Tag Archives: Russia

Assad, aided by Russia, poised to snuff out ‘cradle’ of revolt

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a Syrian flag in Deraa, Syria, July 4, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki/File Photo

By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad is poised to snuff out the Syrian rebellion in the place it first began more than seven years ago, as rebels enter talks with his Russian allies on withdrawing from Deraa city or accepting a return of state authority.

Government forces backed by Russia have seized most of Deraa province in the campaign that got underway last month and on Monday encircled rebel-held parts of Deraa city and seized the entire Jordanian frontier that was once in opposition hands.

Assad, whose control was once reduced to a fraction of Syria, now holds the largest chunk of the country with crucial help from his Russian and Iranian allies.

Deraa was the scene of the first anti-Assad protests that spiraled into a war now estimated to have killed half a million people. The conflict has driven over 11 million people from their homes, with some 5.6 million Syrian refugees in neighboring states alone and many more in Europe.

Rebels in Deraa are due to hold talks with Russian officers on Tuesday, a spokesman for the rebels, Abu Shaimaa, said. The talks were due to take place in the town of Busra al-Sham.

Some are seeking evacuation to opposition-held areas of the north while others are negotiating to remain as a local security force, he said.

“Today there is a session with the Russians over the forced displacement,” he said in a text message, referring to the expected evacuation of a yet-to-determined number of rebels to opposition areas of the northwest at the border with Turkey.

A pro-Syrian government newspaper, al-Watan, said “the coming hours will be decisive on the level of ending the chapter of terrorism in Deraa city”.

As Assad pushes for outright military victory, there seems little hope of a negotiated peace settlement to the conflict.

The north and much of the east however remain outside his control and the presence of U.S. and Turkish forces in those areas will complicate further advances for Damascus.

“EXTREMELY SCARED”

Government forces began thrusting into Deraa province last month. Heavily outgunned rebels surrendered quickly in some places as the United States, which once armed them, told opposition forces not to expect its intervention.

Deraa rebels agreed to a wider ceasefire deal brokered by Russia last Friday and to surrender the province in phases. Syrian and Russian forces then took control of the main crossing with Jordan, which has been in rebel hands since 2015.

On Monday, government forces extended their control all the way along Deraa province’s border with Jordan up to a pocket of territory held by Islamic State-affiliated militants, severing a once vital opposition lifeline to Jordan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said army helicopters dropped leaflets on the rebel-held town of al-Haara saying “there is no place for militants”.

The government offensive is expected to turn next to nearby rebel-held areas of Quneitra province, at the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The offensive has triggered the biggest single displacement of civilians in the war, uprooting more than 320,000 people. Large numbers of people have moved again in the few days since the ceasefire was agreed, some returning to their villages.

Rachel Sider, Syria advocacy and information adviser with the Norwegian Refugee Council, said displaced people had been crossing back to areas that are subject to the agreement “because the expectation is that now there is a ceasefire that is holding, that will be the most stable and safe place”.

“But we also know that people still feel extremely scared. They are not very clear about who is in control of the places that they are from. We have seen a lot of confusion amongst people who are trying to make a decision about their families’ safety and their future,” she said.

Tens of thousands of displaced people are still thought to be sheltering in the Tel Shihab area of Deraa province, and many more are at the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

(The story corrects to show talks over fate of rebels in Deraa city are being held in Busra al-Sham, not Deraa city itself.)

(Writing by Tom Perry, Editing by William Maclean)

Israel threatens ‘harsh response’ to any Syrian forces in demilitarized Golan

People walk near the Israel-Syria border line as it is seen from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Israel July 7, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel threatened a “harsh response” on Monday to any attempt by Syrian forces advancing against southern rebel areas to deploy in a Golan Heights frontier zone that was demilitarized under a 44-year-old U.N. monitored truce between the neighboring foes.

Syrian government forces backed by Russia have launched an offensive in the southern Deraa province and are widely expected to move on rebel-held Quneitra, which is within a part of the Syrian Golan covered by the armistice.

