Massive Attack has canceled a show in Georgia scheduled for July 28, saying the decision was made “in protest of the Georgian government’s attack on basic human rights.” The British band says that playing at the state-owned Black Sea Arena stage “could be seen as an endorsement of their violent crackdowns against peaceful protests and civil society.”

Hours before the band’s statement, the Black Sea Arena announced the cancellation of the show, but the management generally cited “unforeseen circumstances” as the reason.

However, against the backdrop of the current political crisis and the campaign of repression in recent months amid the infamous foreign agents law, the band says: “Beatings, arrests, threats, and violence against peaceful activists, and opponents, along with laws smearing civil society and denying LGBTI rights, go against everything we stand for.”

The band expresses solidarity with the peaceful protesters in Georgia, stressing “their struggle needs to be under the international spotlight.” “We will return and perform with you in freedom,” the statement concludes.

In late April, the Shame Movement, a local CSO, wrote to Massive Attack, expressing its excitement for the band’s upcoming show in Georgia, but urging them to acknowledge the “serious and alarming political context” in which their event would take place. In its letter, the Shame movement cited the Georgian government’s massive attack on civil society, independent media, socially vulnerable groups, the LGBTQIA+ community, women, ethnic, religious and other minorities, and informed the band of the domestic political situation, including various anti-democratic laws pushed by the GD government and repression against citizens.

“Your upcoming performance at the Black Sea Arena – a venue constructed by Ivanishvili and now funded by the state – risks being manipulated as part of the Georgian Dream’s pre-election tactics to divert public attention from pressing issues and obscure these critical concerns during the electoral period,” the Shame movement’s letter to Massive Attack read, adding: “Knowing that Massive Attack champions justice, freedom of expression, civil activism, and LGBTQ+ rights, we ask you to familiarise yourselves with the alarming political climate in Georgia.”

Today, when Massive Attack’s decision was made public and quickly went viral, some GD MPs blamed the Shame movement for misleading the band, resulting in their decision to cancel the show.

“[The shame movement] bullied and depressed these people [Massive Attack] so much that they forgot everything… that an art is an art…” said GD MP Irakli Kadagishvili.

“While the Georgian government created an opportunity for the concert of Massive Attack, Salome Zurabishvili and her followers took it away from you,” said Deputy Speaker of Parliament, GD MP Nino Tsilosani.

- Hackers working for the Chinese government gained access to more than 20,000 VPN appliances sold by Fortinet using a critical vulnerability that the company failed to disclose for two weeks after fixing it, Netherlands government officials said.

- The Netherlands officials first reported in February that Chinese state hackers had exploited CVE-2022-42475 to install an advanced and stealthy backdoor tracked as CoatHanger on Fortigate appliances inside the Dutch Ministry of Defense.

- Chinese state hackers have used the critical vulnerability to infect more than 20,000 FortiGate VPN appliances sold by Fortinet. Targets include dozens of Western government agencies, international organizations, and companies within the defense industry.--

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-42475, is a heap-based buffer overflow that allows hackers to remotely execute malicious code. It carries a severity rating of 9.8 out of 10. A maker of network security software, Fortinet silently fixed the vulnerability on November 28, 2022, but failed to mention the threat until December 12 of that year, when the company said it became aware of an “instance where this vulnerability was exploited in the wild.” On January 11, 2023—more than six weeks after the vulnerability was fixed—Fortinet warned a threat actor was exploiting it to infect government and government-related organizations with advanced custom-made malware.

Enter CoatHanger

The Netherlands officials first reported in February that Chinese state hackers had exploited CVE-2022-42475 to install an advanced and stealthy backdoor tracked as CoatHanger on Fortigate appliances inside the Dutch Ministry of Defense. Once installed, the never-before-seen malware, specifically designed for the underlying FortiOS operating system, was able to permanently reside on devices even when rebooted or receiving a firmware update. CoatHanger could also escape traditional detection measures, the officials warned. The damage resulting from the breach was limited, however, because infections were contained inside a segment reserved for non-classified uses.

