Europe supports, finances and is directly involved in these clandestine operations in North African countries to dump tens of thousands of Black people in the desert or remote areas each year to prevent them from coming to the EU.

An investigation reveals that in Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, refugees and migrant workers, some of whom were on their way towards Europe, as well as people who had legal status and established livelihoods in these countries, are apprehended based on the colour of their skin, loaded onto buses and driven to the middle of nowhere, often arid desert areas.

There, they are left without any assistance, water or food, leaving them at risk of kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and, in the worst instances, death. Others are taken to border areas where they are reportedly sold by the authorities to human traffickers and gangs who torture them for ransom.

Funds for these desert dumps have been paid under the guise of “migration management” with the EU claiming that the money doesn’t support human rights abuses against sub-Saharan African communities in North Africa. Brussels claims publicly that it closely monitors how this money is spent. But the reality is different.

In a year-long investigation with the Washington Post, Enass, Der Spiegel, El Pais, IrpiMedia, ARD, Inkyfada and Le Monde, we reveal that Europe knowingly funds, and in some instances is directly involved in systematic racial profiling detention and expulsion of Black communities across at least three North African countries.

Our findings show that in Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia, refugees and migrant workers, some of whom were on their way towards Europe, as well as people who had legal status and established livelihoods in these countries, are apprehended based on the colour of their skin, loaded onto buses and driven to the middle of nowhere, often arid desert areas.

There, they are left without any assistance, water or food, leaving them at risk of kidnapping, extortion, torture, sexual violence, and, in the worst instances, death. Others are taken to border areas where they are reportedly sold by the authorities to human traffickers and gangs who torture them for ransom.

This investigation amounts to the most comprehensive attempt yet to document European knowledge and involvement with anti-migrant, racially motivated operations in North Africa. It exposes how not only has this system of mass displacement and abuse been known about in Brussels for years, but that it is run thanks to money, vehicles, equipment, intelligence and security forces provided by the EU and European countries.

Methods

The team interviewed more than 50 survivors of these expulsions across Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – all of whom were from Sub-Saharan or West African countries – which helped us to recognise the systematic and racially-motivated nature of the practices. Some survivors supplied visual material and/or location data from their journey, which we were able to geolocate to support their accounts and map out what happened.

The team interviewed more than 50 survivors of these expulsions across Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – all of whom were from Sub-Saharan or West African countries – which helped us to recognise the systematic and racially-motivated nature of the practices. Some survivors supplied visual material and/or location data from their journey, which we were able to geolocate to support their accounts and map out what happened.

As well as visual material supplied by survivors, we used open source methods to find videos posted on social media purporting to show dumps taking place. We sought to geolocate and verify these cases. In the case of Tunisia, we were able to verify 13 incidents that occurred between July 2023 and May 2024 in which groups of Black people were rounded up in cities or at ports and driven many miles away, usually close to the Libyan or Algerian borders, and dumped, as well as one incident of a group being handed over to Libyan security forces and then incarcerated in a detention centre.

Where visual evidence of the operations wasn’t available online, we documented it through ground reporting. In Morocco we followed the paramilitaries of the Auxiliary Forces and filmed them picking up Black people from the streets three times over three days in the capital, Rabat. We also filmed people being detained in local government buildings before being loaded onto unmarked buses and taken to remote areas.

In Mauritania we used similar techniques by observing a detention centre in the capital Nouakchott. We witnessed and filmed refugees and migrants being brought to the centre in a large truck and Spanish police officers entering the detention centre on a regular basis. We filmed a white bus with migrants in it leaving the detention centre towards the border with Mali, an active warzone.

By speaking with current and former EU staff members, as well as sources within national police forces and international organisations with a presence in the countries where the dumps are taking place, we established that the EU is well aware of the dump operations and sometimes directly involved.

European officials have expressed concern over escalating operations in the region against sub-Saharan African migrants, and consistently denied that funds are being used to violate basic rights. But two senior EU sources said it was “impossible” to fully account for the way in which European funding was ultimately used.

