President Vladimir Putin says he hopes for agreement with US on prisoner swap but admits ‘it’s not simple’.
An American reporter jailed in Russia must stay behind bars into the new year as he awaits trial on espionage charges, a Russian court has ruled.
Evan Gershkovich, a Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, has been in jail since March on accusations of spying – charges that he, his employer and the United States government reject.
A Moscow city court on Thursday upheld a November ruling extending Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention to January 30, 2024, as it rejected his appeal to be released.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, at his end-of-year news conference on Thursday, said he hoped an agreement could be reached with the US about a possible prisoner swap for Gershkovich as well as former US marine and security executive Paul Whelan, also jailed on espionage charges.
While Russia had ongoing contacts with the US over the issue, Putin said: “It is not simple, I will not go into details now, but in general, it seems to me that we speak a language that is understandable to each other. I hope we will find a solution. But, I repeat, the American side must hear us and make an appropriate decision, one that suits the Russian side.”
US ambassador Lynne Tracy, speaking outside the court, said: “Evan’s ordeal has now stretched on for over 250 days. His life has been put on hold for over eight months for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“It is not acceptable that Russian authorities have chosen to use him as a political pawn.”
‘Hostage diplomacy’
Gershkovich was detained by Russian authorities on March 29 in the city of Yekaterinburg, some 2,000km (1,243 miles) east of Moscow, and accused of spying, making him the first Western reporter to be held on such charges in Russia since the Soviet era.
Russia’s Federal Security Service claims the reporter was “caught red-handed” trying to obtain secret information about a Russian arms factory. He faces 20 years in prison if convicted.
Gershkovich’s legal team and his supporters have dismissed the charges as baseless – and Russia has not publicly provided evidence.
The US has declared Gershkovich to be “wrongfully detained” and accused Russia of using him for “hostage diplomacy”.
This month, Washington said Russia had rejected a “significant proposal” to release Gershkovich and Whelan.
However, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the setback would not “deter” the US government from “continuing to do everything we can to try and bring both of them home”.
On Tuesday, Sullivan said Gershkovich’s release was a top priority for the White House.
Gershkovich’s detention has unfolded amid heightened tensions between the US and Russia over the war in Ukraine and what Russia’s critics say is an expansive crackdown on independent media.
The US is also looking into the detention of US-Russian dual citizen Alsu Kurmasheva, who was arrested in the central city of Kazan in October for failing to register as a “foreign agent”.
Kurmasheva’s employer, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), this week denounced the new charges filed against her after reports that she has also been accused of violating rules against Ukraine war criticism.
Russia and the US have agreed to several high-profile prisoner exchanges in recent years, including swapping jailed US women’s basketball star Brittney Griner for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in December 2022.
The Russian foreign ministry has said it would consider a swap for Gershkovich only after a verdict in his trial, which could last for more than a year.
As the war enters its 659th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Thursday, December 14, 2023.
Fighting
At least 53 people, including six children, were injured after Russia launched a missile attack on Kyiv, the second in a week. The city’s air defences shot down the missiles – Iskander-M and S-400s – but the falling debris blew out windows of apartment blocks as well as a children’s hospital and destroyed parked cars. Of the injured, 18 were taken to hospital.
A group of hackers called Solntsepyok claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on Kyivstar, Ukraine’s biggest mobile phone network, after millions of people were left without phone access or air raid alerts. Kyiv believes the group is affiliated with Russian military intelligence. Kyivstar began restoring voice services to some people on Wednesday.
Politics and diplomacy
With European Union leaders due to meet on Thursday to decide whether to formally open Ukraine membership talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Norway after returning to Europe from the United States, said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had no reason to block Kyiv’s membership of the 27-member grouping. Zelenskyy said he had been “very direct” when he had a brief chat with Orban in Argentina on Sunday.
Orban, a conservative nationalist who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU and is blocking 50 billion euros in financial aid for Kyiv, appeared unmoved. “Our stance is clear. We do not support Ukraine’s quick EU entry,” Orban wrote in a post on Facebook, claiming Ukrainian membership would not serve the interests of Hungary or the EU.
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, meanwhile, promised Zelenskyy they would “stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes”. The five countries have provided Ukraine with aid worth some 11 billion euros since Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and said they were ready to continue giving extensive military, economic and humanitarian support. “Russia must end its aggression and withdraw its forces immediately and unconditionally from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” they said in a joint statement.
