The southern reach of the Dnipro river is likely to return to its banks by June 16 following a vast flood unleashed by the breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam this week, a Russian-installed official said Saturday.

The flood has inundated towns and villages below the dam, trapping residents and sweeping away entire houses on both sides of the Dnipro, which separates Ukrainian-controlled Kherson province from the southern section that Russian forces control.

Vladimir Saldo, who heads the Russian-controlled part, said the water level at Nova Kakhovka, the town adjacent to the dam on the downstream side, had dropped by 3 meters from Tuesday’s peak.

“The pumping of water and garbage collection from the streets have started,” he said.

Late on Saturday, Saldo added that almost 7,000 people had now been evacuated from the flooded districts of Nova Kakhovka, including 323 children, while 77 people have been hospitalized.

He said preliminary calculations by the Russian hydroelectricity producer RusHydro indicated the Dnipro would return to its usual course below the now-destroyed Kakhovka power station by Friday.

Saldo also accused Ukraine of shelling temporary refuges for those displaced by the flood, saying one woman had died as the result of the attacks. He posted a picture of a destroyed building, saying it was a hotel.

Reuters could not independently verify the assertion of shelling, which echoes similar allegations made in recent days. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv. Ukraine has also accused Moscow’s forces of shelling and killing civilians on flooded territory that it controls.

Ukraine has accused Russia of blowing up the hydroelectric power station and dam from inside the plant, which had been under Russian control since the early weeks of Russia’s invasion more than a year ago. Moscow has blamed Ukraine. 
…

Lithuania’s capital was flooded with pink food, decor, and colorful outfits on Saturday, as residents celebrated the Baltic nation’s love for a cold beetroot dish commonly known as “pink soup.” 

While beetroot soup is beloved in many eastern European nations, Lithuania lays claim to Saltibarsciai — made of kefir, cucumbers, beetroot, and dill — eaten cold and a favorite on a hot summer’s day. 

“It’s not just soup – it’s a way of life,” said the city’s tourism agency Go Vilnius, which organized the inaugural festival in its honor. 

French student Victor Delcroix came dressed as a bowl of “Pink Soup.” 

“I fell in love with Saltibarsciai and I felt obliged to wear this to honor it,” he said before jumping on a giant pink slip-and-slide covered in foam. 

Elsewhere some festivalgoers prepared to set a record with the largest-ever bowl of Saltibarsciai. 

Topped with sour cream and boiled eggs and served with boiled or fried potatoes, “pink soup” is a summer staple in Lithuania. 

“There are bars … that prepare them in interesting ways, like a sushi place that makes it with wasabi,” said Ricardas Andrijauskas, at the festival. 

“We usually make it more traditionally.” 

He was not entirely convinced by all the innovations, he confessed. “Not with wasabi,” he said, shaking his head. 

 

Long culinary history

Elsewhere at the festival vendors were selling pink ice-cream, coffee, cocktails and perfumes. 

Go Vilnius wants the soup to boost food tourism to the city. 

“Our city’s gastro scene has skyrocketed in the past years,” Inga Romanovskienė, director of Go Vilnius, told AFP.  

“Historical cuisine recipes from the 700 years of the capital’s multicultural heritage, which celebrate a unique local fusion of Lithuanian, Jewish, Polish cuisine, have also settled in the menus of the city’s restaurants,” she added.

According to Lithuanians, the dish originated in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which existed until 1795 and included swaths of territory in present-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. 

However, Poland and Belarus are among those who contest its heritage. 

Instagrammable soup  

Pink soup has also become a star on social media. 

“It’s called one of the most ‘instagrammable’ soups,” said Dovile Seliuke, spokesperson of the country’s tourism promotion agency, Travel Lithuania. 

The Pink Soup Fest is taking place against the backdrop of hundreds of Ukrainian flags fluttering around the capital.  

Over 80,000 Ukrainians have now sought asylum in Lithuania, a Baltic country of 2.7 million people.  

“The celebration helps take your mind off … the war in Ukraine,” said Rasa Kasitiene, who with her daughter was dressed up all in pink.  
…

French judges Saturday handed preliminary charges of attempted murder to a man suspected of stabbing four young children and two adults in a French Alps park, an attack that reverberated across France and beyond. 

The suspect, a 31-year-old Syrian refugee with permanent Swedish residency, has a 3-year-old daughter living in Sweden, regional prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said. Witnesses told investigators that the suspect mentioned his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ during the attack Thursday targeting a playground in the lakeside town of Annecy. 

The victims, who came from multiple countries, are no longer in life-threatening condition, the prosecutor said. The children, between 22 months and 3 years old, remain hospitalized. 

Police detained the suspect in the lakeside park in the town of Annecy after bystanders — notably, a Catholic pilgrim who repeatedly swung at the attacker with his backpack — sought to deter him. 

The suspected attacker, whose name was not released, was presented to investigating judges in Annecy Saturday and given charges of attempted murder and armed resistance, Bonnet-Mathis said. He is in custody pending further investigation. 

