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☆ 3 Reasons This Country Is a Top ISIS Recruiting Ground
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the past year, jihadists from Tajikistan have been involved in an unusually high number of terrorist attacks or foiled plots linked to the Islamic State. Before that, Tajiks staged bloody assaults in Iran and Turkey, while several schemes in Europe said to involve Tajiks were thwarted. Hundreds of men from Tajikistan — a small, impoverished country in Central Asia controlled by an authoritarian president — have joined an affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, analysts say. Poverty Fuels DiscontentTajikistan ranks among the world’s poorest countries, which drives millions of workers to seek better lives elsewhere. In a country of 10 million people, a majority of working men, estimated at more than two million, toil abroad at any given time.

Persons: — Organizations: Islamic, Fuels Locations: jihadists, Tajikistan, Islamic State, Moscow, Iran, Turkey, Europe, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Khorasan Province

☆ Russia Hides Its War Toll. We Pieced Together the Clues.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The true casualty toll in Russia from its invasion of Ukraine is an enduring secret of the war. The Kremlin maintains a policy of silence, and many Russians do not speak publicly for fear of repercussions. But the number of Russians wounded in combat is believed to be staggering. What Russians sayOne senior Russian official estimated that amputees represented more than half of those seriously wounded. The New York Times interviewed five wounded Russian soldiers and the relatives of others to learn more about what happens to the vast numbers of injured, coming home to inconsistent treatment and little discussion of them.

Persons: amputees Organizations: Pentagon, U.S, Russian, New York Times Locations: Russia, Ukraine

☆ Russia Moves to Label Gay Rights Movement as ‘Extremist’
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent years, L.G.B.T.Q. people in Russia have lived under increasing fear as the Kremlin has ratcheted up measures curtailing gay and transgender rights in tandem with the repressive search for “internal enemies” during the war in Ukraine. In the latest threat, the Ministry of Justice will seek a court order on Thursday to declare the international gay rights movement an “extremist organization.”Gay rights activists and other experts say that a ruling in favor would put gay people and their organizations under the threat of being criminally prosecuted at any time for something as simple as displaying the rainbow flag or for endorsing the statement “Gay rights are human rights.”That prospect has heightened angst and alarm in the country’s already beleaguered gay communities. “It is not the first time we are being targeted, but at the same time, it is another blow,” said Alexander Kondakov, a Russian sociologist at University College Dublin, who studies the intersection of law and security for the L.G.B.T.Q. “You are already marked as foreign, as bad, as a source of propaganda, and now you are labeled an extremist — and the next step is terrorist.”

Persons: ”, Alexander Kondakov Organizations: Ministry, Justice, ” Gay, University College Dublin Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Russian

The woman in the video, her face blurred, gave a blunt assessment of Russian military policy: Soldiers mobilized over a year ago to fight in Ukraine deserved to come home. Why weren’t they? “Our mobilized became the best army in the world, but that doesn’t mean that this army should stay there to the last man,” she said. Women in various cities are seeking to stage public protests, challenging the official argument that mobilized troops are needed in combat indefinitely to secure their Russian homeland. Hand-lettered posters behind the speaker in the video echoed that sentiment with slogans like “Do only the mobilized have a homeland?” A video of the speech, delivered at a rally in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk on Nov. 19, was released online.

Persons: ” Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Russian, Siberian, Novosibirsk

☆ Russia Pulled Out of a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Here’s What That Means.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-02 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But it leaves only one significant nuclear weapons pact between Russia and the United States in place: the New START treaty. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, was an attempt under the umbrella of the United Nations to ban all nuclear tests. Adopted in 1996, it never came into effect because not enough key countries, including the United States, have ratified it. The New START is now the only nuclear weapons deal between the United States and Russia. Although Mr. Putin announced last February that Russia was suspending its participation, Russia has thus far stuck to the treaty limits.

Persons: Russia’s, Mr, Putin, Siberia — Organizations: United Locations: United States, Russia, Ban, United Nations, Washington, Ukraine, Europe, Siberia, Moscow

☆ Developing World Sees Double Standard in West’s Actions in Gaza and Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-23 | by ( Neil Macfarquhar | More About Neil Macfarquhar | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

For 20 months, the Biden administration has attempted to stake out the moral high ground against Russia, condemning its brutal war on Ukraine for indiscriminately killing civilians. Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Biden tied American support for Ukraine and Israel together, describing both nations as democracies fighting enemies determined to “completely annihilate” them. Such accusations are not exactly new in the Middle East conflict. But the dynamics of the dual crises have gone beyond Washington’s desire to rally global support to isolate and punish Russia for invading its neighbor. “That will make international cooperation on Ukraine, like sanctions enforcement on Russia, even harder.”

