‘We are fighting the system’: Haiti lawyers taking rape to the courts


In a society riven with poverty and where armed gangs use sexual violence as a means of control, three women are working for justice

Open sewers run through the Cite Soleil district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Sexual violence in the country has increased significantly since the 2010 earthquake. 

Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Sophie Cousins in Port-au-Prince
Mon 18 Apr 2022 

Every morning, three lawyers navigate the gang-ridden, treacherous roads of Port-au-Prince to get to work. Of the women’s two priorities of the day this is the first: to get to and from the office safely. The second is fighting Haiti’s legal system from inside, trying to win justice for women who have been raped.

Sexual violence linked to armed gangs in Haiti is not new but the situation has significantly deteriorated since the assassination of the president last year, which has left the country in a power vacuum.


The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Haiti’s capital, a human rights law organisation, was set up in the wake of the dramatic rise in sexual attacks predominantly on women in the displacement camps set up after the 2010 earthquake.

The lawyers – Derolian, Marie Kattia Dorestant-Lefruy and Gladys Thermezi – help victims through the legal process, from lodging a statement at the police station to preparing the case and representing them at trial – if there is one. Of the 528 cases they’ve worked on since the 2010 earthquake, only 10 have gone to trial.

“When you live in a society with a lot of problems, women and girls always suffer. In such a situation, gangs use women as weapons of war to get revenge, to show what they’re capable of,” saysAbigail Derolian.

“We’re not a country that promotes human rights, particularly women’s rights. Women don’t know that they can live with dignity, that they can get justice. We have a lot of women who are raped, and we know that the majority remain silent because they’re afraid.”

An assessment of Haiti by the UN high commission for human rights in 2021 found gang-related sexual violence was increasing. “Rape was used as a weapon to humiliate, terrorise and reinforce the control of gang members over local populations. In some areas, the feeling of impunity is so pervasive that rapes have been perpetrated in broad daylight,” it said.

Karlyn*, who is being supported by BAI, was attacked during the day by two men.

“I had to resign from my work at a garment factory and move to the countryside because gang members were looking for me,” she says. Her case is waiting at the state prosecutor’s office.

In its latest figures published last March, the UN estimates 23% of married or cohabiting women will be sexually or physically abused by a partner in their lifetime. Last year, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the number of recorded cases in Haiti increased by 377% in 2020.

BAI, in partnership with the US-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, offersmuch-needed support.


Protests in Sudan after alleged gang-rape of young woman by security forces

Women are referred from organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières, who provide initial medical care after an attack, and from an extensive network of community support workers.

“We have an obstacle in getting justice and that is the judicial system. We are fighting the system. We work double the hours to make sure the victim won’t be discouraged. We don’t stop investigating,” Thermezi says.

Corruption, stigma and victim-blaming is rife, the lawyers say. Bribery is all too common in the courts while judges will ask questions such as: “What were you doing out at this hour of the day? What were you wearing? Isn’t this a love affair?”

The BAI lawyers remain steadfast. “I come from a poor, voiceless family and I’m happy to defend women who don’t have anyone to speak out for them and who don’t have money for legal services,” says Dorestant-Lefruy.

“We face a lot of obstacles in getting justice for women … but the work gives me the strength and courage to speak up for these women.”

* Name has been changed

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As Kenyans farm in forests, incomes rise and deforestation falls

by Benson Rioba | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Monday, 18 April 2022 01:00 GMT

Forest authorities say Kenya's scheme to let farmers grow crops in forests has slashed illegal logging, as the country aims for 10% of its land in trees by the end of the year

Kenya wants to increase tree cover from 7% to 10% by end of year


Farmers in forests make extra income, drive off illegal loggers


Some farmers are frustrated by limits on what they can grow

LARI, Kenya, April 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Surrounded by tall, spindly trees in western Kenya's Uplands Forest, Margret Njoki and her daughter dig up a row of potatoes, their hands moving rhythmically in time with one another.

Along with the plot Njoki cultivates at home in the nearby town of Lari, this quarter acre (0.1 hectare) of forest land she leases from the government means she can double her yield of kale and potatoes.

In return, the 41-year-old produce seller agreed to plant and raise the trees growing among her crops, in a national scheme designed to curb illegal logging while giving farmers living near protected forests an alternative source of income.

"If it were not for this land I was allocated, I would be seriously struggling to raise my three kids since I am single," said Njoki, adding she no longer has to buy vegetables from other farmers to stock her market stand.

"Now I can comfortably pay my children's school fees and I sell vegetables from my own farm, thus increasing my profits."

While other countries fight to keep farmers out of their forests, Kenya sees small-scale farming on forest land as an essential pillar of its commitment to have 10% of the country covered with trees by the end of this year.

Just over 7% of Kenya is forested, and in its budget, announced on April 7, the government said it would allocate 10 billion Kenyan shillings ($87 million) for forest conservation over the next financial year.

Farmers working in forests act as a deterrent to illegal loggers, say forest authorities. And because communities make extra money from their forest plots, they are less likely to collude with loggers targeting protected indigenous trees.

As a result, some authorities say they have seen a big drop in illegal logging - including Isaac Waweru, forest station manager for Uplands Forest, who said unauthorised tree-cutting in the Lari area has fallen by half over the past five years.

"Most of the logging was done in collaboration with communities living near the forest, since they knew the terrain well," he said.

"But when we give community members a piece of fertile forest (to cultivate), they can't risk being thrown out by aiding illegal logging. In fact, they have turned into defenders of the forest."

Scientists say protecting forests is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to curb climate change because trees suck from the atmosphere carbon dioxide, the main gas heating up the planet.

But some critics of Kenya's community conservation scheme say limitations on what can be grown in forests and for how long makes the programme unfair to farmers.

The government also needs to go further in educating farmers on the benefits of tree conservation, so they buy into the programme fully, said Dominic Walubengo, director of the Nairobi-based Forest Action Network (FAN).

"Before giving farmers land to till, they should be sensitised on why they are being allowed into the forest, why is it important for them to adequately tend to the trees, to give them a sense of belonging," he said.
TREES FOR TIMBER

According to the most recent government estimates, Kenya loses about 12,000 of its 4.6 million hectares of forest land each year due to a combination of rising demand for wood fuel and charcoal, a growing population, the spread of infrastructure and the conversion of forest into commercial farmland.

Kenyan farmers have been able to lease land in forests since the Plantation Establishment and Livelihood Improvement Scheme, commonly known as PELIS, was introduced under the 2005 Forest Act.

But the programme only started gaining ground after 2016, when an updated forest act gave the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) more leeway to encourage communities to use forests sustainably, said Julius Kamau, Kenya's chief conservator of forests.

For 500 shillings a year - a tenth of what it usually costs to lease farmland - farmers get a parcel of forest to use for growing crops, keeping bees or dairy animals, and other agricultural activities.

