Ukrainian parliament approves law restoring independence of anti-graft agencies
Last week's measure by Zelensky to place the watchdogs under the oversight of the prosecutor-general prompted rebukes from Ukrainians, the European Union and international rights groups. It raised fears that the government could meddle in investigations and potentially shield its supporters from scrutiny.
Fighting entrenched corruption is crucial for Ukraine's aspirations to join the EU and maintain access to billions of dollars of vital Western aid in the nearly 3½-year all-out war. It's also an effort that enjoys broad public support.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, who called last week's legislative changes 'a serious step back', welcomed approval of the bill, saying lawmakers had 'corrected last week's damaging vote'.
'Today's law restores key safeguards, but challenges remain,' Kos, who monitors the record of countries that are candidates to join the bloc, wrote on X. 'The EU supports (Ukrainian) citizens' demands for reform. Upholding fundamental values & fighting corruption must remain the priority.'
The backlash against Zelensky's measures brought street protests across the country that were the first major demonstrations since Russia's full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022. Though the protests didn't call for the president's removal, the controversy threatened to undermine public trust in their leaders at a critical time.
Russia's bigger army is accelerating its efforts to pierce Ukraine's front-line defences and is escalating its bombardment of Ukrainian cities. There is also uncertainty over how much additional weaponry Ukraine's Western partners can provide and how quickly.
The Ukrainian branch of Transparency International also criticised last week's legislation, saying it weakened one of the most significant reforms since what Ukraine calls its Revolution of Dignity in 2014.
Zelensky said his goal had been to speed up prolonged investigations, ensure more convictions and remove Russian meddling in investigations, which he didn't detail.
He said he had taken note of the protests and decided to present a new bill to parliament underscoring that the prosecutor general and his deputies cannot give orders to anti-graft agencies or interfere in their work.
Lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv, approved Zelensky's new proposal with 331 votes and nine abstentions on Thursday, official figures showed.
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France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
US envoy Witkoff to visit Moscow on Wednesday
The source did not specify if the meetings will include Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Witkoff has met with several times previously. Trump has given Russia until Friday to halt its offensive in Ukraine or face new penalties. The White House has not outlined specific actions it plans to take on Friday, but Trump has previously threatened to impose "secondary tariffs" targeting Russia's remaining trade partners, such as China and India. The move would aim to stifle Russian exports, but would risk significant international disruption. Despite pressure from Washington, Russia has continued its onslaught against its pro-Western neighbor. Three rounds of peace talks in Istanbul have failed to make headway on a possible ceasefire, with the two sides appearing as far apart as ever. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede more territory and renounce Western support. Kyiv is calling for an immediate ceasefire, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week urged his allies to push for "regime change" in Moscow. In recent weeks, Trump has increasingly voiced frustration with Putin over Moscow's unrelenting offensive. When reporters asked Trump on Monday what Witkoff's message would be to Moscow, and if there was anything Russia could do to avoid the sanctions, Trump replied: "Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday it considered the talks with Witkoff to be "important, substantial and helpful" and valued US efforts to end the conflict. Putin, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire, said Friday that he wants peace but that his demands for ending his nearly three-and-a-half-year offensive were unchanged. Russia has frequently called on Ukraine to effectively cede control of four regions Moscow claims to have annexed, a demand Kyiv has called unacceptable. Putin also wants Ukraine to drop its ambitions to join NATO. The visit comes after Trump said that two nuclear submarines he deployed following an online row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev were now "in the region." Trump has not said whether he meant nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines. He also did not elaborate on the exact deployment locations, which are kept secret by the US military. Russia, in its first comments on the deployment, urged "caution" Monday. "Russia is very attentive to the topic of nuclear non-proliferation. And we believe that everyone should be very, very cautious with nuclear rhetoric," the Kremlin's Peskov said.