Persons: Biden, Israel bombards, ”, Clifford Kupchan Organizations: America, West, Eurasia Group Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, Africa, Asia, China, Brazil, Indonesia, New York

The ceremony to honor a fallen Russian soldier went viral for all the wrong reasons. The musical faux pas last May in the eastern Russian town of Kyakhta, home to a prominent infantry brigade, soon rocketed around social media. If the incident was discordant in the extreme, it also accentuated the contradictions of Vladimir Putin’s war that are changing the face of garrison towns across Russia. The local cemetery is growing exponentially. The flood of newly purchased cars in Kyakhta telegraphs loss as much as prosperity — the money comes from large government payouts to families of the dead and grievously injured.

Persons: ” blaring, Vladimir Putin’s Organizations: telegraphs Locations: Russian, Ukraine, Kyakhta, Russia

Jan Dvorkin had raised and nurtured his adopted son in Moscow for seven years until, one day in May, the Russian authorities notified him they were revoking custody. A woman Mr. Dvorkin knew had filed an official complaint, saying that because he was transgender and gay, he was an unfit parent. When Mr. Dvorkin asked the woman why she had reported him, she told him he had brought it on himself, and “that I could have easily avoided it by staying in the closet.”He managed to find another family to take the boy, who is deaf, so that the child would not be sent to an orphanage. Mr. Dvorkin’s experience underscores the increasingly repressive treatment gay and transgender people are subjected to across Russia — a hardship that seems certain to grow as the government leverages the war in Ukraine as justification for greater restrictions on L.G.B.T.Q.

Persons: Jan Dvorkin, Dvorkin Locations: Moscow, Russia, Ukraine

Moscow took sharp action on Friday to curb inflation, fearing the effects of ever higher spending on the war in Ukraine and of a weakening Russian ruble. Russia’s central bank took the unexpected step of raising its benchmark interest rate by a full percentage point, to 8.5 percent from 7.5 percent. It was the first large hike in more than a year, and the bank warned that further increases were likely. “It is a surprise and on its face reflects more concern at the central bank about inflation and how the economy is doing that we had appreciated,” said Robert Kahn, the head of the Geoeconomics Team at the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk analysis firm. “It suggests that the war is proving increasingly disruptive to economic activity and pushing up inflationary pressures.”

Persons: Moscow, ”, Robert Kahn Organizations: Eurasia Group Locations: Ukraine, Russia’s, New York

Russia on Thursday stepped up its aerial assaults on Ukrainian ports critical to the world’s food supply, as the White House warned that the Kremlin has mined sea routes and might be setting the stage for attacks on commercial transport ships. Moscow has already put shipping companies on notice that they now cross the Russian blockade in the Black Sea at their own peril, and could be treated as military targets. The warning came days after Russia pulled out of a multinational deal that had allowed desperately needed Ukrainian grain to make it to the world market. In a further sign of rising tensions, Ukraine on Thursday issued its own warning: Ships heading to Russian ports or to ports in occupied Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense said, will now be considered to be carrying “military cargo, with all the corresponding risks.”In Washington, a White House official accused Moscow at a news conference of engaging in a false-flag operation to implicate Ukraine if Russia attacked a ship. The waters where Russia is said to have placed the mines are in an area already mined by Ukraine to deter an amphibious assault.

Organizations: White House, Ministry of Defense, White, Moscow Locations: Russia, Moscow, Russian, Ukraine, Washington

The blasts were the second time the Kerch Strait Bridge has been hit in 10 months. Russia on Monday accused Ukraine of using maritime drones to assault the bridge, a strategic link for Russian forces fighting in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials celebrated the attack, but neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the blasts. Hours after the attack, Moscow announced that it was pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal, an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite Moscow’s naval blockade. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said the bridge attack was not related to Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the deal, which had helped keep global food prices stable.

Persons: Vladimir V, Dmitri S Organizations: Monday Locations: Crimean, Russia, Kerch, Ukraine, Moscow

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