Israel worries that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad could let its enemies Iran and Hezbollah move forces into the area, giving them a foothold near its border. Tehran and the Lebanese group both back Assad in the complex conflict.

“For our part we will sanctify the 1974 disengagement agreement, and there too we will insist that every last letter be abided by, and any violation with meet a harsh response from the State of Israel,” Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman told his parliamentary faction in broadcast remarks.

Assad’s conduct in southern Syria is expected to come up in talks in Moscow on Wednesday between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia, whose 2015 intervention in the Syrian civil war turned the tide in Assad’s favor, has largely turned a blind eye to repeated Israeli air strikes in Syria targeting suspected Iranian or Hezbollah emplacements and arms transfers.

But diplomats on both sides say Russia has made clear that it would oppose any Israeli action endangering Assad’s rule.

On Sunday night, Syria said its air defense repelled an Israeli sorties against the T4 air base in Homs province, where seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps personnel died in an April 9 attack that Damascus and Tehran also blamed on Israel.

Israel, in keeping with its customary reticence on such operations, declined all comment.

“Regarding yesterday – I read about it in the newspapers today and I have nothing to add,” Lieberman said on Monday.

“Perhaps just one thing, that our policy has not changed. We will not allow Iran’s entrenchment in Syria and we will not allow Syrian soil to be turned into a vanguard against the State of Israel. Nothing has changed. There is nothing new.”

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Toby Chopra and Andrew Heavens)

The issues on the table when Trump and Putin meet

FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin talks to U.S. President Donald Trump during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria//File Photo

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will sit down in a room together in the Finnish capital on July 16 for their first summit meeting.

The U.S. president’s spontaneous approach to negotiations, and the inscrutable style of the Kremlin leader, make predicting the outcome of the summit with any accuracy close to impossible.

We do however, have a reasonable idea of the issues the two leaders and their aides will have mapped out before the meeting: the areas where they each want something from their counterpart, and the places they are willing to give ground.

Below are the issues likely to figure:

ARMS RACE RHETORIC

Both Trump and Putin have been using bellicose rhetoric about their nuclear arsenals, drawing their countries closer to a new arms race. Trump has said the U.S. nuclear capability needs renewing. He told Reuters last year, “if countries are going to have nukes, we’re going to be at the top of the pack.” Putin in March this year unveiled an array of new nuclear weapons, and warned Western governments “now they need to take account of a new reality.” An arms race would be dangerous and expensive for both sides. An agreement to scale back the rhetoric would be a win for both Putin and Trump. Progress towards extending the New Start arms treaty, which expires in 2021, would give substance to that agreement.

SANCTIONS RELIEF

Putin would like Trump to soften sanctions that Washington imposed over the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and backing for separatists in eastern Ukraine, involvement in the Syrian civil war and allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. elections in 2016. While a 2017 law bars Trump from easing many sanctions without Congress’ approval, he can offer some relief without a nod from Congress. The Republican president, who did not want to sign the law and has missed several deadlines for imposing sanctions included in it, could send a signal that the administration does not plan to expand the list of Russian firms and individuals subject to economic and travel restrictions. That would unfreeze much-needed investment and lending from international investors who, at the moment, are reluctant to commit to Russia for fear of the sanctions’ impact.

SYRIAN DEAL

Washington ally Israel is anxious that, with the conflict in Syria entering its end game, Iranian and Iran-backed forces will be left gathered around Israel’s borders. At the summit, Trump may ask Putin, the most powerful outside player in Syria since Russia’s military intervention there, to use his influence with Tehran to curb Iran’s military presence. This would be tough to deliver for Putin: it would risk a rupture with his allies in Tehran, and could leave Russian forces having to do the lion’s share of the remaining fighting in Syria, a burden that Moscow does not want to shoulder.

DIPLOMATIC TIT-FOR-TAT

Russia’s diplomatic presence in the United States, and the U.S. missions in Russia, are depleted after two rounds of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions in the past two years. The first was over alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election, and the second, this year, was in response to the poisoning in England of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Putin and Trump could agree in Helsinki to restore the full complement of diplomatic staff. That would not change the substance of the U.S.-Russia relationship, but it would be a symbol of a new start.

