Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Paris has always “fought against Islamist terrorism,” National Assembly President Yael Braun-Pivet has said

The French National Assembly observed a moment of silence before its session on Tuesday, paying tribute to the victims of last Friday’s deadly terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside of Moscow. The assault claimed the lives of 139 people and left more than 180 injured.

“France has always condemned such acts and fought against Islamist terrorism. Wherever it strikes, whatever the pretext, it must be fought,” the assembly’s president, Yael Braun-Pivet, told MPs.

“Eight and a half years after the Bataclan attack, Islamist terrorism has once again cowardly struck the audience of a concert hall,” she added, referring to a series of terrorist acts committed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) extremists in Paris in 2015. The group carried out a mass shooting and took hostages at a rock concert in the Bataclan theater, killing 90 people. The assault was one of three coordinated attacks that claimed a total of 130 lives combined and left more than 400 people injured.

An IS-offshoot known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) has claimed responsibility for the Moscow attack. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed “radical Islamists” for the attack, but said it still needs to be established who gave the order.

Pressed on who may be responsible, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Bortnikov, said on Tuesday it could have been the US, UK, and Ukraine.

France’s moment of silence was held in memory of the Moscow terrorist attack victims and in “solidarity with their loved ones,” Braun-Pivet said. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said later on Tuesday that the Russian people should “never be confused with their leaders,” also expressing “solidarity” with them over the terrorist attack.

Relations between Moscow and Paris have been particularly sour in recent weeks, after President Emmanuel Macron commented that the West should not rule out sending NATO troops to Ukraine at some point in the future amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

His words alarmed even some of Paris’ NATO allies, who rushed to deny having such plans. Moscow warned in response that the move would bring the world to the brink of war. Putin also warned against escalation earlier in March, saying that a direct clash between NATO and Russia would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”

Officers guarding the Russian Embassy during presidential election were reportedly given calendars and chocolates

Vienna police officers who provided security around the Russian Embassy during the country’s presidential election and were given small presents, have been told to reject such gifts in the future, Associated Press reported on Tuesday, citing the city’s police department.

The presidential election in Russia was held between March 15 and 17. Russians living abroad had the chance to cast their votes at Russian embassies and consulates in several European cities on March 17.

According to AP, Vienna police officers who were posted to protect the embassy on that day reportedly were in contact with embassy employees and occasionally entered the building. Local media cited one officer as saying the police went in and out of the premises to use the toilets.

After the voting concluded, several officers were reportedly seen leaving with gift bags bearing the Russian emblem. The paper bags contained low-value items such as calendars and boxes of chocolates, the AP wrote.

The Vienna police department clarified to AP in an email that receiving the gifts from the Russians did not constitute misconduct under the service law for Austrian civil servants.

READ MORE: Putin addresses nation after election

However, it “leaves an unwanted impression that does not do justice to the professional approach of the officers at the scene,” the department added. This, it said, was pointed out to officers and they were instructed to “reject in a friendly but firm way such courtesies, even if only of a low value, in the future.”

According to media reports, small souvenirs featuring the election campaign such as calendars and keychains were also given out at Russian polling stations, particularly to those casting their vote for the first time.

London’s charges are baseless and malicious, Beijing has said

British claims about the alleged hacking of the UK Electoral Commission are false and groundless, the Chinese government said on Tuesday, responding to the announcement of sanctions against two of its nationals and a business in Wuhan.

London announced the sanctions against Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, as well as the Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd, on Monday. According to the British government, they are linked to Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31 (APT31), supposedly a state-affiliated hacker outfit blamed for two cyber attacks on British voting.

“The UK’s hype-up of the so-called ‘Chinese cyber attacks’ without basis and the announcement of sanctions is outright political manipulation and malicious slander,” the Chinese embassy in London said. “We have no interest or need to meddle in the UK’s internal affairs.”

The embassy demanded the UK “immediately stop spreading false information” about China.

British evidence provided to Beijing about APT31 was “inadequate,” while the “relevant conclusions lack professionalism,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday, adding that China “will take necessary measures to safeguard our lawful rights and interests.”

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced the sanctions on Monday evening, accusing China of “attacks on our democracy” and vowing that such actions “will not be tolerated.”

London has alleged that APT31 was behind the cyber attacks on the UK Electoral Commission between August 2021 and October 2022, which accessed voter databases as well as sensitive emails of “control systems” and officials involved in six by-elections.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has accused the US of working to “compile and spread all kinds of disinformation about the threats posed by the so-called ‘Chinese hackers’,” using its allies from the ‘Five Eyes’ network – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.

New Zealand also claimed to have been targeted by a different group of Chinese hackers on Monday, while the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against seven Chinese nationals – including the two named by the UK. The group allegedly tried to hack British and American nationals via “malicious emails” over a 14-year period.

Taipei says it will continue to intensify training and exercises in response to Beijing’s military activities near the island

Taiwanese forces carried out air defense combat exercises on Tuesday in response to reports of increased military activity by Beijing's forces near the island, according to a statement published by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense.

According to the Taiwanese air force,  “overall air defense combat plan exercises” were carried out in the early hours of Tuesday morning and employed the use of domestically-made Sky Bow and US-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles, in conjunction with aircraft and navy ships.

The Taiwanese command explained that the purpose of the drills was to “inspect and verify the joint air defense combat command and control of the three branches,” and stated that it will continue holding such exercises to “deal with potential threats.”

Beijing considers the self-governed island to be an inalienable part of China but has stated that it seeks peaceful reunification. However, it has warned that it would resort to military action if the US-backed Taipei administration attempts to declare independence.

Although Taiwan has governed itself since 1949, most of the international community, including the US, does not officially recognize it as a sovereign state.

Meanwhile, the island’s self-proclaimed government has repeatedly complained over the past few years that China’s military aircraft and navy ships have continued to intrude into Taiwan’s airspace and territorial waters. This as Washington warns of a potential Chinese offensive on the island in the coming years.

Last week, US Navy Admiral John Aquilino, who leads the US Indo-Pacific Command, claimed that China was developing plans for a ground invasion of Taiwan by 2027. Similar claims have also been made by CIA Director William Burns and other senior US officials.

However, Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, have denied having any near-term plans to use force against Taiwan. Chinese Foreign ministry Spokesman Lin Jian has dismissed the rumors as attempts by “some people in the US” to “hype up the China-threat narrative” and escalate tensions in the region.

At the same time, Beijing has insisted that Taiwan’s status is a domestic issue and has urged foreign governments not to interfere. Chinese officials have in particular criticized the US, which has repeatedly expressed support for the Taiwanese government, has concluded defense contracts with the island’s military, and has sent its high-ranking officials on official visits with local authorities.

London has announced an investment plan to boost workforce in the sector and to maintain its submarine at-sea deterrent  

The UK government revealed plans on Monday to boost Britain’s nuclear sector, for energy and defense, including massive investments in the future workforce and in its submarine program, which London views as its “vital” at-sea deterrent.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced a package of public and private investment which is expected to cover the needs of Britain’s growing nuclear energy industry and to create 40,000 new jobs by 2030.

The British government plans to partner with defense companies BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Babcock, as well as with French energy giant EDF, to invest more than £763 million ($961 million) by the end of the decade in the relevant skills, jobs and education, it said in a statement.

