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Home‘Not all cowards’: the ordinary Russians on trial over Ukraine criticism

‘Not all cowards’: the ordinary Russians on trial over Ukraine criticism

‘Not all cowards’: the ordinary Russians on trial over Ukraine criticism

Alexander Bakhtin, the 51-year-old musician and environmental activist accused of spreading "fake
information" about the Russian army, appears in court in Mytishchi, a Moscow suburb, on June 6,
2023. (AFP)

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https://arab.news/8b4cm

Updated 13 sec ago

AFP

June 18, 2023

05:23

186

More than 20,000 people have been detained in Russia for protesting the conflict in Ukraine,
according to a tally by independent rights group OVD-Info

“If Russians weren’t afraid of going to the streets, there wouldn’t be a war”, says retired
aeronautical engineer Anatoly Roshchin

MYTISHCHI, Russia: It took about a year for authorities to close in on 51-year-old musician and
environmental activist Alexander Bakhtin, one of the thousands of Russians arrested for criticizing
the Ukraine offensive.

Unlike the audiences of high-profile critics, the trials of ordinary Russians usually take place away
from public attention.

Bakhtin’s audience was attended by one friend and by his mother. She was summoned to court as a
witness in the prosecution against her own son.

“(Alexander) wouldn’t hurt a fly. He protects animals, he’s an environmentalist,” Lyudmyla Bakhtina
told AFP with tears in her eyes.

The 79-year-old barely got to brush the arm of her son as he was led, handcuffed, into the
courtroom.

She had seen him twice since his detention for spreading “fake information” about the Russian army
— for which he now faces up to 10 years in prison.

The accusation is based on three social media posts from March-April 2022 in which Bakhtin talked
about civilian deaths and blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the conflict.

A year later, he was suddenly arrested in his hometown of Mytishchi, in Moscow’s suburbs.

“Everyone in our neighborhood was shocked,” Bakhtina said.

Lyudmyla Bakhtina, the mother of Alexander Bakhtin, the 51-year-old musician and environmental
activist accused of spreading "fake information" about the Russian army, reacts in court during her
son's trial in Mytishchi on June 6, 2023. (AFP)

At the stand, the elderly woman wearing a purple dress and cardigan told the court: “I signed my
testimony without reading it.”

Bakhtina noted that the written statement seemed long compared to the interview she had with the
investigator.
“Do you think that the Russian army is carrying out a genocide of the Ukrainian population?” the
prosecutor asked her.

“I don’t!” she answered.

“What about your son?... And what’s his opinion on the president?“

“My son is a pacifist, he is against the war. So am I. You can arrest me too!“

The judge then invited Bakhtin to question his mother.

“When they interrogated you on March 6, did they tell you that you had the right to refuse to testify
against me?” Bakhtin asked in a hoarse voice.

“No!” she cried out.

The audience was postponed until June 20, a standard procedure.

Bakhtin, who suffers from bronchitis and heart issues according to his mother, will remain in
custody.

More than 20,000 people have been detained in Russia for protesting the conflict in Ukraine,
according to a tally by independent rights group OVD-Info.

Thousands of people have been charged with publishing “fake information” on the offensive, others
accused of army “discredit.

Anatoly Roshchin, the 75-year-old retired aeronautical engineer charged with discrediting the
Russian army, appears at the Lobnya City Court in Lobnya, a Moscow suburb, on June 6, 2023. (AFP)

A few hours before Bakhtin’s audience, in another suburb of Moscow, 75-year-old Anatoly Roshchin
also faced trial.

Lobnya City Court charged the retired aeronautical engineer with discrediting the army over some
online publications.

He could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

“Such cases are becoming more and more common,” his lawyer Evgenia Grigorieva told AFP.

At the beginning of the conflict, Roshchin held a lone picket protest in front of the Lobnya city hall.

“My country, you have gone insane,” his sign read.

Most passers-by pretended not to see him.

“They were afraid,” he explained to AFP.

“If Russians weren’t afraid of going to the streets, there wouldn’t be a war. We are responsible for
it,” he said.