RUSSIA’S BACKYARD

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the NATO alliance has stepped up military exercises in eastern Europe. The aim, according to NATO leaders, is to reassure alliance members who fear a Russian incursion. That has angered Russia. It says NATO is bearing down on its backyard. The Kremlin has likened it to Russia stationing missiles in Mexico. If Trump scaled back the exercises, that would be a big win for Putin. Two senior NATO diplomats told Reuters they are prepared for a worst-case scenario that Trump would announce a freeze on U.S. military exercises or withdraw troops from the Baltics in a gesture to Putin. At the NATO summit in Brussels that precedes Helsinki, NATO states will seek Trump’s assurances that he will stand firm on the exercises.

UKRAINIAN ALLY

Washington has stood by Ukraine’s pro-Western leaders in their stand-off with Russia. That has included the United States providing Kiev with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid. Helsinki would be a triumph for Putin if he persuaded Trump to drop that military aid. Ukrainian officials say they have assurances from Trump aides he won’t do this, but acknowledge anything can happen when Trump and Putin are in a room together. In return, the Russian leader could make concessions over eastern Ukraine, where pro-Moscow separatists control swathes of territory. Diplomats say there is a deal to be done allowing armed international peacekeepers to patrol the area. However, Putin will not contemplate any concessions over Crimea.

(Writing by Christian Lowe and Mary Milliken; Editing by Gareth Jones)

UK police hunt nerve agent container after woman dies

Dawn Sturgess, who has died as a result of Novichok poisoning, is pictured in Salisbury, Britain June 27, 2016, in this picture obtained from social media. Facebook/Dawn Sturgess via REUTERS

By Paul Sandle and William Schomberg

LONDON (Reuters) – A woman who died after being poisoned with a nerve agent that also struck a former Russian spy in March must have handled a contaminated item, and tracking it down is key to police investigations, Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer said.

FILE PHOTO: Forensic investigators, wearing protective suits, emerge from the rear of John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Forensic investigators, wearing protective suits, emerge from the rear of John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

Dawn Sturgess, 44, died on Sunday just over a week after she was exposed to Novichok in southwestern England, a few miles from where Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with the same poison.

The death of Sturgess, a mother of three, was being treated as a murder, police said.

“This latest horrendous turn of events has only served to strengthen the resolve of our investigation team as we work to identify those responsible for this outrageous, reckless and barbaric act,” counter-terrorism police chief Neil Basu said.

Basu told reporters the priority was to determine how Sturgess and her partner, 45-year-old Charlie Rowley who is critically ill, came across an item contaminated with Novichok, developed by the Soviet military during the Cold War.

Britain and its allies blamed Russia for the attack in March on the Skripals, prompting the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War. Moscow has rejected the accusations and has hit back by expelling Western diplomats.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she was appalled and shocked by Sturgess’s death and the interior minister, Sajid Javid, said the “desperately sad news only strengthens our resolve to find out exactly what has happened”.

Javid, who is chairing a meeting of the government’s emergency committee on Monday, has said there were no plans at this stage for further sanctions against Russia.

The Skripals fell ill after the poison was applied to the ex-spy’s front door in the city of Salisbury. Sturgess and Rowley were found at a house in Amesbury, 11 kilometers (7 miles) away.

FILE PHOTO: A police officer stands in front of screening erected behind John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 5, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A police officer stands in front of screening erected behind John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 5, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

Basu said the severe reaction of Sturgess and Rowley meant they must have received a high dose of Novichok.

“Our hypothesis is that they must have handled a container we are now seeking,” he said. “Our focus and priority at this time is to identify and locate any container that we believe may be the source of the contamination.”

The poisoning of the Skripals was the first known offensive use of such a chemical weapon in Europe since World War Two.

Russia has denied any involvement in the Skripal case and suggested the British security services carried out the attack to stoke anti-Moscow hysteria, an assertion London calls absurd.

FATAL TOUCH

Sturgess and Rowley fell ill on June 30. Medical workers initially suspected a drug overdose but tests by the Porton Down military research center showed they had been exposed to Novichok.