The suspect refused to talk to investigators and was examined by a psychiatrist and other doctors who deemed him fit to face charges, the prosecutor said. She said that the motive remained unclear, but it didn’t appear to be terrorism related. 

Witnesses said they heard the attacker mention his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ, according to the prosecutor, who said he wore a cross and carried two Christian images with him at the time of the attack. He also had $516 in cash, a Swedish driver’s license, and had been sleeping in the common area of an Annecy apartment building. 

He had traveled to Italy and Switzerland before coming to France last October, and French police are coordinating with colleagues in those countries to learn more about his trajectory, said Damien Delaby, director of the regional judicial police. 

The child victims were two French 2-year-old cousins, a boy and a girl, who were in the playground with their grandmother when the assailant appeared; a British 3-year-old girl visiting Annecy with her parents; and a 22-month-old Dutch girl, according to the prosecutor. 

French President Emmanuel Macron visited the victims and their families, first responders and witnesses Friday. Macron said doctors were “very confident” about the conditions of the two cousins, who were the most critically injured. 

The wounded British girl “is awake, she’s watching television,” Macron added. A wounded Dutch girl also has improved and a critically injured adult — who was both knifed and wounded by a shot that police fired as they detained the suspected attacker — is regaining consciousness, Macron said. 

The seriously injured adult was treated in Annecy. Portugal’s foreign ministry said he is Portuguese and “now out of danger.” He was wounded “trying to stop the attacker from fleeing from the police,” it said. The second injured adult was discharged from a hospital, his left elbow bandaged. 

The pilgrim, Henri, a 24-year-old who is on a nine-month walking and hitchhiking tour of France’s cathedrals, said he’d been setting off to another abbey when the horror unfolded in front of him. The attacker slashed at him, but Henri held his ground and used a weighty backpack he was carrying to swing at the assailant. 

Henri’s father said his son “told me that the Syrian was incoherent, saying lots of strange things in different languages, invoking his father, his mother, all the Gods.” 

The suspect’s profile fueled renewed criticism from far-right and conservative politicians about French migration policies. But authorities noted that the suspect entered France legally, because he has permanent residency status in Sweden. Sweden and France are both members of the EU and Europe’s border-free travel zone. 

He applied for asylum in France last year and was refused a few days before the attack, on the grounds that he had already won asylum in Sweden in 2013, the French interior minister said. 
…

An explosion at a rocket and explosives plant in Turkey caused a building to collapse Saturday, killing all five workers inside, an official said. 

The explosion occurred at around 8:45 a.m. at the compound of the state-owned Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation, on the outskirts of the capital, Ankara, Gov. Vasip Sahin told reporters. 

Sahin said the explosion was likely to have been caused by a chemical reaction during the production of dynamite. Prosecutors have launched a formal investigation, he said. 

Gray smoke was seen rising from the compound as ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the area, private NTV television reported. 

Shop and house windows in surrounding areas were shattered by the force of the blast, the report said. 

Family members rushed to the compound for news of their loved ones, the station said. 
…

The United Nations and Russia began talks Friday about Russia’s continued participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which facilitates the export of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products from Back Sea ports.

Rebecca Greenspan, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, held discussions with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin.

Before the talks, however, Vershinin said some recent Ukraine developments could not be overlooked in the talks.

Those events include the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the Kharkov region and the destruction of Russia’s Togliatti Odessa ammonia pipeline, also in Kharkov. The pipeline is one of the world’s longest for transporting ammonia.

Russia said earlier this week a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group were behind the pipeline destruction.

The initial 120-day grain agreement has been extended several times, most recently in May.
…

The United States and Kosovo are continuing to engage in an unusual public spat, after the staunch U.S. ally’s prime minister, Albin Kurti, resisted calls to take steps that the West says are necessary to de-escalate ethnic tensions in the country’s north.

Tensions flared last week as ethnic Albanian mayors entered municipal buildings with the backing of police, despite having won with only 3.5 percent of the vote in local elections that ethnic Serbs boycotted.

U.S. Special Envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar and EU Special Envoy Miroslav Lajcak visited Kosovo and Serbia this week, where they asked the leaders of the two countries to de-escalate, hold quick new elections in northern Kosovo and resume their dialogue.

It’s unclear if they will be able to persuade the two sides. Escobar has called Kurti inflexible and uncooperative, and Kurti complained that Washington and Brussels are biased in favor of Serbia.

What’s at stake is a deal between Kosovo and Serbia aimed at normalizing relations, but so far no concrete steps have been taken.

On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill was blunt in an interview with VOA’s Serbian Service, saying Washington has a problem with Kurti. “He’s not willing to comply, and I think we have some very fundamental issues with him on whether we can count on him as a partner,” he said.

Kurti fired back, complaining in an interview with The Associated Press of bias against his country from the United States and the European Union and tolerance of what he calls Serbia’s authoritarian regime. “Behaving well with an autocrat doesn’t make him behave better. On the contrary,” he told AP.

