Allies ‘fall short on air defence pledges’; Refugees who fled Putin caught in economic tug-of-war

By Bloomberg

21 Aug 2024

Ukraine allies ‘fail to follow through on air defence pledges’

Some of Ukraine’s Nato allies were falling short on pledges to accelerate deliveries of air defence systems and other military equipment to fend off Russia’s offensive, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies have yet to follow through with commitments they reaffirmed at the alliance’s summit in Washington last month, the people said on condition of anonymity. Those include pledges to send at least five additional long-range systems, they said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed calls for urgent help from allies as his forces launched a surprise incursion into Russian territory this month. The president, who has lamented that fresh US weapons supplies were taking too long to reach the front, reinforced the plea for faster deliveries this week.

“There are no vacations in war,” Zelensky said in an address to the nation on Sunday. “Decisions are needed, as is timely logistics for the announced aid packages. I especially address this to the United States, the United Kingdom and France.”

The Nato air defence pledge, which included commitments that had already been made, was the centrepiece of allied support at the alliance’s July summit. President Joe Biden called it — along with dozens of shorter-range systems — a “historic donation”.

The US, Germany and Romania each vowed to send a Patriot system, with a fourth provided with components from several nations. Italy pledged to send a SAMP-T surface-to-air system. Other allies committed to sending other systems and munitions to Ukraine.

Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv had discussed air defence systems with its partners. “We are preparing reinforcements,” he said in a regular address to the nation, without elaborating.

Ukraine will come under additional strain as the third full winter of the conflict approaches — and as citizens already struggle with rolling blackouts prompted by decimated energy infrastructure.

Many of the Nato pledges were unlikely to be fulfilled by autumn, when Russia was expected to exploit the war-battered nation’s vulnerabilities and intensify its bombardment of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, the people said.

Zelensky also drove home his demand that the US and some European allies lift remaining restrictions on the use of long-range weapons, arguing that his military cross-border incursion in Russia’s western Kursk region exposed Kremlin threats of retaliation as “illusory”.

Zelensky’s government has argued that deep strikes into Russia are necessary to hit airfields and launchers from which Moscow initiates attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Allies such as the US, Germany and Italy have so far resisted the request, with some only allowing for limited use of their weapons inside Russian territory.

Ukrainians who fled Putin get caught in economic tug-of-war

Lidiia Vasylevska was working as an accountant in Kyiv when Russian forces invaded Ukraine. She fled to Prague, found a different job and settled in a small apartment in a quiet district of the Czech capital.

But more than two years after escaping the bombs, she finds herself caught in potentially a different kind of conflict: an economic tug-of-war between her home country and the country that’s sheltered her.

The decision to relocate with her two daughters and pets more than 1,000km away now finds Vasylevska at odds with Zelensky. He wants refugees to return to keep the war-torn economy running and resist Russia. Much of central and eastern Europe, meanwhile, is enduring a labour shortage, and countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic are reticent to lose people.

The pressure has been increasing since Zelensky told Ukrainians in his New Year address they should decide whether they are refugees or citizens — or, as he put it, victims or winners — and it was time for the country to be together. A recent incursion into Russian territory has put Moscow on the back foot and bolstered morale in Ukraine.

“When you hear this, you are made to feel that you didn’t just leave, but you abandoned your country and you are a bad person,” said Vasylevska (51), who works as a project manager for a non-government organisation helping refugees. “It shouldn’t matter where you are, every one of us can help in this situation from where they are right now.”

Countries in the region took in millions of refugees in the wake of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February 2022.

Anti-Putin activist exiled in prisoner swap waits for return to Russia

Prominent anti-Kremlin activist Ilya Yashin was in a Moscow jail when Russia struck the prisoner-swap deal that freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other Americans.

As the complex exchange unfolded on 1 August, Yashin was sent into exile and told not to return. Now in Berlin, he’s already eager to get back to Moscow.

The 41-year-old opposition politician said he refused an offer of political asylum in Germany because it would mean he could never travel to Russia. Instead, he has applied for a residency permit and plans to lobby European officials for an expansion of sanctions against people linked to President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

“Only 2,000 people are under sanctions, and 20,000 are needed,” Yashin said in an interview.

A German Interior Ministry spokesperson declined to comment on whether Yashin had rejected an offer of political asylum.

Yashin was a prominent figure at anti-Kremlin rallies alongside opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison in February after he had defied Putin and returned to Russia from Germany in early 2021. Weeks before the prisoner exchange, Yashin told the exiled independent channel TV Rain that he’d refuse to be part of a swap because it was “important to me to share the fate of my country” and to be a voice of opposition inside Russia.

Yashin was sentenced to 8½ years in jail in December 2022 after being convicted of “discrediting” the Russian military. An outspoken opponent of Russia’s war in Ukraine, he’d highlighted the killings of civilians in the town of Bucha after it was occupied by Russian troops.

He was among imprisoned Russian dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza and Oleg Orlov, co-chair of the Memorial human rights group, who were exchanged in the deal with the US and European nations including Germany. Eight Kremlin agents were sent to Moscow in return, including most controversially Vadim Krasikov, an assassin sentenced to life in prison in Germany for killing a Chechen commander in a Berlin park.

When prison officials moved him to Moscow’s Lefortovo detention centre in preparation for the swap, Yashin said he wrote a statement demanding to stay in Russia, citing a constitutional ban on the deportation of citizens. It was ignored and he was put on the plane with an expired passport taken by police from a raid on his home when he was arrested, he said.

“On the day of the swap, several special forces guys came for me and I realised they would simply pack me up like a carcass, tie me up and send me away,” Yashin recalled. “They told me, ‘if you return, other political prisoners will never be released. If you come back, there will be no exchanges.’”

Ukrainian parliament bans Russia-linked religious organisations

Ukraine’s parliament approved a bill to prohibit Russia-linked religious organisations from working in the country, legislator Yaroslav Zheleznyak said in a post on Telegram.

The law includes a provision which allows the Moscow-linked Orthodox church in Ukraine to cut ties with Russia within nine months to continue its operations in the country, Zheleznyak said on Tuesday.

Russia’s oil exports maintain downtrend as Sakhalin flows tumble

Russia’s seaborne oil flows continued a steady decline, driven by a hefty loss of barrels from its Sakhalin Island terminal in Asia.

The nation’s four-week average crude exports edged lower in the week to 18 August, dropping by 25,000 barrels a day compared with the previous period. Its weekly shipments, which are far more volatile, fell by 360,000 barrels a day. Volumes were almost 500,000 barrels a day below an April high.

The decline came ahead of a plan by several Opec+ member countries, including Russia, to ease output curbs from October. A decision may come in early September on whether to proceed with or delay those production increases as prices slide amid concerns over global demand.

While shipments of Espo crude piped to the Pacific terminal at Kozmino were booming, flows from two projects off Russia’s Sakhalin Island have slowed. Eleven Sokol cargoes have been exported since the start of July, compared with 13 in each of the two previous seven-week periods. Just two shipments have been made from the Sakhalin 2 project in the past eight weeks. Until late June, the project was sending that number every three weeks. DM

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World

Ukraine allies ‘fail to follow through on air defence pledges’

Ukrainians who fled Putin get caught in economic tug-of-war

Anti-Putin activist exiled in prisoner swap waits for return to Russia

Ukrainian parliament bans Russia-linked religious organisations

Russia’s oil exports maintain downtrend as Sakhalin flows tumble