BLOGONITY

BELGRADE, SERBIA — Serbia’s striking university students on Monday launched a 24-hour blockade of a key traffic intersection in the capital, Belgrade, stepping up pressure on the populist authorities over a deadly canopy collapse in November that killed 15 people. Serbian farmers on tractors and thousands of citizens joined the blockade that followed weeks of protests demanding accountability of the deadly accident in the northern city of Novi Sad that critics have blamed on rampant government corruption. A campaign of street demonstrations has posed the biggest challenge in years to the populist government’s firm grip on power in Serbia. Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabic, later on Monday urged dialogue with the students, saying, “We need to lower the tensions and start talking to each other.” Students in the past have refused to meet with Vucic, saying the president is not entitled by the constitution to hold talks with them. “Any kind of a crisis poses a serious problem for our economy,” said Vucic. “Such a situation in society is not good for anyone.” Vucic has faced accusations of curbing democratic freedoms despite formally seeking European Union membership for Serbia. He has accused the students of working for unspecified foreign powers to oust the government. Several incidents have marked the street demonstrations in the past weeks, including drivers ramming into the crowds on two occasions, when two young women were injured. Traffic police on Monday secured the student blockade to help avoid any similar incidents. Protesting students set up tents at the protest site, which is a key artery for the city commuters and toward the main north-south motorway. Some students played volleyball, others sat down on blankets on the pavement or walked around on a warm day. The students also held a daily 15-minute commemoration silence at 11:52, the exact time when the canopy at a train station in Novi Sad crashed on Nov. 1. Many in Serbia believe the huge concrete canopy fell because of sloppy reconstruction work that resulted from corruption. Serbia’s prosecutors have filed charges against 13 people, including a government minister and several state officials. But the former construction minister, Goran Vesic, has been released from detention, fueling doubts over the investigation’s independence. The main railway station in Novi Sad was renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure deal … “Serbian farmers join striking university students’ 24-hour traffic blockade in Belgrade” →

PARIS — European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to continue sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, but to ease some sanctions against Syria following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. Weeks of stalling by Hungary ended Monday, allowing the EU to renew sanctions against Russia for another six months. But in return, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — considered close to Moscow — is pushing for Ukraine to reopen a gas pipeline to central Europe after letting a transit deal expire. The bloc also earmarked aid for Moldova’s energy needs, which Europe says are threatened by Russia. The 27-member bloc moved in the opposite direction when it came to Syria — agreeing to scale up humanitarian aid and ease some sanctions, now that the country is under new leadership. “This could give a boost to the Syrian economy and help the country get back on its feet,” said Kaja Kallas, EU’s foreign policy chief. Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, has called the EU’s move a “positive step.” European foreign ministers also discussed a raft of other thorny issues, from the Gaza ceasefire to Iran and the conflict in eastern Congo. Another key topic: relations with the new Trump administration. “As the United States shifts to [a] more transactional approach, Europe needs to close ranks. We are stronger when we are united — that was a view that everybody shared,” Kallas said. She described Washington as Europe’s closest ally, but tensions have surfaced over trade, military spending and Greenland, after President Donald Trump indicated he wanted to acquire the territory. “We are not negotiating on Greenland,” Kallas said. “Of course, we are supporting our member state, Denmark, and its autonomous region, Greenland.” Kallas also noted the many ways the EU and U.S. are interlinked. But she said Europe needs to take into account its own strengths, in discussions with partners as well as with adversaries. …