France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
Medvedev vs Trump: Russia's ex-president becomes Putin's provocateur-in-chief
Russia 's ex-president Dmitri Medvedev found his way back into the headlines when his belligerent social media exchange with US President Donald Trump led to the repositioning on August 1 of two US nuclear submarines to what Trump called 'appropriate regions'. Medvedev has recently become an ultra-nationalist provocateur on social media, especially since Russia began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It's a major metamorphosis for a politician who during his time as president, from 2008 to 2012, embodied the liberal face of Russia. Accustomed to outrageous statements 'Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences,' Trump posted on his Truth Social platform after announcing his decision to re-deploy two submarines. Medvedev had taken exception to Trump imposing a new 10-day deadline for Russia to end its war in Ukraine, and posted that Trump was "playing the ultimatum game with Russia… Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war." On X, the former Russian president raised the prospect of a third World War if Trump persisted in trying to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to engage in peace negotiations with Ukraine. On Telegram, Medvedev referred to "Dead Hand' – the Soviet Union's system for launching a nuclear strike. Trump seems to have decided that he had had enough. But given Medvedev's long history of sabre rattling, Trump's reaction of 'taking the bait' instead of ignoring the posts is a bit puzzling, says Stephen Hall, a specialist in Russian politics at the University of Bath. Medvedev is a 'loose cannon ... trying to make himself relevant,' says Jenny Mathers, a specialist in Russian security issues at Aberystwyth University in the UK. If you want to know what Putin is thinking and above all 'what he wants to the world to hear', it's not Medvedev you should be listening to, but rather Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Mathers says. Medvedev has made a habit of making outrageous statements in recent years, following his term as president and then as prime minister from 2012 to 2020. Medvedev has 1.7 million subscribers on Telegram, where he his posts tend to be aggressively nationalistic. He describes Ursula von der Leyen, the German President of the European Commission, as a 'crazy old lady'. France is accused of being nostalgic for the Vichy regime, while the Baltic states are simply described as 'wretched'. These insults are from recent posts seen by more than three million Telegram users. Why so much animosity? Medvedev boasts that 'hatred is the most important weapon' in the battle against what he calls European 'Russophobia'. He has always embodied a more extreme version of the image that Putin wanted to project to the world, Mathers says. 'So when Putin was being slightly liberal, Medvedev was quite a bit more so,' she says. The two faces of Dmitri Medvedev When Medvedev was designated to take over as Russian president in 2008, Putin had decided it was time for a rapprochement with the US and then president Barack Obama. 'His presidency was about wanting to reach out to the US, wanting to strike deals and have good relations,' Mathers says. Kremlin strategists successfully portrayed Medvedev as embodying a more modern Russia in tune with the West, someone who 'knew how to use Twitter and an iPad', Hall says. In Putin's eyes, Medvedev also had another advantage: he did not belong to the circle of ' siloviki ', agents of the Russian police and intelligence services. 'He's a lawyer by training, so he probably is a moderniser by the standards of Russia, or at least of the current Russian regime,' Hall says. 01:46 Putin's return as Russian president in 2012 marked the beginning of a more authoritarian and imperialist turn for Russia. Since then, Medvedev has discarded any semblance of moderation. 'He now says things that are much more extreme than what Putin says," Mathers says. For Hall, his nationalistic stance is partly a question of 'political survival". Medvedev's career has followed a downward trajectory since 2012. After his term as president, he was named Putin's prime minister, only to end up as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council. Though he has been sidelined, he at least has 'an official position that allows him to speak out on matters of national security', says Mathers. Given his current job, his responsibilities are limited, says Hall. 'As deputy of the Security Council he is possibly very good at pushing paper around and setting up meetings' and having tea with officials like Nikolai Patrushev and Sergei Shoigu, the two secretaries-general of the Security Council. 'But other than that, he doesn't play a huge role." To provoke is to win? By being strident, Medvedev hopes to prove that he is still someone who counts in politics and that he can be useful. 'I think at the moment Medvedev is taking the Zhirinovsky role,' says Hall, referring to late ultra-nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, whoseextremist and provocative declarations served as a way for the Kremlin to gauge what viewpoints might be accepted by the public. On the international stage, the Kremlin can let its new provocateur-in-chief Medvedev act without too much risk. After all, he doesn't hold a very important position, says Mathers. So if one of his statements goes too far, 'Putin can either ignore what he says' or indicate that it does not reflect the official position of Russia. The Kremlin can also hope that Medvedev's bellicose outbursts will prompt the West or a Western country to limit its support for Ukraine – better safe than sorry. Moscow knows that Western democracies cannot afford to completely ignore Medvedev's threats, even if 99 percent of the time, talk of nuclear Armageddon is just bluster, notes Hall. Western governments cannot totally rule out the possibility that Russia will "actually use nuclear weapons", he says. Has Medvedev managed to permanently antagonise Trump? That remains to be seen. The US president has for some time stepped up his rhetoric and threatened more concrete action against Russia. But Trump could hardly attack Putin directly, says Hall, because in order to end the war in Ukraine, 'he needs Putin to negotiate". In this respect, Medvedev appeared to be an ideal target for Trump's anger. He has the advantage of being a former president, notes Hall – and so has the stature to be an interlocutor in diplomatic exchanges with Trump via social media.