One consultant who worked on projects funded by the EU Trust Fund, under which the EU has given Tunisia, Mauritania and Morocco more than €400m for migration management in recent years, said of the aims of the fund: “You have to make migrants’ lives difficult. Complicate their lives. If you leave a migrant from Guinea in the Sahara [in Morocco] twice, the third time he will ask you to voluntarily bring him back home.”

Using freedom of information laws, we were able to obtain a number of internal documents, including one from the EU’s border agency Frontex from earlier this year stating that Morocco was racially profiling and forcibly relocating mainly Black migrants. We also unearthed hard-to-find publicly available documents showing that EU officials have held internal discussions on some of the abusive practices since at least 2019. They also revealed that the EU is directly funding the Moroccan paramilitary auxiliary forces, who we filmed rounding up people with black skin in the capital.

Crucially, we were able to match vehicles used during the round-up and expulsions to vehicles provided by European countries by identifying tenders and carrying out visual analyses. For example in Tunisia, the Nissan vehicles we observed being used by the National Police in raids to arrest migrants before they are driven to desert areas match in make and model with those donated to Tunisia by Italy and Germany.

We also spoke with analysts and academics who told us the European funding links make the EU accountable for these abuses. “The fact is that European countries do not want to get their hands dirty,” said Marie-Laure Basilien-Gainche, a law professor at the University of Lyon and a specialist in human rights and migration. “They don’t want to be held responsible for human rights violations and outsource them to others. I believe that, under international law, they are indeed responsible.”

Storylines

Timothy Hucks, a 33-year-old US citizen, was arrested by plainclothes officers a few metres from his home in Rabat in 2019. He recalls how he showed his American driver’s licence and offered to get his passport from his flat, but the officer handcuffed him and shoved him into the back of a white van.

Hucks, who now lives in Spain, recalls being taken to a police station where around 40 Black men were crammed together in a dirty room with broken toilets. The security forces took his fingerprints and a photo of him. They asked questions that sounded like accusations: was he a terrorist? A member of Boko Haram? “It’s difficult to describe how angry I was at that moment,” says Hucks. He was then transported along with the other men to a town about 200km south of Rabat, and abandoned. Eventually, he found a bus to take him back to Rabat.

In another case, Idiatou, a Guinea woman in her twenties, told how she was intercepted at sea while trying to reach the Canary Islands from Mauritania. She was taken to a detention centre in the capital Nouakchott, where Spanish police officers took her photograph before she was forced in a white bus towards the border with Mali. There, in the middle of nowhere, she and 29 other people were sent away. “The Mauritanians chased us like animals,” she recalls. “I was afraid that someone would rape me.” After four days of walking she managed to reach a village and found a driver who took her to a relative in Senegal.

Further east in Tunisia, François, a 38-year-old Cameroonian national, describes how he was intercepted at sea by the Tunisian National Maritime Guard while trying to reach Italy on an overcrowded boat. He was then boarded onto buses with dozens of other sub-Saharan Africans and taken to the desert area near the Algerian border. He was able to hide his phone so it wasn’t confiscated by the police, and he provided us with GPS data and photographs from the journey, enabling us to verify his account.

At the Algerian border, François and the group of around 30 people were abandoned by the Tunisian security forces and ordered to walk towards Algeria. Facing warning shots from the Algerian side, they decided to head back to Tunisia. “There were two pregnant women in the group and a child with a heel infection […] We were thirsty. We began to suffer hallucinations,” he recalls. They walked for nine days, more than 40 kilometres, before finally finding transport to take them back to the Tunisian city of Sfax.

It didn't take Russia's misinformation machine long to settle on who was to blame for the first assassination attempt on a European national leader in more than two decades.

When Slovakia's prime minister was shot five times on May 15, pro-Kremlin propaganda blamed Ukraine even before the authorities released any details about the gunman.

At first glance the attack seemed to be a setback for the Kremlin. Robert Fico, who remains hospitalized, is one of a handful of pro-Russian European Union leaders, and he opposed military aid to Ukraine.

