BLOGONITY

U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments this week claiming Ukraine was responsible for starting the three-year conflict with Russia and calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” drew criticism from congressional Democrats and pushback from some members of the Republican Party. “Clearly, Vladimir Putin is responsible for this war,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis told reporters. “His decision has resulted in the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of untold numbers of Ukrainians. He owns responsibility for this war. I don’t know how more plainly it can be stated.” Republican Senator John Kennedy told reporters he believes Russia started the war. “I also believe, through bitter experience, that Vladimir Putin is a gangster. He’s a gangster with a black heart,” he added. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to criticize Trump when speaking to reporters Wednesday. “The president speaks for himself,” Thune said. “What I want to see is a peaceful result, a peaceful outcome. And I think right now, there’s a negotiation going on, and let’s see where that ultimately leads.” Republican Senator Josh Hawley said Trump has blamed Russia “as well, and threatened to sanction Russia if they didn’t come to the negotiating table.” The conflict between Trump and Zelenskyy comes as U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday to meet with Zelenskyy. Ukraine was not included in peace talks that began this week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between the United States and Russia. Trump brushed off Ukraine’s complaints at not being included in negotiations, saying Tuesday, “You never should have started it.” Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, claiming eastern parts of the country needed to be liberated. U.S. officials say nearly half a million Ukrainian civilians have died in the war and at least 124,000 Ukrainian soldiers. After Trump’s comment, seeming to blame the Ukrainian leader for starting the war, Zelenskyy responded on social media that Trump lives in a “disinformation space” influenced by Russia. Trump responded to Zelenskyy on Truth Social on Wednesday: “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle. A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.” Hawley … “Trump’s comments on Ukraine draw mixed reaction from US lawmakers” →

President Donald Trump on Wednesday repeated a claim that the United States has spent $350 billion on Ukraine’s war — a figure that far eclipses the amount recorded by the Department of Defense and the interagency oversight group that tracks U.S. appropriations to Ukraine. Since Russia’s illegal invasion in February 2022, the U.S. Congress has appropriated about $183 billion for Ukraine, according to the interagency oversight group that is charged with presenting reports to Congress. Of that, the Pentagon confirmed to VOA that the U.S. has sent $65.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and an additional $3.9 billion that Congress has authorized in military aid to Kyiv remains unspent. About $58 billion of the $183 billion in total aid for Ukraine was spent in the U.S., going directly toward boosting the U.S. defense industry, either by replacing old U.S. weapons given to Kyiv with new American-made weapons, by procuring new U.S.-made weapons for Kyiv or by making direct industrial investments. VOA asked the White House to clarify Trump’s comments, specifically seeking any documentation for the mathematical discrepancy. The White House replied by referring VOA back to the president’s comments. In a post Wednesday on his social media site Truth Social, Trump said, “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.” Zelenskyy on Wednesday told Ukrainian reporters the total cost of the war since February 2022 was about $320 billion. “One hundred and twenty billion of that comes from us, the people of Ukraine, the taxpayers, and $200 billion from the United States and the European Union,” Zelensky said. “This is the cost of weapons. This is the weapons package — $320 billion.” Trump, who has mentioned the $350 billion figure several times, also said in his Wednesday social media post: “The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.” The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a Germany-based nonprofit that tracks military, financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine, says European nations —specifically the EU, United Kingdom, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland — have allocated about $140 billion in total in aid for Ukraine, … “US figures do not support Trump claims on Ukraine spending” →

VOA Russian talked to experts after the U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on how to end the Ukraine war. They warned that this is only the beginning of negotiations that may last for some time and take several turns.  Exiled independent Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin compared the first meeting to “not even a warm-up of two boxers, but just a weigh-in ahead of the future bout.”  Ukrainian expert Volodymyr Fesenko noted that it should come as no surprise that Washington deems negotiations with Moscow more important at this stage than negotiations with Kyiv, as Russia is a nuclear power and will need to be persuaded to consider any compromises.  Click here for the full story in Russian.  …

Many Ukrainians are dealing with the reality of starting over after losing their homes in the war with Russia. One project helps them find new homes and jobs while assisting in the development of small villages. Lesia Bakalets reports from the Kyiv region. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets. …

President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia visited Kyiv Wednesday, a day after U.S.-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia. The diplomatic moves come as Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart lash out at each other over the war’s origins and plans to end it. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