Last year, the UK unveiled a plan to build eight new reactors and new-type small modular reactors by 2050, in an effort to produce 24 gigawatts of electricity, enough to provide a quarter of the country’s needs.

The government also announced a commitment to invest up to £300 million ($379 million) in the production of the HALEU fuel required for new high-tech reactors, which is currently only commercially produced in Russia.

“Meeting the UK’s ambitious nuclear targets will require a huge ramp up in all parts of the workforce, from engineering to construction,” Tom Greatrex, Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, said, commenting on the new investment plan.

The major development initiative comes as the UK authorities work to ensure there will also be enough nuclear-energy-focused workers for the construction and maintenance of its fleet of submarines, which the UK considers vital for its national security, as they are the core of its continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent.

“Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavor,” Sunak said, as quoted by Reuters.

Britain is set to expand its submarine industry, boosting its fleet under the AUKUS security pact. AUKUS (Australia, UK and US) was established in 2021. Under the pact’s Pillar 1, the US and UK pledged to help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, while Pillar 2 is a broader technology-sharing agreement.

On Monday, the British Ministry of Defence published the ‘Defence Nuclear Enterprise Command Paper,’ in which it underscores the need to “sustain Britain’s nuclear deterrent “in a period of heightened risk and volatility that is likely to last beyond the 2030s.”

The document also revealed that Britain is developing a new replacement sovereign warhead, while progressing with the new Dreadnought Class submarines, bringing these into service in the early 2030s.

The jailed WikiLeaks founder has been allowed a new, limited bid, to fight his extradition to the US

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange scored a victory on Tuesday in his years-long legal battle in the UK to avoid extradition to the US. Not much has changed to help his present condition, but his defense has been given another day at court.

Assange, 52 has been held in a top-security British prison since 2019. He has endured solitary confinement in Belmarsh prison, which is usually reserved for dangerous criminals, while awaiting trial for a bail violation. The US indicted him under the country's Espionage Act a month after his arrest, with Washington’s lawyers proceeding to file an extradition request. Supporters say he is being persecuted by the US and the UK for political reasons.

In 2021, a British district judge denied the extradition bid, recognizing Assange may commit suicide while in US custody, though dismissing other defense arguments. The Americans appealed the decision and offered assurances that the suspect would be not be mis-treated.

The US consequently won the case, and in June 2022 then-Home Secretary Priti Patel authorized sending Assange to the US. After several setbacks, his lawyers asked the High Court in February for a chance to challenge the original dismissal of the bulk of their case.

Judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson ordered on Tuesday that the extradition be halted, giving the US three weeks to provide additional guarantees that the rights of the defendant would be observed.

In particular, the UK wants a pledge that Assange would not face solitary confinement or be held incommunicado. There is concern that the Australian citizen would be put into a so-called communications management unit (CMU) at a US federal prison, which critics call a way to silence dissenters. WikiLeaks has pointed out that American guarantees are “inherently unreliable,” according to prominent rights groups.

If the justices had ruled against Assange this week, his options in the British court system would have been exhausted. He could have found himself in US custody within 24 hours to 28 days, unless a foreign party intervened. His legal team had planned to issue a plea to the European Court of Human Rights for an emergency injunction.

Assange supporters say he is facing US retaliation for publishing embarrassing state secrets, including evidence of alleged crimes during the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The case has serious ramifications for freedom of press in the West. President Barack Obama reportedly declined to press charges against Assange due to the so-called ‘New York Times dilemma’ – reasoning that the transparency activist did not differ from legacy media outlets in his journalistic work.

The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump accused Assange of aiding and abetting whistleblower Chelsea Manning, when she leaked classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010.

President Joe Biden has rejected calls to drop the charges. According to the Wall Street Journal, the US government is considering striking a plea bargain with Assange, under which he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor offense in exchange for the extradition request being withdrawn.

The 52-year-old Australian has spent five years in a London prison following a long and dramatic period of asylum in the UK’s Ecuadorian embassy

The British High Court ruled on Tuesday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can mount a final UK challenge against extradition to the US to face trial for publishing secret diplomatic and military files. The publisher stands accused of espionage and is facing up to 175 years in jail.

The hearing at the High Court could have been the last opportunity for Assange’s defense team to seek recourse within the British legal system, if the judges had decided against his bid. His attorneys have argued that the American case against him is political in nature – retaliation for his exposure of alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq – and that extraditing him to the US would put his life and well-being at risk.

Two British justices reviewing the situation decided that there was an arguable case against extradition and ruled that he should be granted a full appeal hearing again.

Assange has been held in the top-security Belmarsh prison since 2019, when Quito revoked his political asylum and allowed British police to arrest him at the Embassy of Ecuador in London. At the time, he was jumping bail in a separate extradition request, which the Australian citizen claimed to be a ploy by the US to get him into Swedish jurisdiction, where he claimed an attempt to extradite him to the US would have been easiest. A US court indicted Assange under the Espionage Act of 2017 a month after his arrest in the UK.

A British judge in January 2021 ruled against handing Assange over to the Americans, saying that he may take his own life due to harsh prison conditions in the US. Washington’s lawyers appealed the decision and offered assurances of good treatment, which Britain decided were sufficient for extradition. Then-Home Secretary Priti Patel authorized it in June 2022. Assange has since lost one appeal against the pending transfer.

Supporters of the jailed publisher say he is being persecuted by the US and its allies for revealing secrets that were embarrassing for Western countries.

“We have to be clear about who the criminals are. Just because they are using the justice system to imprison him, it doesn’t mean that justice or the law – international law – is on their side,” his wife Stella said on Monday.

Speaking after the ruling, she called the decision “astounding” and reiterated that her husband is a political prisoner. She expressed regret that the court did not take into account claims in the Western press that the CIA had considered kidnapping or assassinating Assange during the presidency of Donald Trump.

READ MORE: Assange in plea deal talks with US – WSJ

The US alleges that Assange has committed crimes in aiding and abetting whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who leaked classified US files to WikiLeaks in 2010. Officials claimed that the pro-transparency NGO endangered unspecified US assets through its publications. That narrative, however, was denied by a senior US counter-intelligence officer during Manning’s tribunal in 2013.

Beijing’s embassy in Wellington has dismissed the allegation as “groundless and irresponsible”

New Zealand’s spy agency has claimed that a hacking group sponsored by the Chinese government carried out a cyberattack against the country’s parliament, stealing data on some of its MPs. Beijing has dismissed the accusation, which it says isn’t supported by any evidence.

The alleged breach occurred in 2021 and targeted the Parliamentary Counsel Office and the Parliamentary Service, Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) Minister Judith Collins said in a statement on Monday.

The “malicious cyber activity” was swiftly detected by New Zealand’s authorities, which prevented the hackers from accessing data of a “strategic or sensitive” nature, she said.

According to Collins, a group called Advanced Persistent Threat 40 (APT 40), which the GCSB claims is linked to China’s Ministry of State Security, was responsible for the attack.

“The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” she said.

The GCSB minister said Wellington had confronted Beijing about the alleged cyberattack, but stressed that New Zealand had no plans to sanction China over the incident.