On Monday, officials with the Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) and the General Intelligence and Security Service in the Netherlands said that to date, Chinese state hackers have used the critical vulnerability to infect more than 20,000 FortiGate VPN appliances sold by Fortinet. Targets include dozens of Western government agencies, international organizations, and companies within the defense industry.

"Since then, the MIVD has conducted further investigation and has shown that the Chinese cyber espionage campaign appears to be much more extensive than previously known,” Netherlands officials with the National Cyber Security Center wrote. “The NCSC therefore calls for extra attention to this campaign and the abuse of vulnerabilities in edge devices.”

Monday’s report said that exploitation of the vulnerability started two months before Fortinet first disclosed it and that 14,000 servers were backdoored during this zero-day period. The officials warned that the Chinese threat group likely still has access to many victims because CoatHanger is so hard to detect and remove.

Netherlands government officials wrote in Monday’s report:

Since the publication in February, the MIVD has continued to investigate the broader Chinese cyber espionage campaign. This revealed that the state actor gained access to at least 20,000 FortiGate systems worldwide within a few months in both 2022 and 2023 through the vulnerability with the identifier CVE-2022-42475 . Furthermore, research shows that the state actor behind this campaign was already aware of this vulnerability in FortiGate systems at least two months before Fortinet announced the vulnerability. During this so-called 'zero-day' period, the actor alone infected 14,000 devices. Targets include dozens of (Western) governments, international organizations and a large number of companies within the defense industry.

The state actor installed malware at relevant targets at a later date. This gave the state actor permanent access to the systems. Even if a victim installs security updates from FortiGate, the state actor continues to have this access.

It is not known how many victims actually have malware installed. The Dutch intelligence services and the NCSC consider it likely that the state actor could potentially expand its access to hundreds of victims worldwide and carry out additional actions such as stealing data.

Even with the technical report on the COATHANGER malware, infections from the actor are difficult to identify and remove. The NCSC and the Dutch intelligence services therefore state that it is likely that the state actor still has access to systems of a significant number of victims.

Fortinet’s failure to timely disclose is particularly acute given the severity of the vulnerability. Disclosures are crucial because they help users prioritize the installation of patches. When a new version fixes minor bugs, many organizations often wait to install it. When it fixes a vulnerability with a 9.8 severity rating, they’re much more likely to expedite the update process. Given the vulnerability was being exploited even before Fortinet fixed it, the disclosure likely wouldn't have prevented all of the infections, but it stands to reason it could have stopped some.

Fortinet officials have never explained why they didn’t disclose the critical vulnerability when it was fixed. They have also declined to disclose what the company policy is for the disclosure of security vulnerabilities. Company representatives didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment for this post.

Even more voter movement charts.

Bonus: "Do you think Germany's economic situation is good or bad?"

not even asking about personal economic conditions, just the overall state there's a massive fucking difference in perception.

According to a report by the Financial Times (paywalled link), members of the Bucharest Nine (B9) group are considering excluding Hungary from their talks in the future.

The B9 group was founded in 2015 by all NATO and EU member states that were part of the Soviet bloc prior to 1991, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Although the organization does not have a formal institutional structure, it functions as an important forum where members' government officials coordinate their security policy ideas. This has becone increasingly important after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In recent B9 meetings, Hungary has consistently vetoed decisions about supporting Ukraine and speeding up the process of its potential accession to NATO. In addition, the Orbán government has regularly been blocking and obstructing support for Ukraine's war effort in the EU as well. At the B9 meeting in Riga, which started on Tuesday, the Hungarian side again vetoed a draft resolution, which incidentally has the support of the other eight member states.

A source told the FT that discussions within the group have been “tough,” and noted concerns over the feasibility of future meetings if Hungary continues to lack cooperative behaviour. A diplomat speaking to the Financial Times was quoted as saying that “We are likely meeting in this formation for the last time.”

However, no decision has been made public. The Lithuanian president's office told the paper that "it's important to keep Hungary in, for the unity of NATO and the EU".

[Edit typo.]

An Italian subsidiary of French luxury giant LVMH that makes Dior-branded handbags was placed under court administration on Monday, after a probe alleged it had sub-contracted work to Chinese-owned firms that mistreated workers.