Other EU leaders, including EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, reiterated their support for Ukraine, with Scholz suggesting the EU take enlargement decisions by majority vote rather than unanimity. Newly-elected Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he would try to persuade Orban to change course. “Apathy on Ukraine is unacceptable,” Tusk said, adding that he will try to convince “some member states”.
A German court heard that Russia paid Carsten Linke, a former soldier working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency (BND), at least 450,000 euros in return for information about weaponry with which the West was arming Ukraine. Linke and his accomplice, a Russian-born German diamond trader named Arthur Eller, are charged with high treason.
Weapons
Germany’s Scholz stressed that the aim of the West’s continuing military support for Ukraine was to strengthen Kyiv’s defence to such an extent that Russia would “never again dare to attack”.
Officials warn number of injured could rise after second missile attack on Ukrainian capital this week.
At least 45 people have been injured and a children’s hospital as well as homes damaged after Russia launched a missile attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
People were woken at about 3am (01:00 GMT) by a series of loud explosions as air defence systems brought down a series of missiles aimed at the capital.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 45 people were injured after debris from the intercepted missiles fell on the eastern side of the Dnipro river that runs through the capital. Eighteen people including two children were taken to hospital, while the others were treated at the scene.
An apartment building, a private house and several cars caught fire, while the windows and entrance to a children’s hospital in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi District were broken, Klitschko said. Falling rocket debris also damaged the water supply system.
The specific weapons Russia used in the attack were not immediately known.
On Monday, a Russian missile attack destroyed several homes on the outskirts of Kyiv injuring four people and cutting electricity to more than 100 households.
The attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in the United States, urging right-wing Republicans to back billions of dollars in new military aid for his country.
US President Joe Biden warned the lawmakers they would risk giving Russia a “Christmas gift” if they failed to approve the assistance.
The latest attack also damaged buildings in Kyiv’s Desnyanskyi and Darnytskyi districts.
Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said most injuries came from windows blown out by the blast wave.
“There are many injured,” Popko said, suggesting that the number of wounded may rise.
As the war enters its 658th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 13, 2023.
Fighting
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-installed head of the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region, said Russian forces had “advanced significantly forward northeast of Novopokrovka”. The village lies some 20km (12 miles) east of Robotyne, which Kyiv said it recaptured in August. Balitsky said Russian forces were “not only holding the line but are gradually moving forward”. Ukraine acknowledged battles in the area. “The defence forces repelled three enemy attacks in the areas north of Pryutne and west of Novopokrovka of the Zaporizhia region,” the army said in its daily report.
The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down nine of 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia at several regions of Ukraine.
One person was killed and four others injured during 24 hours of Russian bombardment of the southern Kherson region, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration.
Ukraine claimed to have captured a tactically important hill in the eastern Donetsk region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on social media that his troops had taken the foothold, which provides a vantage point over the front line near Pivdenne, a mining town to the northwest of the Donetsk city of Horlivka.
A major outage at Kyivstar, the operator of Ukraine’s biggest mobile network, left 24.3 million people without mobile coverage and potential air raid alerts after what appeared to be the largest cyberattack since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country. “War is also happening in cyberspace. Unfortunately, we have been hit as a result of this war,” Chief Executive Officer Oleksandr Komarov told national television. Ukraine said it was investigating possible Russian state involvement and Kyivstar said it hoped to restore services by Wednesday.
Kyivstar was hit by a cyberattack that left millions without phone coverage [Sergei Chuzavkov/AFP]
A declassified US intelligence report assessed that 315,000 Russian troops had been killed and injured in the war in Ukraine – nearly 90 percent of the personnel Moscow had when the conflict began – a source familiar with the intelligence told the Reuters news agency. The report also assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military had set back its military modernisation by 18 years.
Politics and diplomacy
United States President Joe Biden and Zelenskyy met at the White House to discuss the “vital importance” of continued US assistance for Ukraine after US Republicans, who want to link funding for Ukraine to new border security measures, blocked billions of dollars of support.
At a press conference following the meeting, Biden reiterated the need to maintain military aid for Ukraine, saying Republicans who stood in the way would hand a “Christmas gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “If we don’t stop Putin … [he] will keep going,” Biden said.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said about 600,000 Ukrainians were fighting Russian forces and that the country’s troops had been successful in the Black Sea as well as in establishing a new corridor for grain exports. He said the goal in 2024 was to “take away Russia’s air superiority”.