Hill confirmed a view that many who have followed the Western Balkans and U.S. engagement with Kosovo share these days. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a deep division, really … what we have going right now between Pristina and Washington,” he said.

US approach debated

While analysts agree that the situation is dangerous, they have different opinions on the United States’ open criticism of Kurti.

Luke Coffey, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute, said the biggest concern for him has been the way the Biden administration has handled the situation, calling Escobar’s approach “almost reckless.”

“I understand this desire to put pressure on both sides by the U.S. government, but it seems like right now the pressure is disproportionately on Kosovo. … And I think this is unhealthy,” he told VOA Albanian in an interview.

But Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the criticism is justified. “He [Kurti] has taken actions of late that I deem to be needlessly provocative, including … using armed guards to seat ethnic Albanian mayors that were elected with less than 4 percent of the vote. These are not helpful maneuvers,” he told VOA Albanian.

Kupchan said the United States and the EU still need to maintain an even-handed approach, considering that “Serbia has been a difficult player on these issues from the very beginning, that Serbia likely advised Serbs in the north not to participate in the recent elections.”

“So, whereas I do think that the criticism of Kurti is justified, the pressure needs to stay on both Pristina and Belgrade if we’re going to see progress toward normalization and implementation of the agreements, including some form of Serb self-management in Kosovo,” he said.

The U.S. and the EU have asked Serbia to withdraw troops that it sent to the border with Kosovo and to urge protesters to be calm.

But observers notice that there has not been a calling out of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, like there has been with Kurti.

Coffey said the West is trying to appease Serbia, and Vucic is trying to have it both ways.

“He wants to pretend like he is going to get closer to the West and be a productive member of the Euro-Atlantic community, but all the while he is very cozy with Moscow, very cozy with the Kremlin. And Serbia, under his leadership, remains Russia’s main foothold in the Balkans,” he said, adding that this undermines U.S. interests in the region.

When visiting Pristina, special envoy Escobar made sure to distinguish in his remarks between sharp disagreements with the Kosovo government and the overall relationship with the country as a whole. Kupchan said the unique relationship between Kosovo and the United States has not changed.

“By making public statements of this sort, I think the United States is, as I said, trying to create a situation in which there is political public pressure on Kurti to take a different line, and in which I think the United States is also sending a message to Serbs, to Serbia, to the Serbian government, that it is an even-handed player,” he said.

Many disputes

The tensions over local elections are just the latest in a long list of disagreements between Kosovo and Serbia over what each country needs to do to make progress toward normalizing ties, a process spearheaded by the EU with strong support from the U.S.

Kupchan said Western leaders’ frustration stems from the fact that they thought normalization was within reach, and the parties don’t seem to be taking advantage of the opportunity.

“This is, in my mind, the best opportunity that we’ve seen really in a very long time, perhaps even since the initial independence of Kosovo in 2008,” he said.

The issue of self-management of Serbs in northern Kosovo is essentially the Achilles’ heel in this process.

Visiting the region, Escobar repeated that Kosovo needs to establish an Association of Serb Municipalities if it wants to move closer to Euro-Atlantic institutions. Kosovo officials have resisted, talking about more autonomy for Serbs but stopping short of committing to a concrete plan.

“That seems to be the key sticking point here. It is also, in my mind, the key that would lead to a breakthrough in which the Serb majority that lives north of the river would feel that they have a voice in the institutions, the governance of Kosovo, and that they may then be more comfortable integrating into the country,” Kupchan said.

He added that the question is not whether Kosovo has a right to be frustrated, considering that “Belgrade has been sustaining parallel structures and has been manipulating the population inside Kosovo.”

In his view, the main question facing Kosovo is, “What is the best course for the government to take to get to a satisfactory, stable, durable peace in which Serbia forms a normal relationship with Kosovo, and ultimately all the countries of the world, including Serbia, recognize Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state?”

Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence that it declared in 2008, and that came almost a decade after U.S.-led NATO forces intervened to stop ethnic cleansing by the Serbian regime at the time.

Keida Kostreci reported from Washington. Jovana Djurovic reported from Belgrade. Ivana Konstantinovic contributed. Some information came from The Associated Press.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to meet outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on Monday as jockeying to secure his successor intensifies.

While the White House says the official agenda for the meeting is to discuss the alliance’s July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the issue of who will be next at NATO’s helm during this difficult period in its 74-year history will no doubt be front and center, as the alliance faces Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, is the longest-serving NATO chief in a generation and has had his tenure extended three times since taking the job in 2014. In February, his spokesperson said he would leave office when his current term ends in October.

Stoltenberg is widely credited for managing rocky transatlantic relations between former U.S. President Donald Trump and European allies over defense spending; the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021; and the alliance’s response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. His preference about his successor carries weight and Biden is expected to consult with him.

“A lot of people will look to him to say, ‘Who do you think is the best to follow up your leadership?” Andrew Hyde, senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told VOA.

