Lawsuit says Russian officials stole millions meant to fortify border region attacked by Ukraine

Lawsuit says Russian officials stole millions meant to fortify border region attacked by Ukraine
Russian prosecutors are seeking to recover nearly $33 million of funds that they say were allocated for the defence of the western Kursk region, invaded by Ukraine last year, but stolen instead by corrupt officials. (AFP/File)
Short Url
Updated 28 January 2025
Follow

Lawsuit says Russian officials stole millions meant to fortify border region attacked by Ukraine

Lawsuit says Russian officials stole millions meant to fortify border region attacked by Ukraine
  • The trio was arrested and sent to pre-trial detention on corruption charges in December and January, Russian media reported
  • They face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty

LONDON: Russian prosecutors are seeking to recover nearly $33 million of funds that they say were allocated for the defense of the western Kursk region, invaded by Ukraine last year, but stolen instead by corrupt officials.
Ukrainian troops stormed across the border in a surprise attack on Aug. 6 and seized a chunk of Russian territory, some of which they still hold — a valuable bargaining chip for Kyiv in any peace talks with Moscow.
A lawsuit filed by the office of Russia’s Prosecutor General orders the head of the Kursk Regional Development Corporation, his deputies and a number of businessmen to repay more than 3.2 billion roubles ($32.7 million) allegedly embezzled from the regional defense budget, state news agency RIA reported.
In the two years prior to Ukraine’s attack, the governor in charge of Kursk at the time had repeatedly told the public that Russia had boosted its fortifications along the region’s 150-mile (240 km) border with Ukraine.
“Right now the risk of an armed invasion of the territory of Kursk region from Ukraine is not high,” Roman Starovoit assured residents in November 2022. “However, we are constantly working to strengthen the region’s defense capabilities.”
The next month, he posed in a snowy field beside a row of pyramid-shaped anti-tank defenses known as “dragon’s teeth.”
But in the autumn of 2023, Ukraine’s National Resistance Center, created by the special operations forces, said in an online post that reconnaissance showed “almost all the strongholds are deserted of personnel and equipment” along the border with Kursk. Corruption was a factor, it said.
Vidео published by Ukrainian paratroopers during the early days of the August incursion showed columns of armored vehicles pouring into Kursk through the rows of dragon’s teeth.

’ILLEGAL ENRICHMENT’
Between 2022 and 2023, some 19.4 billion roubles were pumped from Russia’s federal budget to Kursk, according to RIA, to build defenses such as ditches and dragon’s teeth.
The lawsuit alleges that officials instead funnelled that money into contracts with over a half-dozen companies controlled by several business people. The companies created “the appearance of performing work on the construction of protective structures and put in place a false scheme of expenses,” it says.
The head of the regional development fund and two of his deputies “used their official position for personal purposes...(and) for their illegal enrichment through the wrongful seizure of budget funds allocated for the protection and strengthening of the country’s defense capabilities against enemy invasion.”
The trio was arrested and sent to pre-trial detention on corruption charges in December and January, Russian media reported. They face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. One of the businessmen named in the suit, whose firm carried out construction work in Kursk, was placed in pre-trial detention last week.
Reuters was unable to locate lawyers for the detained individuals for comment.
“Everyone who has broken the law should know that there will be no leniency or indulgence for him,” Kursk’s acting regional governor Alexander Khinshtein posted on Telegram on Tuesday.
“Especially when it concerns such a vital topic for all Kurskites as the construction of fortifications!“


Zelensky says he is willing to quit presidency if it means peace in Ukraine

Zelensky says he is willing to quit presidency if it means peace in Ukraine
Updated 11 sec ago
Follow