Under the deal, farmers also help raise trees, mainly exotic fast-growing species such as cypress and pine, from seedlings provided by the KFS, which later sells the trees for timber.

After three to five years, when the trees have reached maturity, farmers either leave the PELIS programme or move to a new patch of forest cleared by the KFS to cultivate and replant.

Nganga Muigai, another farmer living in Lari, has been growing potatoes and kale inside Uplands Forest for the past two years, and said he has heard of fewer incidents of illegal logging and muggings in the area in recent years.

"This is because the forest is so busy," he said, pointing to three women walking behind a donkey pulling a cart filled with sacks of grass.
CROP LIMITATIONS

There are no public records to show how much forest land is currently being farmed under PELIS, and the KFS did not respond to requests for that information.

A 2018 parliamentary report noted that the KFS had by then allocated more than 23,600 hectares of forest to the programme.

Assistant chief conservator of forests Jerome Mwanzia said the KFS plans to allocate an additional 10,000 hectares between now and 2028.

Walubengo, the conservationist, said schemes like PELIS will have limited success unless the government does more to show communities the benefits of preserving forests.

He has heard of farmers who are reluctant to move to a different plot uprooting mature crops and leaving only young plants, so it looks like they need more time to harvest.

That results in their crops competing with the growing trees for nutrients, he explained.

Waweru at the Uplands Forest Station said the contracts signed give the KFS the power to repossess the land if a farmer tries to stay past the agreed time-frame.

In Lari, farmer Muigai said the programme could do more to lift up livelihoods if it focused as much on the needs of farmers as it does on protecting trees.

He pointed to the rule that says farmers can cultivate only short-term, low crops, because taller crops, like maize, can block sunlight from growing tree seedlings and interfere with their roots.

While he has benefited from PELIS, "if the KFS would be kind enough to let us grow maize for food and animal fodder, we would be grateful," he added.

Related stories:

Armed with phones and seeds, jobless Kenyans tackle illegal logging

Kenyan villagers tap traditional wisdom to save native trees and water

'We have history': Saving Kenya's last sacred forests

($1 = 115.2000 Kenyan shillings)

(Reporting by Benson Rioba, Editing by Jumana Farouky and Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

French election: What exactly is Marine Le Pen's stance on Russia and Vladimir Putin?

By Alasdair Sandford • Updated: 18/04/2022 - 08:26

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 24, 2017.

- Copyright Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Marine Le Pen's comments in an interview in early February this year were particularly forthright: "I do not believe AT ALL that Russia wishes to invade Ukraine," she said.

The remarks were also rather unfortunate, given that barely a fortnight later Vladimir Putin sent thousands of troops, amassed on Ukraine's border, into the country.

Russian bombardments have since flattened towns and cities, and there have been multiple reports of Russian soldiers murdering, torturing and raping civilians.

The challenger to Emmanuel Macron in next Sunday's French presidential run-off said recently that she finds critics' accusations that she is too close to Moscow tantamount to a "particularly unfair trial", insisting she has only ever "defended France's interests".

However, the candidate from the far-right has openly expressed her admiration for the Russian leader in the past and has consistently defended Moscow's foreign policy.

France election: Five reasons why the Macron-Le Pen face-off will look very different this time

2017: 'I support Putin's policies'

In an unprecedented move, in March 2017 the Russian president met with a candidate for the French presidency in Moscow in the run-up to the race for the Elysée that spring.

The meeting between Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen at the Kremlin reignited fears of Russian support for far-right groups in Europe.

The then "Front National" candidate had already sought party financing from a Russian bank — the loan is still being paid off — and repeated her intention to lift quickly EU sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea.

In an interview with the BBC, Le Pen tied her political colours firmly to the mast, citing as her inspirations the newly elected US president as well as the Russian leader.

"The big political lines that I stand up for are the big lines which Mr Trump stands up for, which Mr Putin stands up for," she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 24, 2017.

Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File

Le Pen also blamed tensions with the West firmly on the US and NATO, which she accused of arming countries on Russia's border.

"Ukraine is part of Russia's sphere of influence, it's a fact," she said. "If you're trying to say that Russia poses a military danger to European countries, I think you're mistaken in your analysis."

France should leave NATO's allied command, she argued. "NATO was created precisely to fight the USSR. Today there is no USSR."

Russia, Le Pen went on, didn't "deserve to be treated with prejudice", as it "hasn't led any campaigns against European countries, or against the US".

US intelligence and an official investigation concluded that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential election with the aim of boosting Trump's candidacy. For several years Moscow has also been accused of interference and spreading disinformation in European elections.

"Russia is going broadly in the right direction," Le Pen replied in the 2017 interview when asked whether Putin had done more harm than good, citing his intervention in Syria which was "positive for the security of the world".

"What I notice is that Vladimir Putin's government must at least please the Russians enough to be re-elected regularly in the country's elections," she said.

Elections in Russia since Putin came to power have regularly been criticised by human rights groups and international organisations as being neither free nor fair, while prominent opponents of the president have been barred from standing.

France election: Macron and Le Pen battle for two separate visions of country's role within Europe
'There was no invasion of Crimea!'

The previous month, in February 2017, Marine Le Pen was asked about her admiration and respect for Vladimir Putin.

"The Russian nation is a great nation, it has made its choice whether we like it or not. Is Russia a danger to France? Reply: no. Should Russia be an ally for France? Reply: yes. Same thing for the United States," she told CNN.

Le Pen clashed with interviewer Christiane Amanpour over Ukraine's "Maidan Revolution" and Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014.

"There was a coup d'état in Ukraine," she said. "There was an agreement between different nations, and the next day, this agreement was broken, and a certain number of people took power."

The Maidan protests followed President Yanukovych's sudden decision to ditch a political and free trade agreement with the European Union approved by Ukraine's parliament, under pressure from Moscow. After deadly protests in February 2014, the president fled the country and was formally removed from office by the parliament.

Russia responded by sending forces to annex Crimea, and backing separatists in eastern Ukraine.

"But there was no invasion of Crimea! Listen, you have to stop talking nonsense!" Le Pen told CNN in the 2017 interview.

"Crimea was Russian. Ok? Crimea has always been Russian... It was given by the Soviet Union... The population feels Russian. The population is Russian. The population decided by a crushing majority to return to Russia's bosom."

The 2014 referendum in Crimea, when people voted to rejoin Russia, was not recognised by most countries. A UN General Assembly resolution was passed by a large majority declaring the vote invalid and affirming Ukraine's territorial integrity.

2022: 'Russia has no desire to invade Ukraine'

In February this year, Marine Le Pen was interviewed again by the BBC, at a time when Russia had spent months building up troops on Ukraine's borders. US intelligence and President Joe Biden had warned months earlier that Putin intended to invade.