Whoever succeeds Stoltenberg will face the daunting challenge of shepherding the security of 1 billion people in 31 countries and growing. He or she must manage the tough balancing act of supporting Ukraine militarily while preventing the conflict from bleeding into the territory of a NATO member, which would trigger the alliance’s Article 5 principle of collective defense and potentially lead to World War III.

 

Consensus based 

A U.S. general is traditionally the Supreme Allied Commander Europe but the post of NATO chief has always been assumed by a European, even though there’s nothing in the alliance’s charter that requires it.

There’s no formal process and candidates don’t announce that they’re running for the post. Selection is done through consensus, achieved mostly through quiet and informal diplomatic channels.

As the biggest donor, the U.S. plays a key role — the reason why two contenders have visited the Oval Office recently.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen met with Biden at the White House on Monday. She is seen as a front-runner; however, her candidacy would mean a third successive secretary-general from a Nordic country.

Another potential hurdle is that Denmark has long failed to meet the 2% minimum requirement in military spending for member states. In December, her government launched a plan to meet NATO’s target by 2030, and it recently ramped up military aid to Ukraine.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Washington days after Frederiksen, with a broad agenda that includes lobbying for his defense secretary, Ben Wallace. Britain, supplier of more military assistance to Ukraine than any other country after the United States, has clout. And as one of the first defense ministers to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, Wallace is well-known among the alliance.

However, out of 13 chiefs in NATO’s history, three were British.

Biden was noncommittal when asked whether it was time for another one. “Maybe. That remains to be seen,” he said Thursday during a joint news conference with Sunak.

All who have filled the post since 1952 were male.

 

Time for a woman?

There is a sense that it’s time the alliance selects a female leader, Hyde said. With the Russian war raging, “there’s also a feeling it should be somebody from Eastern Europe,” he added.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her Lithuanian counterpart, Ingrida Simonyte, meet both requirements. However, some observers argue that a leader from one of the Baltic countries, which are usually hawkish on Russia, could be perceived as a provocation by Moscow.

Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of Germany have been floated as potential candidates. So has Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, although her Ukrainian heritage may prove to be a complication.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been mentioned as another contender. And there’s always the possibility that the allies might prevail on Stoltenberg to extend his tenure yet again.

The issue of who will be the next NATO secretary-general is expected to be settled by July, when the group’s leaders meet in Vilnius.
…

From up close, the catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine appears worse than how it’s depicted in news reports and far off satellite imagery, according to U.N. officials who assessed conditions in the area on Friday.

“We have been visiting this morning with the authorities the communities, the small villages along the river that have been completely submerged by the flooding,” said Denise Brown, one of several U.N. officials who addressed journalists via satellite from the town of Bilozerka, on the west bank of Dnipro River.

“The status situation is dramatic,” said Brown, humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine for the U.N. office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, OCHA.

“This is a town that is five kilometers from the front line,” Brown said. “Daily shelling, including yesterday, and now because of the destruction of the bridge, which is a result of the war, and now this flooding, which came in the middle of the night. It came very fast, very quickly and people were totally taken by surprise.

“We visited a few homes this morning with people who are, as you can imagine, totally distraught by this latest catastrophe to hit them,” she said. “But I must say, as always, they are incredibly resilient and vowing to stay in their homes.”

Ukrainian authorities report at least 80 towns and villages in the Kherson region are fully or partially flooded, as well as thousands of hectares of agricultural land, with some 17,000 people in government-controlled areas affected by the flooding.

Shabia Mantoo, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency, said, “Many thousands more in the areas under the temporary military control of the Russian Federation, to [which] humanitarian organizations currently have no access, have also been affected.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that it has repeatedly asked the Russian Federation for access to the territories it occupies.

“The Russian Federation has denied us this access,” said Jeremy Laurence, spokesman for the OHCHR. “Not only OHCHR monitors, but humanitarian actors cannot get into the occupied territories.”

He added, “We reiterate the broader U.N. call to the Russian Federation to grant access to the occupied territories, to assist clinicians who have suffered from the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the destruction of the Khakhova dam.”

Humanitarian agencies report that Ukrainian authorities, the International Red Cross, as well as U.N., and non-governmental organizations reacted quickly after the dam broke on June 6 by bringing in relief supplies and aiding victims caught in the disaster.

Mantoo said the UNHCR was participating in an inter-agency convoy of five trucks that will be delivering essential relief supplies Friday and Saturday to the worst affected areas of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

“With interagency partner agencies, we are also currently carrying out damage assessments to understand the scale of the impact of the flooding,” she said.

After humanitarian agencies get on top of the short-term risks, they will have to concentrate on dealing with the more complex long-term risks threatening the local communities.

OCHA coordinator Brown cited the dangers posed by unexploded landmines in the heavily infested Kherson region as a major long-term problem. She said a U.N. mine expert was working with the U.N. system to produce a map of areas where mines were likely to be located and to communicate the threats posed by those weapons to the population, especially to children, who are most at risk of being killed and maimed.