The statement by Collins came on the same day as the US Department of Justice released photos of seven Chinese nationals wanted on charges of infiltrating the communications of British and American targets over a 14-year period through malicious emails.

The men were said to be members of an entity described as a state-sponsored hacking group, known as APT 31 or ‘Violet Typhoon.’

The GCSB minister emphasized the importance of a collective response by the West to the alleged cyber-security threat posed by China, saying “it’s important [that] liberal democracies stand up for other liberal democracies.”

The Chinese embassy in New Zealand dismissed the accusations by Wellington as “groundless and irresponsible,” saying Beijing had expressed “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to the island nation’s authorities.

“When investigating and determining the nature of cyber cases, one needs to have adequate and objective evidence, instead of smearing other countries when facts do not exist, still less politicize or even weaponize cybersecurity issues,” the embassy said in a statement on Tuesday.

Beijing doesn’t meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, and “accusing China of foreign interference is completely barking up the wrong tree,” the Chinese diplomats added in an apparent reference to the US.

READ MORE: Chinese hackers stole 60,000 emails from US State Dept – officials

China is ready to promote cooperation with Wellington “on the basis of mutual respect” and hopes that New Zealand will also work in the same direction, and refrains from “megaphone diplomacy,” the statement read.

The bloc should aim to create “a European pillar inside NATO,” the top diplomat has said

The EU must increase its military strength and internal cooperation, but that does not mean it should aspire to a single army, the bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday, the foreign policy chief insisted there is a “strong consensus” among EU members on boosting the bloc’s defense capabilities, both in terms of its military industry and armed forces.

“This is not a question of creating the singular European army,” Borrell said, adding that all 27 EU members are free to decide their own defense policies. 

Instead, the armies of EU members need to be “more interoperational” in order to strengthen the bloc’s defense, the diplomat argued.

“They have to create a European pillar inside NATO. Europeans have to take more responsibility for our defense,” Borrell stated, adding that this includes fostering a close partnership with the US within NATO. 

“We have to increase our military capacities… But it is utopical to believe that we are going to cancel the 27 armies to create a single one. What we have to do is to be more realistic,” Borrell said. The bloc is well aware of the harsh realities of the modern world and is preparing accordingly, he added. 

In January, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani publicly supported the creation of a joint European army, an idea that has been debated for several years, arguing that the force could be used for peacekeeping missions and conflict prevention. 

The proposal, however, met resistance from several EU members, including Denmark and Poland. Copenhagen argued that “NATO is the cornerstone of our collective security,” and that defense remains a matter of national sovereignty. Warsaw insisted that EU action on defense must be complementary to NATO efforts.

Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, EU member states have considerably ramped up defense spending, with plans to increase it to €350 billion ($380 billion) in 2024. In recent weeks, several Western leaders have also called on the bloc to prepare for a full-scale war with Russia, which they claim could break out within the next few years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no plans or interest whatsoever in attacking NATO countries. Moscow, however, has for years voiced concern about the expansion of the US-led military bloc towards its borders.

Warsaw has claimed that a Russian missile violated Polish airspace, but refused to provide evidence, according to the diplomat

The Polish Foreign Ministry has summoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Andreev over another alleged ‘missile incident’, but the diplomat decided that the meeting would be pointless as long as Warsaw refuses to back up its repeated accusations with evidence.

The Polish military claimed on Sunday that a Russian air-launched cruise missile briefly entered the country’s airspace for roughly 40 seconds at 4:23am near the southeastern village of Oserdow. Warsaw said it would “demand explanations” from Moscow.

“This morning I was invited to the Polish Foreign Ministry to meet with one of the deputy ministers,” Andreev told Sputnik on Monday. The Russian ambassador noted that Warsaw had already made similar accusations before, and that Moscow is still waiting for proof to back up those claims.

“Since I understood from the response of my Polish colleagues that there would be no evidence this time as well, I decided that in this situation the meeting would be pointless and declined the invitation,” Andreev stated.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported during a briefing on Sunday that its warplanes had carried out strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, but has not commented on the Polish allegations.

On December 29, Poland claimed that a Russian missile briefly entered the country’s airspace before veering back over Ukrainian territory. At the time, the Russian charge d’affaires called the claim unsubstantiated, adding that Poland will not receive any explanations until it provides evidence.

A similar incident in November 2022 was initially blamed on Russia – but Polish investigators concluded in September 2023 that the projectile that hit the border town of Przewodow, killing two farmers, was in fact a stray Ukrainian anti-air missile. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky initially blamed the incident on Russia and demanded a response from NATO, before the leaders of the US-led military bloc publicly stated that the missile was Ukrainian.

The conflict is about preserving the US’ role in the world, the EU’s top diplomat has said

The West supports Ukraine not out of love for the Ukrainian people, but because it serves its own geopolitical interests, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told CNN on Monday.

Appearing on the Christiane Amanpour show, Borrell repeated the assertion that Ukraine was not in any way involved in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow, and urged the US to pass a $60 billion aid package for Kiev.

“You know, the US has a vested interest in supporting Ukraine. Otherwise we would be giving a free pass to Russia. And you know what happens then. Remember Crimea. Remember Syria,” he told Amanpour, without explaining what any of that meant.

“We cannot afford Russia [to] win this war. Otherwise the US and European interests will be very damaged,” he added. “It’s not a matter of generosity alone, it’s not a matter of supporting Ukraine because we love Ukrainian people. It is in our own interests and it is also in the interests of the US as a global player, someone who has to be perceived as a reliable partner, a security provider to the allies.”

The proposal to send Ukraine over $60 billion in additional military aid has been stuck in the US Congress for months. Washington and its allies have provided Kiev with over $200 billion in weapons, ammunition, and equipment since February 2022, shrugging off Russian warnings that this risks open confrontation and insisting that this does not make them a party to the conflict.

Both the US and EU have insisted that Ukraine had nothing to do with the massacre at a Moscow concert venue on Friday, when over 130 people were killed by armed gunmen.

A group of ethnic Tajiks suspected in the attack was apprehended while trying to cross into Ukraine. According to President Vladimir Putin, however, Moscow is eager to find out who ordered the attack.

“This atrocity may be only a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014, using the neo-Nazi Kiev regime as their hand,” Putin said on Monday evening. “And the Nazis, as is well known, never hesitated to use the most dirty and inhumane means to achieve their goals.” 

A high-level mission was due to travel to Washington to discuss planned Israeli military operation in southern Gaza city of Rafah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that now he will not send a delegation that had been expected in Washington, after the US refrained earlier that day from vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on a Gaza ceasefire.

The UNSC passed the resolution on Monday, demanding an “immediate” ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks. The US abstained from casting its vote on the council, while the remaining 14 members voted in favor of the resolution, which also demands the unconditional release of remaining Israeli hostages and highlights “the urgent need to expand the flow” of aid into Gaza.

Washington’s decision not to veto the resolution was a “clear retreat from the consistent position of the US” since the start of the war, Netanyahu’s office stated, following the UNSC vote.

“This withdrawal hurts both the war effort and the effort to release the hostages,” it explained, “because it gives Hamas hope that international pressure will allow them to accept a cease-fire without the release of our hostages.” 

According to the statement, Netanyahu made it clear to the US on Sunday that he would not send the high-level delegation to discuss the Israeli military’s plans for an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah without the veto at the UNSC.