But the presidential candidate, once again running for the Elysée under the "Rassemblement National" ("National Rally") banner, repeated that she wanted to see Russia as an ally of France.

As in 2017, she blamed NATO military pressure for the tensions between Moscow and the West.

"Today the United States is pushing Ukraine to join NATO with the aim of deploying armed forces on Russia's border, so the Russians are retaliating, putting forces at their borders with Ukraine," she said.

"I defend the sovereignty of all countries, therefore I defend the sovereignty of Ukraine. But... I do not believe AT ALL that Russia wishes to invade Ukraine," Le Pen said, when pushed on how she would respond if Moscow did send in the troops.

She would not be drawn on whether sanctions should be imposed in the event of an invasion. "I don't think Russia has the least desire to invade Ukraine. But if it did so, naturally I would defend Ukraine's sovereignty, just as I defend the sovereignty of France," she repeated.
'An alliance with Russia'

Russia is barely mentioned in the 13-page section on defence that forms part of Marine Le Pen's presidential manifesto.

The candidate confirms that taking France out of NATO's military command structure would be a priority. A new relationship would be sought with the United States which "does not always behave like an ally of France". Her government would end joint weapons programmes with Germany.

In contrast, Moscow is once more considered an important future partner.

"An alliance will be sought with Russia on some essential topics: European security which can't exist without her, the struggle against terrorism which she has assured with more consistency than all other powers, the convergence of the treatment of big regional dossiers affecting France (eastern Mediterranean, North and central Africa, the Gulf/Middle East and Asia in particular)," the manifesto says.

"Le Pen does not specify what military threats France faces, and barely mentions Russia. This perhaps reflects the ambiguity of her relationship with Vladimir Putin," says a report for the think-tank the Centre for European Reform (CER) on what a Le Pen presidency would mean for Europe.

French election: Thousands protest against far-right ahead of presidential run-off
What has Le Pen said since Russia invaded Ukraine?

There is little doubt that Marine Le Pen was somewhat wrong-footed by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

This month she has modified some of her remarks on Vladimir Putin, renouncing any military "entente" with Moscow.

On April 4 she talked of "war crimes" in Ukraine after the discovery of the bodies of hundreds of civilians in the Kyiv region. But at the end of March, Le Pen refused to class Putin as a "war criminal" because "you don't negotiate peace by insulting one of the two parties".

The far-right candidate remains opposed to an energy embargo against Moscow, because of the probable impact on French people's consumer spending power.

Speaking on France's Europe 1 radio a few days before the first round of the election, she criticised EU sanctions — which included a ban on Russian coal imports — as being designed to "protect the interests of the financial markets and the real profiteers from the war". "All these sanctions have the result of hitting our companies and private individuals," she added.

The presidential challenger has said she is ready to deliver "elements of defence" to Ukraine — understood to mean non-lethal arms — but not heavy weapons which she argues would make France a "co-belligerent" on the side of Ukraine against Russia.

Outlining her diplomatic strategy on April 13, she called for a "strategic rapprochement" between NATO and Russia, once the war in Ukraine was "resolved by a peace treaty".

"Le Pen and her party colleagues in the European Parliament have consistently opposed sanctions on Russia. During this year’s campaign, even though she has criticised the invasion of Ukraine, she has also said that Putin could become an ally of France again if the war ended," says the CER report.

"If Le Pen were elected, there is a risk that she would veto sanctions or only apply them weakly, and France’s relations with most of its allies and partners would be shaken."

Additional sources • AFP

Tunisia: inspection of sunken fuel ship eases fears of environmental disaster

Divers report no leaks were detected from loaded vessel lying off the coast of Gabes city

The National
Apr 18, 2022

Inflatable barriers at the port of Gabes. Reuters

Divers have not discovered any leaks from a tanker loaded with 750 tonnes of fuel that sank off south-east Tunisia, raising hopes that it can be salvaged before causing an environmental disaster.

The Equatorial Guinea-flagged Xelo, which sank on Saturday in the Gulf of Gabes, has settled on its side at a depth of almost 20 metres, the Environment Ministry said.

“No leak has been detected,” it said after divers inspected the ship on Sunday.

Divers were accompanied by the ship's captain and engineer, said Mohamed Karray, spokesman for a court in Gabes city that is investigating the sinking.

The ship was travelling from the Egyptian port of Damietta to Malta when it requested permission to enter Tunisian waters on Friday evening because of bad weather.


Its seven-member crew were rescued from the ship on Saturday, after it began taking on water.

Transport Minister Rabie Majidi said rescue workers had checked during the operation that the ship's valves for loading and unloading its diesel cargo were closed. Divers ensured they were sealed and intact, he said.

The situation is not dangerous, the outlook is positive, the ship is stable because luckily it ran aground on sand
Tunisian Transport Minister Rabie Majidi

“The situation is not dangerous, the outlook is positive, the ship is stable because luckily it ran aground on sand,” Mr Majidi said on Sunday.

He said the priority was to pump out the diesel and prevent any spillage or pollution.

The Xelo is 58 metres long and nine metres wide, according to ship monitoring website vesseltracker.com.


Italy is sending a specialist ship for cleaning up marine pollution, along with a team of divers to assist the operation, an Italian official said.
READ MORE
Soaking up the sun, surf and sulphur at Tunisia's 'last free, wild place'

Protective booms have been placed around the ship to contain any spillage.

Tunisian Environment Minister Leila Chikhaoui visited the port of Gabes on Saturday to assess the situation.

Officials are investigating the itinerary of the tanker, which reportedly has Turkish and Libyan owners.

The Tunisia branch of the World Wildlife Fund has expressed concern about another “environmental catastrophe” in the region, an important fishing zone.

It said the area where the ship went down was a fishing ground for 600 fishermen.

The environmental group said the wider Gulf of Gabes provided employment for about 34,000 fishermen, who had been contending with chemical pollution for decades.

Russian Orthodox leader backs war in Ukraine, divides faith

Patriarch Kirill has angered many priests by echoing the language Vladimir Putin uses to justify the Ukraine invasion


By Jeanne Whalen

He leads his flock from a soaring, gilded cathedral built to celebrate Russia’s victory over Napoleon, where week after week the powerful head of the Russian Orthodox Church is working to ensure that the faithful are all in on their country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Whether warning about the “external enemies” attempting to divide the “united people” of Russia and Ukraine, or very publicly blessing the generals leading soldiers in the field, Patriarch Kirill has become one of the war’s most prominent backers. His sermons echo, and in some cases even supply, the rhetoric that President Vladimir Putin has used to justify the assault on cities and civilians.

“Let this image inspire young soldiers who take the oath, who embark on the path of defending the fatherland,” Kirill intoned as he gave a gilded icon to Gen. Viktor Zolotov during a service at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in mid-March. The precious gift, the general responded, would protect the troops in their battles against Ukrainian “Nazis.”

