NS2 critic appointed to State Department
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has appointed an outspoken critic of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 (NS2) pipeline to oversee policy for Central and Eastern Europe at the State Department following backlash over its decision to allow the project to move ahead. Robin Dunnigan, who served as deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy in the State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources from 2014 to 2017, will help craft policy toward Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, as well as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, a spokesperson told RFE/RL. She takes over Eastern Europe duties from Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, who served in 2019 as a key witness in the Ukraine-centric impeachment trial of then-President Donald Trump. Ms. Dunnigan was an early critic of Russian plans to build a second natural-gas pipeline to Germany along the floor of the Baltic Sea to reroute European exports around Ukraine, potentially depriving Kyiv of as much as $2 billion a year in transit fees. The $11 billion NS2 project will soon be completed after the Biden Administration in May agreed to waive sanctions on its Swiss-based operator in an attempt to deescalate tensions with Germany. The decision angered countries in Central and Eastern Europe, which see the pipeline as a security threat. “You have to ask: Why would you support Ukraine with one hand and strangle it with the other,” she told a conference of policymakers in November 2015 as the West supported Kyiv with military and economic aid to help it battle Kremlin-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine. “Nord Stream 2 actually threatens not only Ukraine’s survivability and their resources, but it is a risk to fuel diversification in Europe, especially Southeastern Europe,” Ms. Dunnigan said at the time. The Biden Administration and Germany reached an agreement in July on steps to help Ukraine handle the economic fallout resulting from the completion of NS2, including investing in the country’s alternative energy industry, a compromise that Kyiv considers inadequate. The Biden Administration recently appointed Amos Hochstein, who served as the State Department’s energy envoy from 2014 to 2017, to oversee the implementation of the agreement with Germany. Mr. Hochstein, who also served as a board member on Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas company Naftogaz, oversaw the Bureau of Energy Resources when Ms. Dunnigan served there. “I am hoping that [Ms.] Dunnigan’s background in energy is going to help people in the State Department understand how critical energy security is for Ukraine as a country. It can’t succeed unless it has energy security,” said Daniel Vajdich, president of Washington-based lobby firm Yorktown Solutions, whose clients include Naftogaz. Ms. Dunnigan took up her new position on September 7. (RFE/RL’s Todd Prince)
Ukraine extends Medvedchuk house arrest
A Ukrainian court has extended by two months the house arrest of Viktor Medvedchuk, a Kremlin-leaning lawmaker and tycoon who is accused of supporting fighters in two eastern provinces. Mr. Medvedchuk, who heads Opposition Platform-For Life, the second-largest party in the parliament, will remain under house arrest until October 31, the court said. The 67-year-old, who has a close personal relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, is accused of funneling profits from his businesses into the two separatist-controlled regions in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has been battling the Russia-backed separatists since 2014 in a war that has killed more than 13,200. Mr. Medvedchuk denies the charges and calls them politically motivated. The lawmaker was first placed under house arrest in May after Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) searched his home and office in Kyiv. In a sign of things to come, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February signed off on sanctions against Mr. Medvedchuk and three television stations believed to be owned by the tycoon in a move that caught the country by surprise. Mr. Zelenskyy later described it as the start of his campaign to reduce the influence of a handful of tycoons who control the country from behind the scenes. Civil society activists accuse Mr. Medvedchuk of undermining crucial reforms that would help Ukraine build a rules-based society and move closer to its goal of joining the European Union and NATO. They also accuse his stations of spreading Russian disinformation. The United States sanctioned Mr. Medvedchuk in 2014 for undermining democracy in Ukraine. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
More than 50 Crimean Tatars detained
More than 50 Crimean Tatars have been detained by the Russian intelligence service in Ukraine’s Russia-controlled Crimea region, Ukrainian officials said on September 4. Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, had first detained five minority Crimean Tatar activists, including well-known activist Nariman Dzhelyal, the deputy chairman of the Mejlis representative body for the Tatars in Crimea, and raided their homes. In response, more than 50 Crimean Tatars gathered in front of the FSB’s branch in Crimea’s capital, Simferopol, to protest the detentions. “As a result, more than 50 Crimean Tatars have been detained,” Ms. Denisova wrote on Facebook on September 4. Some of them were brutally forced onto police buses, Ms. Denisova said, adding that two journalists were among those detained. “They were shoved into buses with force and beaten and taken to different police precincts in the temporarily occupied Crimea, where they’re being questioned without lawyers present,” she said. Ms. Denisova called on “the entire international community to use all possible leverage … in order to end repressions against the indigenous population.” Russian authorities have not yet commented on the arrests. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded the release of the detained Crimean Tatars in a tweet on September 4. “The occupants of Crimea once again resort to persecution of Crimean Tatars. Regular raids and detentions take place in their homes,” Mr. Zelenskyy wrote. “All those detained must be freed!” Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group, which is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region. Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by the Soviet authorities under dictator Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow’s rule. Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula. Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AP and dpa)