Meanwhile, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the statement “surprising and unfortunate.”

The US had concerns about the resolution because it did not condemn the October 7 attack, but did not veto it because its call for a ceasefire and for the release of hostages is consistent with Washington’s policy, Miller said, calling the resolution “non-binding.” 

White House spokesman John Kirby also called the cancellation of the Israeli delegation’s visit “disappointing” and said that Washington was “perplexed by this” because the US abstention “does not represent a shift in our policy.” 

The US still supports Israel and is providing weapons systems and other capabilities for the country to defend itself, Kirby added.

Israel is planning to launch a ground assault on Rafah despite international warnings of a potential catastrophe. More than half of Gaza’s population has fled to take refuge in the city due to the ongoing Israeli bombardment of other parts of the enclave.

Dave Calhoun will depart at the end of 2024

Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun has announced he will step down by the year’s end as the US aerospace giant grapples with the fallout of the 737 Max crisis.

The decision comes as part of the largest management shakeup in the company’s history.

In a Monday letter to employees posted on Boeing’s website, Calhoun said that the January 5 incident when a door plug blew off Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at 16,000 feet was “a watershed moment” for the company.

“We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency,” Calhoun wrote. “The eyes of the world are on us, and I know that we will come through this moment a better company. We will remain squarely focused on completing the work we have done together to return our company to stability after the extraordinary challenges of the past five years, with safety and quality at the forefront of everything that we do.”

Boeing initially brought on Calhoun to navigate a “challenging time” for the company, as it sought to gain back public trust after the two deadly crashes involving its 737 Max 8 planes in 2018 and 2019.

In addition to Calhoun’s departure, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal will also step down, effective immediately. Board Chair Larry Kellner has also informed the board that he does not intend to stand for re-election at the upcoming annual shareholder meeting.

Boeing’s production standards have come under increased scrutiny worldwide following a mid-air blowout on one of its 737 MAX 9 planes. On January 5, an Alaska Airlines flight bound for California from Portland, Oregon, had to turn back after a door panel blew off at 16,000 feet, injuring several of the 171 passengers aboard. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has temporarily grounded all 737 MAX 9 jets in the US for safety inspections. Alaska Airlines said it has found loose bolts on many of the Boeing planes in its fleet.

The FAA’s safety audit of the 737 MAX 9 manufacturing process has reportedly found dozens of quality-control shortcomings, including the use of dish soap and a hotel key card as makeshift tools.

The 737 MAX, Boeing’s top-selling airliner, was grounded by aviation regulators around the world in March 2019, after crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia killed a combined 346 people. The planes were cleared to go back into service around two years later, following repairs to their flight control systems.

Washington and London were too quick to pin the blame on Islamists, George Galloway has said

The claim by the US, UK and their Western allies that the deadly terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall outside Moscow was carried out by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) is most likely a “lie,” British MP George Galloway said on Sunday.

On his Mother of All Talk Shows (MOATS), he questioned the narrative propagated by Washington and its allies immediately after four gunmen stormed the concert venue outside the Russian capital, killing over 130 people and leaving more than 180 injured.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who commented on the tragedy almost immediately after the attack, said Washington had seen “no indication” that Ukrainians were involved. Later, some Western media, including Reuters and CNN, reported that IS had claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack.

“When the US and the UK and others swiftly tried to reassure me that it was only ISIS [that] carried out this mass murder in Moscow, I knew automatically that they were lying,” Galloway said.

He then pointed to what he called suspicious and “unexplained” activities by some Western politicians and officials, including Kirby’s statement.

READ MORE: Three more suspects in Moscow terrorist attack arrested

The British lawmaker drew particular attention to the fact that the US official had confirmed that Washington had called on its citizens to stay away from crowded places in Moscow as recently as the beginning of March.

Kirby did say that the US embassy in Russia had issued a security alert on March 7, warning that “extremists” were planning an imminent attack in Moscow. He still denied that it had anything to do with last Friday’s assault. “I don’t think that was related to this specific attack,” he said.

Galloway also pointed to the fact that former US President Barack Obama had paid a surprise visit to Downing Street just days before the Moscow attack. “No one, no one has explained the unannounced visit,” he said.

The UK media reported at the time of the visit that the former US leader had allegedly discussed a broad range of topics, including AI, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during an hour-long “courtesy visit.” 

Another episode mentioned by Galloway involved US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, who promised some “nice surprises on the battlefield” for Moscow this year. “Ukraine will make some very strong success,” she said in January, without providing any further comments on the issue.

Galloway cited these facts as “pieces of evidence” suggesting that “the US, its NATO allies and their proxy servant… [the] state of Ukraine… were in fact responsible for this mass murder.”

While the US abstained from voting, the 14 other members of the Security Council supported the resolution

The United Nations Security Council on Monday passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to take place for the duration of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which concludes on April 9.

At the vote on Monday 14 members of the UNSC supported the resolution, while the US abstained.

The resolution also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and “the urgent need to expand the flow” of aid into Gaza.

Speaking after the vote, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield blamed Hamas for the delay in passing a ceasefire resolution.

“We did not agree with everything with the resolution,” she stated while clarifying the reasoning behind the US abstention.

“Certain key edits were ignored, including our request to add a condemnation of Hamas,” Thomas-Greenfield said. She stressed that the release of hostages will lead to an increase in humanitarian aid.

The US had previously vetoed three proposed UNSC resolutions on Gaza and abstained from two such votes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also threatened to cancel a planned visit to Washington if the US did not veto a proposal calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Reacting immediately after the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the long-awaited resolution must be implemented and that a failure to do so “would be unforgivable.”

The Security Council just approved a long-awaited resolution on Gaza, demanding an immediate ceasefire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.

This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable.

Russia attempted to amend the text by restoring it to an earlier draft which called for a “permanent” ceasefire, but the bid failed.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the fact that the word “permanent” in operative paragraph one was replaced with weaker language is “unacceptable.”

“We all received instructions for a vote on the text that contained the word ‘permanent’,” Nebenzia stated, pointing out that anything else could be seen as permission for Israel to continue its attacks.

The UNSC vote came amid growing international calls to bring the months-long conflict to an end.

Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7, after the militants carried out a cross-border raid, killing more than 1,100 people and taking at least 250 hostages. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombings and ground operations in Gaza since that time, according to the enclave’s health service.

Dozens of Israeli captives were subsequently freed through a series of swaps during a weeklong truce in November. However, around 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

According to the latest media reports, Israel has agreed to release up to 800 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 40 hostages still held by Hamas.

Antonio Guterres says keeping thousands of aid trucks away from the Palestinian city of Rafah is a moral outrage

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, while urging countries to “truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid.”

The UN chief paid a visit on Saturday to the Egyptian side of the border, not far from Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, which is now overcrowded with refugees. Israel is planning to launch a ground assault on the area despite warnings of a potential catastrophe, as more than half of Gaza’s population has fled to the city due to fighting between Israel and Hamas.

“Any further onslaught will make things even worse – worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages, and worse for all people in the region,” Guterres said, describing starvation inside the enclave as a “moral outrage.”