“Any war has to have guns and ideas,” said Cyril Hovorun, professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism at University College Stockholm. “In this war the Kremlin has provided the guns, and I believe the church is providing the ideas.”

In the process, Kirill has caused deep schisms in the global Orthodox Church, with priests in Ukraine, elsewhere in Europe and the United States condemning his support. Even dozens of lower-ranking clergy in Russia have broken with the 75-year-old patriarch, adding their signatures to an open letter decrying the invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, center, and Patriarch Kirill visit the newly constructed Orthodox cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces in June 2020. (Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin/Reuters)

Orthodox priests in Ukraine have gone much further. In an open appeal last week, more than 320 of them accused the patriarch of preaching “heresy” and asked global church leaders to bring him before a tribunal to decide whether he should be deposed.

“Kirill committed moral crimes by blessing the war against Ukraine and fully supporting the aggressive actions of Russian troops on the Ukrainian territory,” they wrote. “It is impossible for us to remain in any form of canonical submission to the Patriarch of Moscow.”

The patriarch and his communications office did not respond to The Washington Post’s requests for comment.

The online petition called Kirill a leading author of “one of the ideological foundations of this war,” a doctrine known as “Russkiy mir,” or “Russian world.” The concept — a constant theme in the patriarch’s sermons — posits that the people of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are one united civilization flowing from the 10th-century baptism of the Slavic tribes in Kyiv, which was then the center of lands known as Rus.

To some ears this dogma might sound peaceful and inclusive, but critics say Russia is using it to reassert dominance over territory it controlled during the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. Putin has embraced the doctrine in recent speeches, claiming that Ukraine has never really existed as a separate state and has historically belonged to lands led by Russia. Historians say that is flat-out wrong.

Signs of the church’s alignment with the state were on view at a service in northwest Moscow several days ago. Boxes decorated with Orthodox crosses requested donations for refugees from two regions of eastern Ukraine where Moscow has baselessly claimed that people are fleeing Ukrainian state oppression.

Not everyone at the service was buying the official church line.

“What is happening is a disaster for Russia and Ukraine,” said Olga, a 42-year-old therapist attending the service, who was too fearful to give her full name. “I realize that our silence is awful, but in fact many Russians are strongly against this war.”

She worries about the many repercussions: “Now we have to live with this for the rest of our lives, and probably even our grandchildren will be hated by Ukrainians. Because we are aggressors in the eyes of the whole world.”

The Orthodox Church was a dominant force in Russian life until the Bolshevik Revolution, when the Soviets heavily restricted the faith and purged many priests. A mini-revival of religion was allowed during World War II to inspire a “patriotic impulse” in society, explained Andrey Kordochkin, a Russian Orthodox priest in Madrid. But the state kept tight control.

Russia’s post-Soviet constitution restored religious freedom, sparking an upsurge in believers, with the share of adults identifying as Orthodox Christian rising from 31 percent to 72 percent between 1991 and 2008, according to the Pew Research Center. Only about 7 percent regularly attended church as of 2008, however.

The end of the Soviet period left an “ideological hole” in Russian society, a void that Hovorun said Kirill rushed to fill as he rose through the church ranks and became patriarch in 2009. He turned to the Russkiy mir doctrine, as did Putin five years later when he annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Kirill, an ally who once praised the early years of Putin’s rule as “a miracle of God,” did not speak out against the annexation.

His sermons since the war began in late February have repeatedly cast foreign enemies, not Russia, as the aggressors attempting to divide neighboring countries that he describes as “one people.”

“God forbid that the current political situation in fraternal Ukraine, which is close to us, should be aimed at ensuring that the evil forces that have always fought against the unity of Rus and the Russian Church gain the upper hand,” Kirill said days after Russia invaded.

Several days later, one of Kirill’s lieutenants circulated a letter asking churches to read a prayer beseeching God to “overthrow the plans” of “strangers speaking foreign tongues” who want to fight Russia.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill presides over a mass marking the holiday of the Annunciation on April 7. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images)

On April 3, Kirill gave a sermon at a cathedral on the outskirts of Moscow built for the armed forces. Its metal steps are made from German weaponry melted down after World War II. Its mosaics depict battle scenes.

“Most of the countries of the world are now under the colossal influence of one force, which today, unfortunately, opposes the force of our people,” Kirill said, apparently referring to the United States. “All of our people today must wake up, wake up, understand that a special time has come, on which the historical fate of our people may depend.”

Some Russian priests have adopted similar or even harsher language in their sermons, while bishops have pressured clergy not to openly oppose the war, according to religious scholar Sergei Chapnin, a former editor of the Moscow Patriarchate publishing house and now a senior fellow at the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University.

“Dozens of my friends in Russia, priests, they are saying, ‘We are trying to talk to our parishioners to say you cannot trust state propaganda.’ But this is private talks, not public, because of this pressure,” Chapnin said.

Still, some priests have spoken out, including one in the Russian city of Ryazan who was fired for his antiwar posts on social media. Another near the city of Kostroma was fined by authorities for his public dissent.

A backlash has also erupted in numerous parishes outside Russia that the Moscow patriarch oversees. One Russian Orthodox church in Amsterdam severed its ties last month and is seeking to join the branch of Orthodoxy based in Istanbul.

The head of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania, which is part of the Moscow Patriarchate, issued a bold statement against the war and said that Lithuanian believers would seek “greater church independence.”

“We strongly condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine and pray to God for its speedy end,” Metropolitan Innokenty of Vilna and Lithuania said in a statement. “As you have probably already noticed, Patriarch Kirill and I have different political views and perceptions of current events. His political statements about the war in Ukraine are his personal opinion.”

These ruptures are almost certain to grow if Kirill continues to defend the fighting. Many in the church will be listening for his words on April 24 as Orthodox Easter is celebrated.

Andriy Pinchuk, one of the Ukrainian priests calling for Kirill to be brought before a tribunal, hopes the patriarch will be stripped of his position. Even better, though not particularly feasible, Pinchuk allowed, would be for “Patriarch Kirill to be excommunicated from the church and anathema declared to him.”

David L. Stern in Ukraine and Mary Ilyushina in Latvia contributed to this report.

Israeli forces raid al-Aqsa Mosque for third time since start of Ramadan

Officers attempt to clear courtyards to allow Israeli settlers to enter the occupied East Jerusalem holy site

A man in seen praying at al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday (AFP)

By MEE staff
Published date: 18 April 2022 

Israeli forces stormed al-Aqsa Mosque for the third time since the beginning of Ramadan early on Monday, attempting to clear worshippers from courtyards to allow Israeli settlers to enter the occupied East Jerusalem holy site.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa said large numbers of officers had entered the area and snipers had been positioned on the roofs of the mosque and adjacent buildings.