But in the through-the-looking-glass world of disinformation, no news is bad news. That’s why pro-Russian social media channels, influencers and state media have seized on the shooting, suggesting that Fico was a victim because of his sympathies toward the Kremlin.

The Cyber Army of Russia Reborn, a hacking and disinformation group that frequently pushes Kremlin narratives, has circulated messages on the Telegram social media app suggesting that the 71-year-old suspect was a member of Progressive Slovakia, a pro-EU party that supports Ukraine. Local authorities have debunked the allegation.

Even so, the misinformation quickly spread on posts on X and Reddit, where anonymous accounts flooded Fico-themed discussions with speculation that the shooter was somehow affiliated with pro-Ukrainian forces. There’s no evidence of a such a link. Slovakian officials have called the shooting politically motivated and are investigating whether the attacker was part of a larger group.

One Telegram post compared the failed assassination to the 1914 killing of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand that sparked World War I, the kind of veiled rhetoric that alludes to an imminent global conflict.

“Their main objective is to weaken support by creating so many domestic problems that we divide ourselves,” says Bilyana Lilly, cyber chair at the Warsaw Security Forum and the author of the book Russian Information Warfare. “We’ve removed all the levers to stop them from doing this in any way.”

The Cyber Army of Russia Reborn, which has more than 49,000 followers on Telegram, tries to boost its believability by circulating articles from websites that impersonate legitimate news outlets. It took credit for targeting water facilities in the US this year and may have ties to Russian military intelligence, Madiant Intelligence said in April.

The Cyber Army of Russia Reborn couldn’t be reached for comment.

In one example, it linked to a site that mimicked Britain's Telegraph, using a URL only slightly different from the newspaper’s website. Masquerading as local news websites fits within a history of propagandists trying to capitalize on the credibility of legitimate media organizations. Earlier this year, Russian media promoted a deepfake in which a journalist from France 24 seemed to announce that Emmanuel Macron postponed a trip to Ukraine because of an assassination attempt.

The Cyber Army of Russia Reborn also publicized posts from a pro-Russian hacking group, NoName, that called for cyberattacks against Slovakia’s pro-European parties.

Russian state media, meanwhile, have taken a complementary approach. A Sputnik Media article billed as an investigation said Western media, foreign non-governmental organizations and the US Agency for International Development were responsible for “turning up the political temperature” in Slovakia prior to the shooting.

That rhetoric matches that of some of Fico’s political allies, who have blamed the opposition and liberal media. Andrej Danko, the leader of the Slovak National Party that governs in coalition with Fico, last week vowed “to start a political war.”

As with any misinformation or political propaganda, the material effects of Russia’s Fico rhetoric are impossible to measure. Instead, the messaging points to the Kremlin’s commitment to creating even small cracks in international public opinion in a way that could weaken resolve to support Ukraine as a new offensive by President Vladimir Putin’s troops is gaining ground.

Kevin Mandia, founder of the threat intelligence firm Mandiant, announced that he’s stepping down as chief executive officer of the company nearly two years after it was acquired by Google.

Mandia, a former member of the US Air Force, built Mandiant into a leading cyber firm that’s helped clean up breaches at companies including Sony Pictures after North Korea hacked it in 2014. Mandiant researchers also have led the effort among security vendors to report on foreign nation-state cyber-espionage that target US firms. In its latest installment, the company published new details on Wednesday about pro-Chinese hacking.

Mandia has also been active in the cybersecurity venture capital market as the co-founder of Ballistic Ventures. He’ll transition to an advisory role at Google in the coming weeks, he said in an internal memo.

British defence minister Grant Shapps accused China on Wednesday of providing or preparing to provide Russia with lethal aid for use by Moscow in its war against Ukraine.

Shapps told a conference in London that U.S. and British defence intelligence had evidence that "lethal aid is now, or will be, flowing from China to Russia and into Ukraine, I think it is a significant development".

Shapps did not provide evidence to support his assertion.

"We should be concerned about that because in the earlier days of this war China would like to present itself as a moderating influence on Russian President Vladimir Putin", he added.