“Mines may have moved and so when the flood waters recede, there may be mines where there were not mines before, which means there are not any markings. And this is a significant risk,” she said.

Laurence agreed noting that “the whole flood zone is a mine-contaminated area.”

However, he added that circumstances regarding the destruction of the dam remained unclear. Therefore, he said that it was “premature to examine the question whether a war crime may have been committed” by Russia in its attacks on the dam and its ongoing shelling of people trying to recover from the disaster.

“We reiterate our call for an independent, impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation,” he said.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron, accompanied by his wife, Brigitte, traveled to the French Alps Friday to be with families of the victims stabbed Thursday in a lakeside park in the city of Annecy. 

The couple’s first stop was a hospital in the French city of Grenoble, where three of the four young children are receiving treatment.  

Government officials said all four children have undergone surgery and are “under constant medical surveillance,” with one child in critical condition. 

The fourth child is being treated in Geneva, in Switzerland.  

It is not immediately clear whether the president and his wife will go to Geneva. 

A man stabbed the children and two adults at the park Thursday morning in an attack Macron said shocked the country. 

All four children suffered life-threatening knife wounds, lead prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said. The youngest is 22 months old, two are 2 years old and the oldest is 3, the prosecutor said.

Police quickly detained the suspect — a 31-year-old Syrian national. French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the suspect has refugee status in Sweden.

“The nation is in shock,” Macron tweeted. He described the assault as an “attack of absolute cowardice.”

 

Video appearing to show the attack circulated on social media. In the video, a man in dark glasses with a blue scarf covering his head wielded a knife as people screamed for help.  

One woman tried to fend off the attacker in the enclosed play park, but she could not stop him from leaning over her stroller and stabbing downward multiple times.  

Two of the young victims were French.  The other two were tourists, one British, the other Dutch. 

Two adults also suffered knife wounds. One of the adults was also injured by a shot fired by police as they were arresting the suspect, Bonnet-Mathis said.  

In Paris, lawmakers paused a debate to hold a moment of silence for the victims.  

The National Assembly president, Yaël Braun-Pivet, said, “There are some very young children who are in critical condition, and I invite you to respect a minute of silence for them, for their families, and so that, we hope, the consequences of this very grave attack do not lead to the nation grieving.”

“Nothing more abominable than to attack children,” Braun-Pivet said on Twitter. 

Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
…

In early May, The New York Times Magazine published an in-depth story about Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic with details about his alleged connections with a criminal group that is being prosecuted for a range of crimes including drug trafficking and murder.

The story drew broad attention internationally, not just in the Balkans where local investigative outlets have reported many of the same allegations, which Vucic denies.

The State Department declined to comment on the merit of the allegations in the story, however at least one high-ranking State Department official shared the story on social media. And the allegations were raised last month during a congressional hearing about the Western Balkans.

Outside analysts though have been vocal.

“It’s a shocking and horrific story that the highest levels of government are so intertwined with criminal enterprises. I think we have seen this in enough other nations that it is a growing concern, the conflation between authoritarian governments and criminal networks,” Gary Kalman, executive director of Transparency International USA, told VOA’s Serbian Service.

“It’s terrible. It’s too bad,” said Susan Rose-Ackerman, professor of law and political science at Yale University, who co-authored the book “Corruption and Government.” She told VOA that connections between people in political power and organized crime create an extreme version of political corruption.

The Times story reported that the connections between police and the criminal group, led by a soccer hooligan Veljko Belivuk, nicknamed Trouble, were well documented. The story also claimed “there is little doubt that Belivuk and his gang are in prison because Europol cracked the code” of the phone-messaging app through which they communicated.

Author Robert Worth reported that Belivuk testified in court that “his gang had been organized ‘for the need and by the order of Aleksandar Vucic.'” He added that the group, among others, used to intimidate political rivals and prevent fans at soccer games from chanting against Vucic.

Worth also wrote that he is skeptical that Vucic was unaware of all the groups did since Vucic “now exercises near-total control over almost every aspect of public life” in Serbia.

International context

Vucic has been in politics since the 1990s. He served as information minister to Slobodan Milosevic, where he led a crackdown on the press, and he publicly voiced support for Serbian war criminals.

His Serbian Progressive Party has now been in power for more than 10 years, during which he was also a prime minister.

Vucic’s spokespeople declined Worth’s requests for comments, but in an interview for pro-government Happy TV in Serbia, Vucic said that the “preposterous New York Times story was ordered” and that he understands it as a message during the dialogue about normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia has never recognized.

“I know how they do it,” said Vucic for Happy TV. “You know, CIA sets you up, CIA watches you, if you don’t behave well and don’t listen, this is only the beginning.”

It has become common practice in past years that Serbian authorities denote any criticism as treason, conspiracy against the country or a plot to overthrow the government.

Both Worth and The New York Times denied such allegations.

VOA interviewees noted that the most significant aspect of the story was the fact that it was published in English, in a reputable outlet with a great number of readers.