People under the age of 25 were also prevented from entering the mosque.

Far-right Israeli activists and settler groups had announced plans to storm al-Aqsa this week in large numbers starting from Sunday to mark the Jewish Passover holiday.

The Islamic Waqf, a joint Jordanian-Palestinian trust that administrates the affairs of al-Aqsa, recorded more than 500 settlers who entered during this period.

Israeli forces first raided al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday. During a second raid on Sunday, hundreds of Israelis, protected by heavily armed forces, continuously stormed the courtyard of the mosque in different groups.

Several Palestinians were injured on Sunday and other detained by Israeli security forces.

Israeli troops wound 2 Palestinians in West Bank raid


FILE - Israeli army soldiers guard a section of Israel's separation barrier, in the West Bank village of Nilin, west of Ramallah, Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. Two Palestinian men were critically injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest incident in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, File)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops shot and wounded two Palestinians on Monday during clashes that broke out during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military said it arrested 11 Palestinians in operations across the territory overnight. In a raid in the village of Yamun, near the city of Jenin, the army said dozens of Palestinians hurled rocks and explosives at troops.

Soldiers “responded with live ammunition” toward “suspects who hurled explosive devices,” the military said. The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men were hospitalized after being critically wounded.

Israel has carried out a wave of arrest raids and other operations in recent weeks that it says are aimed at preventing further attacks after Palestinian assailants killed at least 14 people inside Israel. Two of the attackers came from in and around Jenin, which has long been a bastion of armed struggle against Israeli rule.

At least 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press count. Many had carried out attacks or were involved in clashes, but an unarmed woman and a lawyer who appears to have been a bystander were also among those killed.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state.

Tensions have run high in recent days, during the confluence of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the week-long Jewish holiday of Passover.

Palestinian protesters and Israeli police have clashed at a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Jordan and Egypt, which made peace with Israel decades ago and coordinate with it on security matters, have condemned its actions at the holy site. Jordan — which serves as custodian of the site — summoned Israel’s charge d’affaires in protest on Monday.

An Arab party that made history last year by joining Israel’s governing coalition on Sunday suspended its participation — a largely symbolic act that nevertheless reflected the sensitivity of the holy site, which is at the emotional heart of the century-old conflict.

Israel says security forces were forced to enter the compound after Palestinians stockpiled stones and other objects and hurled rocks in the direction of an adjacent Jewish holy site. The Palestinians and Arab states accused the police of storming the site in violation of longstanding arrangements known as the status quo.

Protests and clashes in and around the shrine last year helped fuel the 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas militant group that controls Gaza.

Al-Aqsa Mosque: Israeli raids and incursions explained

Middle East Eye looks at the history of Israeli incursions at the mosque and how Palestinian rights are continually violated

Israeli settlers and former lawmaker Yehuda Glick during a raid on al-Aqsa Mosque (Reuters/File photo)

By Huthifa Fayya
Published date: 15 April 2022 

Israeli settlers and far-right activists, nearly always protected by the police, enter al-Aqsa Mosque on an almost daily basis, showing complete disregard to the site's Palestinian Muslim administration and the thousands of worshippers who are usually at the site.

The controversial incursions have long been a cause of tensions and violence against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and beyond.

To Palestinians, they are viewed as part of a decades-old strategy by the Israeli state and right-wing groups to "Judaise" the city and rid it of its native Islamic and Christian Palestinian heritage.

To far-right Israeli groups, they are the first step to lay the foundation for the destruction of al-Aqsa and replace it with a Third Temple, which they believe will be built atop the mosque.

Here, Middle East Eye looks at the history of the Israeli incursions at al-Aqsa, and why they are controversial for Palestinians and Muslims.
What are Israeli incursions in al-Aqsa?

Palestinians refer to the unsanctioned entry of any Israeli into al-Aqsa Mosque complex as a settler incursion.

As part of an understanding between Jordan – the custodian of Islamic and Christian sites in Jerusalem – and Israel, non-Muslims are allowed to visit al-Aqsa under the supervision of the Waqf, a joint Jordanian-Palestinian Islamic trust that manages the affairs of the mosque.

For years, my life was al-Aqsa. Israel took that from meRead More »

The agreement stipulates that only Muslims are allowed to pray in it while Jews can perform prayer by the Western Wall. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities retain security control over the mosque.

However, Israel has long ignored this delicate arrangement, often referred to as the "status quo" and bypassed the Waqf.

In recent years, Israelis forces, settlers and high-profile politicians have repeatedly raided the mosque without Palestinian permission.

The incursions have at times led to large confrontations and subsequent Israeli crackdowns on Palestinians.

Before 2000, the Waqf controlled the visits of non-Muslims to the site through a booking system. This was rescinded by Israel after the Second Intifada, or uprising, which ended in 2005. Now, dozens of Israeli settlers and far-right activists tour the courtyard of the mosque almost on a daily basis, flanked by Israeli forces.
What do the Israeli far-right groups want?

There are several far-right groups, mostly religious-Zionists, that organise incursions at al-Aqsa Mosque.

They are sometimes referred to as the "Temple groups" and include organisations such as The Temple Institute and the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement.

Israelis refer to the incursions as the "ascension to the Temple Mount", with some demanding Israel assert full Jewish sovereignty over the site, allowing Jewish worship and ritual sacrifice to take place.

Israelis shout at Palestinian worshippers in al-Aqsa Mosque (Reuters/file)

Some also advocate for the destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque, where they believe two ancient Jewish temples once stood, to make way for a third temple.

Followers of other religious sects, mainly ultra-Orthodox Jews, prohibit such visits due to the holiness of the site in Jewish tradition.
What happens during the incursions?

The incursions are planned every day except Fridays and Saturday. In the past, settlers avoided entering the mosque during Muslim holidays, but this has changed in recent years.

Protected by heavily-armed police, the settlers enter the courtyards of the mosque in two different shifts to recite prayers, perform rituals and hold presentations to tour members.

The first tour is normally between 7:30am and 10:30am local time and the second is between 1pm and 2pm. There are no Muslim prayers at those times, and the mosque is normally nearly empty of worshippers.

Each tour lasts from 30 minutes to an hour, starting from the Moroccan Gate (Bab Al-Magharba) on the southwestern end of the complex.

Settlers then head towards the southeastern section, passing across the Qibli prayer hall with the silver dome, the main building on the site and from where congregational prayer is led. They then walk to the northeastern and western sections, before circling back to where they started and exit from Chain Gate (Bab al-Silsela).

In the past, tours used to last 10-15 minutes and start at Moroccan Gate and end at Chain Gate a few metres away. The tours have grown steadily over the years despite repeated objections from Palestinians.

To avoid tensions in the past, Israeli police have tried to stop Jewish visitors from praying at al-Aqsa, as non-Muslim prayer is a highly sensitive issue.