GENEVA — The World Trade Organization said on Wednesday that discussions on trade tensions were “constructive,” after China accused the United States of imposing “tariff shocks” that could upend the global trading system. China condemned tariffs launched or threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump at a WTO meeting on Tuesday. Washington dismissed China’s comments as hypocritical. Trump has announced sweeping 10% tariffs on all Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to respond with retaliatory tariffs and to file a WTO dispute against Washington in what could be an early test of Trump’s stance towards the institution. The majority of the six countries that participated in the talks on trade turbulence, put on the agenda by China, raised concern about mounting tensions, but also called for restraint, said WTO spokesperson Ismaila Dieng in a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday. The United States, Nicaragua, Namibia, Malaysia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Russia took part in the discussions, which were part of broader talks on trade. The large majority “stressed the importance of upholding WTO principles and values and called for action to preserve the stability and effectiveness of the global trading system,” Dieng added. Two trade sources at the meeting told Reuters that some countries expressed deep concern about the ramifications of tariffs, while others criticized China for alleged market distortions. It is the first time that mounting trade frictions were formally addressed on the agenda of the watchdog’s top decision-making body, the General Council. ‘Tariff shocks’ “These ‘tariff shocks’ heighten economic uncertainty, disrupt global trade, and risk domestic inflation, market distortion, or even global recession,” China’s ambassador to the WTO, Li Chenggang, said at a closed-door meeting of the global trade body on Tuesday, according to a statement sent to Reuters. “Worse, the U.S. unilateralism threatens to upend the rules-based multilateral trading system.” U.S. envoy David Bisbee called China’s economy a “predatory non-market economic system” in response and accused it of violating and evading WTO rules. Negotiating tactic Some delegates said they saw China’s intervention as an attempt to show itself supporting WTO rules — a posture that can help China win allies in ongoing global trade negotiations. Disputes between the two top economies at the WTO long pre-date Trump’s arrival. Beijing has accused Washington of breaking rules while Washington says Beijing does not deserve its “developing country” status at the WTO. The Trump administration has announced plans to withdraw or disengage from other … “WTO holds ‘constructive’ talks after China condemns Trump tariffs” →

LONDON — Russia’s tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border three years ago this month, triggering the worst conflict on European soil since World War II. Ukraine has resisted the full-scale invasion largely thanks to the support of the United States and Europe.  But on the frozen front lines, the war grinds on — and Russia’s forces are slowly edging forward.   “Every day, it pushes back the Ukrainian front line somewhere by a kilometer or so. My judgment is that it could continue to do that over the rest of this year,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.  “We must remember this is a terrible war. My judgment is that over a million people have been killed or seriously wounded. Now the balance of casualties is probably in Ukraine’s favor. A figure of 700,000 or 800,000 Russian casualties seems credible to me. President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy says Ukraine has only suffered 48,000 killed. That seems implausibly low to me,” Barry told Agence France-Presse.  Europe excluded  As the war enters its fourth year, Europe and Ukraine fear they are being excluded from deciding their own fate. Behind the scenes, the geopolitical forces that are shaping the conflict appear to be changing fast.   Russia and the United States began peace talks this week in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine and Europe were not invited.   “There will be some very significant alarm in European capitals about what might be discussed with regards to the security of their continent, their whole region,” said David Blagden, associate professor of international security at the University of Exeter.  “One sort of potentially really bad outcome for European capitals is to discover that the Americans have basically put them on the hook for attempting to do some sort of peacekeeping mission in Ukraine or whatever without their say-so,” he told Reuters.   Peacekeepers  Britain and France have already said they may be willing to contribute to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, a requirement of an estimated 100,000 troops.   There are deep concerns over the potential risks of sending peacekeeping troops, according to Armida van Rij, head of the Europe program at London’s Chatham House.  “The U.S. seemed to have taken away NATO’s Article 5 protection [on collective self-defense] for any troops that would be put in Ukraine. That means that they would not be protected, so that deterrent effect is gone. We know … “Europe frozen out of peace talks as Russia’s war on Ukraine enters fourth year” →