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said last month it had not provided weaponry, adding that it is "not a producer of or party involved in the Ukraine crisis." The Chinese embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Germany's AfD party on Wednesday banned its leading candidate from appearing at EU election campaign events, after France's main far-right party announced a split with the Germans over a slew of scandals involving the politician.

Norway, Spain, and Ireland will recognize an independent Palestinian stateas of May 28.

"There cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said. "By recognizing a Palestinian state, Norway supports the Arab peace plan."

Perched on the open ramp at the rear of a British Chinook helicopter, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas flew home from the annual Spring Storm military exercises, pleased to see NATO allies cooperating. But she later said that other types of warfare were on her mind.

Her nation, which borders Russia, has seen a rise in sabotage, electronic warfare and spying — all blamed on Moscow.

As the war in Ukraine turns in Russia’s favor, defenses are being bolstered in the front-line nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as in Finland and Poland.

Kallas says Russia is carrying out a “shadow war” against the West.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda urged vigilance, saying Tuesday he had information that “acts of sabotage can happen again.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at least nine people were recently arrested on suspicion of beatings and arson, allegedly directed by Russia’s secret services, and described them as Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish nationals, some “from the criminal world.”

Not everyone sees the attacks as interconnected, Kallas told The Associated Press, despite NATO's assertion this month that Moscow is intensifying its campaign against the alliance from the Baltics to Britain. Russia dismissed that allegation.

Because many Russian intelligence operatives already are sanctioned, Western officials and experts say the Kremlin is shifting tactics, hiring others for hybrid operations — nonmilitary strategies including cyberattacks, election interference and disinformation, and attacks on foes of President Vladimir Putin.

With crucial elections in the West, officials say they believe the tempo of such activities will only increase, and some want tougher countermeasures.

Kallas cited a warning from an intelligence agency to a European country that one of its warehouses was targeted by Russian military intelligence. When a fire occurred at the warehouse two weeks later, officials in the country suggested that “we don't know it is the Russians,” she said. Kallas did not identify the country.

The West must have a “serious discussion of a coordinated approach," she said. “How far do we let them go on our soil?”

Estonia has taken the challenge of finding Russian agents of influence “very seriously” since regaining independence from the USSR in 1991, rebuilding its security services from scratch, U.S. Ambassador George Kent told AP.

This year in Estonia, a university professor was arrested on charges of spying for Moscow, 13 people were arrested over attacks allegedly organized by Russian military intelligence operating under diplomatic cover, and flights between Finland and the city of Tartu were disrupted by Russian jamming of GPS signals.

In October, a Baltic Sea gas pipeline and telecoms cables were damaged after a Chinese ship dragged its anchor for over 115 miles (185 kilometers) in an incident that is still under investigation. That ship was later seen in a Russian port.

Britain expelled Russia's defense attache in May after two British men were accused of working with Russian intelligence services to set fire to a London warehouse. In April, two German-Russian nationals were arrested and accused of trying to attack military sites in southern Germany.

“What I would like to see is the recognition that these are not isolated events," Kallas told AP. "Second, that we share information about this amongst ourselves. Third, make it as public as we can.”

Estonia has a reputation for aggressively pursuing espionage activity and publicizing it, consistently seizing more Russian agents per capita in the country of 1.3 million than other European nations.

It is “not very plausible” that there's such a large pool of agents in Estonia that makes them easier to catch, said Kusti Salm, permanent secretary at Estonia’s Defense Ministry, in an interview with AP, implying that other countries could work harder at it.

Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, in office from 2006-16, told AP that some nations don't act because they hope to do business with Russia again.

“People are afraid of decisive action, and the absence of decisive action basically tempts bad actors to keep pushing their luck," added Ilves, who dealt with a major cyber attack blamed on Russia in 2007.

Russian officials, he said, “will push their luck until something bad happens, but they won’t pay the consequence. We will.”