This is the third such decision this year by the Milan court in charge of pre-emptive measures, which in April named a commissioner to run a company owned by Giorgio Armani due to accusations the fashion group was "culpably failing" to adequately oversee its suppliers. Armani Group said at the time it had always sought to "minimise abuses in the supply chain."

The court said in a copy of Monday's decision which was seen by Reuters that prosecutors alleged that the violation of rules was not a one-off among fashion companies with manufacturing capacity in Italy, but systematic due to the need to pursue higher profits.

"It's not something sporadic that concerns single production lots, but a generalised and consolidated manufacturing method," the document said.

The luxury industry's supply chain has come under increased scrutiny by consumers and investors in recent years. To reduce reputation risks fashion labels have curbed the number of sub-contractors and internalised production, in a blow to Italy's leather goods industry, which is mostly based in Tuscany and comprises many firms founded by Chinese immigrants.

Italy is home to thousands of small manufacturers that cover 50% to 55% of the global luxury goods production, consultancy Bain calculated.

The Milan court ordered Manufactures Dior SRL, fully owned by Christian Dior Italia SRL, be placed under judicial administration for one year, the document seen by Reuters showed.

The company will continue to operate during the period.

The Dior investigation focused on four suppliers employing 32 staff who worked in the surroundings of Milan, two of whom were immigrants in the country illegally while another seven worked without the required documentation.

Between March and April, Italian police carried out inspections at the suppliers, named Pelletteria Elisabetta Yang SRL, New Leather Italy SRLS, AZ Operations SRLS, Albertario Milano SRL, the document said.

Pelletteria Elisabetta Yang and Albertario Milano were direct suppliers of Manufactures Dior SRL, the document said.

The staff lived and worked "in hygiene and health conditions that are below the minimum required by an ethical approach," it added.

Representatives for LVMH had no immediate comment. Shares in LVMH extended earlier losses on news of the court's decision to hit a session low. They closed down 2.2%.

Delphine Arnault, whose family controls a 42% stake in LVMH, is chair and CEO of Dior, LVMH's second largest fashion label. She is the eldest child of Bernard Arnault, who runs the LVMH empire and is among the world's wealthiest people.

'24 HOURS A DAY'

In the 34-page ruling, the judges said the workers were made to sleep in the workplace in order to have "manpower available 24 hours a day".

Data mapping electricity consumption showed "seamless day-night production cycles, including during the holidays."

In addition, safety devices had been removed from the machinery to allow them to operate faster, according to the document.

This allowed contractors to rein in costs and charge Dior as little as 53 euros to supply a handbag, the document said, citing as an example a Dior model coded PO312YKY, which the fashion house then retailed in shops at 2,600 euros.

The Dior unit did not adopt "appropriate measures to check the actual working conditions or the technical capabilities of the contracting companies," failing to carry out periodic audits of its suppliers over the years, it added.

The owners of the contracting and subcontracting companies are under investigation by Milan prosecutors for exploiting workers and employing people off the books, while Dior itself faces no criminal probe.

The Armani investigation also unveiled that suppliers of the Italian brand included Chinese-owned manufacturers in Italy that violated worker protection laws.

Finland said that a Russian military aircraft violated its airspace on Monday in the first such move since the Nordic country joined the NATO alliance last year.

The plane flew in Finland’s airspace for about 2 minutes on Monday morning, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. The incident happened in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, with the aircraft reaching as deep as 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) into Finland’s territory.

“We take the suspected territorial violation seriously and have immediately launched an investigation,” Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen said. NATO Fortified

NATO controls much of the Baltic Sea after northern enlargement

The latest such incident happened in August 2022, when two Russian fighter jets flew into Finnish airspace. The Nordic nation joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April 2023, just over a year after its neighbor Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine.

Finland guards more than 1,300 kilometers of border against Russia — a stretch that now makes up about a half of NATO’s Eastern flank.

The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, has said a failed arson attack that took place in Prague last week was "very likely" organised and financed by Russia.