Feeling “guilty” about Ukraine, Roshchin decided to keep posting on social media despite the
ongoing trial.

“An opponent who whispers ‘Glory to Ukraine’ in his wife’s ear is not really an opponent,” he told
AFP.

“I want Ukrainians to know that not all Russians are cowards.”

Topics: RUSSIA INVASION IN UKRAINE ALEXANDER BAKHTIN LYUDMYLA BAKHTINA ANATOLY

ROSHCHIN

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Cyclone leaves 11 dead, 20 missing in southern Brazil

Cyclone leaves 11 dead, 20 missing in southern Brazil

Updated 18 June 2023

REUTERS

June 18, 2023

03:24

624

One of the worst hit on the cyclone’s trail was the town of Caraa, with a population of over 8,000
people

SAO PAULO: At least 11 people have been killed in Brazil’s southern state of Rio Grande do Sul after
an extra-tropical cyclone struck the region on Friday, according to the state’s authorities.

The storm caused torrential rains and helicopter searches are underway in flooded neighborhoods
to find 20 others who have gone missing, the government of Rio Grande do Sul said in a press
release.

One of the worst hit on the cyclone’s trail was the town of Caraa, with a population of over 8,000
people.
“The situation in Caraa deeply worries us. It is essential that we can, in an organized way, quickly
map the main affected areas and identify the people who need support,” said Rio Grande do Sul’s
governor, Eduardo Leite, who visited the area.

As of Friday night, Maquine, a municipality on the eastern coast, had received around a foot of rain,
authorities said.

Many residents in affected areas have taken shelter in outdoor sports facilities in their towns. The
authorities have issued a warning for a risk of landslides in several areas.

Leite says authorities have carried out 2,400 rescues in the last two days.

“Our main objective at this first moment is to protect and save human lives. We are rescuing people
who are stranded, locating missing people and giving all the support to the families,” he said.

Deadly flooding in Brazil is common and has caused devastation for decades.

Topics: CYCLONE BRAZIL BRAZIL FLOODS

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Top US diplomat arrives in China in rare visit meant to lower temperature

Top US diplomat arrives in China in rare visit meant to lower temperature

Updated 18 June 2023

AFP

June 18, 2023

02:42

376

Before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to “responsibly manage our relationship” by finding
ways to avoid “miscalculations” between the countries

Ahead of Blinken’s visit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the US needed
to “respect China’s core concerns” and work together with Beijing

BEIJING: Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China on Sunday on the highest-level trip by a
US official in nearly five years, with the rival powers looking to lower the temperature after soaring
tensions.
Neither side expects breakthroughs during Blinken’s two-day visit, with the world’s two largest
economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology to regional security.

But the two countries have increasingly voiced an interest in seeking greater stability and see a
narrow window before elections next year both in the United States and Taiwan, the self-ruling
democracy which Beijing has not ruled out seizing by force.

In a sign of the fragility of the effort, Blinken had been due to visit four months ago, the fruit of a
cordial summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in Bali in November.

But Blinken abruptly postponed the trip after the United States said it detected a Chinese spy
balloon over US soil, leading to furious calls for a response by hard-liners in Washington.

Speaking in the US capital before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to “responsibly manage
our relationship” by finding ways to avoid “miscalculations” between the countries.

“Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into
confrontation or conflict,” he said.

Blinken was speaking alongside Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who said that the
region wanted the United States both to stay as a power and to find ways to coexist with a rising
China.

Blinken’s “trip is essential, but not sufficient,” Balakrishnan said.

“There are fundamental differences in outlook, in values. And it takes time for mutual respect and
strategic trust to be built in.”

As part of the Biden administration’s focus on keeping allies close, Blinken spoke by telephone with
his counterparts from both Japan and South Korea during his 20-hour trans-Pacific journey.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, traveled separately to Tokyo for separate three-way
meetings involving Japan and both South Korea and the Philippines.