That could lead to unintended deaths and injuries, Estonian officials and security experts say, citing a trend of Russia is outsourcing attacks to locals, sometimes recruited relatively cheaply on video gaming platforms and social media. That makes it harder to identify connections between attacks or to trace them back to Russia.

Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who exposed Russian intelligence involvement in poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal in 2018 in Britain and the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020, was a victim of such outsourcing.

A former Austrian intelligence officer was arrested in March for supplying Grozev’s address to Russian intelligence, which allegedly hired burglars to break into the journalist's apartment in 2022 to steal a laptop connected to the Navalny investigation. Grozev had to move from Vienna last year after authorities said they couldn't guarantee his security.

Grozev said his son was in his room playing computer games when the 2022 break-in occurred, adding: "Imagine if he had walked out.”

He and other journalists discovered links between an attack on a Russian opposition figure in Argentina last year and a Polish organized crime cell. When the information was passed to Polish authorities, they found a connection between the Argentina attack and one on Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov in Lithuania in March. Lithuania's security service said that attack was probably Russian-organized.

Grozev said nations need to enforce intelligence sharing between their own security services and police and prosecutors and create a “proactive international working task force” to combat foreign influence operations.

Although Russia has been blamed for attacks in Europe for decades, Estonian officials and security experts indicated there's no collective mechanism for dealing with them, and suggested the EU do more.

Kallas says Russia uses spies in the guise of diplomats “all the time,” and senior Estonian officials support a Czech initiative limiting visas for Russian envoys to the country where they are posted.

That would make it harder for them to travel in the EU, where IDs aren't needed at the border. It also could reduce the possibility of one nation expelling spies, only to see them return to another and continue working under diplomatic cover.

Estonia also is pushing for separate sanctions within the EU to counter hybrid threats. Although many Russian intelligence agents already are sanctioned, these could dissuade some “intermediaries” -- local organized crime figures, disillusioned youth and potential spies and collaborators -- from working for Moscow, said Jonatan Vseviov, secretary general of Estonia’s Foreign Ministry.

While some countries feel such exposure could cause instability and erode trust, Grozev called it an important deterrent.

Russian intelligence agents running operations abroad are “extremely averse” to incidents where they are named and shamed, Grozev said. Such individuals can be denied promotion, and proxies will realize they cannot be guaranteed immunity, he said.

The threat of sanctions and reduced opportunities for travel and study abroad can also help discourage younger Russians from joining security services.

Russia seeks “to sow fear” and break Western support for Kyiv, Kallas said.

Vseviov said Putin wants to use every tool available, including the shadowy attacks, to “undermine our unity, collapse our policy and destroy the collective West, as we know it, as a functioning body."

On 31 March, Bulgaria and Romania become Schengen members: the Schengen rules will apply in both Member States including on issuing Schengen visas and controls at the internal air and sea borders will be lifted.

In case of paywall: https://archive.ph/nsd1X

The Dutch parliament adopts by a wafer-thin majority a motion that says that chanting “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free” is a criminal act of incitement to violence.

The motion, which is not binding, passes thanks to a single vote in a 74-73 split in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch Parliament, which has 150 seats. The motion’s author is Maikel Boon, a lawmaker for the Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders, which was the largest in the 2023 elections and recently announced that it has put together a ruling coalition under its leadership.

Wilders, an anti-Islam, far-right politician, in a vocal supporter of Israel and a self-described promoter of what he calls Judeo-Christian values. The slogan “comes right off the Hamas charter and is therefore a call for violence against all Jews worldwide,” the motion states. The slogan, which references the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, has emerged in recent months a common feature of anti-Israel protests.

BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Volkswagen (VW) used parts made by a supplier on a list of firms banned over alleged links to Chinese forced labour, a US congressional report has said.

At least 8,000 BMW Mini Cooper cars were imported into the US with components from banned Chinese firm Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group (JWD), according to the report by Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden's staff.

"Automakers’ self-policing is clearly not doing the job," the Democrat Senator said.

BMW said it had "strict standards and policies regarding employment practices, human rights, and working conditions, which all our direct suppliers must follow".