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 22, Donald Trump — just two days after being inaugurated for his second term as U.S. president — again called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the “ridiculous” war with Ukraine, but this time he added a threat. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. The following day, Trump told reporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told him he’s ready to negotiate an end to the war. In an interview with Fox News aired that same day, Trump said Zelenskyy is “no angel” and “shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen.” Does the new U.S. administration have sufficient economic leverage over Russia to force it to make peace, or at least talk about peace? According to Konstantin Sonin, John Dewey distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and former vice rector of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, the U.S. has economic leverage, but some of its levers are clearly weaker than others. “Russia’s trade with the U.S. is very small — less than $3 billion a year,” he told Danila Galperovich of VOA’s Russian Service. “Accordingly, even if any opportunity for U.S. companies to trade with Russia is completely closed, the damage to Russia will be small. There is an opportunity to strengthen secondary sanctions — that is, additional pressure, first of all, on China, on India, on other countries, so that they more strictly comply with the primary sanctions. “There is also an opportunity to continue what [former U.S. President Joe] Biden did with sanctions against the Russian shadow tanker fleet,” Sonin added, referring to vessels that Russia uses to sell oil and evade Western sanctions. “This requires great international cooperation, but, in principle, it can be done,” said Sonin. Economist Vladislav Inozemtsev, a special adviser to the Russian Media Studies Project at MEMRI, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, and director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies, also stressed the significance of secondary sanctions on countries that do business with Russia. “Trump can somehow influence other countries so that they do not buy Russian products,” Inozemtsev told VOA. “For example, let’s say he can … “Trump’s sanctions could force Russia’s Putin to negotiating table, some experts say” →

RENNES, FRANCE — Residents in western France used boats to escape their flooded homes Monday as rivers and waterways broke their banks after successive storms battered Normandy and Brittany. The national weather service had issued flood and wind warnings as Storm Herminia hit Spain, France on parts of the U.K. Normandy and Brittany were already waterlogged after the passage of last week’s Storm Éowyn — which left two people dead from fallen trees and more than 1 million people without electricity in Ireland and Britain. Storm Herminia caused road closures in some areas of France. About 400 people were evacuated from homes in and around the city of Rennes, at the heart of the hardest-hit region. The mayor called it the city’s worst flooding in more than 40 years and said in a statement that the waters weren’t expected to start receding until Wednesday. A 73-year-old British sailor was reported missing off the Atlantic coast near Bordeaux over the weekend, according to the regional maritime authority. France’s weather service issued further flood and wind warnings for Tuesday for all regions on the western coast, from Brittany down to the Spanish border. …

Part of a U.S. military aid package to Ukraine in April 2022, the M113 armored personnel carrier has proved vital in conducting assault operations and providing protection for Ukrainian infantry. And many of these vehicles are still up and running nearly three years later. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy …

Sofia, Bulgaria — The Swedish coast guard chased and intercepted a Bulgarian ship after a fiber-optic cable under the Baltic Sea linking Sweden to Latvia was damaged, its owner said on Monday. Latvia sent a warship on Sunday to investigate the damage, while Swedish prosecutors opened an “aggravated sabotage” investigation. Nations around the Baltic Sea have scrambled to bolster defenses after the suspected sabotage of undersea cables in recent months, with some observers blaming Russia. The Bulgarian vessel on Sunday “was chased by the Swedish coast guard with instructions for the ship to go into their territorial waters and it is now on anchor where an investigation … is ongoing,” Alexander Kalchev, CEO of Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar), owner of the Vezhen, told AFP. He denied involvement in any sabotage. “I am convinced that we cannot say … that this was a malicious act,” he added. The Malta-flagged vessel carrying fertilizer from Ust-Luga in Russia and headed for South America was sailing in “extremely bad weather” on Saturday based on the information given to him by the crew, Kalchev said. An inspection on Sunday found that “one of the ship’s anchors was damaged and the anchor had dropped into the sea, which means that it was possible that it had dragged along the sea floor,” he said, adding the anchor was then pulled up. ‘Full solidarity’ Navibulgar, Bulgaria’s biggest shipping company, said it had appointed an agent in Sweden and hired a lawyer “to defend the interests of the crew and the company.” The ship, constructed in 2022, has a crew of eight Bulgarians and nine Myanmar nationals. “Staff from the Swedish authorities have been on board the ship since yesterday evening to carry out investigative measures,” an intelligence official told AFP. The damage to the cable occurred in Swedish territorial waters at a depth of at least 50 meters, officials said. The cable belongs to Latvia’s state radio and television center (LVRTC) which said in a statement that there had been “disruptions in data transmission services.” The company said alternatives had been found and end users would mostly not be affected although “there may be delays in data transmission speeds.” Latvia’s navy on Sunday said it had identified a “suspect vessel,” the Michalis San, near the location of the incident along with two other ships. Prime Minister Evika Silina said Riga had notified the Swedish authorities and that the two … “Sweden intercepts Bulgarian ship over damaged Baltic cable” →

