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Putin stabbed Israel in the back! Israel forms emergency gov’t for Hamas war, Gantz to join Netanyahu …

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Israel forms emergency gov’t for Hamas war, Gantz to join Netanyahu

An emergency government was formed on Wednesday afternoon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity leader Benny Gantz met at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv earlier in the morning.The meeting lasted half an hour after which lawyers representing the Likud and National Unity stayed behind to finalize the details.As part of the deal,…
posted 8m ago via jpost.com
posted 37m ago via nytimes.com
posted 2h ago via edition.cnn.com
The Minions are back again, and this time the small yellow creatures are taking their future boss Gru on a new adventure set before the events of Despicable Me.Both a prequel to Despicable Me and a sequel to Minions, The Rise of Gru charts the eponymous character’s quest to becoming a villain worthy of joining a team of nefarious reprobates known as…
posted 2h ago via newsweek.com
“Hamas terrorists bound, burned, and executed children,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed in a speech Monday, condemning the perpetrators of Saturday’s terror.“They are savages. Hamas is ISIS.”The comparison to the notorious terrorist organization ISIS underscored the gravity of the situation and the global threat that Netanyahu believes…
posted 3h ago via jpost.com
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Monday against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ claims that Israel was waging a “genocide” against Palestinians, and called on world leaders to treat Palestinian militant group Hamas as indistinct from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly,…
posted 3h ago via time.com
There is now abundant evidence that Azerbaijan is using Syrian jihadist mercenaries transported by Turkey from the areas it controls in Syria to fight against Armenians in Artsakh. The question is why Azerbaijan, a majority-Muslim but ostensibly secular country run by dictator Ilham Aliyev on shaky footing, would want to have jihadists in his country….
posted 5h ago via thearmenite.com
In Russia’s shadow war with the west, one intelligence agency keeps making headlines.The GRU, or main intelligence directorate, of the Russian army, has been accused of spearheading several of Russia’s most notorious operations in recent years. They include the 2014 seizure of Crimea using undercover soldiers called “little green men”, the hacking theft…
posted 6h ago via theguardian.com
Predictions of the end of the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa and the Middle East in the aftermath of its ill-fated rebellion in Russia are premature. More likely, Wagner’s Middle East and Africa operations will persist: They still serve multiple interests of the Russian state and can be separated from Wagner’s Ukraine and Russia operations. Already,…
posted 6h ago via brookings.edu
By Reuters StaffJERUSALEM, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said atrocities committed by Hamas during its attack on Israel mirrored those carried out by the jihadist group Islamic State.Netanyahu in broadcast remarks recounted how some Israelis were killed during the Hamas incursion, saying tied-up children were…
posted 6h ago via reuters.com
posted 6h ago via nypost.com
TEHRAN — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw generous praise at the militant Palestinian movement Hamas for a wave of deadly attacks and hostage taking well inside Israel over the weekend, that has left so far more than 1,000 Israelis dead. Addressing cadets at a Tehran military academy on Tuesday, Khamenei hailed Hamas for the “epic”…
posted 15h ago via al-monitor.com
posted 20h ago via AzeriTimes

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An emergency government was formed on Wednesday afternoon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity leader Benny Gantz met at the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv earlier in the morning.

The meeting lasted half an hour after which lawyers representing the Likud and National Unity stayed behind to finalize the details.

As part of the deal, Gantz and fellow party member Gadi Eisenkot will be sworn in as ministers and will join a war cabinet with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

There has been a widespread call for an emergency government in Israel since Netanyahu declared war on Hamas on Saturday following their massive attack on Israel that morning.

Gantz was immediately joined by opposition leader Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beyteny leader Avigdor Liberman in saying that they would be willing to join an emergency government. Coalition members also expressed support for the move.

Israeli soldiers patrol in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, October 11, 2023 (credit: FLASH90/CHAIM GOLDBERG)

Netanyahu and Gantz have held multiple meetings over the past few days to discuss the details of the emergency government, but five days in, no such thing had been formed.

One point of contention is a war cabinet suggested by Gantz that would include Netanyahu, Gallant, and two other coalition representatives together with Gantz and Eisenkot, both of whom are former IDF chiefs of staff.

Gantz’s plan would exclude Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – a move that the latter took issue with.

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Vladimir Putin has long projected friendly ties to Israel. But his silence since Saturday’s assault illustrates how the war in Ukraine has strained the relationship between the two countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed to Wagner Group fighters that a senior mercenary named Andrey Troshev now command the private military group, according to comments the Russian leader made to the Kommersant newspaper.

Putin appears to have created a split between senior fighters from the Wagner mercenary group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin since its failed uprising last month – at least in terms of the narrative emerging from his comments to the Kommersant.

The paper was reporting on a meeting held by the Russian president five days after the Wagner rebellion collapsed at the end of June – a meeting attended by Prigozhin and several dozen senior Wagner combatants.

According to Kommersant, Putin told dozens of Wagner mercenaries in the meeting that among the multiple employment choices he offered to them, one included them continuing to fight under their direct commander, a man who goes by the call sign, ‘Sedoy,’ meaning ‘grey hair.’

“They could have all gathered in one place and continued to serve,” Putin said, “and nothing would have changed for them. They would be led by the same person who has been their real commander all along.”

“And what happened then?” the Kommersant reporter said in reply to Putin. “Many people nodded [affirmatively] when I said that,” Putin replied.

Sedoy is the call sign of Andrey Troshev, a retired Russian colonel and a founding member and Executive Director of the Wagner Group, according to sanctions documents published by the European Union and France.

European Union sanctions concerning the situation in Syria detail Troshev’s position as the chief of staff of the Wagner Group operations in Syria, which supported the Syrian regime.

Troshev was born in April 1953 in Leningrad, in the former Soviet Union, according to the EU sanctions from December 2021.

“Andrey Troshev is directly involved in the military operations of the Wagner Group in Syria. He was particularly involved in the area of Deir ez-Zor,” it added. “As such, he provides a crucial contribution to Bashar al-Assad’s war effort and therefore supports and benefits from the Syrian regime.”

United Kingdom sanctions from June 2022 also say “Andrey Nikolaevich Troshev was the Chief Executive of the Wagner Group. Therefore, he has supported the Syrian regime, was a member of a militia, and has repressed the civilian population in Syria.”

His associates include Wagner Group founder Dimitriy Utkin, who is also a former Russian GRU military intelligence officer, according to EU sanctions. Troshev is also associated with Wagner group commanders Aleksandr Sergeevich Kuznetsov and Andrey Bogatov.

‘Grey hair’ is also a former employee of the special rapid response detachment of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Northwestern Federal District, according to Russian online news outlet Fontanka. He is also a veteran of the wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

For his service in Afghanistan, Troshev was awarded two Orders of the Red Star – a Soviet Union decoration for exceptional service. For service in the operation in Chechnya, he was awarded two Orders of Courage and a medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd degree, according to Russian media.

Troshev was among those invited to a reception at the Kremlin in December 2016. A photograph, believed to be from that 2016 reception, emerged in Russian media in 2017 and shows Putin alongside Troshev and Utkin, who are both wearing several medals.

Members of Wagner group sit atop of a tank in a street in the city of Rostov-on-Don, on June 24, 2023.

Ukraine imposed sanctions against Troshev on February 26, 2023.

Meanwhile, the fate of Wagner boss Prigozhin remains unclear. Prigozhin had reportedly traveled to Belarus as part of a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko following the failed uprising, but the Belarusian president told CNN last week the Wagner leader is now in Russia.