His comments came a day after the UN Security Council failed to reach an agreement on a US-sponsored draft resolution seeking “an immediate and sustained ceasefire.” Western medics earlier warned the UN that the Israeli offensive in Rafah could lead to 250,000 deaths.

“Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness… a long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said, while standing next to a line of 7,000 waiting trucks, loaded with humanitarian aid.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed international pressure to cancel the Rafah offensive, insisting that it must go ahead to prevent Hamas from again attacking his country.

Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7, after the militants carried out a cross-border raid, killing more than 1,100 people and taking at least 250 hostages. Dozens of captives were subsequently freed through a series of swaps, during a weeklong truce in November. Around 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombing of Gaza and ground operation since October 7, according to the enclave’s health service.

According to the latest media reports, Israel has agreed to release up to 800 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 40 hostages still held by Hamas.

If you like this story, share it with a friend!

Belgrade was attacked in 1999 because there was no counterweight to the West on the global stage back then, Aleksandar Vucic has said

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has said that he stands by his earlier claim that Vladimir Putin would not have allowed NATO to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999 if he had been in power in Moscow at that time.

During talks with his Russian counterpart in Sochi in 2019, Vucic said “we in Serbia value Putin more than other leaders [of Russia]… If Putin was making decisions in Russia in 1999, nobody would’ve bombed us.”

In his interview for the documentary ‘Belgrade,’ which was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the start of the NATO airstrikes and aired on the television channel Russia 1 on Sunday, the Serbian leader was asked to comment on that claim.

“I said what I think. Every person in this country [Serbia] thinks the same,” Vucic replied.

“Some former leaders of Russia used to impose sanctions against us three days after the Americans did,” he said, referring to Boris Yeltsin, who was president between 1991 and 1999.

On March 24, 1999, the US and its allies launched airstrikes against what was then Yugoslavia, after blaming Belgrade for the “excessive and disproportionate use of force” in addressing an ethnic Albanian insurgency in Kosovo. NATO warplanes carried out 900 sorties during the 78-day bombing campaign, which, according to Serbian government figures, killed 2,500 civilians, including over 80 children. The Western powers acted without authorization from the UN Security Council.

NATO “took advantage of this situation and found a way to bomb us in order to destroy our country, because there was no counterweight at the global level, there was no one who could then resist them,” the Serbian president explained.

The same documentary included Putin’s response to the suggestion by Vucic that he would’ve stopped the NATO bombing campaign in 1999; the Russian president stressed that “the situation in Yugoslavia was different. The country was in a state of a severe internal conflict.” Because of this fact, “it’s difficult to talk about it now,” he said.

“In any case, if we had a single ally [in the face of Yugoslavia], of course, we would have been building relations with that ally… If we had any obligations in our relations, then, of course, we would have fulfilled those obligations. Back then, there were no such relations between Russia and Yugoslavia,” Putin explained.

READ MORE: Ruins of Yugoslavia: How Russia learned that NATO poses a threat

The Russian leader, who was first appointed Russia’s prime minster later in 1999, also said that the actions of the US and its allies that year were “completely unacceptable,” calling the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia “a huge tragedy.”

The inmates could be exchanged for 40 Israeli hostages held by Hamas, reports say

Israel has agreed to release between 700 and 800 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 40 hostages still held by Hamas, two of the country's news outlets reported on Sunday, citing officials familiar with the matter. The swap could form part of a potential US-brokered ceasefire deal aimed at suspending the fighting between Israel and the Gaza-based armed group, which has entered its fifth month.

According to Channel 12 and the Walla website, West Jerusalem is willing to release 100 inmates who have been convicted of murder. An unnamed official, who spoke to the Times of Israel, was cautious, however, saying “Right now, we’re feeling 50/50 about the chances for a deal.”

West Jerusalem is also reportedly ready to discuss permitting Palestinians to return to the northern part of Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously rejected a proposal by Hamas for a truce and prisoner exchange, insisting that the Israel Defense Forces are determined to eradicate the militant group’s presence in Gaza.

CIA Director William Burns reportedly met with an Israeli delegation in Qatar on Saturday as part of US attempts to persuade the IDF to halt its offensive on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which is massively overcrowded with refugees.

An unnamed official told Reuters after the meeting that there were still “significant gaps” in the negotiations, particularly regarding the proposed ratio of Israelis and Palestinians involved in the potential swap. Hamas is yet to respond to the proposal.

Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7, after the militants carried out a cross-border raid, killing more than 1,100 people and taking at least 250 hostages. Dozens of captives were subsequently freed through a series of swaps, during a weeklong truce in November. Around 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s bombing of Gaza and ground operation since October 7, according to the Hamas-run health service.

A projectile fired at Ukraine violated Polish airspace, the country’s army has claimed

Warsaw summoned the Russian ambassador on Sunday after claiming that a missile launched at Ukraine had briefly entered Polish territory.  

According to the Operational Command of the Polish army, a Russian air-launched missile entered Polish airspace for roughly 40 seconds at 4:23am local time near the southeastern village of Oserdow. The intended target of the strike was in western Ukraine, it said. 

“Poland will demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace,” the Foreign Ministry added in a statement on its website.

Moscow has not commented on the matter. The Russian Defense Ministry reported during a briefing on Sunday that its warplanes had carried out strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

READ MORE: Poland gearing up to get involved in Ukraine conflict – former US Army officer

In November 2022, a missile crashed in the Polish village of Przewodow, near the border with Ukraine, killing two farmers.

Officials in Kiev quickly claimed that the projectile had been fired by Russia. Polish President Andrzej Duda, however, said that the missile had likely been fired by a Ukrainian air defense system, and that there was no evidence that the projectile was of Russian origin. 

The US-led military bloc’s illegal strikes on Belgrade in the spring of 1999 forever changed relations between the West and Moscow

On March 24, 1999, student Elena Milincic was at home with her sister and a friend in Belgrade. Suddenly, the quiet evening was interrupted by an air-raid siren. The girls quickly hid under a table. It wasn’t the safest place, but they had gotten lucky – their part of the city wasn’t attacked. 

Over the next 77 days, these girls and other Belgrade residents became better at hiding from the bombs which threatened to kill them every day. The raids were part of NATO’s military operation against Yugoslavia – a campaign that shook up the world order, and not just in the Balkans.

Preconditions for bloodshed

The Kosovo problem goes back many centuries. Located in the southwest of Serbia on the border with Albania, the Kosovo region was historically inhabited by two Balkan peoples: Serbs and Albanians. The Serbs consider the region a major part of the country’s history and culture. However, Albanians have also lived there for centuries.

By the mid-19th century, there were about as many Albanians as Serbs in Kosovo. Ethnic strife was a common problem in the Balkans. Retaining their particular cultural characteristics, Serbs, Albanians, Croats, Gypsies, and Muslim Serbs lived side by side for centuries. Conflicts between them, nonetheless, resulted in brutal massacres.

During WWII, the Balkans were occupied by Germany and Italy, and a brutal regime was established in Kosovo. Serbs were expelled from the region and many were killed. After the war, Josip Broz Tito came to power in Yugoslavia and put more wood on the fire. He did not allow Serbian refugees to return to the region and wanted to use Kosovo to pressure Albania. He hoped that the region would become a “bridge” between the two countries. However, the plan fell through and the area continued to become more “Albanian”.