The Ukrainian president earlier appealed directly to the US Congress over new funding and said that while he had got “positive” signals from the meeting, he would focus on action rather than words. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, did not appear to have been swayed. “What the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win and with none of the answers that I think the American people are owed,” Johnson said.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Russia would be closely watching the meeting between the two leaders. Peskov said that further US military aid to Ukraine would be a “fiasco”, claiming the billions of dollars in previous aid had not helped Ukraine on the battlefield.
Zelenskyy emphatically rejected as “insane” suggestions that Ukraine should give up some of its territory to secure a peace deal with Russia. “It’s a matter of families and their history. We are not going to give up territories to terrorists,” Zelenskyy told reporters.
Poland’s newly-elected prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Warsaw would demand the “full mobilisation” of the West to help Ukraine. “There is no alternative,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded Ukraine’s case for more military assistance across Washington, DC [Susan Walsh/AP Photo]
The US announced a wave of new sanctions targeting more than 250 individuals and entities in countries including Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates, as it tries to further isolate Russia over its full-scale invasion.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) who Russia detained in October, was slapped with additional charges of “spreading false information about the Russian army”. RFE/RL’s acting president and board member Jeffrey Gedmin said the network “strongly condemned” the move. “It is time for this cruel persecution to end,” he said.
Weapons
The US announced a new $200m military aid package for Ukraine including ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), high-speed anti-radiation missiles and artillery rounds. It is separate from the package currently stalled in Congress. “Unless Congress take action to pass additional aid, this will be one of the last security assistance packages we will be able to provide Ukraine,” the Biden administration said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in the US as part of his efforts to convince US politicians to not block military aid to the war-torn country.
Who will Zelenskyy meet on his visit to the US?
Zelenskyy is expected to meet US President Joe Biden, a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“[Russian president Vladimir Putin] thought he could break you … he was wrong. He continues to be wrong. Ukraine is unbroken, unbowed and unconquered, proving that nothing can dim the flame of liberty that burns in the heart of free people,” Biden said in late last September when Zelenskyy had again visited the White House.
Zelenskyy’s key meeting in Washington was likely to be scheduled with Republican and Democratic senators. The Republican Party has so far refused to even schedule a vote on President Biden’s request for $50bn in military aid for Ukraine next year and to replace US weapons drawn down for Ukraine this year.
Senate Republicans last week blocked Biden’s $111bn bill, which includes military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, from advancing to debate and a vote. They said the bill did not contain provisions to tighten border security with Mexico and restrict asylum and parole rights for refugees.
JD Vance, the Ohio Republican senator, said he was “offended” by Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington this week, and it was “not the role of the United States here to hand out money to every beggar who comes into our country”.
Asked whether he had any indications for a breakthrough in September, Biden had said, “I’m counting on the good judgment of the US Congress. There’s no alternative.”
Biden has urged Congress to vote for Ukraine because it is both in the US interest and consistent with US values.
“The entire world has a stake in making sure that no nation, no aggressor, has the power to take a neighbour’s territory by force,” he said in his meeting with Zelenskyy. “The American people will never waver in our commitment to those values.”
Is Ukraine losing support?
Ukraine has witnessed an erosion in support on both sides of the Atlantic after a carefully prepared counteroffensive this year failed to achieve its strategic objective of driving a wedge into the middle of the Russian front. Some politicians have called for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, something Zelenskyy presently refuses to do.
On Monday, Zelenskyy spoke with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Buenos Aires, during the inauguration of Argentina’s President Javier Milei.
Hungary has emerged as the European Union member most opposed to inviting Ukraine to start membership talks with the EU in this week’s summit or promising Ukraine $21.4bn (20 billion euros) in military aid next year. Zelenskyy has been coordinating strategies with the European Commission to break that impasse.
“We are working to get an unconditional decision to start negotiations,” said Zelenskyy in a November 13 video address. “It is fundamental for Ukraine to implement all the recommendations of the European Commission.”
But the US military aid is key, because the US has donated more than three times what Europe has donated in military aid ($111bn so far, versus Europe’s $29bn), and it also has the largest stockpiles of deliverable weapons in the West’s arsenal.
That, says a former Republican congressional candidate, is precisely why the US needs to step back.