Zelensky says he is willing to quit presidency if it means peace in Ukraine

Zelensky says he is willing to quit presidency if it means peace in Ukraine
KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he was willing to give up his position if it meant peace in Ukraine, adding that he could exchange his departure for his country’s entry into the NATO military alliance.
“If (it means) peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to leave my post, I am ready,” an irritated-looking Zelensky said when asked during a press conference whether he was ready to leave his post if it meant securing peace.
“I can exchange this for NATO (membership), if that condition is there, immediately,” the president added.
US President Donald Trump has pushed for elections to take place in Ukraine, having branded Zelensky a “dictator,” an apparent reference to the Ukrainian leader’s official five-year term running out in 2024. Russia has cited this in the past to assert that he is an illegitimate leader.
Ukrainian legislation prohibits holding elections during a state of martial law, which Ukraine declared the day Russia invaded in February 2022. Trump also falsely claimed that Zelensky has an approval rating of four percent.
“I am not going to be in power for decades, but we will not allow Putin to be in power over the territories of Ukraine either,” Zelensky said on Sunday, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A poll released this week put Zelensky’s approval ratings at 63 percent, and he made reference to this when talking about Trump’s claims on Sunday, calling his false statements “dangerous.”
“I believe it’s not a mistake, it’s misinformation that has an impact,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky said earlier this week Trump was in a “disinformation bubble,” angering the US President and his team. On Sunday, he sought to justify the earlier comments.
“(The information) about four percent of Ukrainians supporting me is one of the signals spread by the Russians, that’s why I said it was a disinformation attack, I didn’t say it was President Trump,” Zelensky said on Sunday.
Trump’s criticism of Zelensky came as relations between the two leaders deteriorated sharply in recent weeks.
Zelensky opposes the idea of elections in a full-scale war, a position backed by his major domestic political opponents.
The Ukrainian president also said he wanted to see Trump as a partner for Ukraine and more than a simply a mediator between Kyiv and Moscow.
“I really want it to be more than just mediation... that’s not enough,” he told a press conference in Kyiv.

MINERALS DEAL Trump has said Ukraine should give the US $500 billion in critical raw materials as payback for aid which Kyiv has already received from the previous Joe Biden administration.
Zelensky declined to sign a detailed US proposal last week that would have seen Washington receiving 50 percent of Ukraine’s critical minerals, which include graphite, uranium, titanium and lithium, the latter a key component in electric car batteries.
He has said he wants to do a deal, but that it should offer security guarantees for Ukraine in return.
On Friday, he said US and Ukrainian teams were working on a deal and Trump said he expects a deal will be signed soon.
On Sunday, Zelensky said at the press conference that he rejected the idea that Ukraine owed the US $500 billion.
“There cannot be (any) format which makes us debtors for the old (aid given).”
Zelensky said earlier this week that Washington had supplied his country with $67 billion in weapons and $31.5 billion in direct budget support throughout the nearly three-year war with Russia.
“I will not sign what 10 generations of Ukrainians will be repaying,” Zelensky said of the minerals deal.
Ukraine’s economy minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said on Sunday the 18 percent of Ukraine under Russian occupation contained about $350 billion of critical raw materials, adding that Ukraine is conducting additional geological research to update decades-old information.
The president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Sunday that he had held constructive new talks with senior US officials on a deal to develop Ukrainian minerals.
“We are moving forward with our work. This was a constructive discussion,” Yermak wrote on Telegram.

British couple in their 70s detained by Taliban in Afghanistan

British couple in their 70s detained by Taliban in Afghanistan
Updated 23 February 2025
Follow

British couple in their 70s detained by Taliban in Afghanistan

British couple in their 70s detained by Taliban in Afghanistan
  • Peter Reynolds, 79, and wife Barbie, 75, have spent 18 years running training projects in country
  • Daughter says she has not heard from her parents for over 2 weeks

LONDON: A British couple in their seventies were arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan earlier this month, it was reported on Sunday.

Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife Barbie, 75, who have spent 18 years running training projects in the country, were detained on Feb. 1 while returning to their home in Bamiyan.

Their daughter, Sarah Entwistle, told the BBC she had not heard from her parents in more than two weeks. Initially, they were able to send text messages from detention, with Afghan authorities assuring the family that they were “fine.”

However, communication ended three days later, leaving their children in the dark about their well-being since.