Speaking after a meeting of the Czech National Security Council, Mr Fiala said the failed attack was evidently part of a "hybrid" campaign of sabotage being run by Moscow against European countries.

Police said a foreign citizen was arrested on Saturday in connection with the incident and was being held in custody on terrorism charges.

He was described as "a Spanish-speaking man originally from South America" and had apparently been in the country for five days.

The prime minister said the attempt to set to fire to buses at a depot in Prague was likely connected to a spate of arson attacks in Europe that he said appeared to be orchestrated by Moscow.

These, he said, included May's arson attack in Warsaw, and a similar attack in a branch of Ikea in Lithuania, which authorities believe were carried out by Russian intelligence agents or their proxies.

“The connection [to Russia] is not only possible, but highly probable,” Mr Fiala told reporters. "The attack was probably organised and financed from Russia."

The BBC has approached the Russian foreign ministry for comment on Mr Fiala's allegations.

Police beefed up patrols across the Czech capital last Friday after claims of a heightened risk to security.

They released CCTV footage apparently showing a dark-haired man paying for items in a shop or petrol station. They said the man was possibly dangerous and should not be approached, but gave no further information.

Police president Martin Vondrasek said the man had been apprehended the following day.

“On Friday we asked the public for assistance. On Saturday morning the suspect was arrested. On Sunday afternoon a criminal prosecution was launched, and today [Monday] a court ordered he be remanded in custody,” Mr Vondrasek told journalists at a news briefing.

The man - described as a 26-year-old of South American origin - is accused of trying to set fire to buses at a public transport depot in Prague’s Klicov district in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Local media initially reported that he had spilt petrol over several buses at the depot, but failed to set them on fire.

However, a spokeswoman for Prague's public transport authority was quoted by news outlet Novinky.cz as saying the man had set several buses alight, and the fires were subsequently extinguished by depot workers. The fires caused an estimated 200,000 Czech crowns (£6,864; $8,738) of damage, she said.

He now faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted under terrorism legislation - 30 if given an exemplary sentence.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Czech government has become one of Ukraine’s most ardent supporters, providing military assistance including artillery, tanks and ammunition.

However the mutual antipathy predates the February 2022 invasion.

The government in Prague says Russia’s GRU intelligence service was behind the 2014 explosions at a Czech arms dump that left two people dead.

The Czech Republic was the second country - after the US - to be placed on Russia’s list of "unfriendly nations" after a series of diplomatic expulsions that followed an investigation into the explosions.

Moscow denies any involvement in the incident.

As someone who is in the process of immigrating to the EU (will be allowed to vote next cycle), can I get a layman's summary of the parties and what they stand for? Thanks!

Archived link

- The Kremlin threatens to deport Africans unless they sign up

- Officials have adopted tactics first used by Wagner group

- There are 35,000-37,000 African students currently in Russia, according to Yevgeny Primakov head of Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization devoted to spreading knowledge about Russia abroad.

- “Every year we sign up about 6,500 students from Africa to study in Russia for free”, he said on Thursday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.--

The Kremlin has forced thousands of migrants and foreign students to fight alongside Russian troops in its war against Ukraine, adding extra manpower for its offensive in the Kharkiv region, according to assessments from European officials.

Using tactics first deployed by the Wagner mercenary group, Russian officials have with increasing frequency been threatening not to extend the visas of African students and young workers unless they agree to join the military, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Moscow has also been enlisting convicts from its prisons while some Africans in Russia on work visas have been detained and forced to decide between deportation or fighting, one European official said. Some of those people had been able to bribe officials to stay in the country and still avoid military service, said the official, who like other people cited spoke on condition of anonymity.

Russia’s practice of sending migrants and students into battle under duress dates back to earlier in the war, another European official said. Those troops suffer especially high casualty rates because they are increasingly deployed in risky offensive maneuvers to protect more highly trained units, the official added. A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.

According to reports citing Ukrainian intelligence, Russia has engaged in a global recruitment drive to enlist foreign mercenaries in at least 21 countries, including several nations in Africa. Army recruitment campaigns offer lucrative signing bonuses and salaries for those who’ll join up as contract soldiers. Recruiters have also targeted migrants and students who previously looked for employment in Russia, and in some cases have lured others over with promises of lucrative work before forcing them to train and deploy to the front.