“Republicans are reflecting the sentiment of many Americans who believe Ukraine’s fight is just, but believe that an additional $61.2bn in aid is excessive given that the US has contributed more to the effort than all other nations combined, while domestic concerns have been ignored,” Demetries Andrew Grimes, who stood for Florida’s 15th House district in 2022, told Al Jazeera.
Grimes, who has also supported ending birthright citizenship, whereby people born in the US have the right to US citizenship even if their parents were not legal migrants, says the situation is critical.
“6.5 million unvetted and undocumented migrants have entered the US since Biden took office,” he said, adding that a record number of immigrant arrivals on the southern border will lead to “another 5 million illegal” migrants entering the US within the next year.
Biden said Ukraine was to receive its first M1-Abrams tanks next week, along with Hawkeye missiles, launchers and interceptors to protect its airspace.
Apart from President Biden and the full Senate, Zelenskyy was due to meet with US House Speaker Mike Johnson.
What challenges is Ukraine currently facing in terms of funding and the war?
The Pentagon has started rationing its aid to Ukraine and has warned it could be stopped altogether by the end of the year.
On December 4, the White House Office of Budget and Management wrote to Congress, warning that “without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks”.
The result would be to “kneecap” Ukraine’s armed forces just as Russia is pushing to regain the initiative on the battlefield, wrote Shalanda D Young, who heads the Office.
“If Ukraine’s economy collapses, they will not be able to keep fighting, full stop,” she said. “Putin understands this well, which is why Russia has made destroying Ukraine’s economy central to its strategy – which you can see in its attacks against Ukraine’s grain exports and energy infrastructure.”
Some US commentators believe the Republican stance represents Putin’s best hope of hobbling Ukraine’s war effort – especially once the US presidential election gets under way next year.
“What’s going to happen to the American election?… Trump and what the Republicans represent does not help Ukraine, and could potentially make things easier for Russia,” retired Colonel Seth Krummrich, now vice-president of Global Guardian, a security consultant, told Al Jazeera.
The White House has told congressional Republicans that domestic politics should not come in the way of US support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already put his own military budget in place. On November 27, he signed a 70 percent increase of defence and security spending next year, to a post-Cold War record $157.5bn – some 39 percent of the entire Russian budget.
“Zelensky is likely to depart Washington empty-handed, but with a commitment of assistance through authorized US weapons transfers from allies, backed by a US pledge to replenish allies for their contributions,” said Grimes.
On Monday afternoon, Zelenskyy received a boost from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which said it would disburse another $900m under its Ukraine programme. The fund has granted $4.5bn under the $15.6bn programme so far this year.
Moscow is ‘very attentively’ watching as US President Joe Biden and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in Washington.
Any further United States aid to Ukraine will be a “fiasco”, the Kremlin has said ahead of a meeting in Washington between US President Joe Biden and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Moscow is also “very attentively” watching developments as the two leaders are set to meet on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Zelenskyy’s visit is part of a last-ditch plea to US lawmakers to keep military support flowing as he battles Russia.
As the Ukrainian leader visits the White House and Capitol Hill, Biden’s request for billions in additional aid for Ukraine and Israel is at serious risk of collapse in Congress.
“It is important for everyone to understand: The tens of billions of dollars pumped into Ukraine did not help it gain success on the battlefield,” Peskov said, speaking at a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.
“The tens of billions of dollars that Ukraine wants to be pumped with are also headed for the same fiasco.”
The Kremlin spokesman said the outcome of the meeting would not change the situation on the front line in Ukraine, nor the progress of Russia’s “special military operation” in the country.
He added that Zelenskyy’s authority was being undermined by his government’s “failures” in the ongoing war.
Russia’s gain
On Monday, Zelenskyy warned that failing to maintain support for Ukraine would play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Let me be frank with you, friends. If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just Putin and his sick clique,” he said, speaking to soldiers at the National Defense University in Washington, DC.
Zelenskyy and Biden have argued that helping Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion, launched in February 2022, is in the mutual interests of both countries as support for Ukrainian aid hits political snags in the US.
During their talks, the two plan to discuss a way to rally support for the military aid plan primarily focused on Ukraine and Israel.
Last week, Republicans blocked the plan after walking out of a classified briefing on Ukraine amid demands for US-Mexico border reforms. Some Republicans are opposed to giving a “blank cheque” for Ukraine.
The US Congress has approved more than $110bn in security assistance for Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion but has not approved new funds since the Republican Party gained a majority in the House of Representatives in January.