Euronews
6 hours ago
- Euronews
Why is Slovenia the only EU country to ban arms trade with Israel?
In the absence of a consensus at European level, Slovenia is going it alone. On Thursday, it became the first EU country to ban all arms trade with Israel, including transit and imports. In a press release, the Slovenian government explicitly outlined its concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and denounced the EU's inability to adopt such a measure because of "internal disagreements." The decision is above all symbolic, since the Slovenian government says it has not issued any arms export permits to Israel since October 2023 because of the conflict. This decision is intended to intensify the pressure on the Israeli state to put an end to the war in Gaza. "All measures are on the table, we support, as we have done in the past, the suspension of the accession agreement with Israel, as well as trade sanctions and an arms embargo, sanctions against certain settlers, certain ministers and the Israeli government that supports violence", declared Tanja Fajon, Slovenia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, on 15 July in Brussels. "All measures must be taken as soon as possible, until there is a ceasefire, until the violence has stopped, until we have a resolution between the two countries", she added. Falling sales Other European countries such as Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands have not gone as far as Slovenia, but have reduced arms sales to Israel. Belgium officially banned arms exports to Israel following the 2008-2009 Gaza war. In the Netherlands, the Court of Appeal in The Hague annulled the export of F-35 spare parts to Israel in February 2024. The 2013 Arms Trade Treaty prohibits states from transferring weapons that will be used to commit genocide or crimes against humanity. In 2008, EU countries also undertook to refuse transfers of technology and military equipment that could be used to prolong armed conflicts. "For European states, there is an obligation not only not to export equipment that could be used to commit crimes in Gaza, but also not to export equipment that could be used to maintain the land, air or naval dimensions of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories," Samuel Longuet, a researcher at the Groupe de recherche et d'information sur la paix et la sécurité (GRIP), told Euronews. "So this covers virtually all the military equipment that could be used by the Israeli army." Continued exports Meanwhile, European exports of military equipment to Israel continue. Some countries state that the parts are only assembled in Israel or that they are used as training equipment, and not in Gaza. "The work of several human rights associations in Italy, as well as the Italian investigative press, revealed that the Italian government had just suspended the granting of new export licences, but everything that had been authorised before 7 October 2023 was still going to Israel. In particular parts for training aircraft," explains Longuet. The transfer of dual-use technologies, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, also poses a problem. In Belgium, the Flemish region allowed a local company to export "screens that ended up in the control cabins of Israeli drones that were used to bomb a humanitarian convoy a few months ago," the researcher said. "The argument put forward by the Flemish government at the time, before 7 October, in March 2023, was that this was a generic technology, a screen that could be found, yes, in a drone control cabin, but also in anything else. And so in this case, it didn't require the company supplying these screens to apply for an export licence, since it wasn't strictly speaking a military technology", he points out. The United States is by far the leading supplier of weapons to Israel. It accounts for two-thirds of Israeli arms imports, with Germany and Italy coming in second and third places. Germany mainly sells frigates and torpedoes, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "What we export is a little bit of everything in fact. Parts that can be used on Israeli ships, so equipment that will be used in naval systems. We also supply parts for training aircraft," says Longuet. "The UK and Italy, for example, export parts for the Italian M-346 aircraft used to train future Israeli fighter pilots," he explains. At the European level, an arms embargo is unlikely to succeed. It would have to be approved unanimously by the EU Council. However, Longuet says countries such as Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic, staunch supporters of Israel, would likely block it.