However, with no Israeli laws explicitly preventing Jews from doing so, this policy seems to have changed recently.

The Waqf has documented instances where prayers and rituals were carried out during the raids. In August 2021, the New York Times reported that the Israeli government had "quietly" been allowing Jewish prayer without publicising it.
When did the incursions start?

Raids on al-Aqsa Mosque started immediately after Israel occupied the eastern section of the city in 1967, along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Soldiers who captured the city entered the mosque courtyards on 7 June 1967 while raising the Israeli flag and banned Muslim prayer for a week.

In 1982, American-Israeli Alan Goodman, who had links to the violent pro-settler Kach movement, entered the compound with an automatic rifle and fired indiscriminately inside the Dome of the Rock, killing two Palestinians and wounding nine others.

In 1990, an Israeli group known as the "Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement" attempted to place a cornerstone for the Third Temple in the compound. Israeli forces responded with live fire to quell confrontations and protests by Palestinians, killing more than 20 and wounding at least 150.

Later on, the Israeli government authorised the opening of a tunnel to the Western Wall, under the foundations of the al-Aqsa complex, and continues to sponsor archaeological digs in the vicinity of the mosque operated by settler groups.

In September 2000, then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon stormed al-Aqsa Mosque, backed by hundreds of heavily armed officers. His visit, seen by Palestinians as highly provocative and insensitive to the sanctity of the mosque, sparked the five-year Second Intifada.

Citing security reasons, Israel revoked the Waqf's administration of visits by non-Muslims in the aftermath of the Intifada.

This opened the way to more organised tours by Israeli settlers and far-right activists, protected by police. From around 2017 onwards, the incursions became organised in the daily tour format they exist in today.


Dozens of people join each tour, with the number rising to hundreds on Jewish holidays, such as Passover, Purim, Jerusalem Day and others. For example, on Jerusalem Day in 2018, more than 1,600 settlers raided the mosque.

The number of visitors has grown steadily over the years. In 2009, 5,658 settlers entered the mosque in such tours. In 2019, just before the Covid pandemic, the number rose to 30,000, according to some estimates.
How do Palestinians view the incursions?

Palestinians say the incursions are an attempt by ultra-nationalists to claim religious ownership of the holy site and remove Palestinian culture and religion from al-Aqsa. The mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, is revered by Muslims globally and has become a symbol of Palestinian culture and existence.

Praying at the site is believed to bring greater reward, according to Islamic traditions, and Muslims usually save up for several years to visit the holy site. To many Palestinians, protecting it is both a religious and a national duty.

By allocating specific times for Israeli entries, and allowing them to pray there, Palestinians fear the groundwork is being layed to divide the mosque between Muslims and Jews, similar to how the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron was divided in the 1990s.

Israel's control of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, violates several principles under international law, which stipulates that an occupying power has no sovereignty in the territory it occupies and cannot make any permanent changes there.

A man waves the Palestinian flag in al-Aqsa Mosque. (Reuters/file)

To stop the incursions, Palestinians have long organised what is known as Ribat, a social and religious sit-in activity in which worshippers gather in the mosque for extended hours and even days.

The purpose of the Ribat is to populate the premises of the mosque at all times to prevent Israeli settlers from entering it, especially during Muslim holidays.

Israelis police have on multiple occasions raided al-Aqsa to clear it of worshippers participating in Ribat, particularly ahead of Jewish holidays.

The most recent raids were in May 2021, when Israeli forces used teargas, stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets inside the courtyards of the mosque during Ramadan, injuring hundreds.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

TURKEY'S WAR ON KURDISTAN

Turkey says its warplanes hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq

N. IRAQ,S. TURKEY ARE KURDISTAN
The military action was part of a long-running Turkish campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party.  PKK/YPG

By REUTERS
Published: APRIL 18, 2022

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference following a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Turkey, December 14, 2020
(photo credit: PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)

Turkish warplanes, helicopters and drones hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq in an air and land operation that targeted facilities ranging from camps to ammunition stores, Turkey's defense ministry said on Monday.

The military action was part of a long-running Turkish campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, both regarded as terrorist groups by Ankara.


The operation focused on the Iraqi regions of Metina, Zap, and Avasin-Basyan, the ministry said in a statement. Alongside the air operation, commandos and special forces also participated, both by land and air.

"Our operation is continuing successfully as planned," the state-owned Anadolu news agency quoted Defence Minister Hulusi Akar as saying. "The targets identified in the first phase have been captured."

No information on casualties was given.

A convoy of Kurdish peshmerga fighters drive through Arbil after leaving a base in northern Iraq, on their way to the Syrian town of Kobani, October 28, 2014. 

(credit: REUTERS/AZAD LASHKARI)

The action, called "Operation Claw Lock," aimed to "prevent terror attacks" and ensure border security following an assessment that the PKK was planning a large-scale attack, the ministry added.

Artillery also fired on militant targets in the military action, it said.

Turkey regularly launches air strikes into northern Iraq, a region into which it has repeatedly sent commandos, to support its offensives.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which in the past was mainly focused in southeast Turkey.

Turkish officials privately say they believe Baghdad is firmly on their side in fighting the PKK, which the European Union and United States have also designated a terrorist group.

DNA Explainer: What is Neptune Cruise Missile that destroyed Russia's largest warship

dnawebdesk@gmail.com (DNA Web Desk) 

In another big blow to Russia, after the detention of Viktor Medvedchuk, longtime confidant to President Vladimir Putin, Russia's largest warship has been destroyed in the Black Sea. The Russian Defence Ministry has confirmed the destruction of the warship. The Russian Defence Ministry said that all the crew members stationed on the warship have been evacuated safely.

© Provided by DNA
Usually, there are around 500 crew members on board for a Slava-class cruiser like the Moskva. There have been no updates on injuries or fatalities.

Russia's flagship Black Sea fleet named 'Moskva', a guided-missile cruiser, sunk after what a Ukrainian official claimed was a cruise missile attack off the coast of Odesa. Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the vessel with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard the Moskva but no attack.

Governor of Ukraine's Odessa Oblast, declared that the cruiser had been struck by two Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles that had been indigenously developed in Ukraine. The current status of the cruiser remains unclear as to how much damage it has sustained.

What are Neptune missiles?

The Neptune cruise missile is a Ukrainian-manufactured anti-ship missile, fired from shore to ship.

The Neptune cruise missile that hit the Russian fleet was developed by Ukraine and entered service in August 2020.

RK-360MT Neptune are mobile anti-ship cruise missile capable of destroying targets within a range of 300 km.

Weighing 870 kg and carrying a 150kg warhead, Neptune missiles are capable of destroying targets of up to 5,000 tons.

Neptune has a range of around 300 kilometres (186 miles) and can carry warheads of up 150 kilograms (over 330 pounds).