Russia’s ability to mobilize far greater numbers of troops could become a significant factor in the war as President Vladimir Putin seeks to capitalize on a shift in momentum this year.

For now though, his forces have been grinding forward only slowly in northeastern Ukraine and suffering heavy losses, despite a shortage of troops and ammunition on the Ukrainian side.

The Russian military lost more than 1,200 people a day during May, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, its highest casualty rate of the war. Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has seen some 500,000 personnel killed or wounded, the UK estimates. Bloomberg is unable to independently verify these figures.

At a meeting with foreign media in St. Petersburg late Wednesday, Putin appeared to imply that about 10,000 Russian troops a month are being killed or wounded and that Ukrainian losses are five times higher.

While the Kremlin has failed to achieve a breakthrough on the battlefield, it has stepped up a bombing campaign against Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Western officials say those attacks appear designed to make the city uninhabitable.

As he seeks to maintain public support in Russia, Putin has so far resisted a full-scale mobilization and Russia says it has been able to make up a significant share of its losses — in terms of numbers if not the standard of the troops — through a voluntary recruitment drive that has attracted tens of thousands of people.

The government in Kathmandu said earlier this year that it is aware of about 400 young Nepali men who have been recruited by Russia but many more have likely signed up without the government knowing. India’s decision to stop recruiting Nepalese Gurkhas for its army, ending a 200-year-old tradition, may have encouraged Nepalis to look for work in Russia and elsewhere.

A senior Ukrainian official said they have seen an uptick in the number of foreign fighters among the prisoners Ukraine has captured on the battlefield. Africans and Nepalis have been particularly common, they said.

Some of Ukraine’s allies have been considering sharing what they know with the affected countries, another European official said.

Group of Seven nations, who will hold a leaders’ summit in Italy next week, have been trying to persuade countries from the so-called Global South to offer more support to Ukraine. But many of those nations have instead remained neutral, while their populations have been a focus for Moscow’s disinformation efforts.

Reuters reported last year that the mercenary group Wagner had recruited several African citizens as part of a drive to enlist convicts from Russian prisons for its forces in Ukraine. The news agency traced the story of three men from Tanzania, Zambia and the Ivory Coast.

There are 35,000-37,000 African students currently in Russia, according to Yevgeny Primakov head of Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization devoted to spreading knowledge about Russia abroad.

“Every year we sign up about 6,500 students from Africa to study in Russia for free”, he said on Thursday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

There's also a majority calculator

Source

The EU Parliament will publish all data on election night from across all EU countries on here:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en

Projections and estimates by national parties will start to published soon (from 18:00 GMT+2). First overall projection (European overview) at 20:15 GMT+2. Actual results at 23:00 GMT+2.

Archived link

It is almost common knowledge that elections in Hungary are characterized by a lack of a level playing field, as noted in the final report of the OSCE-ODIHR Election Observation Mission for the 2022 parliamentary elections. The results of an investigation by Political Capital, a research institute in Hu.gary, funded by the European Media and Information Fund, into political advertising spending and the promotion of hostile disinformation narratives on social media during the 2024 election campaign in Hungary have just confirmed this. The current analysis follows our previous report published at the end of April, and covers the period from 31 December 2023 to 1 June 2024.

- Political ad spending in Hungary is highly asymmetric. While the pro-government camp spent €4.3 million on Meta and Google ads, all 14 opposition parties and their associated media spent less than a fifth of that, €839,000.

- Fidesz and its politicians alone spent €2.0 million, 2.6 times more than all 14 opposition parties combined, which totaled €764,558.

- Fidesz’s campaign has been heavily supported by third parties, mainly two GONGOs, Megafon and Civil Union Forum, which spent an additional €2.3 million. In contrast, opposition proxies spent a total of €74,530.

- Government-organized media also played their part in the campaign, spending €1.8 million on advertising, although not exclusively on political issues. In contrast, independent media spent only €46,648.