Britain has notified the global chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Sturgess died at Salisbury District Hospital, the same facility that nursed the critically ill Skripals.

Yulia Skripal, Sergei’s daughter, was in a coma for 20 days after she was attacked and was eventually discharged about five weeks after the poisoning. Her father was discharged on May 18.

“The staff here at Salisbury District Hospital worked tirelessly to save Dawn. They did everything they could,” Christine Blanshard, medical director at the hospital said.

Britain’s public health authority acknowledged on Friday the concerns of people living in the area after the two incidents involving Novichok, but said it was confident that the risk to the public remained low.

(Additional reporting by Michael Holden, Andrew MacAskill and Kate Kelland; Editing by Peter Cooney)

South Syrian rebels lay down arms as Assad seizes crossing

FILE PHOTO: A Syrian opposition flag is erected at the Syrian-Jordanian border at the Nasib crossing in Deraa province, Syria August 27, 2017.REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir/File Photo

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – South Syrian rebels said they had agreed on Friday to lay down arms in a Russian-brokered deal that appeared to surrender Deraa province to the government in another major victory for President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian government recovered the crucial Nassib border crossing with Jordan, held by rebels for three years, state media reported, after a fierce assault in insurgent territory along the frontier backed by Russian air strikes.

Deraa province encompasses most of the area held by rebels in the southwest, one of their last remaining strongholds in Syria. Assad is also aiming to recover control of rebel-held areas of Quneitra province at the frontier with the Israei-occupied Golan Heights.

Government advances in Deraa in a two-week offensive had brought large parts of the province back under state control and caused a massive rapid human exodus as hundreds of thousands of people fled.

Rebel sources said the deal brokered by Russia would allow civilians to return to their villages and towns with Russia guaranteeing their protection.

Russian guarantees will also be extended to rebel fighters who wish to “settle their status” with the government – a process by which former insurgents accept to live under state rule again, the sources said.

Rebels who did not wish to come back under Assad’s rule would leave for the insurgent stronghold in northwest Syria, they said.

Several witnesses along the Jordan border fence with Syria said they spotted armored vehicles and a tank with a Russian flag heading to the Nassib crossing, an important trade artery.

A commander in a regional military alliance that backs Assad said an Israeli air strike had hit a Syrian village in Quneitra on Friday, causing no casualties. Israel’s military said it had hit a Syrian army post in that area.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Ellen Francis in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Writing by Ellen Francis, Editing by Alison Williams, Tom Perry, William Maclean)

UK police in protective suits seen at site of new Novichok poisoning

Fire and Rescue Service personel arrive with safety equipment at the site of a housing estate on Muggleton Road, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

By Henry Nicholls

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) – Police wearing protective suits entered a hostel in the southern English city of Salisbury on Friday as counter-terrorism detectives stepped up their investigation into how two people were exposed to the nerve agent Novichok.

A team of 100 officers are working to discover how and where a 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, both now critically ill, came across an item contaminated with Novichok, the same toxin used in an attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter four months ago.

Britain has accused Russia of poisoning the Skripals with the nerve agent – developed by the Soviet military during the Cold War – at the former spy’s home in Salisbury in what was the first known offensive use of such a chemical weapon on European soil since World War Two.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement and says Britain is trying to stoke up anti-Russian sentiment.

Forensic investigators wearing protective suits enter the rear of John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Forensic investigators wearing protective suits enter the rear of John Baker House, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Amesbury, Britain, July 6, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Paramedics were called on Saturday morning to a house in Amesbury, a few miles from Salisbury, after the woman, named by media as Dawn Sturgess, collapsed. They returned later in the day when the man, Charlie Rowley, also fell ill.

Tests later showed they had been exposed to the same nerve agent as the Skripals, although the authorities said it was not yet clear whether it was from the same batch.

Police said they had fallen ill after handling a contaminated item but gave no further details. On Friday, four investigators wearing protective clothing entered the hostel for homeless people in Salisbury where media said Sturgess had been staying.