“It is an exposé of Aleksandar Vucic and his government. And it put it in an international context, given that it’s The New York Times,” Tanya Domi, professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, told VOA. “Everybody is reading this.”

Is Serbia a reliable partner for the United States?

“Is this reporting credible?” Senator Bob Menendez asked the State Department’s counselor Derek Chollet during a May hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about U.S. policy toward the Western Balkans, referencing the Times story.

“We believe it is. I can’t speak to the specifics of the article, but there is absolutely a lot of corruption,” replied Chollet, with Gabriel Escobar, State Department deputy assistant secretary, sitting next to him.

“So what are the real prospects for a reliable partner in Serbia with that background?” Menendez asked.

“We’re doing this with eyes open, but we are holding Vucic to account and his colleagues to account for their corruption, for their behavior and activity,” said Chollet, noting that corruption is a major issue in the whole region.

But in an interview for VOA’s Bosnian Service, Kurt Bassuener, senior associate at the Democratization Policy Council, pointed out that the U.S. has not sanctioned any Vucic administration official for corruption as it has done in some neighboring countries.

“They essentially dodged it,” Bassuener said of State Department officials. “They didn’t deal with any of the substance. And I think that’s emblematic of the overarching policy, which is pacification toward the region.”

Domi believes the United States and the West are pursuing the idea that Serbia is “a stabilizing force in the region.” But if the goal of such foreign policy toward the Western Balkans is to draw Serbia closer to the West and further from Russia, Domi says there is no proof such a strategy works.

Serbia is one of the rare European countries that has not introduced sanctions against Russia, and there is a strong pro-Russian sentiment in the country.

Transparency International’s Kalman said Washington’s strategy with Serbia could shift in the future.

“I think there is a possibility that the U.S., given sort of Serbia’s role and where it sits in the world, that they might put some pressure on to try and improve things in Serbia,” he said.

“How far they push and whether or not they are concerned that the Serbian government will start an alliance with countries and interests that the U.S. counter to their national security, and so then they back up. I don’t know the answer to that question,” Kalman said.
…

President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday announced an economic partnership focusing on energy transition and key technologies, and also vowed continued support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday agreed to deepen close economic ties between their countries, pledging to accelerate the clean energy transition and strengthen critical mineral supply chains.

The two leaders also discussed their “unwavering support for the people in Ukraine,” Biden told reporters at a joint news conference with Sunak, an opportunity not afforded to every world leader who visits the White House.

Biden and the British prime minister released the Atlantic Declaration, which Sunak described as a first-of-its-kind economic partnership on issues like artificial intelligence, climate change and protecting technologies that would help shape the future.

“I know some people have wondered what kind of partner Britain would be after it left the EU,” Sunak said. “I’d say, judge us by our actions. We’re as committed to our values as ever, as reliable of an ally as ever, as attractive an investment destination as ever.”

Biden hailed the intensity of the economic relationship as an “enormous source of strength” that underpinned broader ties between the NATO allies. “We discussed how we can continue to adapt and upgrade our partnership to ensure our countries remain at the cutting edge of a rapidly changing world,” he said.

The two leaders shared laughs and more sober sentiments when they met in the Oval Office about the close relations between prior leaders from the two countries as they previewed topics for the meeting, including artificial intelligence and Northern Ireland, as well as joint economic and security interests, including in Asia.

The meeting, their fourth in as many months, came as Western officials sought to ascertain whether Russia was responsible for the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam, which has displaced thousands of people and caused major economic and environmental damage. Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the dam’s destruction.

Biden and Sunak both underscored continued support for Ukraine to ensure its long-term security and deter aggression after the war ends.

Sunak said Ukraine’s supporters needed to send a strong signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that their backing for Kyiv will not weaken as the war goes on.

“We’re not going anywhere. We will be here for as long as it takes,” he said. “And hopefully that will speed up the calculation in his mind that he should withdraw his forces.”

Thursday’s discussion focused heavily on ensuring the safety of AI and other emerging technologies, Sunak told reporters, saying Britain would host the first summit on the issue this autumn to discuss how the risks of AI can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action.

Sunak had pushed to strengthen trading ties between Britain and the United States, keen to show some progress after the Biden administration quashed any speedy prospect of a post-Brexit free trade agreement between the two countries.

Asked about the absence of a bigger trade deal, Sunak said the “specific, targeted measures” now being discussed were the right thing to focus on since they would remove red tape and facilitate billions of pounds of new investment in Britain.

Sunak also sought Biden’s backing for defense minister Ben Wallace’s bid to become the next secretary-general of NATO. Biden said it remains to be seen whether it’s time for a British leader of NATO, adding that the organization’s members need to build consensus on a future leader.
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The Kremlin on Thursday said a blast that damaged a pipeline once used to export Russian ammonia via Ukraine could have a “negative impact” on the fate of a Black Sea grain deal.