- The level of online political advertising spending in Hungary is outstanding even by European standards. Fidesz was the biggest advertiser on Google in the EU this year, paying for six of the 10 most promoted videos. On Meta, Megafon ranked 10th and Fidesz 12th in the ranking of EU countries based on political ad spending data between 14 April and 13 May.

- Fidesz and its proxies are the main purveyors of hostile disinformation narratives in Hungary, responsible for 98.6% of the total €2.0 million spent on promoting such narratives. All opposition parties and their partisan media share the remaining 1.4%.

- The data confirm that Fidesz largely outsources its negative campaigning to third parties: while Fidesz's proxies spent €1.6 million promoting narratives hostile to Fidesz’s political opponents, Fidesz spent only €397,137 directly.

- The most promoted hostile narrative in the whole period from 4 February to 1 June targeted the newly emerged opposition hopeful Péter Magyar, accounting for 46% of total spending on promoting such narratives.

- The second most promoted hostile narrative, accounting for 34% of total spending, concerns the war in Ukraine, suggesting that “European pro-war politicians and their Hungarian servants want to start World War III”. This narrative gradually grew in importance as the elections approached, overtaking and partly absorbing all other narratives in the final weeks.

- The third most promoted hostile narrative, accounting for 9% of total spending, is about anti-government forces allegedly serving foreign interests.

- The degree of social media dominance revealed by our investigation makes the political contest in Hungary truly one-sided and points to the problem of massive state-sponsored information manipulation in the EU and NATO.

- The dominance of anti-Western, pro-Kremlin hostile disinformation narratives promoted by the Fidesz camp is consistent with the findings of our recent study showing that Fidesz MEPs are “soft defenders” of Russia and other authoritarian regimes in the European Parliament, engaging in pro-Kremlin discourse while deliberately abstaining from voting due to political and reputational risks. Moreover, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Fidesz MEPs increasingly abstained from voting on Russia-related issues and even began to vote against resolutions condemning the Kremlin.

Archived link

In May 2024, the United States imposed new sanctions on three Russian government entities and four Russian companies in response to its full-scale war and use of chemical weapons against Ukraine. The United States determined Russia used the chemical weapon chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops and riot control agents (RCA) as a method of warfare in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Chloropicrin is a choking agent that “causes severe irritation to the skin, eyes, respiratory tract (if inhaled), and gastrointestinal tract (if inhaled or ingested).” In cases of severe exposure, it can be deadly causing “potentially fatal accumulation of fluid in the lungs.”

Russia’s use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident, and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and drive them into the line of fire, the exact reason the CWC prohibits the use of RCA as method of warfare, and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield. Russia retains an undeclared chemical weapons program and has used chemical weapons, such as the Novichok nerve agents, at least twice in recent years in assassination attempts.

Cover Up and Distract

To conceal and divert attention from its violations, the Kremlin routinely spreads unfounded and debunked allegations accusing the United States and Ukraine of using chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine. Russia uses this well-established disinformation tactic, sometimes referred to as “mirror politics,” to falsely accuse others of the very violations Russia commits or plans to commit.

In the lead-up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem falsely accused the United States and Ukraine of planning “provocations” (false flag operations) with the use of chemical weapons, likely in an attempt to demonize Ukraine and provide a pretext for Kremlin aggression. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, the Kremlin has continuously spread false claims about Ukrainian chemical weapons, alleging to have discovered “chemically hazardous substances,” accusing Ukraine of using UAVs adapted for chemical weapons use, and claiming that the United States supports Ukraine’s use of chemical weapons. All of these claims are deceptive.

It is, in fact, the Russian Federation that has an active chemical weapons program and is in violation of its international obligations under the CWC.

Russian Soldiers Admit to Using RCAs

As the Kremlin disseminates false accusations against Ukraine and the United States, Russian soldiers and pro-Kremlin media brag about the Russian Army’s use of RCAs in Ukraine.

In May 2024, Russia’s state-funded media outlet RT [3 MB] published a video report on Telegram claiming to show a “gas grenade” used by the Russian Army against Ukrainian soldiers.