“Meticulous and systematic searches are under way at a number of sites. The safety of the public and our officers remains paramount and the searches will take longer because of the precautions that we must take to ensure there is no outstanding risk,” police said on Thursday.

Skripal – a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service – and his daughter Yulia were found slumped unconscious on a park bench. They spent weeks in hospital before being discharged.

The British authorities say there was nothing in the background of the latest pair to suggest a link to espionage or to Russia.

The March attack prompted the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War as allies sided with Britain’s view that Moscow was either responsible or had lost control of the nerve agent.

Moscow hit back by expelling Western diplomats, questioning how Britain could know that Russia was responsible and offering rival interpretations, including that it amounted to a plot by British secret services.

(writing by Michael Holden and Kate Holton; editing by Stephen Addison)

UK demands Russia explain nerve attack after two more people struck down

A police officer guards a cordoned off rubbish bin on Rolleston Street, after it was confirmed that two people had been poisoned with the nerve-agent Novichok, in Salisbury, Britain, July 5, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

By Alex Fraser and Henry Nicholls

AMESBURY, England (Reuters) – Britain demanded on Thursday that Russia provide details about the Novichok nerve agent attack on a former double agent and his daughter after two British citizens were struck down with the same poison.

The two Britons, a 44-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man, fell critically ill after handling what police called a contaminated item near the site of the March attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

Britain has accused Russia of poisoning the Skripals with Novichok – a nerve agent developed by the Soviet military during the Cold War – in what is the first known offensive use of such a chemical weapon on European soil since World War Two.

Russia, which is currently hosting the soccer World Cup, has denied any involvement in the March incident and suggested the British security services had carried out that attack to stoke anti-Moscow hysteria.

“The eyes of the world are currently on Russia, not least because of the World Cup,” British Home Secretary Sajid Javid said. “It is now time that the Russian state comes forward and explains what has gone on.

“It is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate or accidental targets, or for our streets, our parks and towns to be dumping grounds for poison,” he told parliament.

The Kremlin said Russia had offered Britain its assistance in investigating the nerve agent attack and had been rebuffed.

Prime Minister Theresa May, speaking alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel during a visit to Berlin, said it was “deeply disturbing” that two more people had been exposed to Novichok, adding that her thoughts were with the people of the area.

MYSTERY

The two Britons taken ill on Saturday were initially thought to have taken an overdose of heroin or crack cocaine.

But tests by the Porton Down military research center showed they had been exposed to Novichok. Britain has notified the global chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

London police later said in a statement: “… we now know that they were exposed to the nerve agent after handling a contaminated item.” They did not elaborate.

Police have said the Skripals were poisoned after Novichok was applied in a liquid form to the front door of Sergei Skripal’s home in the city of Salisbury, 11 km (7 miles) south of Amesbury where the current incident occurred.

Skripal – a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who betrayed dozens of agents to Britain’s MI6 foreign spy service – and his daughter were found slumped unconscious on a park bench on March 4.

The latest pair however have nothing in their background to suggest a link to the world of espionage or to Russia.

“It is unbelievable that I am here to talk about another Novichok nerve agent incident in our county,” local police chief Keir Pritchard told reporters. “We’re working extremely hard to try to understand the circumstances, the chronology.”

Interior minister Javid said the substance that the two people were exposed to was the same variant of Novichok that struck down the Skripals.

However, officials said the working hypothesis was that the latest pair had been contaminated in a different location from areas visited by the former Russian agent and his daughter.

“The possibility that these two investigations might be linked is clearly a line of enquiry … but it is very important that we keep an open mind,” said Pritchard, adding that it was not yet clear whether the Novichok came from the same batch.

Paramedics were called on Saturday morning to a house in Amesbury after the woman, named by media as Dawn Sturgess, collapsed. They returned later in the day when the man, Charlie Rowley, also fell ill.

CONTAMINATION

Health chiefs said the risk to the public was low, repeating their earlier advice that the public should wash their clothes and use cleansing wipes on personal items.

But the exposure of two British citizens to such a dangerous nerve agent will stoke fears that Novichok could be lingering at sites around the ancient English city of Salisbury.