It added it had taken steps to "halt the importation of affected products and will be conducting a service action with customer and dealer notification for affected motor vehicles".

Jaguar Land Rover told the BBC it "takes human rights and forced labour issues seriously and has an active ongoing programme of human rights protection and anti-slavery measures".

VW did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr Wyden also urged the US Customs and Border Protection agency to "supercharge enforcement and crack down on companies that fuel the shameful use of forced labour in China".

The report added Jaguar Land Rover had imported spare parts which included components from JWD after the company was put on the banned list.

JLR said it has now identified and is destroying any stock it holds around the world that include this component.

In February, VW said thousands of its vehicles, including Porsches and Bentleys, had been held by authorities because they had a component in them that breached America's anti-forced labour laws.

VW had voluntarily informed customs officials about the issue, the report said.

Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) into law in 2021.

The legislation is intended to prevent the import of goods from China's north-western Xinjiang region that are believed to have been made by people from the Uyghur minority group in forced labour conditions.

JWD was added to the UFLPA Entity List in December 2023, which means its products are presumed to be made with forced labour.

China has been accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs in Xinjiang against their will over the past few years.

Authorities have denied all allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

“The so-called Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act by the US is not about forced labor but about creating unemployment. It does not protect human rights but, under the guise of human rights, harms the survival and employment rights of the people in Xinjiang," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.

"China strongly condemns and firmly opposes this. We will take measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.”

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Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has said the Baltic states should convey to Western countries the opinion that peace on Russian terms will not mean an end to human suffering.

Kallas denies that Russia is winning the war.

"I think we need to set Ukraine's victory as our goal because 'it's hard to understand how to win a war, but you will never win it if the purpose of the war is not victory'. This was said by historian Timothy Snyder, and I fully agree with him," she noted in an interview with Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT.

The Prime Minister of Estonia admitted that Western allies increasingly need to be convinced of the need to support Ukraine, but she believes that the Baltic states and Poland must explain to them what life really looked like during the Soviet occupation.

"Even the end of the war does not mean the end of human suffering. If we look at our history, after the end of World War II in our countries, there were no military actions, but there were mass deportations and our culture, our language were repressed.

All this happened in peacetime. So we know and understand that peace on Russian terms does not mean the end of human suffering, and we must convey this to our counterparts," Kallas emphasised.

Earlier, Kaja Kallas said she believes that fear stands in the way of more support for Ukraine from the rest of the free world.

Kallas has also stated she believes that Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants to use the threat of mass migration to divide and weaken Europe’s support for Ukraine.

Over the course of the next four years, Estonia will continue committing 0.25% of its GDP to military aid for Ukraine.

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Warsaw says its position as a hub for supplies to Ukraine has made it a key target for Russian intelligence services, and accuses Moscow of trying to destabilise the country.

“We currently have nine suspects arrested and charged with engaging in acts of sabotage in Poland directly on behalf of the Russian services,” Tusk told private broadcaster TVN24.

“This includes beatings, arson and attempted arson.”

He said Poland was collaborating with its allies on the issue and that the plots also affected Lithuania, Latvia and possibly also Sweden.

Tusk said earlier this month Poland would allocate an additional 100 million zlotys (€23.5 million) to its intelligence services due to the threat from Russia.

In April, two people were detained in Poland on suspicion of attacking Leonid Volkov, an exiled top aide to late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution has issued an urgent warning about Chinese industrial espionage. Small and medium-sized enterprises and research centers are particularly at risk, but the Protection Agency is also critical of the strong presence of Chinese students at Austrian universities.--

The Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution is sounding the alarm, as media reports. Chinese espionage activities, particularly in the economic sector, pose a growing threat to the country. According to the latest constitutional protection report, small and medium-sized enterprises and research centers are particularly at risk.

Although many Austrian "hidden champions" can manufacture market-leading products, they do not have an equally high standard of IT security infrastructure, writes the Constitutional Protection Agency. In addition, many small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups, and research centers lack awareness of their attractiveness for Chinese intelligence services.