Russian drone attacks damaged infrastructure sites in western, central and eastern Ukraine on Monday. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 57 of the 108 total drones that Russian forces launched overnight. The intercepts took place over the Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the military said. Officials in Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Sumy said drone attacks hit “critical infrastructure.” Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak also said on Telegram that Russian shelling Monday injured at least five people in the city of Nikopol. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 32 Ukrainian drones, including intercepts over Voronezh, Belgorod, Kursk, Oryol and Tver. Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged a house, but did not hurt anyone. A Kremlin spokesperson said Monday that Russia had not received any signals about a potential meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. The comment came days after Putin said he and Trump should discuss the war in Ukraine as well as energy prices. Some information for this story was provided by Agence France-Presse and Reuters …

The smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko gazed out from campaign posters across Belarus on Sunday as the country held an orchestrated election virtually guaranteed to give the 70-year-old autocrat yet another term on top of his three decades in power. “Needed!” the posters proclaim beneath a photo of Lukashenko, his hands clasped together. The phrase is what groups of voters responded in campaign videos after supposedly being asked if they wanted him to serve again. And according to a nighttime statement by the Central Election Commission, the strongman leader won by a landslide, garnering nearly 87% percent of the vote. But his opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, would disagree. They call the election a sham — much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests that were unprecedented in the history of the country of 9 million people. The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West. His iron-fisted rule since 1994 — Lukashenko took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union — earned him the nickname of “Europe’s Last Dictator,” relying on subsidies and political support from close ally Russia. He let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022, and even hosts some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, but he still campaigned with the slogan “Peace and security,” arguing he has saved Belarus from being drawn into war. “It’s better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine,” Lukashenko said in his characteristic bluntness. Fearing a repeat of election unrest His reliance on support from Russian President Vladimir Putin — himself in office for a quarter-century — helped him survive the 2020 protests. Observers believe Lukashenko feared a repeat of those mass demonstrations amid economic troubles and the fighting in Ukraine, and so scheduled the vote in January, when few would want to fill the streets again, rather than in August. He faces only token opposition. According to official results, announced in the early hours of Monday, Lukashenko won 86.82% of the vote – compared to his nearest rival’s 3.21%. According to the Central Election Commission, 3.60% of voters spoiled their ballots. In 2020, the electoral body claimed Lukashenko had taken 80.10% of the vote. “The trauma of the 2020 protests was so deep that … “Belarus strongman wins a 7th term in an election the opposition calls a farce” →

BEIJING — China has prohibited imports of sheep, goat, poultry and even-toed ungulates from African, Asian and European countries due to outbreaks of livestock diseases such as sheep pox, goat pox and foot-and-mouth-disease. The ban, which also includes processed and unprocessed products, comes after the World Health Organization released information of disease outbreaks in various countries, according to a series of announcements by China’s General Administration of Customs dated Jan. 21. The ban from the world’s largest meat importer affects Ghana, Somalia, Qatar, Congo (DRC), Nigeria, and Tanzania, Egypt, Bulgaria, East Timor and Eritrea. China also said it has stopped imports of sheep, goat and related products from Palestine, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh due to sheep pox and goat pox outbreaks. It also blocked the imports of even-toed ungulates and related products from Germany following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, it said. …