Footage purporting to show a police raid on Prigozhin’s premises in St. Petersburg has also raised questions about his status. Prigozhin has not been seen in public since June 2.

The Minions are back again, and this time the small yellow creatures are taking their future boss Gru on a new adventure set before the events of Despicable Me.

Both a prequel to Despicable Me and a sequel to Minions, The Rise of Gru charts the eponymous character’s quest to becoming a villain worthy of joining a team of nefarious reprobates known as the Vicious 6.

Steve Carell and Pierre Coffin once again return to their title roles in the animated film franchise, and they are joined by an A-list cast of actors.

Minions: The Rise of Gru Voice Cast: All the Stars Joining Steve Carell

Minions: The Rise of Gru

A still from “Minions: The Rise of Gru” featuring Gru and Minions Bob, Stuart and Kevin. Both Steve Carell and Pierre Coffin return to voice their respective characters from the “Despicable Me” franchise. Universal Pictures

As previously mentioned, Carell and Coffin reprise their roles as Gru and the Minions, respectively, with the latter voicing quartet Kevin, Stuart, Bob and Otto in particular—but they’re not the only actors returning to the franchise.

Russell Brand reprises his role as Dr. Nefario, Gru’s future partner in crime, in the Minions sequel, while the iconic Julie Andrews has also come back to voice the villain’s mother Marlena once more.

Steve Coogan, who has voiced several characters in the Despicable Me franchise, also returns to voice Silas Ramsbottom, the director of the Anti-Villain League who appeared in the franchise’s second film.

The Vicious 6 are voiced by a number of iconic stars, with Michelle Yeoh playing member Master Chow, Jean-Claude Van Damme voicing the aptly named Jean Clawed, Dolph Lundgren lending his voice to Svengeance, and Taraji P. Henson voicing the group’s new leader Belle Bottom.

The villainous team is completed by Danny Trejo as Stronghold, Lucy Lawless as Nunchuck, and Alan Arkin as the Vicious 6’s former leader Wild Knuckles.

Other notable actors voicing characters in the kids film include comedians Will Arnett and Jimmy O. Yang, and Futurama star John DiMaggio.

Here is the Full Voice Cast for ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’:

  • Steve Carell as Gru
  • Pierre Coffin as Kevin, Stuart, Bob, Otto, and the rest of the Minions
  • Taraji P. Henson as Belle Bottom
  • Michelle Yeoh as Master Chow
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme as Jean Clawed
  • Lucy Lawless as Nunchuck
  • Dolph Lundgren as Svengeance
  • Danny Trejo as Stronghold
  • Russell Brand as Dr. Nefario
  • Julie Andrews as Marlena Gru
  • Alan Arkin as Wild Knuckles
  • RZA as Biker
  • Jimmy O. Yang as Henchman #1
  • Kevin Michael Richardson as Henchman #2
  • John DiMaggio as Henchman #3
  • Michael Beattie as VNC Announcer and Guru Rick
  • Will Arnett as Mr. Perkins
  • Steve Coogan as Silas Ramsbottom
  • Colette Whitaker as Gru’s Teacher
  • Raymond S. Persi as Birthday Kid

Minions: The Rise of Gru will be released in theaters on Friday, July 1.

Minions: The Rise of Gru

The Minions from “Minions: The Rise of Gru” which will come out in theaters on Friday, July 1. Universal Pictures

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“Hamas terrorists bound, burned, and executed children,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed in a speech Monday, condemning the perpetrators of Saturday’s terror.

“They are savages. Hamas is ISIS.”

The comparison to the notorious terrorist organization ISIS underscored the gravity of the situation and the global threat that Netanyahu believes Hamas poses. Just as the international community rallied together to combat the menace of ISIS, the prime minister implored the forces of civilization to unite once more, supporting Israel’s efforts to dismantle Hamas.

But is Hamas ISIS?

Dr. Harel Chorev of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University said that Hamas and ISIS share ideological foundations and revere the same philosophical figures that developed them: Abdullah Azzam and Sayyid Qutb.

An ISIS member carries and Islamic State flag in Syria. (credit: NDLA)

Azzam, born in the Palestinian West Bank during the 1950s under Jordanian rule, is often regarded as pivotal in developing contemporary global jihadism. A deep-seated hatred towards Israel marked his early years, particularly intensified when his family was compelled to flee across the Jordan River following Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Azzam’s writings and lectures on “al-Qaida al-Sulba” (the Firm Foundation) laid the groundwork for the emergence of the al-Qaida terrorist organization. He recruited Osama Bin Laden to run the organization.

Additionally, Azzam was a central figure in Hamas’s genesis, contributing to its founding charter’s authorship. He is best known for his reinterpretation of Islamic history and modern Western philosophy to provide ideological justifications for the fantastical ideologies driving global Islamist militant movements.

Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian ideologue who established the theoretical basis for radical Islamism.

Centered on these philosophers’ ideologies, Hamas and ISIS subscribe to a profoundly paranoid and apocalyptic perspective, in which they propagate the belief that “Crusaders and Zionists” were conspiring for centuries to destroy Islam.

“They are running a holy war against their enemies,” explained Chorev.

However, the similarities between ISIS and Hamas are not only in philosophy but action, Chorev said. Here are four more things they have in common:

Dehumanization of non-Muslims

As per Chorev’s analysis, both ISIS and Hamas employ dehumanizing rhetoric against individuals who do not adhere to their interpretation of Islam  – Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims they consider “not good Muslims.” Their vehemently anti-Western stance is interconnected with this dehumanization, as is their explicit and overt expression of antisemitism.

“You can see it in their incitement on social networking,” Chorev said, illustrating his point by referencing an incident following the tragic murder of Alter Shlomo Lederman, a 20-year-old yeshiva student who was deliberately targeted at a Ramot bus stop earlier this year. He noted that Hamas had released a cartoon depicting Lederman’s face, complete with his fur hat, portrayed as part of a Palestinian maqluba dish, with a family gathered around, consuming it.

“They see their enemies not as human enemies,” Chorev said.

Treatment of women

Both ISIS and Hamas are known to treat non-Muslim women as “sex toys,” said Chorev.

Following the recent attacks, videos circulated of the terrorists glorifying Allah for sending them “sex slaves.” Israeli actress and advocate Noa Tishby shared footage released online by Hamas in which you can see several girls paraded through Gaza’s city streets, some half-naked and others with blood gushing from between their legs.

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A post shared by Noa Tishby (@noatishby)

Similar stories have been shared by Yazidi women and girls who were abducted by ISIS and often sold into sexual slavery.

Martyrdom

Both ISIS and Hamas celebrate becoming a “shaheed” or martyr for the Islamic faith. According to Chorev, when terrorists are apprehended in Israel there are often accounts of them expressing a willingness to die or even a desire for it, sometimes sharing that, “My family would be proud of me.”

He said, “This is hard, even impossible, for a typical Westerner to understand. How could someone desire his death? But it is the great common denominator between ISIS and Hamas.”

According to Chorev, the two organizations have at least one more thing in common:

By December 2017, the ISIS caliphate had relinquished control over 95% of its territory. Then, in 2019, the final vestiges of the physical ISIS caliphate met their end when the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces declared triumph following the Battle of Baghuz Fawqani in March 2019, effectively pushing the group into dormancy.