Biden has asked Congress to approve an additional $61.4bn in support for Ukraine as part of a larger $110bn package that includes more funds for Israel and other issues.
Travis Dardar, a fisherman and member of the Isle de Jean Charles Tribal Community off the coast of Louisiana, has twice been displaced by fossil fuels.
Rising sea levels forced him and his tribal nation to move in 2016 from the island where they had settled in the 1830s to escape the Trail of Tears, the forced displacement of Indigenous tribes by the US government. “If anybody’s seen climate change, I’m that guy. I watched that place disappear right before my eyes,” he told Al Jazeera.
He resettled in Cameron Parish, a Louisiana coastal community where he could make a living working in one of America’s largest fishing industries, but he was displaced again in August by the construction of Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2, a liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal that is being built to ship fossil fuels overseas. He took a buyout in August and moved away from the site and is now commuting two hours to Cameron for oyster season.
He said LNG terminals are threatening his livelihood in the fishing industry.
After a decade-long fracking surge, the United States has become the world’s largest LNG exporter. The Gulf of Mexico sits at the front lines of America’s LNG export boom with massive terminals expanding along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Called “clean energy” by the fossil fuel industry, LNG is in fact mostly methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.
President Joe Biden’s administration now faces a huge climate decision: whether to approve Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2), one of more than 20 proposed LNG export terminals. CP2 can’t export to certain countries unless the Department of Energy rules it is in the public interest. The LNG would mostly be exported to Europe, which is moving away from Russian gas due to the war in Ukraine.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will make a decision on CP2 as soon as this month. After FERC’s decision, the Department of Energy will determine whether an export licence for CP2 is in the public interest.
Venture Global did not respond to a request for comment. In the past, the company has argued the project will bring more than 1,000 permanent jobs to Cameron Parish and LNG can replace coal in some countries to bring down emissions.
But a new paper by a leading methane scientist found that, when the entire lifecycle of exported LNG is considered, it can be 24 percent worse than the lifecycle of coal.
‘A shrimp-pocalypse’
BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster took four years to clean up [US Coast Guard handout via EPA]
In November, Dardar travelled to Washington, DC, along with other Louisiana activists to protest CP2 in front of the Department of Energy and Venture Global buildings. He helped deliver a petition to the department with 200,000 signatures against the project.
Louisiana is the largest seafood producer in the lower 48 US states. The industry has retail, import and export sales totalling more than $2bn and employs more than 26,000 people in the state.
But Dardar said LNG companies have bought up and torn down the fishing docks, and the Coast Guard tells fishermen to get out of the way of the LNG tankers or they will be arrested. He said last year, a huge wave from a tanker ripped pieces off his boat.
The oyster, shrimp and fish populations are vulnerable to climate change and oil spills. The region suffers frequent oil spills, including BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in 2010, which spilled 200 million gallons (760 million litres) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and took four years to clean up. Most recently in November, 1 million gallons (3.8 million litres) of oil leaked off Louisiana’s coast.
If LNG construction continues, Dardar fears the fishing industry will collapse. “You’re talking about a shrimp-pocalypse,” he said.
The US, the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, is on pace to set a record for extraction of fossil fuels. That includes breaking records for gas production. In the process, not only is the US not on track to meet its emissions reduction targets, the emissions from exported LNG are not included in the domestic math and remain uncounted.
Environmental groups, members of Congress and Louisiana residents are calling on the Biden administration to deny the CP2 permit.
A group of lawmakers sent a letter in November asking Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to reject the project, saying the lifecycle emissions of all existing proposed LNG terminals would be equivalent to 681 coal plants. CP2 alone would amount to 20 times the emissions of the Willow Project, a controversial oil drilling project in Alaska that the Biden administration approved in March.
Senator Jeff Merkley, one of the letter signers, told Al Jazeera: “The United States has been promoting a massive myth, which is that fossil gas is better than coal for the climate. That is a huge disservice to the world because it is scientifically wrong, and also it undermines our legitimacy in the climate conversation. It’s convenient because we’re shutting down coal mines and instead we’re increasing fracking and gas.”
“We’ve built seven export facilities, and the next one, CP2, becomes a point where we can focus our attention on this — what is essentially a big myth, or a big lie perpetrated by the US government that undermines our efforts to have humanity address this key problem,” Merkley said.