Neptune's design, which is based on the Soviet Kh-35 anti-ship missile, is designed to defeat surface warships.

Ukraine's indigenously made Neptune cruise missile also transports vessels with a displacement of up to 5,000 tons.



The Neptune cruise missile uses a radar-homing guidance to home in on enemy ships.

The 16-ft long engine-powered missiles can travel at speeds of up to 900 km/h, at heights of between 9 and 30ft above surface.

The weapons, which are able to be mounted on ships, by land and by air launchers, were formally adopted in August, 2020.

One Neptune division normally has six USPU-360 launchers capable of firing a salvo of the 24 anti-ship missiles.

The Neptune cruise missile was first revealed in the 'Weapons and Security 2015' exhibition in Kyiv.

About Moskva

Moskva (Moscow), originally known as Slava (glory), is the lead ship of the Slava-class guided missile cruisers, also known as Project 1164 Atlant.

Moskva missile cruiser was built indigenously by the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and still in service with the Russian Navy.

Slava was laid down at a shipyard in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, a major shipbuilding centre on the Black Sea, known as Nikolaev in Russian in 1976.

The cruiser was commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1983. Decommissioned in 1990, it was reinstated as Moskva by the Russian Navy in 2000.

Moskva missile cruiser is reportedly armed with 16 anti-ship Vulkan cruise missiles, which have a range of at least 700 kilometres.

It is also said to carry anti-torpedo and mine-torpedo weapons. The cruiser is also equipped with a long-range S-300 surface-to-air missile air defence system.

PAKISTAN
The conspiracy concoction
Fahd Husain

Published April 16, 2022

THE military has said unequivocally there was no conspiracy by the United States to bring about a regime change in Pakistan. The statement by the DG ISPR Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar has undercut the very foundation of the narrative that former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been peddling since the last few weeks to explain his ouster from power.

So what happens now?

The diplomatic cable issue has been officially demystified. It was a routine cable written by the then ambassador to the US Asad Majeed detailing a meeting with an American official. There was nothing extraordinary about it except perhaps for the tough language used by the official. The normal response for Pakistan was to issue a démarche, which it did. Yet someone convinced Imran Khan the cable could be used (and abused) to stitch together a Bhutto-esque nationalist narrative to explain the government’s imminent ouster. It was as bad an advice as Khan could get. What was worse was the fact that he accepted it.


Who gave Khan this advice? We do not know this for certain, yet. What we do know is: (a) The only person in the PTI cabinet who had access to the cable was the foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi (b) Whoever among Khan’s closest advisers peddled this dangerous and false narrative had to have done this after reading the cable. He or she could not have read the cable — would not have had access to it — unless the foreign minister permitted this access (c) The FM, in turn, would have had to be convinced of the conspiracy aspect in order to agree for the cable to be used for a political narrative. But could he, really? Qureshi is far too experienced in these matters to not figure out there was nothing extraordinary about the cable (d) Yet, Qureshi not only went along with this cooked-up theory, he peddled it vociferously while all the time knowing (how could he not?) that not only was he fanning a concoction, but was doing so at the risk of great damage to Pakistan’s diplomacy and national interest (e) Why would he do such a thing? Why did he not counter this outrageous advice to Khan? Why did he not stop Khan from pursuing this untruth?


Imran Khan and his party are now stumped. The entire edifice of the conspiracy narrative — which led them to commit the grave sin of even violating the Constitution — has been demolished by the presentation of facts by the military spokesman. This has consequences: (a) The military was forced to come clean because of the dangerous level to which Khan and his party were inflaming the political environment through this concoction, and encouraging (if not actively promoting) a campaign on social media against the military leadership (b) Khan may now have to-rethink the conspiracy concoction and go back to the drawing board to conjure up something afresh that does not force to him to go head-on with the military. This would mean swallowing his pride (c) Or he could just double down on the conspiracy concoction regardless of the consequences (d) This would mean he will have to now basically say that the military is wrong, and he is right. He has no middle options. This would amount to taking a huge gamble because the government can very easily now prove — through a judicial commission or otherwise — the cable contains no conspiracy (e) Khan’s gamble would also entail choosing a collision course with the military because he will now have to proclaim that the military is not telling the truth.


Has Khan painted himself into a corner? He may not have any other option but to keep barrelling ahead with this dangerous and faulty narrative regardless of the facts. He has made his entire politics hostage to this one concoction and left himself very little space to pivot onto some other strategy. (a) This would bring into question something very crucial: what do you do with a populist leader who refuses to accept facts as presented by the state itself, and who prefers to build his politics on an illusion that is deeply damaging to the country and its vital interests? (b) In response, the state will then be forced to counter the PTI conspiracy concoction narrative with all the resources at its disposal in order to bury the falsehood under the weight of overwhelming facts (c) This would be disadvantageous to PTI’s politics as it would mean the party — in order to defend itself — will be forced to push the falsehood even more aggressively, thereby digging itself further into a hole. At some point, the diminishing returns from such a strategy will start to extract a cost. If you have the entire weight of the government, and state, and facts, arrayed against you and the only weapon you have is a false, concocted and discredited theory, you better be ready for the cost.


The new government could not have asked for a better gift from the PTI. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has many options: (a) Order an inquiry or constitute a commission and take all steps necessary to unveil the truth about the cable and further discredit the conspiracy concoction (b) Order various irregularities done in the PTI government to be brought into the public domain (the Toshakhana scandal is already out) and bring charges wherever needed. This would severely damage the PTI’s ‘honesty and anti-corruption’ narrative and force the party on the defensive (c) Re-align the relationship with the establishment while Khan continues to damage his ties with them.

Illusions and delusions, if not punctured in time, lead to great debacles.

The writer is a journalist & political commentator.
Twitter: @fahdhusain

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2022

A new era of containment?

The security architecture of the past 50 years is in ruins. Robert Misik maps a policy for the new cold war.

ROBERT MISIK 

18th April 2022
SOCIAL EUROPE

In Milan, unlike in Moscow, one can protest against the war (VILTVART/shutterstock.com)

‘I erred.’ With these frank words—not exactly typical for a politician—the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, summed up his assessment of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and his adherence over the years to a policy of co-operation with him, including as a former social-democrat foreign minister and deputy prime minister. Inviting a debate, Steinmeier asked: ‘Were therefore the goals wrong?’ The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, gave his own implicit verdict when he excluded Steinmeier from joining a solidarity visit to Kyiv by Polish and Baltic-state leaders last Wednesday.

February 24th, the day of the invasion of Ukraine, darkened our entire existence. It has been blackened further by the war crimes and atrocities by an uninhibited army which have followed. These dramatic events present social democrats and the progressive left with the painful task of rethinking past policies and, quickly, developing future ones.
Putin’s people

In what way could a social-democratic policy towards the Putin regime have ‘erred’? After all, social democrats are not usually despisers of freedom, fans of dictators or trivialisers of totalitarianism.