“ISIS was the boss for quite some time until the West decided to destroy it,” Chorev concluded. “Hamas can be destroyed, too.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Monday against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ claims that Israel was waging a “genocide” against Palestinians, and called on world leaders to treat Palestinian militant group Hamas as indistinct from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS).

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu refuted claims by Abbas and others that his military had committed war crimes during the 50-day war in the Gaza Strip this summer, citing the lengths to which the Israeli Defense Force went to warn civilians to evacuate targeted areas.

“Israel dropped fliers, made phone calls, sent text messages, broadcast warnings in Arabic, all to allow civilians to evacuate targeted areas,” Netanyahu said, arguing that Israel took all available precautions to protect civilian lives, while Hamas deliberately fired rockets from areas where children live and play. “Israel was using its missiles to protect its children, Hamas was using children to protect its missiles,” he added.

He said that the fact that Hamas’s deliberate placement of rockets in civilian communities were the “real war crimes.”

The Israeli Prime Minister also spoke about the growing “cancer” of militant Islam, comparing the situation in Israel with that in Iraq and Syria. “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree,” he said. “When it comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas. And what they share in common, all militant Islamists share in common.”

The conflict, which ended in August, left 2,100 Palestinians dead and 73 Israelis dead, according to the BBC. The UN said that most of the Palestinian dead were civilians. “This last war against Gaza was a series of absolute war crimes carried out before the eyes and ears of the entire world, moment by moment,” Abbas said last week.

Netanyahu said criticism in Europe of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian civilians often amounts to thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. “We hear mobs today in Europe call for the gassing of Jews, we hear some national leaders compare Israel to the Nazis,” he said. “This is not a function of Israel’s policy, this is a function of diseased minds. That disease has a name, it’s called anti-Semitism, and it’s spreading in polite society.”

The president also warned that Iran was undergoing a “manipulative charm offensive” in order to lift sanctions and continue with plans to build a nuclear weapon. “It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pickup trucks… its another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “Would you let ISIS enrich uranium? Then you shouldn’t let the Islamic state of Iran do them either.”

A UN Council tasked with negotiating with Iran on its nuclear program has not made much progress in recent weeks, according to the LA Times. They hope to reach an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program to non-military uses in exchange for lifting oil sanctions.

Netanyahu urged the world’s leaders not to trust what he called the “world’s most dangerous regime.” “To say Iran doesn’t practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees,” he said.

Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.

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There is now abundant evidence that Azerbaijan is using Syrian jihadist mercenaries transported by Turkey from the areas it controls in Syria to fight against Armenians in Artsakh.

The question is why Azerbaijan, a majority-Muslim but ostensibly secular country run by dictator Ilham Aliyev on shaky footing, would want to have jihadists in his country. The question is all the more befuddling when considering that Azerbaijan has spent billions on its military over the past decade, achieving superiority in the quantity of armaments over Armenia and, also, in the size of their standing army: over 365,000 soldiers with active duty and reserve troops.

So, why mercenaries?

The answer lies in the fact that despite the decade-long propaganda that portrays Azerbaijan as a phoenix newly infused with strength and resolve due to a continuous stream of oil wealth, most citizens of Azerbaijan have little heart for a long war, especially for a place they have never been to and know little about; Aliyev’s dictatorial government knows this.

During the Artsakh Liberation War from 1988 to 1994, many Azerbaijanis were known to flee from the battlefield – a phenomenon seen during this war, as well – and return to their towns and villages to hide, requiring the leadership to recruit people by threat of force.

Additionally, it was well-documented that many of the fighters on the Azerbaijani side were from among the country’s minority groups – Lezgins, Talysh, and Meskheti Turks – along with Soviet Ukrainian soldiers, recently unemployed, who were hired as mercenaries, mostly to round out the Azerbaijani air force.

The experience with Islamic jihadists is also not new. In the first war, Chechen rebels led by the infamous Shamil Basayev and Afghan mujaheddin, led by the infamous Khattab, fresh off their victory over Soviet forces, were paid to come and fight.

It was difficult to hide the losses that Azerbaijan was suffering in that first war amid the internal political discord and general disarray of the collapsing Soviet Union. Warring political factions were happy to exploit the military failures of their opponents to try to secure power.

However, by the April War of 2016, the first large-scale attack on Artsakh since the ceasefire was signed, Azerbaijan was a tightly-controlled dictatorship with a smooth propaganda operation and internal institutions to keep a lid on the flow of information. So, although the April War lasted only four days, an estimated 1,000 soldiers were killed. This was immediately covered up to prevent discord and to this day, Azerbaijan claims that only 31 of their soldiers died.

The fact is that Aliyev understands that the higher the death toll in a war his people do not want to fight, the greater the likelihood that there will be internal unrest. The solution to this problem is to hire mercenaries.

The main benefit of using the mercenaries is that when they die, they aren’t sent back to Azerbaijani towns where people will be able to guess the devastation that Azerbaijan is suffering on the battlefield. Naturally, this lowers the number of dead soldiers being returned to families in Azerbaijan.

So, despite the 365,000 Azerbaijani soldiers at its disposal (over twice the size of Artsakh’s civilian population), the government of the country chooses to hire cheap and, in their eyes, expendable Syrian jihadists whose deaths will soften the blow of realizing how many soldiers are dying in the war with Artsakh. Effectively, these mercenaries act as cannon fodder for battles with Armenians.

Aliyev, nevertheless, seems to understand he is playing with fire in the Land of Fire and can’t afford to bring too many of these jihadists to the country lest they spread radical Islam and destabilize his rule. Thus far, he has brought only a few thousand of these jihadists but the longer the war goes, the more soldiers will die and it will be increasingly difficult to cover up the losses of his own soldiers.

Whether Aliyev chooses to bring in more jihadists or to send more Azerbaijanis to their deaths, his choices are limited and untenable. It is only a matter of time before the people lose their heart, the jihadists start making inroads, or political enemies take advantage of the instability created by his decisions.

In Russia’s shadow war with the west, one intelligence agency keeps making headlines.

The GRU, or main intelligence directorate, of the Russian army, has been accused of spearheading several of Russia’s most notorious operations in recent years. They include the 2014 seizure of Crimea using undercover soldiers called “little green men”, the hacking theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton, and even the planning of a failed coup in Montenegro.

A British security source told the Guardian on Monday that the nerve agent attack on the former double agent Sergei Skripal was also ordered by the intelligence agency. The British government is poised to submit an extradition request to Moscow for two Russians suspected of carrying out the Salisbury attack that left one person dead and three injured, including Skripal and his daughter.

One of the three main Russian intelligence agencies, less has been written about the GRU (now officially called the GU, or Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces) than its sister agencies, particularly the Soviet-era KGB or its modern successor the FSB, the spy agency once headed by Vladimir Putin.

Known for operating under a wartime mentality and a willingness to take risks, experts say the culture of the GRU has been influenced by its inclusion of Spetsnaz special forces and experience in war zones, including Syria and Ukraine.

Wreckage from Malaysian airlines flight MH17.Some sources have linked GRU agents to the downing of Malaysian airlines flight MH17. Photograph: Antonio Bronic/Reuters

Open source researchers have claimed that a GRU officer supervised the transport of anti-aircraft weapons to eastern Ukraine when the Malaysian jetliner flight MH17 was shot down there, killing 298 people.