He said if the US isn’t doing its part on climate, it allows other countries to continue to extract fossil fuels too. “Because if America isn’t going to change its habits when it’s the biggest historical producer of carbon dioxide, [others can say] why should we change ours?”
Health impacts
Residents living near the LNG plants are experiencing health effects alongside those of climate change [Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo]
The fishing industry is not the only community impacted by the LNG boom. Residents living near the LNG plants are experiencing health impacts alongside climate change.
Roishetta Ozane, founder and director of the Vessel Project of Louisiana and a mother of six children, was one of the activists who delivered the petition to the Department of Energy in Washington.
She said the LNG terminals are polluting the air and sea level rises from climate change are submerging wetlands and replacing groundwater with saltwater.
“There is nothing safe about LNG — it’s greenwashed and should be called LMG [liquefied methane gas] because of the methane pollution it emits,” she wrote in a text to Al Jazeera. “There’s only one person who can put a stop to this injustice: President Biden.”
Cameron resident John Allaire, who worked for decades in the oil and gas industry before he retired, stood on his porch and looked down the coast, where only a mile (1.6km) away, he can see a huge flare from Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass, an existing LNG plant. The company’s proposed CP2 terminal would be built nearby. A horn sounded as a tanker next to the plant prepared to leave the dock.
When Allaire first moved to his property in the 1990s, there was no industrial pollution, and he could see the stars at night. Now the flares light up the sky “like Las Vegas”. He and his wife often smell fumes from the plant. “When we get the wind out of that direction, it literally gets hard to breathe out here,” he said.
He has experienced powerful hurricanes, including one in 2005 with a storm surge so high that it swept his house out to sea. The hurricanes leave debris in their wake that dries out and becomes fuel for wildfires. This year, Louisiana saw an extreme drought, and a wildfire threatened Allaire’s home before it was extinguished.
“It’s silly, what we’re doing — this huge experiment to see how much carbon we can put into the atmosphere,” he said.
He described a rush now to get oil and gas out of the ground and sell it as fast as possible. “It’s capitalism at its finest — just monetize it as quick as you can and to heck with the consequences.”
Back on his boat, Dardar said he hopes the Department of Energy rejects the permit for CP2.
“Don’t nobody come to Louisiana to see LNG plants. They come for the seafood. They come for the Cajun music. They come for the gumbo,” he said.
“If they give them their permits, we’re gonna continue fighting, that’s for sure. I’m gonna fight until they put me in the ground if that’s what it takes.”
Ukrainian leader appeals for continued help for the fight to expel Russian forces as he visits Washington, DC.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that failing to maintain support for Ukraine would play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin as questions loom over the future of assistance from the United States.
Speaking on Monday to soldiers at the National Defense University during a trip to Washington, DC, Zelenskyy said Ukraine would continue its fight to expel Russian forces from the country.
“We won’t give up. We know what to do, and you can count on Ukraine. And we hope just as much to be able to count on you,” Zelenskyy said.
“Let me be frank with you, friends. If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it’s just Putin and his sick clique,” he added.
I began my visit to the USA by meeting with @SecDef Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown at the US National Defense University.
We discussed global security challenges, frontline developments, and further US-Ukraine defense cooperation.… pic.twitter.com/Y3j7jO48Lo
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 11, 2023
Zelenskyy and US President Joe Biden have argued that helping Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion, launched in February 2022, is in the mutual interests of both countries as support for Ukrainian aid hits political snags in the US.
The Ukrainian president’s trip comes just before a crucial vote in the US Congress on further security assistance.
While the US initially helped rally Western countries in support of Ukraine, political schisms have started to emerge as the war drags on with few signs of a breakthrough for either side.
Support remains substantial, but in both Europe and the US, some right-wing lawmakers have sought to restrict or cut off continued assistance.
Ukraine’s supporters have alleged that such hesitancy only serves to strengthen Putin’s hand.
“Despite his crimes and despite his isolation, Putin still believes that he can outlast Ukraine and that he can outlast America. But he is wrong,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in remarks on Monday.
“America’s commitments must be honoured,” he added.
The US Congress has approved more than $110bn in security assistance for Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion but has not approved new funds since the Republican Party gained a majority in the House of Representatives in January.
Biden has asked Congress to approve an additional $61.4bn in support for Ukraine as part of a larger $110bn package that includes more funds for Israel and other issues.
Republicans have used their leverage to push for greater restrictions on immigration on the US border with Mexico, including reforms that would roll back access to asylum, in return for their votes.