By the time Yugoslavia collapsed, Kosovo’s population consisted of about 75% Albanians and 20% Serbs. The rest were Gypsies and other minorities.

Many Albanian nationalist organizations emerged in the 1980s. At first, they committed minor offenses against the Serbian population, like arson, beatings, threats, graffiti, and so on. However, from the ‘90s, Kosovo undertook active attempts to break away from Yugoslavia, and Kosovo Albanians gravitated towards Albania. During Tito’s rule (1945-80), the region’s nationalist intelligentsia considerably increased in number and laid the ideological grounds for secession projects. Ibrahim Rugova became a prominent Kosovo Albanian leader. He graduated from the University of Prishtina, which was established under Yugoslavia and became the headquarters of nationalist-minded Kosovo Albanian intellectuals. Rugova himself didn’t advocate political violence but became the face of a movement that eventually turned radical and violent.

In 1991, Kosovo held an independence referendum and presidential elections. Yugoslavia did not recognize the new state but, factually, the region had broken away. In 1996, an army was formed called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which launched a full-fledged guerrilla-terrorist war against the Serbs. By 1998, Belgrade realized that it had lost control over the situation and launched a military operation against Kosovo.

Guerrilla warfare

Western media covered this small-scale yet brutal war in a surprisingly one-sided manner. The operation conducted by Serbian security forces was indeed violent, but we need to keep in mind that they fought against a terrorist group. However, people in Europe and the US were only shown how violent Serbian nationalists killed peaceful Albanian peasants. EU and US officials pressured Belgrade to stop the bloodshed. No one made the same demands in regard to KLA militants or complained that Albania was pumping Kosovo with weapons and training militants. The West was determined to dismantle Yugoslavia, so it supported the separatists. The MPRI Private Military Company, which had earlier helped train Croatian armed forces in their fight against the Serbs, soon took over the training of terrorists.

The President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic saw that he was backed into a corner, but could not just hand over Kosovo. Meanwhile, the war gained momentum. Acts of violence against civilian Serbs became widespread, and the operations of the Serbian security forces became more violent. The Serbs tried to deport many Albanians, but this was convenient for Albania, since KLA recruiters were waiting for the newcomers to draft them into the army.

One incident that became known as the Račak Massacre clearly demonstrates just how confusing the war was, and how hard it was to tell who was right and who was wrong. In January 1999 a Serbian policeman was killed near the village of Račak. Soon afterwards, Serbian special police forces entered the village. EU observers and journalists were warned about the situation in advance. An hours-long battle began, in the course of which 45 Albanians died. KLA fighters acknowledged the loss of eight fighters but the Serbs insisted that most or even all of the dead were militants, and that they’d died in combat and were not victims of ethnic cleansing. Expert opinions were divided.

The battle in Račak is an example of the tragic drama that unfolds in the course of guerilla warfare, and is quite common for counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. In such situations, there’s no way to establish the truth. However, in the spring of 1999, Western politicians presented the tragedy in Račak as a massacre that demanded an immediate response from the international community.

At negotiations in Rambouillet, Serbian and Albanian delegations were not able to come to an agreement. The Serbs were ready for a ceasefire and agreed to grant Kosovo autonomous status, but did not want a foreign military contingent on its territory. In response, NATO accused the Serbs of disrupting the negotiations. Yugoslavia and Milosevic were vilified in the press, and NATO started preparing a military operation. The UN Security Council did not sanction the use of military force but, most likely, one of the goals of the operation was to demonstrate NATO’s readiness to act without the approval of the international community. Milosevic was told to immediately withdraw Serbian forces from Kosovo and transfer control of the region to NATO’s international contingent. This time, the demands were backed by military force.

Air and ground

NATO bombings of Yugoslavia started on March 24, 1999. Of course, the US played the key role in the operation, but a total of 13 countries were involved in it. The Alliance did not plan to conduct a ground operation, but made extensive use of its air force and cruise missiles to attack the country.

The forces were incomparable: NATO utilized over 1,000 planes and helicopters, mainly from military bases in Italy and the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. The KLA had several thousand fighters, but the combat capability of these units was quite low.

Compared to NATO’s air fleet, Yugoslavia’s forces were quite weak. The air force had only 11 relatively modern fighter aircraft and several outdated missile defense systems that had been supplied by the USSR a long time ago.

The Alliance started the operation by launching several dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles. Then the attack aircraft started dropping bombs. The first goal was to suppress the Yugoslav missile defense system. The strikes were successful. Serbian anti-aircraft gunners tried their best to fight enemy forces. For example, air defense officer Zoltan Dani was able to shoot down an inconspicuous and theoretically “invisible” F117 stealth-attack aircraft. However, these minor victories could not change the course of the operation. The Serbs could only act from the ground and sporadically attacked enemy aircraft using air defense systems. Serbian pilots even tried to attack the enemy using fighter aircraft – this was indeed a courageous feat, but practically useless from a military point of view. In the entire course of the operation, NATO lost only three aircraft and two helicopters.

After the missile defense systems were suppressed, NATO resorted to terrorist-style bombings. The attacks on the troops weren’t very effective and the Yugoslav units retained their combat capability until the end of the war. About thirty combat vehicles were destroyed and several hundred Serbian soldiers and officers were killed and wounded. Considering the fact that over 90,000 servicemen and police officers were stationed in Kosovo and another 65,000 defended the rest of the country, the losses were not very great. In other words, NATO strikes disabled the Air Force and air defense systems, but didn’t affect the combat capability of the troops in a major way.

Civilian infrastructure, however, suffered major damage as a result of the NATO bombings, since it was a lot harder to conceal a bridge or a TV tower than a tank. Bridges, industrial facilities, and telecommunications systems were attacked every day. Even targets that were not considered strategically important for NATO were often hit by mistake. For example, on April 14, an F16 fighter jet attacked a convoy of civilian Albanian refugees near Gjakove. Another time, a sniper strike killed 73 people. And when an intelligent munitions system tried to find military equipment at the Chinese embassy, three people were killed. According to various sources, the number of victims varies from 500 to 5,700 people. Many buildings in Belgrade remain ruined to this day.

Throughout this time, battles between Serbian troops and KLA fighters continued on the ground. Several dozen volunteers from Russia participated in the fighting, and at least three died. Despite NATO’s superiority in the air, the Serbs managed to defeat the Kosovo Liberation Army on the ground. The victory was impressive but, alas, it was totally useless.

Dubious achievements

At the time, Russia was undergoing very difficult economic times and its support of Yugoslavia was reduced to symbolic gestures. After the start of the air raids, the Parliament of Yugoslavia wanted to join the union between Russia and Belarus, but Russian President Boris Yeltsin blocked this initiative. Thousands of people protested at the US Embassy in Moscow every day. Once, an activist even brought a grenade launcher and tried to (unsuccessfully) attack the embassy. Unfortunately, apart from protesting and loudly condemning the events, there was nothing Russia could do.

In those years, Russia’s economy was in shreds and, unlike today, this wasn’t just a story made up by Western politicians and media. At that time, the economic crisis was real, and the army had suffered a humiliating defeat in Chechnya. There was really nothing Russia could do to prevent NATO’s operation.