In May 2023, Russia’s state-controlled Channel 1 broadcast an interview with a Russian soldier describing the Russian Army’s use of tear gas to “smoke out” Ukrainian forces. In the video, drone footage shows a grenade being dropped into a trench, smoke billowing from the trench, and then soldiers fleeing from the trench. On the broadcast, the soldier states, “We are trying to force them out with smoke.” The broadcast goes on to state, “Soldiers from the 88th Brigade are using the so-called ‘Bird-Cherry’ tear grenades.” According to independent media outlet Meduza, Bird-Cherry tear grenades, known in Russian as Cheremukha, may “contain the chemical warfare agent chloroacetophenone. The substance can cause a burning sensation in the eyes, corneal clouding, and vision impairment, as well as shortness of breath, coughing, and burns on the skin.”

In October 2023, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States asked Russia to explain the above-described Channel 1 broadcast. To date, Russia has claimed that its forces’ statements were a “misunderstanding.”

In December 2023, Russia’s 810th Naval Infantry Brigade stated on its Telegram channel that the brigade is using a “radical change in tactics” by dropping K-51 grenades on Ukrainian forces to “smoke them out from their fortified positions.” According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Brigade later edited the post in an apparent effort to hide Russia’s violation of the CWC. In January 2024, the Brigade published another post about receiving a “combat order” to use K-51 grenades and reported using them.

Russian soldiers talked about using drones to drop the Bird-Cherry tear grenades on Ukrainian positions in interviews with the Russian media and there have been several posts on Telegram (examples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) by pro-Kremlin actors, mostly by the so-called “pro-war bloggers,” describing the use of RCAs by Russia’s armed forces.

On March 4, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense reported that Russia carried out 1,068 chemical weapons attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. British media outlet The Telegraph on April 6 confirmed that “Russian troops are carrying out a systematic campaign of illegal chemical attacks against Ukrainian soldiers.”

History of Kremlin Chemical Weapons Use and Disinformation Campaigns

Russia’s use of chloropicrin in Ukraine marks the first time since World War One that this agent is being deployed on the battlefield, but the Kremlin had used chloropicrin before. For example, in 1989, the Soviet Union used chloropicrin against demonstrators in Georgia.

The Kremlin has a history of spreading disinformation about chemical weapons. The Russian government spreads false claims to shield its ally, the Syrian regime, from accountability after the Assad regime’s repeated use of chemical weapons from 2013-2019. The Kremlin also denied its own responsibility for the 2018 Novichok poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the United Kingdom and the subsequent, related death of a UK citizen in Amesbury. The Kremlin also tried to evade responsibility for the Novichok poisoning of the late Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption activist Aleksey Navalny in 2020. In those cases, Kremlin propagandists resorted to the same tactics we observe today in Ukraine, blaming others for Russia’s own crimes and invoking so-called “provocations.”

In each case, the Kremlin used its seat in multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), as a platform to spread its disinformation. Despite Russia’s attempts to use disinformation to lobby officials from various countries, Moscow lost (for the first time in its history) its seat on the Executive Council of the OPCW on November 29 to Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland. This rejection demonstrated OPCW States Parties’ resolve to hold Russia to account for its actions – including its war of aggression against Ukraine and continued violations of the CWC.

By spreading disinformation through media and from international platforms, Russia attempts to create confusion and obfuscate facts to sow enough doubt to undermine the unity and effectiveness of an international response to Russia’s own chemical weapons use. The international community remains united – Russia’s use of chemical weapons is unacceptable.

Chinese air force jets circled a Dutch frigate and approached a Dutch helicopter in the East China Sea in a way that "caused a potentially unsafe situation," the Netherlands' Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

In a statement, the Ministry said the HNLMS Tromp was patrolling on Friday in support of U.N. sanctions against North Korea when it was circled several times by two Chinese fighter jets.

Later, the ship's NH90 helicopter was approached by two Chinese fighter jets and a helicopter.

"The incident took place in international airspace," the ministry said. The Tromp is heading for Japan next and then to Hawaii for the "Rim of the Pacific" naval exercises.

REMINDER: don't forget to vote for the European parliament.