STOCKHOLM/VILNIUS — An undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, prompting NATO to deploy patrol ships to the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities. Sweden’s Security Service has seized control of a vessel as part of the probe, the country’s prosecution authority said. “We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation,” senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement. NATO was coordinating military ships and aircraft under its recently deployed mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry.” The effort follows a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina said her government was coordinating with NATO and other countries in the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances surrounding the latest incident. “We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting. Latvia’s navy said earlier on Sunday it had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other vessels were also subject to investigation. Up to several thousand commercial vessels make their way through the Baltic Sea at any given time, and a number of them passed the broken cable on Sunday, data from the MarineTraffic ship tracking service showed. One such ship, the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Vezhen, escorted to Swedish waters by a Swedish coastguard vessel on Sunday evening, MarineTraffic data showed. It later anchored outside the Swedish naval base in Karlskrona in southern Sweden. It was not immediately clear if the Vezhen, which passed the fiber optic cable at 0045 GMT on Sunday, was subject to investigation. A Swedish coastguard spokesperson declined to comment on the Vezhen or the position of coastguard ships. Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which listed the Vezhen among its fleet, did not immediately reply to requests for comment outside of office hours. NATO cooperation Swedish navy spokesperson Jimmie Adamsson earlier told Reuters it was too soon to say what caused the damage to the cable or whether it was intentional or a technical fault. “NATO ships and aircrafts are working together with national resources from the Baltic Sea countries to investigate … “Sweden opens sabotage probe into Baltic undersea cable damage” →

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Sunday claimed its troops had captured a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine as part of a grinding campaign to weaken Kyiv’s grip on the country’s industrial heartland, while uncertainty over the continued flow of U.S. funding has reportedly halted the work of some Ukrainian NGOs, including those helping war veterans. Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the fall of Velyka Novosilka, which had around 5,000 residents before the war, following a monthslong battle. Its statement could not be independently verified, and Ukraine claimed its troops had only strategically withdrawn from certain areas. But if confirmed, it would make Velyka Novosilka the first significant town to capitulate in 2025 under Moscow’s onslaught in the eastern Donetsk region against Ukraine’s weary and short-handed army. The war is set to reach its three-year milestone in February. Ukrainian forces withdrew from certain parts of Velyka Novosilka to avoid encirclement, the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade said in a statement on its official Telegram channel Sunday. The brigade is active in that patch of the frontline. Analysts have long predicted that it’s only a matter of time until Russian forces capture the settlement, which lies only 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. The brigade said though they have approximate parity with Russian forces in terms of artillery and drones, the Russians have a huge advantage in manpower. “Our units, using the weather conditions, skillfully withdrew from areas where there was a threat of encirclement. This does not mean that we have completely left the city, the fighting in Velyka Novosilka continues . All actions are aimed at minimizing our own losses and maximum damage to the enemy,” the statement said. The brigade said the withdrawal will make it topographically difficult for Russians to advance by making the river an obstacle. “The enemy (…) will have no peace, any movement is cut off by shells and drones,” the statement said. Russia captured the Donetsk cities of Avdiivka and Vuhledar last year after long and grueling battles. Those cities were largely leveled by Russian artillery, glide bombs and drones before they fell. Russian forces have also been trying for months to capture the key Donetsk strongholds of Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar. Elsewhere, Ukrainian NGOs catering to the needs of war veterans and their families have claimed a suspension of U.S. funding is forcing them to halt their work, days after newly sworn … “Russia says its troops have captured a strategic town in eastern Ukraine” →

Rome — Italy said Sunday it was transferring 49 migrants picked up in the Mediterranean to new processing centers in Albania, in the third such attempt facing hurdles by courts. The navy vessel Cassiopea with the migrants on board was expected to reach the Albanian port of Shengjin on Tuesday morning, port officials said. The Interior Ministry said Sunday that 53 other migrants “spontaneously presented their passports” after they were told that it would avoid their transfer to Albania. Where the nationality is confirmed, processing generally takes less time as people who are determined by Italy to be ineligible to apply for asylum in the European Union are repatriated via a fast-track procedure. Italian judges refused to validate the detention of the first two small groups in the Albanian centers, built under a contentious agreement between Rome and Tirana. Their cases have been referred to the European Court of Justice, which had earlier established that asylum applicants could not undergo a fast-track procedure that could lead to repatriation if their country of provenance was not deemed completely safe. The European court hearing on the case is scheduled for Feb. 25. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government had vowed to reactivate the two centers in Albania that have remained dormant following the Italian courts’ decisions. The premier’s position was partially backed by a ruling in late December by Italy’s highest court, which said Italian judges could not substitute for government policy in deciding which countries are safe for repatriation of migrants whose asylum requests are rejected. The decision does allow lower courts to make such determinations on a case-by-case basis, short of setting overall policy. Italy has earmarked $675 million (650 million euros) to run the centers over five years. They opened in October ready to accept up to 3,000 male migrants a month picked up by the Italian coast guard in international waters. Human rights groups and nongovernmental organizations active in the Mediterranean have slammed the agreement as a dangerous precedent that conflicts with international laws. Meloni has repeatedly stressed that plans to process migrants outside EU borders in Albania had received strong backing from other European leaders. …