“The GRU regards itself as a war-fighting instrument. Yes, it gathers conventional intelligence … but its culture is much more military,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian security issues and the country’s intelligence agencies. “Although only a minority of GRU officers are Spetsnaz, it has an impact when part of your service are commandos.”

Besides special forces, the spy agency manages more traditional intelligence-gathering operations around the world, as well as signals intelligence.

Vladimir Rezun, a GRU officer who defected to the UK in the 1970s, wrote in his history of the agency (written under the pen name Viktor Suvorov) that it was largely tasked with preventing the collapse of the Soviet Union from without, as opposed to the KGB, which had a prominent role in thwarting internal threats.

While the KGB became notorious, the GRU largely operated in obscurity. “In the people’s consciousness, everything that is dark, underground and secret is connected with the KGB but not at all with the GRU,” he wrote.

Traditionally, Galeotti noted, the GRU answered for “uncontrolled spaces”. While in the past that has meant areas like civil wars, it may also apply to zones like cyberspace now.

US special counsel Robert MuellerUS special counsel Robert Mueller recently linked the GRU to meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

Several Russian intelligence agencies were involved in hacking operations before the 2016 US presidential elections, but only the GRU was identified in an 11-count indictment released last month by the United States special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The hack was perpetrated by staff employees of several Moscow-based units traditionally tied to signal intelligence.

The interests of Russia’s intelligence agencies regularly overlap, as have their methods. As Christopher Andrew wrote in The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, his study of notes on KGB files smuggled out of Russia, the agency “offered its allies lethal nerve toxins and poisons which were fatal on contact with the skin for use during ‘special actions’”.

While the GRU has largely been shrouded in secrecy, there have been occasional contacts with the west.

Peter Zwack, a retired US army brigadier general, wrote about a series of meetings before the Sochi Olympics with the head of the GRU, Igor Sergun, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack in January 2016. “I found him soft-spoken, unassuming, complex, erudite and nuanced,” he said of their meetings, which largely focused on counter-terrorism efforts.

“I learned that even as Sergun relentlessly directed global intelligence operations against our interests, he — paradoxically — also viewed constant confrontation with the US and west as not in Russia’s best long-term interest,” Zwack wrote.

Those meetings ended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Predictions of the end of the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa and the Middle East in the aftermath of its ill-fated rebellion in Russia are premature. More likely, Wagner’s Middle East and Africa operations will persist: They still serve multiple interests of the Russian state and can be separated from Wagner’s Ukraine and Russia operations. Already, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stated that Wagner’s operations in Africa will continue. But Wagner’s operations in Africa are likely to endure under a new leadership and structure.

Wagner’s footprint and Russian interests

Ukraine aside, the Wagner Group has sent mercenary deployments to Syria, Libya, Mozambique, Mali, the Central African Republic, and Sudan. Unconfirmed rumors have been swirling about Wagner’s presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Wagner also maintains logistical, support, smuggling, and money laundering affiliates and subsidiaries in the United Arab Emirates. Through a vast network of intermediaries and shell companies, its business, commodity-extraction, and disinformation operations span even more countries.

There are several reasons why Wagner’s operations outside of Ukraine and Russia are unlikely to be liquidated even as the fate of Wagner’s disgraced boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, remains far from resolved:

First, Wagner-Ukraine operations have been substantially separate from its Africa and Middle East operations. Early in the spring of 2022, the Wagner Group withdrew some of its forces from Syria and Libya and deployed them to Ukraine. But since the summer of 2022, Wagner has not significantly reduced its personnel or equipment in Africa or the Middle East.

Second, Wagner’s operations in Africa remain highly valuable for Russia, which uses them for extending its strategic influence and access to important raw commodities. The Wagner Group’s protection of gas and oil fields in Syria, on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime, for example, plays into Russia’s global energy coercion games. At least four Russian companies linked to Wagner have exploration permits for Syrian gas and oil fields.

Moreover, Wagner’s business schemes also establish smuggling networks that bring liquidity to the sanctioned Russian regime, such as through gold and diamond smuggling. The intensifying U.S. sanctions on Wagner in Africa and the Middle East have hampered Wagner’s operations but have not eviscerated them, especially as Wagner has long been involved in various clandestine and illegal economies as well, such as antiquities smuggling.

Third, there have been prior instances of the reshuffling of Russian private security companies in the Middle East when they fell afoul of various Russian intelligence services. In 2013, a Russian private security company, the Slavonic Corps, led by Dmitry Utkin, the notorious former Russian special operations forces officer, was sent to Syria to fight ISIS on behalf of the Assad regime. Yet in an inglorious retreat, they were not only chased out of Syria but also arrested in Moscow. Still, Utkin and various commanders and members of the Slavonic Corps were later allowed to form cadres under the Wagner Group. (Utkin, who hasn’t been heard from for several weeks, is now likely a prime target of the Kremlin’s ire.)

The Wagner Group has found itself frequently at odds with either the Russian Federal Security Service, known by its abbreviation FSB, or the Russian military during its deployment to Syria. Those long-running tensions reached a peak in 2018 when, despite the establishment of deconfliction mechanisms between the Russian and U.S. militaries, the United States bombed Wagner’s deployments, killing scores. Prigozhin, Utkin, and the Wagner Group blamed the Russian military for throwing them under the bus on purpose.

Yet however much the Russian military and intelligence services already wanted to cut Wagner to size, the Kremlin had no desire to remove its useful tool of influence.

Furthermore, both the FSB and the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency, have had complex linkages and influence over Wagner’s overseas operations. Like the Kremlin, they also make money from Wagner’s business operations, whether these operations feed their pockets or parts of their institutional budgets. Prigozhin has used money from Russian state contracts, amounting to some $20 billion, to fund his mercenary, media, and business ventures abroad. The interconnected management of state funding and Prigozhin’s (semi-)private ventures also implies highly interconnected interests for a wide array of influential regime actors. Thus, like in Russia, some of Wagner’s businesses may be shut down, but others will be merely reshuffled. But neither the Kremlin nor the intelligence services want to lose the Wagner income and tool, even if they want to control it better.

Restructuring, not liquidation

Rather than fully liquidating Wagner in Africa and the Middle East, Russian intelligence services will purge Wagner’s structures to weaken affinities to Prigozhin and strengthen ties to the Kremlin. Such a restructuring would mimic the seeming preference of Russian President Vladimir Putin with respect to Wagner in Russia and Ukraine — rolling some cadres under the Russian military, disarming others, and allowing others yet to operate in the existing semi-independent format, but under a new leadership and with Prigozhin’s power minimized.

Such restructuring has started in Syria where Russian forces, assisted by the Assad regime, surrounded Wagner bases and interrogated and removed some Wagner operatives. That the Kremlin would prioritize reasserting control of Wagner in Syria is not surprising: That’s where Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who is close to Prigozhin and hasn’t been seen since the rebellion, led Russia’s brutal and indiscriminate air campaign on behalf of the Assad regime and had close connections with Wagner forces. Wagner’s forces in Syria could most augment the Wagner threat to the Kremlin. But it is noteworthy that the Assad regime did not hesitate in supporting the Russian state against Wagner.

Beyond purges, the Wagner Group in Africa may be renamed and broken up into multiple separate entities. Chopping up Wagner this way would give the Russian state better control over the proxy, even as the network’s murkiness would persist, and rival Kremlin and Russian intelligence and security services could clash with one another in mercenary and business ventures.