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni visited Pope Francis in the hospital Wednesday and reported he was “alert and responsive” and full of good humor, despite his diagnosis of pneumonia and a complicated bronchial infection that has sidelined the 88-year-old pontiff for six days.   Meloni said she wanted to bring get-well wishes to the pope on behalf of the government and the entire nation. “We joked around as always. He has not lost his proverbial sense of humor,” she said in a statement issued by her office.   Meloni’s visit marked the first confirmed outside visitor known to have called on the pope, beyond his secretaries and medical team, since his admission Friday at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where popes have their own suite on the 10th floor.   The Vatican has said Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, was up, eating and had gotten out of bed after a tranquil night, a day after tests confirmed he had pneumonia in both lungs on top of asthmatic bronchitis.   The visit by Meloni appeared aimed at sending a reassuring message, especially to Italians who haven’t seen even a photograph of Francis since Friday.   The Italian premier, who came to power in 2022 with a message touting her Christian credentials, has referred in glowing terms to Pope Benedict XVI, who was a reference point for European conservatives like herself. She also has teamed up constructively with Francis on a campaign to reverse Italy’s low birth rate, though they don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on her government’s crackdown on migrants. Her visit came as prayers were pouring in for Francis’ recovery.   On Wednesday, Francis’ vicar for Rome urged all the faithful to devote an hour of silent prayer for the pope before evening vespers services, some visitors to Gemelli lit a candle in his honor and pilgrims who had planned to attend his weekly general audience came to St. Peter’s Square anyway to offer a prayer after it was cancelled. “I think many people are disappointed but I think more importantly we really have to pray for his health,” said Sister Charlene, a nun from Singapore who was in the piazza.   Francis also received another get-well wish from U.S. Vice President JD Vance, whom Francis has recently targeted in criticizing the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations of migrants. “Let’s all say a prayer for Pope Francis, who appears to have some serious … “Italian Premier Meloni visits Pope Francis in hospital, says he’s ‘alert and responsive’” →

VIENNA — Austria arrested a 14-year-old on Feb. 10 on suspicion of planning a militant attack on a Vienna train station, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday, calling the suspect an Islamic State supporter who became radicalized online. The announcement follows a knife attack in the southern town of Villach on Saturday in which a 23-year-old Syrian refugee is suspected of killing a teenager and wounding five people. That man was rapidly radicalized after watching Islamist videos on TikTok, Austrian authorities have said. “Domestic intelligence and the police have prevented a terrorist attack in Vienna,” the ministry said in a statement. “The suspect is 14 years old, an Austrian citizen with Turkish roots, and he became radicalized on the internet.” The ministry said he had been planning an attack on the Westbahnhof station, a striking mid-20th century building that is the departure point for lines that include a private train company’s service to cities such as Salzburg and Innsbruck. A search of the suspect’s home found numerous Islamist books as well as two knives, handwritten instructions for producing explosives to be used as a detonator for a bomb, as well as material including aluminum pipes that were intended to be used for bomb-making, the ministry said. “The Directorate for State Security and Intelligence received information that an initially unknown supporter of a terrorist organization was spreading stories and videos with Islamist ideas on several TikTok profiles,” the ministry said, describing how the investigation started. “After an intensive investigation the DSN was able to establish the identity of the IS supporter,” it said, without naming him. …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday the United States understands the needs for security guarantees for Ukraine, as he visited the country for talks with Ukrainian officials. Gen. Keith Kellogg told reporters in Kyiv that he was in Ukraine “to listen,” hear the concerns of Ukrainian leaders and return to the United States to consult President Trump. Kellogg said the United States wants the war in Ukraine to end, saying that would be good for the region and the world. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of an expected meeting with Kellogg that while U.S. officials have said there will be no U.S. troops deployed as part of any potential post-war peacekeeping mission, there are still other ways it can help, such as providing air defense systems. “You don’t want boots on the ground, you don’t want NATO,” Zelenskyy said. “Okay, can we have Patriots? Enough Patriots?” The discussions in Kyiv come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron hosting European leaders Wednesday for a second round of talks about the conflict and European support for Ukraine. Kellogg also met earlier this week with European leaders, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. Rubio said both Ukraine and Russia would have to make concessions to achieve peace. “The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters. No Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks. Zelenskyy objected to being excluded from the meeting, a position that drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump. “Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.” Russia began the war with its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy added Wednesday that while he has “great respect” for Trump, the American leader is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”   Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the U.S.-Russia negotiations. The United States and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict … “US envoy in Ukraine for talks following US-Russia meeting” →

As President Donald Trump’s administration launched intense diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, VOA Russian looks at how Washington uses different channels and different modes in building relationships with various partners, alternating messages they were delivering during the Munich Security Conference depending on who was the messenger and who was in the audience.  Click here for the full story in Russian.  …

The Voice of America visited Caracas to find out what alternatives businesses are using to continue selling, despite the challenges arising from the exchange rate gap in Venezuela.  Click here for the full story in Spanish.  …

STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Greta Thunberg and hundreds of other young activists cannot sue the state in a Swedish court over what they say is insufficient action against climate change. Activists filed a class action lawsuit in 2022 with a district court claiming the state violates their rights as laid out in the European Convention on Human Rights by not doing enough to limit climate change, nor to mitigate its effects. The district court in 2023 asked the Supreme Court to clarify whether a lawsuit of this kind can effectively be tried in a Swedish court, after the state requested the case be dismissed. “A court cannot decide that the Riksdag or the government must take any specific action. The political bodies decide independently on which specific climate measures Sweden should take,” the Supreme Court said in a statement on Wednesday. The currently around 300 plaintiffs, which call themselves the Aurora group, wanted the district court to order Sweden to do more to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. …

Russia shot down 21 Ukrainian drones late Tuesday, but a drone attack on an oil pumping station in southern Russia reduced oil supplies for Kazakhstan and the global market, Russian officials said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces said one of their drones struck and knocked out a North Korean self-propelled howitzer on the eastern front. “In Luhansk region, fighters of the 412th separate regiment of Nemesis drones struck a very rare M-1978 North Korean self-propelled artillery vehicle with a gun caliber of 170 mm,” the Ukrainian military posted on the Telegram messaging app. The Russian defense ministry said 20 drones in the Bryansk region on the Ukrainian border and another in Crimea were shot down within an hour late Tuesday. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the drone attack on the pumping station reduced oil flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium by 30%-40% on Tuesday. “As a result of the attack, energy equipment, a gas turbine unit, and a substation were damaged,” he said on Russian television. CPC pumps crude from companies that include Chevron and Exxon Mobil, Reuters reported. Novak said repairs might take several months. Earlier Tuesday, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dolynska, officials said Tuesday, injuring at least three people. Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region where the attack took place, said on Telegram that authorities evacuated dozens of people from the building and that those injured included a mother and two children. The attack was part of a widespread Russian aerial assault overnight, which the Ukrainian military said included 176 drones. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 103 of the drones, with intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the military said Tuesday. Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said on Telegram that debris from a destroyed drone damaged four houses in his region. Some information for this story was provided by Reuters. …

The Trump administration on Tuesday hailed talks in Saudi Arabia that included U.S. and Russian officials but no Ukrainians. The White House said this parallel-track diplomacy — speaking separately with the warring partners — is a key first step in ending the three-year conflict that has rocked Europe. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington. Kim Lewis contributed. …

WASHINGTON — A Yazidi woman who survived rape and enslavement by Islamic State and was rescued from Gaza last October in a U.S.-led operation arrived in Germany on Tuesday, February 18. Fawzia Amin Saydo, 21, was kidnapped by IS militants from her hometown of Sinjar, northern Iraq, in August 2014, just a month before her 11th birthday. She endured a decade of suffering, including rape, enslavement and forced marriage to a Palestinian IS fighter in Syria before being sent to Gaza to live with her captor’s mother. She was rescued from Gaza on October 1, 2024, during a secret U.S.-led operation that involved cooperation among human rights activists, as well as Israeli, Jordanian, Iraqi and United Nations officials. Saydo arrived about 5 p.m. local time at Hannover Airport in Langenhagen, Germany, where she was received by her lawyer, Kareba Hagemann, a group of relatives and human rights activists. “She has arrived in Germany safely, and she is very relieved,” Hagemann told VOA. “The first thing Fawzia said upon her arrival was, ‘Please make sure my family can also come join me and live here with me.’” The German consulate in Baghdad on February 10 issued Saydo a visa on a humanitarian basis. Her mother, grandmother and five siblings are still in Iraq. “Her family, except her two sisters, wanted to go as well, but the German government made it clear that they will only agree to take in Fawzia,” Hagemann said. “There is no legal obligation to take her, but it is an act of humanity, which is why I was thankful to them to agree to take Fawzia at least.” According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, Germany is the third-largest refugee-hosting country in the world and the largest in the European Union, with 2.5 million refugees from all over the world, including more than 1 million refugees from Ukraine. Since the 2014 Yazidi genocide carried out by Islamic State in northern Iraq, the number of Yazidi asylum-seekers in Germany has risen to more than 200,000. The ongoing debate within German society about deporting refugees, however, has put many asylum-seekers from the religious minority at risk of deportation. This is particularly due to some politicians arguing that the defeat of IS in 2017 has ended group-specific persecution in Iraq — a claim contested by human rights organizations. On Monday, German authorities announced the deportation of 47 Iraqis whose asylum applications … “Yazidi woman enslaved by Islamic State relocates to Germany months after rescue” →