On June 1, Milosevic agreed to all of NATO’s demands. The Alliance’s peacekeeping forces entered Kosovo and Serbian troops withdrew from the region.

As Yugoslav troops withdrew from Kosovo, ethnic cleansing began. In the coming months, over 1,700 people (almost all of them Serbs or representatives of other national minorities) were killed by militants or went missing. The majority of the remaining Serbs fled – according to various sources, between 200,000 and 350,000 people left the region, including Serbs and the remaining Gypsies. KLA militants smashed cultural monuments, burned down churches, and destroyed anything that reminded them of the enemy.

As for NATO troops, they did not prevent or stop this purge in any way. Today, some Serbs still remain in Kosovo, most living in a small enclave by the Serbian border.

Negotiations on the status of the region did not yield any results for several years. In 2008, Kosovo declared independence, and has been recognized as an independent republic by most Western states.

Unsurprisingly, problems in the region did not end with the expulsion of the Serbs. To this day, Kosovo is a poor country with major corruption issues. The US took an active part in the reconstruction of Kosovo, but the region was mostly used by businessmen and officials for personal enrichment. Many of them have profited from murky schemes, including former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who owned a share of the only private mobile network operator in the region, and later tried to grab a piece of a state-owned company. Coincidentally, Albright’s daughter is the executive director of a corporation that distributes development grants to poor countries (including Kosovo). In Kosovo, there are 800,000 migrant workers per 1,800,000 inhabitants. Moreover, the republic has turned into a stronghold of the Albanian mafia. Even the Western press was forced to admit the failed state-building attempt in Kosovo.

A few years after the events of 1999, Montenegro peacefully broke away from Yugoslavia, and the latter ceased to exist. President Slobodan Milosevic was overthrown in 2000 as a result of unrest in Belgrade and was secretly extradited to the international criminal tribunal in the Hague. In 2006, before the trial’s conclusion, he died age 64 in the UN prison there and immediately suspicions were raised, which have persisted, over how he died.

What conclusions did the world draw?

The bombing of Yugoslavia was an important and, apparently, highly underestimated turning point in relations between Russia and the West. Both the Russian elite and society painfully reacted to the tragic events in Yugoslavia. This may sound strange, but Russia once harbored idealistic sentiments about the great Western democracies. When the Cold War ended, it seemed that the US and NATO were unfairly slandered by Soviet propaganda. Unfortunately, there was a lot of truth to the Soviet propaganda. For Russia, it was quite painful to realize that world politics still resembled an aquarium full of hungry sharks. Moreover, Russia traditionally had close and friendly relations with Serbia and the Serbian people. But now the Serbs were publicly attacked and humiliated.

The elites had their own reasons for concern. The Kremlin regarded Russia-US and Russia-West relations in an idealistic way. But, in 1999, Moscow clearly saw that international law doesn’t provide any guarantees on the global arena. Yugoslavia was destroyed without any serious grounds, simply because Western politicians had decided so. The country lost part of its territory and the cut-off enclave was subjected to ethnic cleansing while the world turned a blind eye. And all this was done under the guise of a “rules-based international order.” Territorial integrity was considered one of the inviolable principles of international law but it, too, was trampled. Moreover, in the general context of the Balkan wars and conflicts, all the blame was put on Yugoslavia/Serbia, regardless of whether the Serbs were rebels who fought against the government or vice versa. None of this resembled justice or law. It became clear that neither agreements nor international law could protect any country, including Russia, from external military force, and that countries could only rely on the political situation and their own ability to cope with threats.

This realization was doubly important since Russia had a similar problem with Islamist insurgents in Chechnya. The Kremlin could not help but think that, if the West could use this pretext to attack Yugoslavia, it could use the same strategy against Russia. On the other hand, Moscow came to the reasonable conclusion that if an arbitrator twists the rules as he likes, he loses authority. The sarcastic expression “You don’t understand, this case is different” – which implies the hypocrisy of those who condemn others for certain actions while engaging in condemned behavior – remains popular on Russian internet to this day. For the Russian political elite, Kosovo became a classic example of a “different case.” Western journalists and politicians often emphasized that the situation in Kosovo was unique. However, the ill-fated region was obviously no different from dozens of other hotspots. Why was Kosovo a “special case”? Why weren’t Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Serbian Krajina, or Catalonia just as exceptional? What other situations will be considered “special,” and what other conflicts between authorities and separatists will be sufficient grounds for NATO to carry out bombings and allow ethnic cleansing?

The bombing of Belgrade destroyed the image of a new “rules-based international order.” Of course, it wasn’t the last time that the rule of law and the demands of justice were ignored by the Western countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union – in fact, the bloody Iraq war followed only four years later. However, the events in Yugoslavia had clearly demonstrated that a country that wants to protect its sovereignty from external threats can only rely on its own strength and on proven allies.

“We are not going to act as policemen for any foreign government,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, referring to the US fight against the drug trade

Mexico will put its security interests first and won’t fight drug cartels just because the US wants it to, the country's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said on Friday. While admitting that tens of thousands of people are dying due to drug overdoses in the neighboring country, Obrador insisted that Mexicans will not “act as policemen for any foreign government.”

According to official US data, last year some 70,000 Americans overdosed on the synthetic opioid fentanyl. Washington has named Mexico and China as the primary source countries for the drug and related substances trafficked directly into the US.

“Of course we are going to cooperate in fighting drugs, above all because it has become a very sensitive, very sad humanitarian issue, because a lot of young people are dying in the United States because of fentanyl,” Lopez Obrador told media during a press conference. He noted that any undertaking would be a humanitarian effort, highlighting the priority of the security of the homeland. “Mexico First. Our home comes first,” the president said.

Last year, Lopez Obrador revealed that he considers the overdose crisis to be an internal US problem. “We deeply lament what’s happening in the United States – but why don’t they fight the problem ... and more importantly, why don’t they take care of their youth?”, he asked rhetorically.

US law enforcement officials, for their part, have on numerous occasions blamed Mexican officials for their apparent refusal to cooperate on efforts to target fentanyl labs inside Mexico.

At the same time, critics have blamed the rise in drug smuggling and human trafficking in the US on the Biden administration. Illegal border crossings have surged since Biden took office in January 2021 and began dismantling the policies of his predecessor Donald Trump.

A senior minister has vowed to continue backing the settlement movement, which is illegal under international law

The Israeli government has designated nearly 2,000 acres in the West Bank as state-owned land, in a move described by rights groups as the biggest land grab on occupied Palestinian territories in decades.

The expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is illegal under international law. In 2016, the UN Security Council described them as “a major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security.” 

Nevertheless, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich argued that the declaration of state-owned land in the Jordan Valley on Friday was “an important and strategic issue.”

“While there are those in Israel and the world who seek to undermine our right to Judea and Samaria and the country in general, we promote the settlement movement with hard work and in a strategic manner across the country,” Smotrich said in a statement, as quoted by the Times of Israel.

According to local media, the designation of plots of land as Israeli paves a way for the construction of settler houses, as well as for commercial development.

Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now described the declaration as the largest since the 1993 Oslo Accords, adding that “the year 2024 marks a peak in the extent of declarations of state land.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government gave the green light to the construction of more than 3,400 new settler homes this month, drawing more criticism from the UN and the Palestinian Authority.