In the circles of radical, post-communist leftists, true, it is not uncommon to portray the west as the actual aggressor over Ukraine and Putin’s despotic Russia as victim. This stems partly from a crazy ‘anti-imperialism’ (= anti-Americanism) and partly from a nostalgia for the Soviet Union which somehow still imagines the once KGB man in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik as a ‘communist’.

On the European far right, meanwhile, Putin has absolutely played the hero. His image is that of standing against the mainstream, against the (Jewish) philanthropist George Soros and the United States, advocating a hard conservative masculinity which rejects ‘gender ideology’, gay marriage and all that liberal, modernist stuff. The man out to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine is the spiritual godfather of all right-wing radicals and neo-Nazis in Europe.

Liberal way of life

Social democrats and left-liberal progressives, however, were not for these reasons temporarily blind to the danger of a neo-imperial reassertion by the strongman in the Kremlin. After all, social democrats not only uphold the institutions of democracy and the liberal way of life. They have historically been among the fiercest opponents of Stalinism and virtually all kinds of authoritarianism—it’s in their DNA.

It was people like Willy Brandt—mayor of west Berlin when the wall was erected—who carried the torch of freedom. Yet it was also the social democrats in Europe who, after the initial, ossifying years of the cold war, and the associated policy of ‘containment’, imposed a second approach. This was diplomacy, co-operation and a peace policy, which it was hoped would progressively outlaw the worst human-rights violations.

Known in Germany as the Entspannungspolitik (the politics of easing tensions), this doctrine oddly combined moral elements—‘dialogue’ and ‘human rights’—and a more coldly-calculating Realpolitik. The experience of détente was that co-operation could, in gradual steps, reduce the threat of (ultimately nuclear) war, reverse the calcification of regimes and initiate change for the better.

At least, that is the story that was told afterwards. Even at the time, though, it had its questionable aspects—such as that if one sat for so many hours with those unalterably in power one somehow forgot that opposition figures, dissidents and human-rights activists should be more natural interlocutors.

Pushing back democracy

In the 1990s, liberal, pluralist democracy seemed to have won everywhere in Europe. And in the Russia of Boris Yeltsin, who had advocated multi-party democracy and resigned from the Communist Party Politburo before becoming president, things were moving in the right direction—albeit amid chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A vibrant civil society emerged, with party pluralism, free speech and reasonably intact constitutional arrangements.

Putin and his gang of St Petersburg friends and KGB types, however, began to push back on democracy and freedom from the day he took over from Yeltsin—December 31st, 1999. Putin had a narrative for this: the Soviet implosion had been a disaster, the turmoil of the 1990s was the enemy, Russians were fed up with the chaos and they wanted a strong state, he declared.

He gradually fleshed out this narrative ideologically. An empire would be rebuilt under the guise of legtitimately reintegrating the former Soviet components of Russia’s ‘near abroad’. This was allied to ‘manly’ leadership and the values of Christian Orthodoxy—patriarchy supported by the patriarchate. To this Putin added a permanent state of legitimate offence, portraying himself as the avenger of a Russia betrayed by the very west it had rescued from Nazism in the Great Patriotic War—no more to be trusted than in Soviet times.

The ‘error’

So what exactly was the ‘error’ of which Steinmeier spoke? It was one shared, it should be said, by many in western politics. Some had developed some sympathy for elements of the Putin narrative—the portrayal of a disordered Russia (perceived as a fragmented nation full of conflicts) needing ‘strong rule’.

At the same time, his new, ‘great Russian’ state philosophy, associated with ‘traditional values’, orthodoxy, nationalist exceptionalism and so on, was taken for ideological claptrap, meaningless storytelling. In the era of political ‘spin doctors’, the west had become accustomed to thinking that talk should not be taken too seriously. So it overlooked how the Russian leadership was developing a fascist ideology in a process of self-radicalisation.

Moreover, many trusted that economic entanglement and globalisation would make war impossible: the price of a new bloc confrontation would be too high. And what alternatives were there? In the absence of evident alternatives, people tended to bury their heads in the sand. Even when Russia began to fund fifth columns of aggressive right-wing populists and other purveyors of misinformation and conspiracy theories, all over the west, this was ignored for a very long time.
Future policy

This question of the ‘error’ and its causes is very important. For the foundations of a future policy toward Russia are being laid now.

We do not know, of course, what the outcome of the war will be. Russia could win and annex Ukraine and, together with other satellites such as Belarus, establish a new imperial bloc bordering directly on the west. Or it could ‘lose’—which would still leave Russia occupying part of Ukraine in the east and south.

But one thing is very likely: Russia will remain under Putin’s control, a new ‘iron curtain’ will descend and an aggressive, imperial power will remain not only a source of military threat to its immediate neighbors but also an opponent of the democratic way of life. A return to the status quo ante, of co-operation or even a new kind of détente—we can probably rule all that out. There will be no warm welcome for a war criminal any time soon.

The new ‘containment’

Rather, we shall have to adjust to a new policy of ‘containment’—a policy that pushes Russia back, isolates and weakens it. Russia’s neighbours, in the west, in the south (such as Ukraine or Georgia) and even in central Asia (Kazakhstan and so on), will turn away in the face of the threat it represents, sooner rather than later.

The west, especially the European Union, has been presented by Putin in recent years as weak and exhausted—even degenerate. And this has been echoed within by some who would say with a shrug: ‘After all, we have enough conflicts and enemies of the democratic way of life to deal with at home.’

But democratic elections, deliberation rather than violence in politics, the rule of law, human rights, a state that respects individuality and a pluralism of values in which everyone can be happy according to his or her preference—these are not weaknesses but the mutually-reinforcing buttresses of a civilised society. The EU should not be afraid to stress with self-confidence the strength of this liberal outlook.

Who says that the soft power of a democratic Europe cannot radiate far beyond the Caucasus? Maybe this is the moment for an ambitious foreign policy on behalf of a ‘European world’—an alternative to Putin’s Russkyj Mir. In such a Weltanschauung Europe sees itself as a zone of social welfare and a bulwark of freedom, democracy and pluralism—in short, ‘social’ as well as ‘democratic’.

In any case, one should quickly come out of shock. Because if the ‘error’ so many made in the west was simply not thinking three moves ahead in the political chess game (and ignoring the associated worst-case scenario), then this should not be committed a second time—forcing a resignation.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal



ROBERT MISIK is a writer and essayist living in Vienna. His Das Große Beginnergefühl: Moderne, Zeitgeist, Revolution (Suhrkamp-Verlag) will appear in May. He publishes in many newspapers and magazines, including Die Zeit and Die Tageszeitung. Awards include the prize for economic journalism of the John Maynard Keynes Society.