Under better control, Russia will likely tolerate and retain Russian private security companies operating abroad. Unlike in Syria, where the Russian military has had an official presence since 2017, sending official “military advisors” to African countries, instead of private proxies, poses various legal and diplomatic inconveniences for Russia and the African countries.

In Ukraine, since December 2022, far before Wagner’s June rebellion, the Russian military has had strong incentives to transfer Wagner forces to the control of the Russian military — to tighten command, eliminate an independent force, and neutralize an increasingly unrestrained and troublesome Prigozhin. Abroad, the Russian state wants tighter control over Wagner operations too, but without the official state label.

Buyer beware: No easy way out

Nor do the African and Middle Eastern countries that have signed up with Wagner have an easy capacity to fire it. Mali is a prime example. After succumbing to Russia and Wagner’s influence and having kicked the French military out of the country in 2022 and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in June 2023, Mali is dependent more than ever on Wagner’s forces. All the more so that the U.N. Security Council accepted Mali’s request and voted to end the mission.

Focused far more on securing access to Mali’s gold mines, the 1,000-2,000 Wagner contractors have not been particularly effective in suppressing the jihadis in Mali’s north. In fact, from counterinsurgency and counterterrorism perspectives, their brutality has backfired. But the junta has no immediate alternative.

Besides, Wagner’s principal sell in Africa has become its praetorian guard service for authoritarian regimes as well as elected governments — like in the Central African Republic (CAR). There, Wagner provides security to the president and trains the country’s army. Besides making money from mining, timber extraction, and a beer company, Wagner advisors have developed vast influence over the CAR state, furthering Wagner and Russian interests at the expense of the public good.

Similarly, in the context of ongoing intense fighting in Sudan, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, a key opposition group, is unlikely to forgo Wagner’s intelligence and other support. The support may be limited in terms of weapons and ammunition, but it would still be costly for Hemedti to give it up.

Wagner’s rebellion in Russia likely shook the confidence of African regimes that the Wagner Group is a reliable partner. Yet even an African government as dependent and almost subservient to Wagner as that of the CAR has sided with Russia, not Wagner, in the rebellion’s fallout.

But Wagner’s revolt also showed its daring confidence in mounting an uprising as well as its linkages to various poles of power in the Russian military and intelligence services. Even as these connections are purged and reconfigured within Russia, Africa, and the Middle East, they can still be useful for African governments as they try to play Russia against the West and actors within Russia against each other.

Nonetheless, various African delegations heading to St. Petersburg at the end of July for the Russia-Africa Summit will likely have questions about the future of Wagner’s Africa operations and the extent of Russia’s backing, even as strengthening economic relations is the official billing of the conference.

The Prime Minister of Israel

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JERUSALEM, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said atrocities committed by Hamas during its attack on Israel mirrored those carried out by the jihadist group Islamic State.

Netanyahu in broadcast remarks recounted how some Israelis were killed during the Hamas incursion, saying tied-up children were executed. This, he said, was on par with brutal killings carried out by Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“The atrocities committed by Hamas have not been seen since ISIS atrocities. Bound children executed along with their families. Young men and women shot in the back, executed. Other horrors I won’t describe here,” Netanyahu said.

“We have always known who Hamas is. Now the entire world knows. Hamas is ISIS. And we will defeat it just like the enlightened world defeated ISIS. This vile enemy wanted war and it will get war,” he said. (Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Mark Porter)

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened Hamas to ISIS in a fiery speech Monday night, in which he vowed that the Jewish nation’s retaliation against the terrorist organization for the killing and kidnapping of civilians “will reverberate with them for generations.”

“We have only started striking Hamas,” the 73-year-old world leader said in televised remarks, as rockets continued to rain down on the Gaza Strip.

He claimed that Israel is in a fight “for our home, a war to ensure our existence — a war that we will win.

“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations,” Netanyahu continued, before going on to speak about the horrors Israeli citizens have had to face over the past four days.

“The atrocities carried out by Hamas have not been seen since the atrocities of ISIS — children bound and executed with the rest of their families, young girls and boys shot in the back, executed, and other atrocities that I will not describe here,” he said.

“Hamas terrorists bound, burned, and executed children. They are savages,” Netanyahu declared. “Hamas is ISIS.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Hamas to ISIS in a televised speech Monday night.@IsraeliPM / X

“We have always known who Hamas is,” he continued, speaking of the Israeli people. “Now, the entire world knows who Hamas is, and we will defeat it just like the enlightened world defeated ISIS.”

Netanyahu concluded by saying: “This vile enemy wanted war, and it will get war.”

The Israeli prime minister also reportedly told US President Biden the country has no choice but to unleash an all-out ground operation in Gaza.

“We have to go in. We can’t negotiate now,” Netanyahu told Biden, according to three unidentified sources familiar with the conversation who spoke about it with Axios.

He said Israel had to respond to the atrocities committed by Hamas with force because a country can’t show weakness in the Middle East.

Netanyahu reportedly told US President Biden Israel has no choice but to unleash an all-out ground operation in Gaza.REUTERS Netanyahu’s speech came as rockets continued to rain down on Gaza.REUTERS

“We need to restore deterrence,” Netanyahu reportedly told the US president, who decided not to try to convince him to escalate to a ground operation, the sources said.

As of Tuesday, the four-day war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives, as Israel saw gun battles in the streets and neighborhoods in Gaza reduced to rubble.

Hamas had also abducted up to 150 civilians, including women and children, who were forcibly taken from their homes.

As of Tuesday, the four-day war has already claimed at least 1,600 lives.REUTERS

It warned on Monday that it would start executing those hostages.

“Every targeting of our people without warning will be met with the execution of the civilian hostages,” the terrorist organization’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Just a few hours later, Abu Obaida — the brigades’ spokesperson — told Al Jazeera: “We have decided to put an end to this, and as of now, we declare that any targeting of our people in their homes without prior warning will be regrettably faced with the execution of civilians we are holding.” 

The exact number of hostages being held by Hamas is not known, but on Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces announced it notified 50 families whose loved ones are being held hostage in the Gaza Strip.

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TEHRAN — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw generous praise at the militant Palestinian movement Hamas for a wave of deadly attacks and hostage taking well inside Israel over the weekend, that has left so far more than 1,000 Israelis dead. 

Addressing cadets at a Tehran military academy on Tuesday, Khamenei hailed Hamas for the “epic” victory and the “destructive earthquake” it inflicted upon Israel.

“We do kiss the foreheads and the arms of the smart masterminds and the Palestinian youths,” the Iranian leader said as reported by his official website.

Khamenei maintained that for years to come, Israel will have to reel from the “irreparable” devastation it was dealt by the Palestinians militants. Using his signature rhetoric against Iran’s arch-foe, Khamenei described Israel as a “usurper” and a “tyrannical,” “ignorant” and “monstrous” entity.

The Iranian leader, who holds the final say in the country’s foreign policy and military affairs, warned that an even “bigger calamity” awaits Israel should it continue “committing crimes” against the Palestinians.

Yet the 84-year-old cleric denied his country’s involvement. “The supporters of the [Israeli] regime and the regime itself have in the past few days kept saying nonsense, including that the Islamic Republic was behind the move,” he said. “They are miscalculating,” he added, reasserting, “Of course, we do defend Palestine and its struggle.”

Khamenei was responding to arguments from Israeli officials and Western media reports that Iran was directly involved in the attacks or at last gave the green light to the Palestinian militants, whom it has been funding and arming for much of the past four decades. Hamas officials have made contradictory comments as to whether they were backed by Tehran in the attacks.