Speaking from Daventry in Northamptonshire, Entwistle said: “It’s been over two weeks since the messages stopped and they were taken into custody. We would like the Taliban to release them to go back to their home and continue their work.”

The couple, who met at the University of Bath and married in Kabul in 1970, have been running educational initiatives in Afghanistan since 2009.

Their work included training programs in five schools in Kabul and a project for mothers and children in Bamiyan, reportedly approved by local authorities despite the Taliban’s restrictions on female education and employment.

Entwistle told The Sunday Times: “They said they could not leave when Afghans were in their hour of need. They were meticulous about keeping by the rules even as they kept changing.”

She also expressed concern for her father’s health: “My mother is 75 and my father almost 80 and (he) needs his heart medication after a mini-stroke. They were just trying to help the country they loved. The idea they are being held because they were teaching mothers with children is outrageous.”

Entwistle and her three brothers have written to the Taliban, pleading for their parents’ release.

“We do not understand the reasons behind their arrest,” they said in the letter.

“They have communicated their trust in you, and that as Afghan citizens they will be treated well.”

They also distanced their parents from any potential prisoner exchange.

“Our parents have consistently expressed their commitment to Afghanistan, stating that they would rather sacrifice their lives than become part of ransom negotiations or be traded,” they said.

Taliban sources told the BBC that British nationals had been arrested in Bamiyan province for allegedly working for a nongovernmental organization and using a plane without notifying local authorities. The Taliban has imposed strict regulations on NGOs, banning women from working for them in 2022 and threatening closures for non-compliance.

The UK Foreign Office has acknowledged the detention of two British nationals in Afghanistan but has limited capacity to assist, as Britain does not recognize the Taliban and has no embassy in Kabul.


Russia and US plan another meeting this week

Russia and US plan another meeting this week
Updated 23 February 2025
Follow

Russia and US plan another meeting this week

Russia and US plan another meeting this week
  • Russia-US relations thawing under President Donald Trump
  • US talking to Moscow over Ukraine war

MOSCOW: Russian and US teams plan to meet this week to discuss improving relations after the war in Ukraine had pushed ties to the worst level since the depths of the Cold War, a senior Russian start diplomat said on Sunday.
With Russian forces having advanced last year at the fastest rate in Ukraine since the start of the 2022 invasion, US President Donald Trump has said he wants to deliver a peace deal to end the war which he says has killed vast numbers of people.
Trump and President Vladimir Putin spoke on February 12 about improving relations and ending the war, and US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, on February 18 to that end.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow’s point man for relations with the US, said that a meeting at the level of departmental heads would take place at the end of the week.
“We are open to contacts with the American side, in particular, on irritants in bilateral relations,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency TASS.
“We are waiting for real progress when the meeting scheduled for the end of the coming week takes place.”
Trump has repeatedly said that he believes Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky want to do a deal.
Trump said on February 12 that it was not practical for Ukraine to get NATO alliance membership and that he had seen support for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement that Ukraine will not realistically return to its 2014 borders.
As the war enters its fourth year, Russia controls nearly one fifth of Ukraine — or an area about the size of the US state of Ohio — including Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014, about 75 percent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and more than 99 percent of the Luhansk region.
Russia says the land it controls is now Russian land under Russian law and the Russian nuclear umbrella, a position Ukraine and its Western European backers have said they will never recognize or accept.
Last June, Putin set out his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw troops from the entirety of the territory of the four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.


UN chief calls for Ukraine peace deal respecting ‘territorial integrity’

UN chief calls for Ukraine peace deal respecting ‘territorial integrity’
Updated 23 February 2025
Follow

UN chief calls for Ukraine peace deal respecting ‘territorial integrity’

UN chief calls for Ukraine peace deal respecting ‘territorial integrity’
  • The Security Council vote will be on a US-backed draft resolution that makes no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity
  • US President Donald Trump has adopted a tougher stance on Kyiv while taking a friendlier tone toward Moscow