A spokesperson for the Russian opposition figure says that prison officials have refused to say where he was transferred.
A spokesperson for Alexey Navalny has said that the Russian opposition leader has been removed from the prison where he was being held and that his whereabouts are unknown.
In a social media post on Monday, spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said that it has been nearly a week since she heard from Navalny and that officials will not say where he was transferred. The United States has also spoken out about the incident.
“We’re deeply concerned by these reports that he’s now been gone for allegedly a week and neither his representatives or his family know where he is,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
“We’re going to work with our embassy in Moscow to see how much more we can find out,” he added.
Today, as on Friday, the lawyers tried to get to IK-6 and IK-7 — two colonies in the Vladimir region where Alexey @navalny might be. They have just been informed simultaneously in both colonies that he is not there.
The Russian opposition leader had been preparing for an expected transfer to a “special regime” high-security facility from Penal Colony Number 6, in the town of Melekhovo in the Vladimir region, about 230 kilometres (140 miles) east of Moscow.
A Russian court handed the 43-year-old Navalny a 19-year prison sentence in August on charges of “extremism”, which he maintains are politically motivated. That is on top of an 11-and-a-half-year sentence that he was already serving.
In December, he also said that he had been informed of new charges against him under a penal code that covers vandalism.
“They really do initiate a new criminal case against me every three months,” he said in comments issued through his associates at the time. “Rarely does an inmate confined to a solitary cell for over a year have such a vibrant social and political existence.”
The spokesperson Yarmysh told the news outlet Reuters that Navalny’s current location is not known.
“We don’t know where he is right now. He can be in any colony of special regime and there are around 30 of them in Russia, all over Russia,” she said. “We will try to go to every colony there is and look for him”.
The disappearance comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares for an election campaign, hoping to secure another six-year term at the country’s helm.
The team for Navalny, by far the best-known figure in Russia’s opposition, is preparing an “anti-Putin” campaign and says that the leader’s disappearance will not halt their efforts.
Russia says it has arrested 18 Ukrainian ‘agents and accomplices’ who plotted to assassinate pro-Russian figures.
Russia says that it has arrested a network of Ukrainian assassins targeting pro-Russian figures in the annexed Crimea peninsula.
Moscow’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Monday that it has arrested 18 “agents and accomplices” of Ukraine’s special services. Several pro-Russian figures in Crimea and the occupied east of Ukraine have been attacked since the Kremlin launched its invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.
The FSB said it made the arrests after discovering a weapons cache. Moscow accuses the Ukrainian agents of plotting to kill several pro-Russian government figures, as well as attacking Russian energy and rail networks.
Among those pro-Russian figures targeted was the Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov. Oleg Tsaryov, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament, survived being shot twice in October 2023, in an attack Russia blamed on Kyiv.
Claims of sabotage are rife on both sides of the war, and such operations are thought to have killed or wounded hundreds of thousands of soldiers and damaged both countries’ energy and transport infrastructure.
On December 7, Russia said it arrested a foreign agent working for Ukraine’s secret services who blew up several Russian trains in Siberia believed to be carrying ordinances to the front lines.
Targeting Kyiv
Russia’s claim that it has broken up the Ukrainian sabotage network comes amid fresh military strikes on Kyiv and fierce fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said on Monday that it had shot down eight ballistic missiles fired by Russia at Kyiv, in the first attack on the capital city in months. Four people were injured by shrapnel in the southeastern Darnitskyi district, police said.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have reportedly stepped up their offensive on the eastern city of Avdiivka, which they have zeroed in on as part of their campaign to overtake the Donbas region.
Ukraine said Russia’s military had launched “massive assault actions” on the city on Sunday, but that its defences held and the front lines hardly budged.
The Russian military has focused on eastern Ukraine since abandoning an advance on Kyiv in the first days after the February 2022 invasion. Now, heading into the harsh winter, Ukrainians fear Russia will strike at their energy system for a second straight year.
Plea for aid
To shore up their defences, Ukrainian officials are pleading with Western partners for more military aid. However, there appears to be growing reluctance in the US and Europe to dole out the funds.
In the US, Ukraine’s top single-country donor, the White House is struggling to convince Congress to approve a mammoth military aid package that includes $60bn earmarked for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will travel to Washington on Tuesday to make the case for more aid to US lawmakers.
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