The US on Thursday sanctioned two Chinese companies and a Russian affiliate involved in making and shipping attack drones and warned the two countries to halt cooperation boosting the Ukraine war effort.
Britain said on Thursday it had imposed sanctions on 18 more Russian oil tankers and four liquefied natural gas vessels, the largest batch of sanctions to date against Russia’s “shadow fleet”.
Thousands of North Korean troops were being prepared to fight on Russia’s behalf in Ukraine and some North Korean officers had already been deployed there, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday.
US sanctions Chinese, Russians over attack drones
The US on Thursday sanctioned two Chinese companies and a Russian affiliate involved in making and shipping attack drones and warned the two countries to halt cooperation boosting the Ukraine war effort.
New sanctions target a Chinese company, Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Co Ltd, that makes the engine powering Russia’s Garpiya series long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, said the US Treasury Department.
The measures also hit China-based Redlepus Vector Industry Shenzhen Co Ltd for its role in the drones’ shipment and an affiliated Russian person and company.
The drones are believed to have been used against military and civilian targets in Ukraine, damaging critical infrastructure and inflicting both civilian and military casualties.
“While the United States previously imposed sanctions on [People’s Republic of China] entities providing critical inputs to Russia’s military-industrial base, these are the first US sanctions imposed on PRC entities directly developing and producing complete weapons systems in partnership with Russian firms,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
A senior Biden administration official said the actions by the Chinese companies were at odds with what the Chinese government had said privately about its intentions.
The Chinese embassy spokesperson in Washington, Liu Pengyu, repeated China’s opposition to sanctions and said it was handling the export of military products responsibly.
“The US makes false accusations against China’s normal trade with Russia, just as it continues to pour unprecedented military aid into Ukraine,” said the spokesperson. “This is [the] typical double standard, and extremely hypocritical and irresponsible.”
The moves come as deepening cooperation between Russia and other countries, including China, has thwarted Washington’s effort to disable Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, which grinds on as Moscow’s forces advance in the east.
UK imposes sanctions on Russian oil and LNG vessels
Britain said on Thursday it had imposed sanctions on 18 more Russian oil tankers and four liquefied natural gas vessels, the largest batch of sanctions to date against Russia’s “shadow fleet”.
Britain says the “shadow fleet” uses illicit practices to avoid Western restrictions on Russian oil. The announcement came after the US and Canada agreed to join a “call to action” to tackle it, which has been backed by 44 European countries after it was announced by Britain in July.
The government said it was working with maritime authorities to demand that Russian vessels with suspected dubious insurance provide details of their insurance status as they pass through the English Channel.
“Any actor that facilitates and supports Russia’s malign activities could be exposing themselves to sanctions,” said the government.
The 18 oil tankers will be barred from UK ports and unable to access British maritime services, bringing the total number of sanctioned Russian oil tankers to 43.
As part of Thursday’s action, the UK also sanctioned the Russian gas company Rusgazdobycha.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday the new British sanctions showed Moscow’s status as “a reliable energy supplier” did not suit London, reported the state RIA news agency.
North Korean officers ‘already deployed in Ukraine’
Thousands of North Korean troops were being prepared to fight on Russia’s behalf in Ukraine and some North Korean officers had already been deployed there, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday.
Western countries have long accused North Korea of sending weapons to Russia, and in recent days Zelensky has said Pyongyang was also sending personnel, a significant escalation of foreign assistance for Moscow’s invasion.
“We have information from our intelligence that ... some officers of the North Korean army are already on Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by the Russian enemies. So they joined the Russian army,” Zelensky told a news conference in Brussels.
He said he could not give the exact numbers that were already on the ground.
“We know about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea that they are preparing to send fight against us,” he said, describing it as the “first step to the world war”.
The North Korean troops being prepared to fight in Ukraine included land forces and “other technical personnel”, said Zelensky.