“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in his report to the Security Council on March 8.

Smotrich said in February that the expansion of settlements was a legitimate response to Palestinian terrorist attacks. “Our enemies know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development and more of our hold all over the country,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Partners and geopolitical rivals alike have joined the chorus expressing horror in the wake of the Crocus City Hall attack

Words of consolation continued to come to Russia from all over the world on Saturday, a day after a major terrorist attack at a concert hall outside Moscow. Friday’s assault on Crocus City Hall in Moscow Region has claimed more than 130 lives and left scores injured.

Messages of support for the Russian people were extended by both national governments and international organizations alike. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres slammed the attack “in the strongest possible terms,” a UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, said in a statement.

The UN chief “conveys his deep condolences to the bereaved families, the people, and the Government of the Russian Federation,” the spokesman added. The UN Security Council also issued a statement on the incident, where it called on all nations to “cooperate actively” with Moscow to hold all those behind “these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.”

The international body’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, also said that “nothing can justify such an attack.”

EU Council President Charles Michel said that he “condemns the terrible terrorist attack in Moscow,” adding that “the loss of innocent lives everywhere is a human tragedy.” The bloc’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, also condemned “in the strongest terms the heinous attack perpetrated outside Moscow.” “The international community must remain firmly united against the scourge of terrorism,” he said.

NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said that the members of the US-led bloc “unequivocally condemn the attacks targeting concertgoers in Moscow.” “Our deepest condolences to the victims and their families,” she said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter), adding that “nothing can justify such heinous crimes.”

“The United States strongly condemns yesterday’s deadly terrorist attack in Moscow,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “We condemn terrorism in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the people of Russia in grieving the loss of life from this horrific event.”

“India stands in solidarity with the government and the people of the Russian Federation in this hour of grief,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned in the “strongest way” the “heinous terrorist attack targeting innocent people,” in a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He also said Ankara is ready to develop cooperation with Moscow in fighting “all kinds” of terrorism.

”The UK condemns in the strongest terms the deadly terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall near Moscow,” said Foreign Secretary David Cameron. “We offer our heartfelt condolences and express our deepest sympathy to the families of the many victims. Nothing can ever justify such horrific violence,” he added in a post on X.

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, also turned to X to express his nation’s sympathies over the attack. “Saddened by tonight’s tragic events in Moscow. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims and to all those affected. Such moments remind us of the fragility of life and the shared humanity that binds us all,” he said.

”France expresses its solidarity with the victims, their loved ones and all the Russian people,” President Emmanuel Macron said, adding that Paris “strongly condemns the terrorist attack claimed by Islamic State.”

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi sent a message of sympathy to Putin on Saturday, stating that Tehran “strongly condemns” Friday evening’s terrorist attack, and called for “serious measures by the international community for punishing the architects and perpetrators of this [act].”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also condemned “the terrible terrorist attack against innocent spectators,” in a post on X, and said that “our thoughts are with the victims’ families and all the wounded.”

“The horror of the massacre of innocent civilians in Moscow is unacceptable,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Messages of support and condolence also came from Sweden, Denmark, Spain and Japan, as well as from Syria and the Palestinian Authority.

Allies and adversaries alike have denounced the massacre at the Crocus City Hall concert venue

Governments around the world have condemned the act of terrorism at the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow on Friday evening, in which at least 60 people were killed and over 100 injured.

Messages of condolences and support for the Russian people – as well as condemnations of the yet-unidentified perpetrators – began arriving in Moscow shortly after the attack.

“Cuba condemns the monstrous terrorist act committed in the Moscow region,” said President Miguel Diaz-Canel, sending condolences to the Russian government and people for the loss of life and wishing those injured a speedy recovery. 

“Republic of Srpska strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Moscow this evening, which harmed dozens of innocents,” said Milorad Dodik, president of the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina. “Such attacks are a reminder to us all never to stop fighting against terrorists, who are the common enemy of the civilized world.”

President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela condemned the “atrocious armed attack perpetrated against innocent civilians” and sent a message of solidarity to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the “brotherly people of the Russian Federation, certain that they will face this bitter moment with unity.”

“Kazakhstan strongly condemns the terrorist act against civilians in Moscow,” said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. “There can be no justification for terrorism,” he added, offering help from Kazakhstan’s law enforcement agencies if needed.

Bolivia “condemns in the strongest possible terms” the terrorist attack in Moscow, said President Luis Arce. “This tragic event must be condemned by the entire international community.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan phoned his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to convey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s condolences and the “unconditional condemnation of the bloody terrorist attack.”

“We are following with deep pain what is happening in Moscow,” said the Foreign Ministry of Belarus. “This heinous act of terrorism cannot be justified. We stand with the fraternal Russian people in these difficult moments.”

“The murder of unarmed people who came to spend a Friday evening in an entertainment center is unjustified barbarity and cruelty,” Minsk added. “We are confident that everyone involved in this crime will receive the punishment they deserve.”

The Foreign Ministry of Armenia said the country was “shocked by the terrifying news about the inhuman terrorist attack in Moscow,” mourned the loss of life and wished those injured a speedy recovery.

“We strongly condemn the monstrous attack” in Moscow, said the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan. “We express our deepest condolences to the families of the innocent victims, as well as the people and government of the Russian Federation.”

Uzbekistan strongly condemned the attack as well. “There can be no justification for terrorism,” the Foreign Ministry in Tashkent said. “We call for unanimous rejection of this kind of violence against innocent citizens.”

“We strongly condemn this terrible attack committed at a concert hall in Moscow,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said. “In this difficult hour, we stand in solidarity with the people and the government of the Russian Federation.”

“The Arab Republic of Egypt reaffirms its strong condemnation and total rejection of all forms of violence and terrorism, expressing its full solidarity with the Russian Federation in this delicate situation,” said the Foreign Ministry in Cairo.

In its message to Moscow, the Qatari Foreign Ministry noted that “the Emirate resolutely rejects methods of violence and terrorism, whatever the motive.” Condemnations of the attack and condolences to the victims also came from Iran and Nicaragua. 

The EU was “shocked and appalled by the reports of a terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall in Moscow,” said the bloc’s spokesman Peter Stano in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter). “The EU condemns any attacks against civilians. Our thoughts are with all those Russian citizens affected.”

The US has expressed condolences to victims of the “terrible shooting attack,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House press briefing in Washington. Kirby said that Washington was still gathering information about the attack, but insisted there was “no indication” that Ukraine was involved, or that the March 7 security alert – issued by the US Embassy in Moscow, warning about a possible attack by “extremists” – was in any way related to Friday’s incident.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has expressed his condolences to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the families of the victims over the “serious terrorist attack” on Crocus City Hall, Russia’s embassy in Beijing announced, citing a message from the Chinese leader. Xi said he was “shocked” by what happened.

”China opposes terrorism in all its forms, strongly condemns terrorist attacks, and firmly supports the efforts of the Russian government to ensure national security and stability,” the Chinese president said.

Cyprus is “shocked by the tragic news” of the terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall, the island nation’s foreign ministry has said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). It expressed condolences to the families of the victims, adding that the Cypriot authorities “strongly condemn the attack against civilians.”