Berlin — Government officials and residents attended a solemn Mass Sunday to honor a child and a man killed in a knife attack in Germany, an assault that amplified the debate about migration ahead of the Feb. 23 general election. The ecumenical religious service at the Catholic Basilica of St. Peter and Alexander in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, was briefly suspended for the tolling of the city’s bells at the exact time that the attack took place Wednesday, 11:45 a.m. Bavaria Governor Markus Soder, Aschaffenburg Mayor Jurgen Herzing and Muslim imam Zischan Mehmood addressed the congregation that included rescuers, to express grief and disbelief at the loss of lives. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was also present. “Compassion, solidarity and cohesion are more important than ever, because there are many dividers and agitators around us,” Mehmood told the people gathered in and outside the church. “We must never allow grief and pain to tear us apart.” Soder said the attack was a “senseless, brutal and disturbing crime.” “Good and evil are not a question of origin, nationality, ethnicity or faith,” Soder said, and stressed that the killings should not lead to divisions because “incitement is the wrong answer.” Before attending the service, Faeser and Soder laid wreaths at the site of the attack. The attack is politically sensitive a month before Germany’s national election as migration policy is among the top campaign issues. A 2-year-old boy of Moroccan origin, who was part of a group of kindergarten children, was killed, along with a 41-year-old German man who apparently intervened to protect the children in a city park. The arrested suspect is a 28-year-old former asylum-seeker from Afghanistan who had been told to leave Germany. Officials said he had received psychiatric treatment and there was no immediate indication that he was motivated by extremism. He is being held in a psychiatric hospital, according to the German news agency, dpa. Bavarian officials said two adults and a 2-year-old Syrian girl were also wounded in the attack and hospitalized but there was no danger to their lives. …

Ukrainian Sergeant Serhiy Danilets was struck by enemy tank fire and lost his right arm fighting Russian troops in 2022. To help restore his mobility, world-renowned Swedish orthopedic surgeon Rickard Branemark traveled to Kyiv to perform the surgery. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy. …

London — Ireland called in help from England and France on Sunday as repair crews worked to restore power to hundreds of thousands of people after the most disruptive storm for years. More than 1 million people in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland were left without electricity after Storm Eowyn roared through on Friday. In Ireland, which suffered the heaviest damage, the wind snapped telephone poles, ripped apart a Dublin ice rink and even toppled a giant wind turbine. A wind gust of 183 kph was recorded on the west coast, breaking a record set in 1945. The state electricity company, ESB Networks, said that more than 300,000 properties in Ireland still had no power on Sunday, down from 768,000 on Friday. The Irish military was also helping out, but the company said that it could be two more weeks before electricity is restored to everyone. Irish Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary said authorities were “throwing everything at it.” “We’re bringing additional people from England today and we’re looking for people from France, additional technicians,” he told broadcaster RTE. “What we’re focused on is getting our infrastructure back up, getting our power back up, getting our water and connectivity back up as soon as is possible.” Another 75,000 people were still without power on Sunday in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and neighbors the Republic of Ireland. At least two people died during the storm. Kacper Dudek, 20, was killed when a tree fell on his car in County Donegal in northwest Ireland, local police said. Police in Scotland said that a 19-year-old man, who hasn’t been named, died in a hospital on Saturday after a tree fell on his car in the southwestern town of Mauchline on Friday. More rainy and windy weather battered Britain and Ireland on Sunday, with a gust of 132 kph recorded at Predannack in southwest England. …