Ukraine’s Western allies have yet to confirm Kyiv’s assertion that Pyongyang is sending troops, though they say they are studying it. White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said on Tuesday any North Korean troop involvement in Ukraine, if true, would mark a significant increase in the Moscow-Pyongyang defence relationship.
Ukraine seeks global help with task of landmine clearance
Ukraine’s prime minister appealed at a meeting in Switzerland on Thursday for more help clearing landmines and unexploded bombs covering up to a quarter of the country — making it the most mined nation in the world.
Switzerland, which is providing financial support, is hosting the conference this week attended by officials from around 50 countries to seek backing for demining Ukraine set to cost $34.6-billion, according to a World Bank study.
Clearance is seen as a critical requisite for boosting agricultural production and for the return of millions of Ukrainians who have fled since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Already, 399 civilians have been killed by landmines and 915 injured, according to UN human rights monitors.
“The scale of this challenge is truly massive,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told the meeting in the city of Lausanne. “I call on the entire civilised world to increase support for Ukraine in the field of demining.”
He said the country’s National Mine Strategy aimed to clear the country by 2033 but it needed help, especially with training 10,000 deminers and building machines which can clear terrain around 100 times faster than people.
The country had cleared 35,000 square kilometres since the war began, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko told journalists. Some parts of Ukraine near the front lines were not yet eligible for humanitarian demining.
Moldova says its citizens were trained in Russia to stage riots
Moldovan police said on Thursday they had uncovered a programme in which hundreds of its citizens were brought to Russia to undergo training to stage riots and civil unrest, the latest in a slew of meddling allegations ahead of Sunday’s election.
The police said earlier this month that Russia-backed crime groups had bribed a swathe of voters and plotted to disrupt this weekend’s presidential election and referendum on the country’s European Union membership aspirations, going as far as a plan to seize state buildings.
Russia, which accuses the pro-Western government of fomenting “Russophobia”, has denied meddling in Moldova, which accelerated its push to leave Moscow’s orbit after Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.
Moldovan police told a news conference that law enforcement agencies believed a group linked to fugitive pro-Kremlin businessman Ilan Shor had organised the training to stage unrest.
“The anti-corruption prosecutor’s office is currently conducting an investigation into several criminal cases related to the preparation of mass disturbance in the interests of the criminal community,” said prosecutor Victor Furtuna.
Shor, who is under US sanctions for alleged election interference on behalf of Russia, denies wrongdoing or being a Russian political proxy.
Authorities said people had been regularly taken in groups of about 20 to undergo training in Russia since June.
Russian law against ‘child-free propaganda’ clears first hurdle
Laws that would ban “propaganda” which discourages Russians from having children won overwhelming approval on Thursday in the first stage of their passage through parliament, part of a Kremlin drive to boost the country’s flagging birth rate.
The move to outlaw content that is deemed to promote a child-free lifestyle won unanimous backing from members of the lower house, the Duma, in the first of three required readings.
“It is important to protect people, primarily the younger generation, from having the ideology of childlessness imposed on them on the internet, in the media, in movies, and in advertising,” said Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, a powerful ally of President Vladimir Putin.
“We continue to form a unified legal framework for the protection of children, families, and traditional values.”
Putin, who portrays Russia as a bastion of moral values locked in an existential struggle with a decadent West, has encouraged women to have at least three children to secure the demographic future of the country.
But critics of the new law see it as an alarming development.
“Women are being essentially turned into vessels for bearing children, not taking into account their circumstances, their motivations and whether they aspire to have a career or a family,” said Olga Suvorova, a rights activist who works with victims of domestic violence in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
“The message is clear: give birth, and that’s it,” she said in a telephone interview, adding that she feared the Bill could pave the way for further encroachments on women’s rights including the ability to get an abortion.
Deputy Duma speaker Anna Kuznetsova said earlier this month that the law was part of Russia’s “national security strategy”.
Authors of content that falls foul of the law will be subject to fines: up to 400,000 roubles ($4,125) for individuals, twice that amount for officials, and up to five million roubles ($51,550) for legal entities. DM