In recent months the United States has reached deals on troop deployments in southern Japan and
the northern Philippines, both strategically close to Taiwan.

Beijing carried out major military drills around Taiwan in August, seen as practice for an invasion,
after Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited.

And in April, China launched three days of war games after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited
the United States and met the current speaker, Kevin McCarthy.

Ahead of Blinken’s visit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the US needed
to “respect China’s core concerns” and work together with Beijing.

“The US needs to give up the illusion of dealing with China ‘from a position of strength’. China and
the US must develop relations on the basis of mutual respect and equality, respect their difference
in history, culture, social system and development path,” he said, a nod to frequent US criticism of
China’s rights record.

Blinken is the first top US diplomat to visit Beijing since a brief stop in 2018 by his predecessor Mike
Pompeo, who later championed all-out confrontation with China in the final years of Donald Trump’s
presidency.

The Biden administration has kept in place Trump’s hard line in practice if not tone and has gone
further in areas, including working to ban exports to China of high-end semiconductors that have
military uses.

But unlike Trump, who is running again for president, the Biden administration has said it is willing to
work with China on narrow areas of cooperation such as climate — as Beijing sweats in record mid-
June temperatures.

Danny Russel, who was the top diplomat on East Asia during Barack Obama’s second term, said that
each side had priorities — with China seeking to forestall additional US restrictions on technology or
support for Taiwan, and the United States eager to prevent an incident that could spiral into a
military confrontation.

“Blinken’s brief visit will not bring resolution to any of the big issues in the US-China relationship or
even necessarily to the small ones. Neither will it stop either side from continuing with their
competitive agendas,” said Russel, now a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“But his visit may well restart badly needed face-to-face dialogue and send a signal that both
countries are moving from angry rhetoric at the press podium to sober discussions behind closed
doors.”

Topics: CHINA-US TALKS ANTONY BLINKEN

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Taiwan seeks closer EU ties in return for chip investment — minister

Taiwan seeks closer EU ties in return for chip investment — minister

Updated 18 June 2023

REUTERS

June 18, 2023

01:20
209

Taiwan strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide
their future

European countries should strengthen relations with Taiwan if they want continued Taiwanese
investment in semiconductor production, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said during a visit to Europe
last week.

Overseas investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), the world’s largest
contract chipmaker, need government approval, including for a potential factory in Germany.

Wu said the government was not placing conditions on investments by TSMC and it was for the
company to decide if a project would make a profit.

Wu said Taiwan would not block investment in Europe, but there was a “philosophical issue” that a
country wanting Taiwanese help needed to consider a broader picture of relations with Taiwan.

“I think that is something for us to think about,” he said. “Even though we are not selfish in stopping
TSMC making investment in other countries, we certainly hope that other countries who want to
attract TSMC... can also think about the situation Taiwan is in.”

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring
it under its control. Taiwan strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s
people can decide their future.

“If they can think along that positive line, the relations between Taiwan and European countries,
major European countries, are going to be so much better than before,” said Wu.

The minister asked not to disclose the country he was in, due to the sensitivity of his trip. Taiwan has
no formal diplomatic ties with any European country except the Vatican and China warned Europe
against official ties ahead of Wu’s visit.

Wu did visit the Czech Republic and, according to sources, also traveled to Brussels, where EU and
NATO headquarters are located.

Wu said EU leaders were clearer than before in calling for peace in the Taiwan Strait, the stretch of
water between China and Taiwan, and preservation of the status quo and said the bloc should
consider more cooperation with Taiwan, such as a bilateral investment agreement (BIA).

The EU included Taiwan on its list of potential BIA partners in 2015, but it has not held talks with
Taiwan on the issue since.

“It’s very challenging,” said Wu, adding he was concerned it was being held hostage due to a frozen
EU-China investment deal.

“We hope we can go ahead with it and we hope we can persuade the EU leadership to think about
this in a positive way.”