Earlier on Monday, the United States warned the Islamic Republic and its main proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to stay out of the ongoing conflict. And amid speculation that Iran could be targeted if the conflict escalates and spreads, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani declared on Monday that Tehran’s response to any “stupid” move will be devastating. 

The lightning operation that caught the world by surprise occurred four days after Khamenei openly expressed his unease with normalization efforts between the Arab world and Israel. The last Arab state to have expressed such willingness was Saudi Arabia, which without naming, Khamenei advised that such rapprochement would be “betting on the losing horse.”

As prospects of further Arab-Israeli reconciliation appeared complicated amid the escalating conflict, the deputy speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mojtaba Zolnouri, expressed hope that following the Hamas attacks, “the issue of recognizing Israel by the regional countries will be shelved forever.”

From the early hours into the Hamas operation, Iran’s state media organs have been applauding the “glorious triumph,” extensively publishing footage of Israelis being kidnapped and dragged away. To them, the attacks exposed Israel’s vulnerabilities and shattered the Jewish state’s “myth of invincibility,” as they saw the beginning of the end of Israel and “the moment of truth” promised by Khamenei. 

In the latest, the official X (Twitter) account of the Iran newspaper — the leading media platform of the government in Tehran — drew strong criticism among many Iranians after posting a controversial cartoon.

The design featured what appeared to be a Palestinian youth posing with the victory sign while holding a balloon that read “1K,” presumably a reference to the mounting casualties on the Israeli side.

“We just hit the 1,000 mark,” the paper read. 

Armenia is ready to hold a meeting in the “3+3” format (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, Russia, Georgia, and Türkiye), Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with the Public TV Channel, Report informs via News.am.

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Washington Post: After Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan eyes a strategic strip of Armenia

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Outside the old Meghri train station in southern Armenia, a rusting locomotive, emblazoned with a fading emblem of the Soviet Union, sits on the tracks, as if still waiting for the passengers who stopped coming long ago, The Washingon Post reports.

The station’s overgrown courtyard and dilapidated waiting rooms were once filled with Armenians, Azerbaijanis and visitors from across the Soviet Union, traveling between Baku and Yerevan, or Moscow and Tehran. A modest cafeteria sold tea and snacks, and in summer, fruit sellers on the platform hawked persimmons and pomegranates, grown locally in the orchards that hug the valley.

Meghri sits at a strategic crossroads that regional powers, including Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and Russia, are competing to access — prompting fears it could soon be at the center of a new war.

Located just north of the Aras River and the Iranian border, Meghri is hemmed in by Azerbaijani territory. To the east lies Azerbaijan proper, whose border with Armenia has been shut since 1991. Roughly six miles to the west lies Nakhchivan, a landlocked Azerbaijani exclave that Baku has long dreamed of connecting to its mainland. A sliver of Nakhchivan borders Turkey.

Azerbaijan calls Meghri, and the rest of Armenia’s Syunik province, the Zangezur corridor. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other officials have described opening this corridor as a top objective — one that is now in direct focus following Baku’s recapture of the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Zangezur corridor is a broken link in a longer, potentially highly lucrative east-west route called the “Middle Corridor” that would connect China and Central Asian countries to Turkey via Azerbaijan.

Yerevan pledged to open transport routes to Baku as part of a 2020 cease-fire after a brief war in Nagorno-Karabakh. But since then, Armenian officials have balked, saying that any such arrangement would effectively be the occupation of Armenian territory.

Betrayed by Moscow, which failed to prevent Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia now wants full control of the route. And it no longer wants Moscow’s security forces, who have guarded Meghri’s borders since the 1970s, involved.

Azerbaijan, meanwhile, is pressuring Yerevan for unfettered access to the corridor, aiming to reopen the old Soviet railroad from Baku to Nakhchivan, as well as a highway for cars. It has already begun constructing infrastructure in preparation for the route.

Aliyev has signaled that Baku would use force to seize the corridor if the 2020 deal is not upheld. “We will implement the Zangezur corridor, whether Armenia wants it or not,” he said in 2021.

“I think the threat of a flare-up is very real,” said Stefan Meister, a South Caucasus expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “The Azerbaijanis have a maximalist approach. … If they can take it, they will do it.”

Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe who specializes in the region, said there are “two competing visions for the same east-west route,” with Armenia backed by the West, and Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey aligned together.

“It is more likely that Baku and Moscow will jointly use all their pressure points on the Armenian government to coerce them to accept their plan,” de Waal said. “So this is shaping up into a real contest.”

Turkey and Russia, which would benefit from expanding transport links crossing Armenian territory, have backed Aliyev’s plans. Russia, especially, wants this southern route to circumvent Western sanctions. Moscow has been using Azerbaijan to continue selling oil despite import bans and a price cap regime coordinated by the Group of Seven nations.

But Iran, a powerful ally of Armenia and its only friendly neighbor, has strongly opposed the project, averse to any alterations to its border with Armenia. The proposed plan would hinder, if not disconnect, free trade and traffic between the two countries. It could also reduce profits from Iran’s gas contracts with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last month, which prompted more than 100,000 of the region’s ethnic Armenian residents to flee, has raised concerns that Baku — which has stepped up its hawkish rhetoric — may use force to get its way in the transit corridor dispute.

A crumpled old railway map lies on the floor of the main building of the abandoned Meghri train station. When active, the railway connected Meghri to Yerevan, traveling through Nakhchivan. (Anush Babajanyan/VII)

It was war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that originally shuttered the Meghri station.

At its peak during the Soviet era, the station had 70 employees. Armenian and Azerbaijani residents lived side by side. One year, even one deputy mayor of Meghri was Azerbaijani.

But in 1992, with Armenia and Azerbaijan at war over Nagorno-Karabakh, revenge attacks escalated. A group of Azerbaijanis hijacked the train running from Yerevan to Kapan as it passed through Nakhchivan and took 12 wagons full of mostly Armenian passengers hostage for a week.

As official negotiations stalled, a group of men from Meghri took matters into their own hands. Climbing the high mountain paths to a radar station, they bribed a Russian border guard to let them cross into Nakhchivan. Then, disguised as Russians, they kidnapped a local man — a relative of an Azerbaijani official — who was exchanged for the 14 remaining passenger-hostages. Baku and Yerevan later signed an accord to safeguard passenger transport.

The next year, however, a rumor spread that Azerbaijanis had abducted a busload of Armenian passengers farther north. A lynch mob of angry Armenian residents gathered at the Meghri station. Thinking that Baku had violated the accord, Arman Davtyan, the deputy station director, halted the train.

“I gave the order to the duty officer to stop the incoming train,” Davtyan said in a recent interview, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, “and by doing this, I very nearly risked an international crisis.”

After two days of talks to ensure locals would not ambush the passengers, the train departed from the station — one of the last to ever leave Meghri. The station closed a few months later, in 1993, along with the whole line from Baku to Nakhchivan.

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N.J. Sen. Bob Menendez charged with conspiring to act as foreign agent

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NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was charged in a superseding federal indictment on Thursday with conspiracy by a public official to act as a foreign agent, intensifying the legal peril facing the veteran lawmaker as he continues to resist calls to resign.

Federal prosecutors charged Menendez, 69, and his wife Nadine with bribery last month, alleging that they accepted cash and gifts totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for attempting to assist the Egyptian government.