In addition to economic espionage, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is also critical of the strong presence of Chinese students at Austrian universities. The report emphasizes that although many of these institutions and companies produce market-leading products, they often do not have an adequate IT security infrastructure. This makes them worthwhile targets for Chinese hackers, who can easily gain access to sensitive information.

Risks for Austria

Austria occupies a special position in the espionage landscape, as foreign espionage is only punishable here if it is directed against Austrian interests, as reported by ORF. This legal loophole makes the country an attractive target for foreign intelligence services, which can conduct espionage activities against other EU countries from Austria.

The liberal Austrian legal situation and the openness of the scientific and economic system provide China with immense advantages, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. This leads to risks such as the outflow of knowledge and expertise to China, reduced competitiveness, and a possible innovation gap in future-oriented technologies.

The long-term effects of Chinese espionage could mean a considerable loss of prosperity for Austria. The strong presence of Chinese students is also viewed skeptically, as this could lead to a large-scale transfer of knowledge to China. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is therefore calling for greater awareness and increased measures to protect sensitive information in Austrian companies and universities.

We want a European wealth tax to finance the social and climate transition and help countries hit by climate change.

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Kallas argued that the fears of NATO allies about sending troops to Ukraine to train soldiers drawing them into a war with Russia are unfounded. She mentioned that some NATO member states are discussing the possibility of sending military instructors or contractors to Ukraine to train troops and assist with equipment repairs. Kyiv has requested assistance from the U.S. and other NATO countries to train 150,000 soldiers closer to the front lines. Kallas emphasized that it is essential to train Ukrainian troops on their own territory and that if any personnel were to be hurt, it would not automatically trigger NATO’s Article 5 on mutual defense. Macron’s comments in February sparked the debate about the potential presence of NATO troops in Ukraine, but many countries have not ruled out sending troops for non-combat missions such as training the Ukrainian military.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur stated on May 14 that the concept of sending Western troops to Ukraine has not progressed in Estonia or at the EU level due to a lack of clear understanding among allies of the potential outcomes. Macron mentioned that he would consider sending troops to Ukraine in the event of a Russian breakthrough and a request from Ukraine. However, he clarified that such conditions did not currently exist. The U.S. and multiple European allies, along with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, have distanced themselves from Macron’s statement. While some countries have not ruled out the possibility of sending troops for non-combat missions, there is no clear consensus regarding this among NATO allies.

Kallas noted that some countries are already training soldiers on the ground in Ukraine at their own risk. She believes that assisting in the training of Ukrainian troops on their own territory, rather than elsewhere in Europe, will not escalate the war with Russia. Kallas dismissed the idea that if training personnel were to be hurt, those who sent them would immediately invoke Article 5 of mutual defense and retaliate against Russia. The debate surrounding the potential presence of NATO troops in Ukraine has been ongoing since Macron’s comments in February. Despite some countries considering sending troops for non-combat missions, there is no unanimous agreement among NATO allies on this matter.

The discussions about sending military instructors or contractors to Ukraine to train troops and assist with equipment repairs have raised concerns among NATO allies about being drawn into a conflict with Russia. Kallas maintained that these fears are not well-founded and emphasized the importance of training Ukrainian troops on their own territory rather than in Europe. She pointed out that if any training personnel were to be harmed, it would not automatically trigger NATO’s mutual defense clause. Macron’s suggestion of sending troops to Ukraine in certain conditions has not been widely supported by other NATO allies, and the idea has not advanced at the EU level. The debate around the potential presence of NATO troops in Ukraine remains ongoing, with differing opinions among member states.

In conclusion, the issue of sending NATO troops to Ukraine for training purposes remains a topic of debate among member states. While some countries are considering the possibility of sending troops for non-combat missions, others are more cautious due to concerns about being drawn into a conflict with Russia. Kallas emphasized the importance of training Ukrainian soldiers on their own territory and highlighted the lack of consensus among NATO allies on this matter. The discussions sparked by Macron’s comments in February have not led to concrete action, and the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine has not made progress. As the situation continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how NATO will navigate its involvement in Ukraine and respond to the ongoing conflict in the region.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/21515008

International far-right leaders, including France’s Marine Le Pen, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Argentina’s Javier Milei, came together in Madrid to rail against socialism and “massive illegal migration” three weeks before hard-right parties are expected to see a surge in support in June’s European elections.