Topics: TAIWAN EUROPEAN UNION JOSEPH WU

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Thousands in western India relief camps begin returning home as Cyclone Biparjoy recedes

Thousands in western India relief camps begin returning home as Cyclone Biparjoy recedes

Updated 18 June 2023

AP

June 18, 2023

00:48

205

The Gujarat government said it deployed 184 rapid action squads to rescue wild animals and clear
fallen trees in Gir National Park, home to nearly 700 Asiatic lions

JAKHAU, India: Over 100,000 people who had sheltered from Cyclone Biparjoy in relief camps in
western India have begun to return home after the storm weakened and headed toward Pakistan,
officials said Saturday.

In the coastal village of Jakhau, where the cyclone made landfall in India’s Gujarat state on Thursday,
over 130 people had shifted back to their homes from a government-run shelter by midday
Saturday.

India’s powerful home minister, Amit Shah, was expected to visit the village later Saturday and take
stock of the situation.

Officials said electricity had been restored in many villages but some were still without power. After
the landfall, the cyclone uprooted trees and electricity poles in hundreds of villages along the coastal
regions of Gujarat.

“It was very scary and we expected huge damage,” said Amad, a trader who rents boats to
fishermen in Jakhau and only uses one name. “But thankfully nature’s wrath was somewhat lighter
than we anticipated.”

He said there was no major damage in the village barring uprooting of trees, electricity poles and
minor damage to some homes.

The storm had wind speeds of 85 kph (53 mph) and gusting up to 105 kph (65 mph) through the
coastal areas of Gujarat.

India Meteorological Department said early Saturday that the cyclone had weakened into a deep
depression and was expected to weaken further in the next 12 hours.
The full extent of the damage in Gujarat wasn’t immediately known. A man and his son died on
Thursday when they tried to save their livestock in Gujarat state, according to the Press Trust of
India news agency. Also, 23 people were injured in various areas, officials said.

The Gujarat government said it deployed 184 rapid action squads to rescue wild animals and clear
fallen trees in Gir National Park, home to nearly 700 Asiatic lions.

A 2021 study found that the frequency, duration and intensity of cyclones in the Arabian Sea
increased significantly between 1982 and 2019, and experts say the increase will continue, making
preparations for natural disasters more urgent.

Topics: CYCLONE BIPARJOY INDIA GUJARAT STATE

RELATED

Suspect in knife and van attack appears in court

Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)

Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)

Updated 17 June 2023

AP

June 17, 2023

23:35

224

The attack has not been labeled terrorism by the authorities, and police are investigating issues
including the suspect’s mental health

LONDON: A 31-year-old man appeared in a court on Saturday accused of murdering two college
students and a school caretaker in a knife and van attack earlier this week in the English city of
Nottingham.

Valdo Calocane was flanked by three security officers as he appeared at Nottingham Magistrates’
Court. He is charged with the murder of Nottingham University students Barnaby Webber and Grace
O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, who were stabbed to death in a street near student housing as they were
walking home before dawn on Tuesday.

He is also accused of killing school caretaker Ian Coats, 65, stealing his van and running down a
group of pedestrians.

Calocane is also charged with attempting to murder the three pedestrians in a hit-and-run that left
one of the victims critically injured.

FASTFACT
Thousands of people, many of them university students, attended vigils at the college and in the city
center to remember those killed.

The suspect spoke only to confirm his details.

He gave a different name, Adam Mendes, and said he was of no fixed abode. Tuesday’s rampage in
Nottingham, a university city of about 350,000 in central England, shook the country. Thousands of
people, many of them university students, attended vigils at the college and in the city center to
remember those killed.

Police said they believed the suspect acted alone, and were working with counterterrorism officers
to try to establish a motive.

The attack has not been labeled terrorism by the authorities, and police are investigating issues
including the suspect’s mental health.

The BBC and other UK media reported that the suspect was originally from West Africa and has lived
legally in Britain for many years.

Police said earlier that Calocane is a former Nottingham University student, but said this was not
believed to be connected with the attack.

Calocane was remanded into custody and is expected to appear at Nottingham Crown Court on
Tuesday.

Topics: KNIFE ATTACK LONDON

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