The senator, his wife and three associates — Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe — were charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and conspiracy to commit honest services fraud. The Menendezes also were charged with conspiracy to commit extortion as a public official.

Now they and Hana face an additional count for allegedly conspiring to have Menendez act as an illegal foreign agent on behalf of the Egyptian government, while he was serving as a U.S. senator with access to sensitive intelligence as the former head of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee.

The couple and Hana all pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after the initial indictment. Menendez also gave up his committee chairmanship temporarily, in accordance with Democratic Senate rules.

The indictment described Menendez accepting gold bars, cash and a Mercedes in exchange for his cooperation with Hana, who was the senator’s U.S.-based go-between with Egyptian officials.

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

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Russian President Putin arrives in Kyrgyzstan on rare trip abroad

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putinarrived in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday on a rare trip abroad for the Russian leader who was indicted earlier this year by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Ukraine. In the capital, Bishkek, Putin met with Kyrgyz president Sadyr Zhaparov and Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. He also attended an event marking the 20th anniversary of a Russian airbase in Kyrgyzstan.
Putin is scheduled to take part on Friday in the commonwealth of independent states summit

, which Kyrgyzstan is hosting. Leaders of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will also attend the summit.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will skip it, as Yerevan’s relationship with Moscow has frayed amid mutual accusations.

It is the first time this year that Putin has travelled outside Russia and Russian-held territories of Ukraine. Earlier this year, he visited the partially occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson, as well as the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the deportation of children from Ukraine. Countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, are now bound to arrest the Russian leader if he sets foot on their soil.

The move caused Putin to skip an economic summit in South Africa in August and further strained Moscow’s ties with Armenia after it moved to ratify the Rome Statute earlier this month, even as Armenian officials sought to assure the Kremlin that the Russian leader would not be arrested if he entered the country.

The Kremlin has said that Russia doesn’t recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC and considers the warrant null and void.

Kyrgyzstan is not a signatory of the Rome Statute. In Central Asia, only Tajikistan is. Putin travelled to both countries last year after the invasion of Ukraine and amid increasing international isolation. He also visited other Central Asian nations in 2022, as well as Armenia, Belarus, China, India and Iran.

Later this month, Putin is expected to travel to China again. Last month, he also accepted an invitation to visit North Korea, although it remains unclear when that might happen.

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Putin and Aliyev discussed the situation around Karabakh

Putin and Aliyev discussed the situation around Karabakh

Baku/12.10.23/Turan: Russian President Vladimir Putin, at negotiations with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on October 12 in Bishkek, proposed discussing the situation around Karabakh, the ……

Putin and Aliyev discussed the situation around Karabakh

Turan News Agency – turan.az https://turan.az

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Baku/12.10.23/Turan: Russian President Vladimir Putin, at negotiations with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on October 12 in Bishkek, proposed discussing the situation around Karabakh, the Kremlin press service reports.

“Issue number one is the situation around Karabakh, but we also have another agenda, it is quite extensive. I propose to structure our conversation as follows: then, perhaps, we will start with the second part in order to have the opportunity to speak out and talk with our colleagues. then we’ll stay face to face and talk, we’ll talk about the entire complex, including so-called sensitive issues,” Putin suggested.

Aliyev supported the proposal of his Russian colleague. “It is very gratifying that you found time for a meeting within the framework of your state visit to Kyrgyzstan. In fact, there are many questions. I believe that your proposal is quite reasonable,” said the President of Azerbaijan. He noted that he and his colleagues from the delegations will discuss the bilateral agenda.

“Moreover, we have something to talk about. The results of this year are impressive – there are a lot of new projects in terms of trade turnover, industrial cooperation, and cooperation in the transport sector. And then we’ll talk about regional issues and security issues,” Aliyev added .

From the Russian side, the negotiations were attended by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov, Head of the Ministry of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, and Deputy Head of the Ministry of Defense Alexander Fomin. The Azerbaijani delegation included Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic Shahin Mustafayev, Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov, Presidential Aide Hikmet Hajiyev, Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov and Economy Minister Mikail Jabbarov. -06B-

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Sen. Bob Menendez charged with acting as agent of Egypt in superseding indictment

  • Sen. Bob Menendez has been accused of acting as a foreign agent of Egypt in a superseding indictment.
  • The indictment marks the latest federal criminal accusations against Menendez.
  • The longtime New Jersey lawmaker and his wife, Nadine, were previously indicted in New York on federal charges

Sen. Bob Menendez has been accused of accepting bribes and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt, according to a superseding federal indictment filed Thursday.

For more than four years through June 2022, Menendez, D-N.J., along with his wife and others “willfully and knowingly combined,  conspired, confederated, and agreed together and with each other” to have the senator act as an agent for the Egyptian government, the indictment alleges.

The indictment also alleges that Menendez, who is up for reelection next year, “provided sensitive U.S. government information and took other steps that secretly aided” Egypt’s government.

Menendez and his wife received thousands of dollars in bribes “in exchange for Menendez’s acts and breaches of duty to benefit” Egypt and others, “including with respect to foreign military sales and foreign military financing,” the indictment says.

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Source: Department of Justice

Sen. Menendez allegedly meeting with Egyptian officials at a Washington D.C. steakhouse where Sen. Menendez, his wife and “Egyptian Official-3” allegedly requested Menendez’s assistance to counter USDA’s objections to IS EG Halal’s monopoly (company Hana owns).

It’s the latest federal criminal accusation against Menendez. The longtime New Jersey lawmaker and his wife, Nadine, were previously indicted in New York on federal charges related to their alleged “corrupt relationship” with three businessmen from their home state to protect those men and benefit the nation of Egypt.

A spokesperson for Menendez did not return a request for comment. A representative for the Egyptian embassy did not return an email seeking comment.

Menendez has denied wrongdoing and has rejected calls to resign from the Senate. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and many of Menendez’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate have also called on him to resign, including fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has stopped short of demanding Menendez to step down, however.

An elleged meeting in Sen. Menendez's office with his wife, Nadine, an Egyptian military official and other officials where the discussion involved foreign military financing to Egypt, among other topics the indictment says.

Source: Department of Justice

An elleged meeting in Sen. Menendez’s office with his wife, Nadine, an Egyptian military official and other officials where the discussion involved foreign military financing to Egypt, among other topics the indictment says.

Menendez has said he will announce whether he will formally launch a campaign when the time comes. Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate that will be up for grabs next year.

This is not the first time Menendez has faced federal corruption charges.

In 2017, a case against Menendez, who was accused of doing favors in exchange for gifts, ended in a mistrial.

At the time, Menendez broke down in tears he addressed supporters after the mistrial, declaring the day as a “Resurrection Day” for his political career. He won re-election the next year.

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COMMENT: The new Iran – Azerbaijan transit route reflects shifting geopolitical realities

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Azerbaijan and Iran laid the foundation on October 6 for a transit route connecting western Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan through Iran. The road bridge is being built in line with the memorandum of mutual understanding between the governments of Azerbaijan and Iran on developing new transport links. According to the Azerbaijani media, the bridge will span the Araz River to connect to the Iranian province of Eastern Azerbaijan.

The new transit project announcement came amid the ongoing normalisation of ties between Azerbaijan and Iran after months of harsh diplomatic confrontation. From the Iranian perspective, there are several reasons behind the shift in the diplomatic relations, but the most important is the changed regional balance of power in the South Caucasus following the war in 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Among the broader impacts of the war were the declining influence of Iran and the strengthening axis of Baku-Ankara and Baku-Tel Aviv in the region.

