful ambitions, but they might lead the world to use both more green energy and more carbon-intensive energy.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has made me less optimistic about people’s willingness to incur economic pain to bring about better energy outcomes. The prices of oil and gas have risen dramatically because of the war — yet not many countries seem to be looking to resume the use of nuclear power, which is a form of green energy. Germany is not overturning its previous decision to shut down its nuclear power plants, for example. And while France may extend its use of nuclear power, it is hard to see a major pro-nuclear trend.
A more common response to the war and its associated energy price hikes has been to insulate consumers from the effects of higher gas prices. Governor Gavin Newsom of California has proposed $11 billion in gasoline vouchers for drivers in the state, which is hardly a stronghold of climate denialism.
Overall, few politicians or voters (outside of oil- and gas-producing regions) seem delighted by higher prices for fossil fuels, though such price hikes might be required to diminish carbon emissions. Even Germany seems willing to continue as a major financier of Russia’s aggressive war in Ukraine, with its atrocities against civilians. If this is true in a country still horrified by its fascist past, where the ideology of “never again” remains strong, then it is unlikely that arguments about the need for green energy will hold much sway.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund typifies the world we live in. The country has decided that the fund should divest from fossil-fuel assets. Yet most of the fund’s assets come from selling Norwegian fossil fuels to the rest of the world.
Again, it seems increasingly easy to imagine a world with wonderful green energy innovations and lots of carbon emissions — and people will praise the former to feel less bad about the latter.
Most likely, the world’s countries will develop their energy supplies in a sequential, rolling fashion. Japan developed economically before China, which in turn became industrial before Vietnam, and currently Vietnam is leading most of Africa. It could be that the world always has some growing countries that will want to use lots of fossil fuels, and a universal transition to solar power and good batteries could be distant.
Price pressures along the way could reinforce this basic logic. As green energy becomes more common, batteries may become more expensive, as they are based on a variety of scarce physical inputs. At the same time, the initial slack in demand for oil and gas, during a true green-energy transition, will make those resources very cheap. Is it such a sure bet that an industrializing Uganda will immediately and directly go the green energy route?
So there is reason to temper all the optimism about the green energy revolution. It’s all good news, but even if it’s all true, it doesn’t necessarily mean a better energy future is imminent.

NATO Needs to Seal the Deal with Sweden and Finland Fast
Andreas Kluth/Asharq Al Awsat/April 28/2022
Rather like children in playgrounds, countries throughout history have had to decide how to deal with a bully. Appease him in the hope that he becomes meek? Avoid provoking him, at the cost of acquiescing to his brutality? Or counter with strength and willpower to stop and contain him?
If the bully is Russian President Vladimir Putin, the latter is the only tenable answer. That’s what majorities of voters and legislators in Finland and pluralities in Sweden have understood in the past two months. Traditionally neutral, both countries are now moving fast toward joining NATO. They'll probably file coordinated applications in mid-May. If NATO is wise, the alliance will seal the deal at once.
Like each of the other four countries that are members of the European Union but not NATO — Austria, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta — Sweden and Finland have in the past had good reasons to remain unaligned. Sweden’s policy, like Switzerland’s neutrality, dates back centuries and used to be part of the country’s raison d’etat. Finland’s was a response to Soviet intimidation during the Cold War, a quid-pro-quo to remain nominally independent.
But at a time when Putin assaults Ukraine, Europe and the entire international order with his bombs, atrocities and lies, neutrality is no longer an option. That’s why all six countries should irrevocably side with the West. This step is most urgent for Finland and Sweden.
Finland shares an 830-mile land border with Russia. And both it and Sweden butt up against Russia in the Baltic Sea. In effect, the Scandinavians are therefore already on the front line. They need NATO’s protection under its Article 5 — the one that says that an attack on one is an attack on all.
The two Nordics in turn would strengthen NATO where the alliance is weakest. Its most vulnerable members are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, just across the Baltic. They’re all but cut off from the rest of the EU and NATO by Russia’s exclave in Kaliningrad. The only land border between Lithuania and Poland is a 65-mile strip, called the Suwalki Gap, between Kaliningrad and Belarus, which is in effect Putin’s vassal state.
Without Sweden and Finland, the three post-Soviet Baltic republics, which also have sizable minorities of ethnic Russians, would therefore be hard to defend against an onslaught from Russia. But with the Scandinavians, which both have first-rate armies that are already coordinating closely with other Western militaries, the Baltic would become a defensible NATO lake.
The best counter-argument is that Finnish and Swedish membership would all but dare Putin to become even more aggressive, possibly escalating even to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Ostensibly, Putin attacked Ukraine — like Georgia in 2008 — to prevent NATO expansion. So he’d struggle to explain to the people he fears most — ordinary Russians, who must tolerate him in power — how he’d accept the exact opposite outcome, another NATO enlargement. He’d have to do something.
Like most bullies, Putin has therefore dispatched his minions to drop not-so-veiled threats. Dimitry Medvedev, currently deputy chairman of Putin’s security council, has said that “there could be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltics — the balance must be restored.” He failed to mention that Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave is already well-stocked with missiles and nukes. So nothing new there.
And yet, Swedish and Finnish membership in NATO would cause what realists in international relations call a “security dilemma.” Broadly, it describes situations in which states escalate or go to war because they regard all other options as worse. In this case, Russia might reasonably conclude that it would lose a conventional arms race with an enlarged NATO, so that a preemptive strike is its least bad option.
Viewed differently, however, that argument resembles familiar and unconvincing ones — in playgrounds or world politics — about not provoking bullies. Putin has proven that he’ll never stop menacing or attacking others, if he thinks he can get away with it. For example, his new war strategy in Ukraine, apparently, is to conquer a land bridge all along the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea so that he can link up with Russian separatists in Moldova next.
The Caucasus, Central Asia, the Baltic, the Arctic — no country in Putin’s perceived “sphere of interest” will be safe until he understands that he is up against superior power and the determination to use it. NATO must, therefore, show strength and will, not timidity.
The more immediate problem is how to survive the tightrope walk between the Swedish and Finnish applications and their membership. Article 5 takes effect only once they’re in. Even if NATO fast-tracks its process, each of the 30 member nations must still ratify the accessions. For the three countries that joined NATO in 1999, the process took 20 months, 18 for the seven nations who followed in 2004.
This is the time Putin would be most tempted to punish the Scandinavians, with attacks somewhere on the spectrum between cyberwar and a tactical nuke dropped for show. The onus is, therefore, on Finland, Sweden, NATO and all 30 members to collaborate to eliminate this no-man’s-land of time.
So NATO and all 30 of its constituent allies should prepare right now, as though the applications were already formal. The allies should then give the green light at their summit in Madrid on June 29, with the 30 legislatures immediately giving their approval, ideally the next day.
Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. The West trusts NATO to protect it from bullies. That credits the alliance not only with military prowess but also with procedural nimbleness when it matters. NATO could send no stronger message than to become a club of 32 on June 30, 2022 — only four months after Putin began committing the worst of his many atrocities.