Sunday’s “great patriotic convention”, which was organised by Spain’s far-right Vox party, offered conservatives and far-right populists a chance to congregate and take aim at a variety of familiar targets, from the welfare state to “wokeness” and the agendas of Brussels-based bureaucrats.

The event was also attended by Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, André Ventura, the leader of Portugal’s far-right Chega party, and the Chilean far-right leader José Antonio Kast.

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Estonian MPs passed a law that enables the use of Russian assets frozen under international sanctions to compensate Ukraine for war damages.

The president must now promulgate the legislation for it to enter into force.

It enables assets of individuals and companies that have contributed to Russia's wrongful acts, which have been frozen under sanctions, as an advance payment for damages owed by Russia to Ukraine.

To seize Russian assets, Estonia would need to receive a request, and the connection of their owner to illegal acts must be sufficiently proven. The asset owner can challenge their use for Ukraine in Estonian courts.

Estonia's move is seen as an important first step as the vast majority of Russia's frozen and largely euro-denominated sovereign assets, which are worth €300 billion, are located in Europe.

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- A St Petersburg court seized more than EUR 463mn in assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit and EUR 238mn belonging to Germany's Deutsche Bank.

- The court also seized assets of Germany's Commerzbank, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known.

- The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.--

A St Petersburg court has seized over EUR700 mln worth of assets belonging to three western banks - UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank - according to court documents, the Financial Times and Reuters reported Saturday.

The seizure marks one of the biggest moves against western lenders since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 prompted most international lenders to wind down their businesses in Russia.

The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.

The court seized EUR463mn-worth of assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5 per cent of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank's main Russian subsidiary.

The frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday.

According to another decision on the same date, the court seized EUR238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank's assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia.

The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was "taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia".

On Friday, the court decided to seize Commerzbank assets, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known.

The dispute with the western banks began in August 2023 when Ruskhimalliance went to an arbitration court in St Petersburg demanding they pay bank guarantees under a contract with the German engineering company Linde. The banks were among the guarantor lenders under a contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Russia with Germany's Linde which was terminated due to Western sanctions.

Ruskhimalliance is the operator of a gas processing plant and production facilities for liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga near St Petersburg. In July 2021, it signed a contract with Linde for the design, supply of equipment and construction of the complex. A year later, Linde suspended work owing to EU sanctions.

Ruskhimalliance then turned to the guarantor banks, which refused to fulfil their obligations because "the payment to the Russian company could violate European sanctions", the company said in the court filing.

The list of guarantors also includes Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, against which Ruskhimalliance has also filed lawsuits in the St Petersburg court.

UniCredit said it had been made aware of the filing and "only assets commensurate with the case would be in scope of the interim measure".

Deutsche Bank said it was "fully protected by an indemnification from a client" and had taken a provision of about EUR260mn alongside a "corresponding reimbursement asset" in its accounts to cover the Russian lawsuit.

Commerzbank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Italy's foreign minister has called a meeting on Monday to discuss the seizures affecting UniCredit, two people with knowledge of the plans told the Financial Times.

UniCredit is one of the largest European lenders in Russia [it is the second largest Western bank in Russia after Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International], employing more than 3,000 people through its subsidiary there. This month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of EUR213mn in the first quarter, up from EUR99mn a year earlier. It has set aside more than EUR800mn in provisions and has significantly cut back its loan portfolio.

Legal challenges over assets held by western banks have complicated their efforts to extricate themselves. Last month, a Russian court ordered the seizure of more than $400mn of funds from JPMorgan Chase (JPM) following a legal challenge by Kremlin-run lender VTB. A court subsequently cancelled part of the planned seizure, Reuters reported.