The turning point was the Azerbaijani government’s ambitious plans to establish a land route with Turkey from Nakhchivan through Armenia’s Syunik province shortly after the Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement was signed between Baku and Yerevan in November 2020. Given the bilateral strategic partnership between the two countries, Azerbaijan has long sought to be linked directly to Turkey via a land route. However, such plans provoked an immediate reaction from Iran, the strategic partner of Armenia, accusing Azerbaijan and Turkey of attempting to redraw the borders in the South Caucasus.

The proposed corridor project, the Zangezur Corridor, consists of transit networks, such as highways, bridges, tunnels and railway connections. The initial route was supposed to run through Armenia’s Syunik province, which triggered fears in Yerevan about Azerbaijan’s possible “invasion of Syunik” and became the main point of discontent during the peace talks with Armenia in the last two years. Armenia saw such plans as part of the rising ambitions of Azerbaijan following its military victory in the 2020 war as well as Turkey’s ongoing geopolitical expansion.

Although Azerbaijan rejected all allegations regarding a possible takeover of Syunik for implementing the Zangezur Corridor, and recognised Armenia’s sovereignty over these territories, this did not reassure Armenia. Yerevan is closely aligned with Tehran as one of the potent deterrent forces against Azerbaijan.

However, the steady diplomatic reconciliation between Azerbaijan and Iran generated a renewed approach to the Zangezur Corridor project. Iran made the first step by sending Foreign Minister Hossain Amir Abdollahian to Baku to attend the ministerial meeting of the Non-Alignment Movement, where he held a face-to-face meeting with President Ilham Aliyev. During the visit, Abdollahian expressed Iran’s interest to be a part of the land corridor project between Azerbaijan-Nakhchivan-Turkey.

Although the minister’s statement did not cause an immediate reaction from Baku, later, the idea seemed acceptable as President Aliyev’s aide, Hikmat Hajiyev, stressed that there was an alternative route for the Zangezur Corridor if Armenia refused to participate. In line with this statement, the Turkish Minister of Transport Abdulkadir Uraloglu also pointed to Iran as a potential transit country within the Zangezur Corridor.

As such, by laying the foundation of a new transit route, Azerbaijan answered Armenian and, to some extent, Western allegations that it planned to establish a land corridor in Syunik by using military force.

Moreover, the alternative route through Iran will enable Azerbaijan to restore diplomatic relations and facilitate trade with its big neighbour, while Armenia will remain in play as a future partner for regional transport connections.

Nevertheless, it will remain an arduous task for Azerbaijan and Armenia to reach a final peace, particularly after the military operation carried out by Azerbaijan against the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on September 19. As a result, Azerbaijan ensured full control over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of its territory, and dismissed the separatist government. The  dramatic events caused a mass flight of ethnic Armenians from the region.

The Azerbaijani authorities are keen to maintain regional stability by keeping Iran at a close distance and preventing it from allying with Armenia. Undoubtedly, the pragmatic economic partnership with Azerbaijan suits Iran’s interests well, mainly due to the economic dividends of transit projects. The stable economic relations with Baku will enable Iran to get direct access to the Russian market within the North-South Corridor (INSTC), as Azerbaijan is the key part of the Iran-Russian (Rasht-Astara) railway connection.

Under the current geopolitical realities, Azerbaijan is willing to become a regional transit and energy hub by investing a lot in various connectivity projects in the Nakhchivan region, which will also weaken Iran’s leverage. For example, on September 25, Azerbaijan and Turkey laid the foundation of the Nakhchivan-Ighdir natural gas pipeline, which is expected to be completed in 2024. Once complete, the line will enable Azerbaijan to supply Nakhchivan with its own gas delivered via Turkey, ending the enclave’s dependence on Iranian gas imported directly through a separate pipeline from Iran.

With the new transit route between Azerbaijan and Iran, the Zangezur Corridor project will shortly be implemented without Armenia’s Syunik province. In this regard, such a scenario matches the interests of the Armenian government, currently grappling with domestic unrest and growing opposition after it failed to provide the de-facto government in Karabakh with military support against Azerbaijan.

Fuad Shahbazov is an independent policy analyst focusing on regional security issues in the South Caucasus and a Chevening FCDO scholar at the University of Durham School of Government and International Affairs (SGIA) . He tweets at @fuadshahbazov.

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Armenia refuses to take part in CIS summit and CSTO military drills in Kyrgyzstan

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In another sign of Armenia’s worsening relations with Russia, its onetime ally and protector, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan have refused to participate in a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit planned for October 13 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Armenian forces are also skipping the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation’s (CSTO) military drills ongoing in Kyrgyzstan.

“President Sadyr Japarov has held a telephone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan … The Armenian premier announced with regret that, due to a number of reasons, he would not be able to take part in the meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council,” the Kyrgyz presidential office reported.

Yerevan has not yet officially commented on the topic. Alongside the CIS summit, Armenian and Azerbaijani top diplomats were expected to meet with their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at his request to discuss among things progress towards a potential peace deal, but the meeting was cancelled after Armenia decided to send its deputy foreign minister instead of Mirzoyan. 

Armenian forces have  refused to take part in the CSTO one-week military manoeuvres, which kicked off near Kyrgyzstan’s Balykchy on October 6. The Kazakh Defence Ministry said troops from other CSTO members – Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan – are participating in the Indestructible Brotherhood drills. 

Pashinyan, speaking to the country’s public TV on Tuesday, 10 October, said that Armenia was not changing its foreign policy from Russia to the West yet, saying that there are problems for both Russia and Armenia, but tied this with the relations of “big powers” and the changing world order. 

Pashinyan said last month that Yerevan’s “total reliance on Moscow in security matters was a mistake”. He also said in September that Yerevan’s involvement in the CSTO was “ineffective” for Armenia’s interests. 

Armenia has been a member of the CSTO since its independence, bound by a treaty pact to support member states in the event of aggression against any of them. However, the alliance’s inaction in the recurrent Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and the friendly relations of member states with Azerbaijan have been criticised in Armenia.

With the tensions increasing between Armenia and Russia since 2021, Armenia became more vocal in voicing criticism of Russia and the CSTO, refusing to participate in several trainings and not hosting the planned CSTO training in Armenia earlier this year.

Relations between Yerevan and Moscow became particularly strained after the fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in September, when Yerevan’s requests for military assistance went unanswered. Armenia later accused Russia of “absolute indifference” to its pleas for help.

When Armenia moved to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in late September despite Russia’s warnings, relations between the two countries took a new turn. Under the statute and ICC order, Armenia would be obliged to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he visited Armenia. Moscow has warned of ‘extremely negative consequences’ following Armenia’s ratification of the Rome Statute. 

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Russia and Azerbaijan discusses reverse supplies of Russian oil to Azerbaijan

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On the sidelines of the international forum Russian Energy Week, Russia and Azerbaijan have discussed issues related to expanding cooperation between the two countries in the oil and gas, electric power and nuclear sectors.

According to the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government Alexander Novak, the agenda of the meeting with the Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan Shahbazov Parviz Ogtay Ogly includes the possibility of expanding the Tikhoretsk-Baku oil pipeline for reverse supplies of Russian oil to Azerbaijan, as well as prospects for building technological cooperation between Russian and Azerbaijani companies within the framework of the import substitution policy.

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Ilham Aliyev’s meeting with President of Russia Vladimir Putin is underway in Bishkek

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