The Togliatti-Odesa pipeline, which once pumped up to 2.5 million tons of ammonia annually for global export to Ukraine’s Pivdennyi port on the Black Sea from Togliatti in western Russia, has been idle since the start of the war in February last year. 

Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of blowing up a part of the pipeline, the world’s longest to carry ammonia, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Monday. The regional Ukrainian governor said Russia had shelled the pipeline on Tuesday. Neither side provided evidence to back its allegations. 

Asked by reporters about how the damage to the pipeline could affect the fate of the Black Sea grain deal, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “It can only have a negative impact.”  

He described it as “yet another complication in terms of extending the deal,” adding that Russia did not know “what kind of destruction” there had been to the ammonia pipeline.  

Russia has threatened to walk away from the Black Sea grain deal on July 17 if demands to improve its own food and fertilizer exports are not met. The deal, struck in July last year, facilitates the “safe navigation” of grain, foodstuffs and fertilizers — including ammonia — for export to global markets. 

U.N. officials are continuing discussions with all the parties to the deal, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday.  

“We’re continuing our efforts through as many avenues as we can, given the importance of all of this to the fight against global hunger and ensuring that the prices of food do not spike on the global market,” Dujarric told reporters.  

The United Nations and Turkey brokered the Ukraine grain Black Sea export deal to help alleviate a global food crisis worsened by conflict disrupting exports from two of the world’s leading grain suppliers. 

To help persuade Russia to allow Ukraine to resume its Black Sea grain exports last year, a separate three-year agreement was also struck in July in which the United Nations agreed to help Russia with its food and fertilizer exports. 

Dujarric said top U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan was due to meet with Russian officials in Geneva on Friday “as part of our routine contacts on our efforts to facilitate the trade in Russian fertilizer and Russian grain.”

Russian Industry and Trade minister Denis Manturov said earlier Thursday that Moscow had no access to the damaged part of the pipeline and did not expect to be granted it, the Interfax news agency reported. 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that it would take one to three months to repair the damaged section of the pipeline.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits the Kherson region where thousands of people are dealing with the effects from flooding following the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam. The hydroelectric dam in Russian-held territory was destroyed on June 6, flooding dozens of villages and parts of a nearby city, with Russia and Ukraine blaming each other for the destruction.
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Despite Western attempts to stifle Russia’s economy through sanctions following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Russian trade volumes with dozens of countries have actually increased since the war began, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Atlantic Council. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Latest developments:

U.S. President Joe Biden to host NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg for talks Monday with support for Ukraine at the top of the agenda ahead of next month’s NATO summit.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said Thursday he spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the upcoming visits to Russia and Ukraine by a delegation of African leaders who are seeking to help resolve the conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he visited the Kherson region where thousands of people are dealing with the effects from flooding following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

Zelenskyy shared a video on Telegram of him meeting with officials and said they discussed evacuations, restoring the region’s ecosystem and the military situation in the area.

That followed his nightly address Wednesday in which he called for a “clear and quick response from the world.”

He said “large-scale efforts are needed” including the help of groups such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The ICRC said earlier Wednesday it was closely coordinating with the Ukrainian Red Cross to support the humanitarian response to the dam’s destruction.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg “promised NATO mechanisms will be used to provide humanitarian assistance.” Kuleba and Stoltenberg announced they would lead a meeting Thursday with NATO allies to discuss the situation.

The governor of the Kherson region said Thursday about 600 square kilometers were under water.

Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said about two-thirds of the flooded land was on the side of the Dnipro River occupied by Russia, while one-third was on the side still under Ukrainian control.

Prokudin said efforts to evacuate people from flooded areas were ongoing.

The hydroelectric dam collapsed Tuesday, with Russia and Ukraine blaming each other for the destruction.

Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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A Syrian national wounded four children and an adult in a knife attack in a park in the southeastern French town of Annecy on Thursday, police said, leaving some of the victims critically ill in hospital.

The attacker was a Syrian national with legal refugee status in France, a police official told Reuters. He was not known to security agencies and his motives were unclear, an investigative source said.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that the attacker had been arrested.

Two children and one adult were in life-threatening condition, while two children were slightly hurt, police said.

“Children and one adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on Twitter, calling the attack “an act of absolute cowardice.”

Witnesses said at least one of the children wounded in the attack was in a stroller. The incident took place at around 0745 GMT in the playground of a lakeside park in Annecy, a town in the French Alps.

“He jumped (in the playground), started shouting and then went towards the strollers, repeatedly hitting the little ones with a knife,” a witness who gave his name as Ferdinand told BFM TV.

“Mothers were crying, everybody was running,” said George, another witness and owner of a nearby restaurant.

The TV channel showed footage of several policemen overpowering an individual in a park. 

“Nothing more abominable than to attack children,” National Assembly speaker Yael Braun-Pivet said on Twitter. Parliament observed a minute of silence to mark the incident.
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U.S. President Joe Biden will host British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for talks at the White House Thursday that are expected to cover economic ties and supporting Ukraine in its defense against a Russian invasion.