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Sunday, on the eve of a key United Nations vote, for a Ukraine peace deal that respects the country’s “territorial integrity.”
“I reaffirm the urgent need for a just, sustainable and comprehensive peace — one that fully upholds Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders,” Guterres said in a statement.
The Security Council vote will be on a US-backed draft resolution that makes no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
“Monday 24 February marks three years since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in clear violation of the United Nations Charter and international law,” the UN chief said.
“Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the war in Ukraine stands as a grave threat not only to the peace and security of Europe but also to the very foundations and core principles of the United Nations,” Guterres said.
He saluted “all efforts toward achieving a just and inclusive peace.”
The statement comes as US President Donald Trump has adopted a tougher stance on Kyiv while taking a friendlier tone toward Moscow.
The United States wants the Security Council and General Assembly to vote on a short text calling for a “swift end” to the devastating conflict, while making no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Ukraine and its European allies are seeking a vote in the General Assembly on a text that repeats earlier demands for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine and an end to Russia’s attacks on its neighbor.
Similar resolutions have been voted on since Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, and each has passed the General Assembly by overwhelming majorities, with support from the US administration of then president Joe Biden.


Bangladesh resumes direct trade with Pakistan after over 50 years

Bangladesh resumes direct trade with Pakistan after over 50 years
Updated 23 February 2025
Follow

Bangladesh resumes direct trade with Pakistan after over 50 years

Bangladesh resumes direct trade with Pakistan after over 50 years
  • Bilateral ties have started to grow since the ouster of ex-PM Sheikh Hasina last August
  • Rice import may increase other opportunities for Bangladesh-Pakistan trade, expert says

DHAKA: Bangladesh will receive a delivery of 25,000 tonnes of rice from Pakistan next month, its food ministry said on Sunday, confirming the resumption of direct bilateral trade between the two governments after more than five decades.

Following decades of acrimonious ties, Bangladesh-Pakistan relations have started to grow after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last August.

Bangladesh’s interim government has had more bilateral exchanges with Pakistan since, with the chief adviser, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, having met twice with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Earlier this month, Dhaka finalized a deal to import rice from Pakistan, the food ministry said.

“The first consignment of 25,000 tonnes will arrive in Bangladesh on March 3,” Zia Uddin Ahmed, an additional secretary at the ministry, told Arab News.

“Since 1971, this is the first time Bangladesh initiated rice import at (the government-to-government) level from Pakistan.”

Their growing trade ties followed the two South Asian nations’ direct maritime contact in November, when a Pakistani cargo ship docked in Bangladesh for the first time since 1971 with imports and exports organized by private businesses.

Amena Mohsin, an international relations expert and lecturer at the North South University, said resuming trade with Pakistan is an important move for Bangladesh.

“We want that bilateral relationship with Pakistan to move forward. We always diversify our relationships (but) most importantly, at the moment, we are experiencing a low point row with India … In this context, this latest decision to import rice from Pakistan is very significant,” she told Arab News.

In her 15 years of uninterrupted rule, Hasina’s government was hostile toward Pakistan but closely allied with India, where she fled last year following a student-led popular uprising and remains exiled. Her removal from office was followed by the cooling of relations between Dhaka and New Delhi.

“But (as we move) forward to strengthen the bilateral ties with Pakistan, the issue of 1971 should be resolved at the same time,” Mohsin added, referring to the 1971 war of independence, which he said still weighs heavy on the minds of the people of Bangladesh.

Dhaka’s decision to import rice from Pakistan has significance in addressing an ongoing crisis of the staple due to floods and economic instability, which has led the government to import large quantities from India to avoid shortage.

“At the moment, there is a rice crisis in the Bangladesh market, and we are in need of sourcing rice from different sources at a competitive price,” Dr. Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka, told Arab News.

“From that perspective, finding a new source (for importing rice) is a positive thing for us.”

Now that trade has resumed, Bangladesh and Pakistan have the potential to increase commerce ties in different areas, he added.

“Our businessmen can explore the Pakistan markets and consider the feasibility in terms of costs. With this latest rice import, opportunities to import other goods have increased here,” Moazzem said.

“It’s a new addition to the market, especially considering Bangladesh’s ongoing trade diversification efforts.”