Crimean Tatars accused of sabotage
Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), has accused five detained Crimean Tatar activists of sabotaging a gas pipeline one day after Ukraine dismissed the charges as fabricated. The FSB claimed on September 7 that Ukrainian military intelligence procured an explosive device and promised a cash reward of $2,000 to the men to plant it. All five men – including Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing assembly, the Mejlis, which was banned in Crimea after Russia’s seizure of the peninsula in 2014 – were arrested over the weekend. Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Emine Dzheppar on September 6 accused Russian investigators of fabricating charges against those arrested and mistreating them. The five men could face a lengthy prison sentence if found guilty. The gas pipeline, near the Crimean capital, Simferopol, was damaged in August. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the arrests were in retaliation for the inaugural summit of the Crimean Platform, an international initiative to bring about the restoration of Ukrainian-Russian relations by ending the Russian occupation of Crimea. EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano said the bloc “considers the detentions to be politically motivated and illegal under international law,” and call for the detainees’ release. Since Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamist group that is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression in Crimea against members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula. Russia has backed separatists in a war against Ukrainian government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by dpa)
Another Crimean Tatar detained
Moscow-imposed authorities in Ukraine’s Crimea region have detained another Crimean Tatar after his home was searched. The Crimean Solidarity public group said that police detained Eldar Menseitov on September 7 after searching his home in the town of Molodizhne, near the Crimean capital, Simferopol. Mr. Menseitov is a defense witness in the ongoing trial in absentia of veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev. Mr. Dzhemilev is charged with illegally crossing the border, possession of an illegal firearm and negligence while keeping a firearm. Mr. Dzhemilev, who is a Ukrainian lawmaker, and his supporters have rejected the charges, saying they are politically motivated. Ukrainian Ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova also condemned Mr. Menseitov’s detainment, calling it the continuation of “Russia’s practice of shameful repression of the Crimean Tatar people.” “I demand the Russian Federation immediately stop persecuting the indigenous people of the Crimean Peninsula and releases all illegally held citizens of Ukraine,” Ms. Denisova’s statement on Facebook said. Mr. Menseitov is a former deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars’ self-governing body, the Mejlis, which was labeled as extremist and banned by Russia-imposed authorities. Mr. Menseitov’s detainment came the same day Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) publicly accused five other Crimean Tatars detained over the weekend of sabotaging a gas pipeline. The FSB claimed on September 7 that Ukrainian military intelligence procured an explosive device and promised a cash reward of $2,000 to the men to plant it at the pipeline. A day earlier, Ukraine dismissed the charges against the five men as fabricated. Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of Crimean Tatars for allegedly belonging to the Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamic group, which is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region. Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by the Soviet authorities under dictator Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Moscow’s rule. Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. (RFE/RL’s Crimea.Realities)
MH17 crash victim families blame Russia
Families of victims from Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that was shot down over Ukraine in 2014 have demanded justice from Russia in testimony against four suspects – three Russians and one Ukrainian – being tried in absentia over the crash. MH17 was shot down on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew. The four suspects – Russians Sergei Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov and Igor Girkin, as well as Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko – are being tried in absentia by a court in The Hague for involvement in the tragedy. Only one of the suspects, Mr. Pulatov, is represented by lawyers at the trial. All four suspects are accused of being key figures among the separatists battling Kyiv. A team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the missile launcher used to shoot down the aircraft belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. Ria van der Steen, who lost her father and stepmother in the crash, was the first family member of one of the victims to testify on September 6. Quoting the Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, she flat-out accused Moscow of covering up its role in what happened: “They are lying, we know they’re lying and they know that we know that they’re lying.” The trial is being held in the Netherlands because the plane departed from Amsterdam and 196 of the victims were Dutch. The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible. Moscow has denied any involvement in the conflict in parts of eastern Ukraine and has offered several possible theories about how MH17 was blown out of the sky, including that it was shot down by a Ukrainian Air Force jet or by Ukrainian ground forces using a Buk system. Around 90 relatives, both from the 196 Dutch victims of the crash as well as those from Australia and Malaysia, are expected to address the court in the coming days. “How would the perpetrators feel if it was their loved ones? How would [President Vladimir] Putin and his corrupt Russian government answer that?” asked Australian Vanessa Rizk, who lost her parents in the crash, via videoconference. The tragedy caused an international outcry and deepened tensions between Moscow and the West following Russia’s seizure of Crimea and support for the militants in their fight against Kyiv’s forces after pro-European protests pushed Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from power. (RFE/RL, with reporting by AFP and Reuters)