The visit by Sunak is his first to the United States since becoming prime minister in October, but he and Biden have already met three times this year.

“The two leaders will review a range of global issues, including our economic partnership, our shared support for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s brutal war of aggression, as well as further action to accelerate the clean energy transition,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday. “The president and the prime minister will also discuss the joint U.S.-U.K. leadership on critical and emerging technologies as well as our work to strengthen our economic security. They will also review developments in Northern Ireland as part of their shared commitment to preserving the gains of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.”

Ahead of Thursday’s talks, Sunak said he would push for closer economic relations in the same spirit as the countries’ defense and security cooperation.

“Just as interoperability between our militaries has given us a battlefield advantage over our adversaries, greater economic interoperability will give us a crucial edge in the decades ahead,” Sunak said.

British officials said Sunak also wanted to discuss ways to protect global supply chains, particularly against individual countries that may corner and manipulate markets for certain sectors.

Another topic on the agenda for Sunak is the regulation of the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence.

Before meeting with Biden, Sunak held talks with congressional leaders and took part in a wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery. He also appeared at the Washington Nationals baseball game where the team was honoring U.S.-U.K. Friendship Day.

White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
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Lionel Messi on Wednesday announced that he intends to join Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami as a free agent after parting ways with French champions Paris Saint-Germain and snubbing a lucrative contract offer in Saudi Arabia.

Messi, who played his final game for PSG over the weekend, was also linked with a return to Barcelona, but the Spanish club have had their hands tied due to LaLiga’s financial fair play rules.

“I made the decision that I’m going to go to Miami,” Messi said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo and Sport newspapers.

“I still haven’t closed it 100%. I’m still missing a few things, but we decided to go ahead. If Barcelona didn’t work out, I wanted to leave Europe, get out of the spotlight and think more about my family.”

Messi, who led Argentina to World Cup glory in Qatar in December and has earned a record seven Ballon d’Or awards, won the Ligue 1 title in his two seasons with PSG, as well as the French Super Cup in 2022.

“After winning the World Cup and not being able to go to Barca, it was time to go to the U.S. league to experience football in a different way and enjoy the day-to-day,” Messi said.

“Obviously with the same responsibility and desire to want to win and to always do things well. But with more peace of mind.”

Ownership stake

The MLS said it was pleased that Messi intends to join Inter Miami this summer.

Messi had wanted to go to a club where he could eventually have an ownership stake, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters this week. He also wanted to maximize his existing deal with Adidas and MLS’s relationship with Apple.

MLS earns a flat fee of around $250 million per year from Apple until it reaches a certain threshold of subscriptions, after which point it will earn a share of the revenue from those subscriptions.

Messi’s move to MLS is expected to drive viewers to the Apple TV streaming platform, as the world’s most recognizable soccer player.

The forward was also linked with a move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad after he received a formal offer.

The Gulf country has been looking to bring the game’s biggest players to its league and was successful in persuading Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo to join Al Nassr soon after the World Cup. French striker Karim Benzema joined Al Ittihad this week.

Inter Miami is co-owned by former England captain David Beckham, who was one of the first major European stars to move to the United States to play in the MLS, winning the MLS Cup twice with the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Messi will have his work cut out in Miami, however, with the club rock bottom of the Eastern Conference standings — six points from ninth place, the final spot which would give them a chance of qualifying for the playoffs.

The team sacked coach Phil Neville last week after a dismal run of 10 defeats and five wins this season, a stark contrast to last season when they finished sixth and qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday that talks about resolving the conflict with Russia could not start with a mere cessation of hostilities.

“If anyone thinks they should freeze the conflict and then see how to solve it, they don’t understand it,” he said in an online briefing aimed at African journalists, following a tour of African countries.

More than 100 rounds of consultation and attempts at a cease-fire since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 only led to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he said.

A delegation of African heads of state is expected to visit Ukraine and Russia in the next few days, hoping to persuade them to cease hostilities, a spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told Reuters last month.

He said on Wednesday that no date had been set for the mission.

Such a proposal means that Russian troops would remain on Ukrainian soil even as peace talks start. Ukraine previously said Russian forces should withdraw before such negotiations could start, while Moscow wants Kyiv to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea as a precondition for negotiations.

President Macky Sall of Senegal, last year’s African Union chairman, whose country was not present at the latest U.N. vote condemning Russia in February, leads the initiative. The current African Union chairman, Comoros Islands President Othman Ghazali, was recently added to the delegation.

It also includes Presidents Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia — which both voted for the resolution — and Congo Republic’s Denis Sassou Nguesso and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, which both abstained, as did South Africa.

Kuleba has been on a charm offensive in Africa to win support on a continent where 30 of the 54 African U.N. member states voted in favor of the U.N. resolution condemning Russia’s invasion.

“What we see in our relations with the continent right now is fair to call a Ukrainian-African renaissance,” Kuleba said.

He had no details on what the African peace mission entailed, but he welcomed it.

“We are looking forward to hosting these presidents in Kyiv,” he said.
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