Andrea Sella, professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, said Novichok nerve agents were designed to be quite persistent and did not decompose quickly.

“That means that if a container or a surface was contaminated with this material it would remain a danger for a long time,” Sella said.

After the Skripal poisoning, police investigators in protective suits scoured Salisbury. They may return, police said.

The March attack prompted the biggest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats since the Cold War as allies sided with May’s view that Moscow was either responsible or had lost control of the nerve agent.

Moscow hit back by expelling Western diplomats, questioning how Britain could know that Russia was responsible and offering rival interpretations, including that it amounted to a plot by British secret services.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Young, Kate Holton, Elizabeth Piper, William James and Kate Kelland in London, Andrew Osborn and Polina Nikolskaya in Moscow; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; editing by Gareth Jones and David Stamp)

Trump will focus on Russia’s ‘malign’ activity at summits: U.S. officials

FILE PHOTO: Russia's President Vladimir Putin talks to U.S. President Donald Trump during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria//File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will discuss Russia’s “malign activity” during a summit with NATO leaders and follow up in a meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin to determine whether Moscow wants to reduce tensions, U.S. official said on Thursday.

“The president believes a better relationship with Russia would be good for both America and Russia, but the ball really is in Russia’s court and the president will continue to hold Russia accountable for its malign activity,” Jon Huntsman, U.S. ambassador to Russia, told reporters on a conference call.

“We’re entering with our eyes wide open, but peace is always worth the effort,” Huntsman said.

Trump is slated to meet Putin in Helsinki on July 16. He will meet with NATO leaders the week before in Brussels.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Doina Chiacu and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by David Gregorio)

Number of displaced in southern Syria climbs to 270,000: U.N.

Internally displaced people from Deraa province arrive near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Quneitra, Syria June 29, 2018. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Faqir/File Photo

AMMAN (Reuters) – The number of people forced to flee their homes in southwestern Syria as a result of the two week escalation in fighting has climbed to 270,000 people, the U.N. refugee spokesman in Jordan said.

The United Nations said last week 160,000 had been displaced as they fled heavy bombardment and mostly took shelter in villages and areas near the Israeli and Jordanian borders.

“Our latest update shows the figure of displaced across southern Syria has exceeded 270,000 people,” Mohammad Hawari, UNHCR’s Jordan spokesman told Reuters.

The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the southwest caused by the fighting that erupted after a Russian-backed army offensive to recapture rebel-held southern Syria.

Jordan, which has taken in more than half a million displaced Syrians since the war began, and Israel have said they will not open their borders to refugees.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told reporters on Monday after a meeting with U.N. officials that shipments of aid were waiting to get approvals to enter into Syria from the Jordanian border.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Alison Williams)

Russia steps up legal attack against hunter of Stalin’s mass graves

FILE PHOTO: Historian Yuri Dmitriev (C) walks after a hearing inside a court building in Petrozavodsk, Russia April 5, 2018. REUTERS/Vladimir Larionov/File Photo

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian historian whose exposure of Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s crimes angered officials was accused on Thursday by state investigators of sexually assaulting his adopted daughter, after having been cleared of similar charges in April.

The new accusation was made as Russia hosts the soccer World Cup, an event opposition politicians have accused the authorities of using to try to bury bad news at a time when Human Rights Watch says the country is experiencing its “worst human rights crisis” since the Soviet era.

Some of Russia’s leading cultural figures have said that Yuri Dmitriev is being persecuted because his focus on Stalin’s crimes jars with the Kremlin narrative that Russia must not be ashamed of its past.

His real crime, they say, has been dedicating himself to documenting Stalin’s 1937-38 Great Terror, in which nearly 700,000 people were executed, according to conservative official estimates. Dmitriev, 62, found a mass grave with up to 9,000 bodies dating from the period.

A European Union spokeswoman on Wednesday said the bloc regarded the case against Dmitriev, which it said had already obliged him to spend 13 months in custody, as “dubious” and expected Russia to drop it.

On Thursday, investigators set out new charges against him. Interfax cited Dmitriev’s lawyer, Viktor Anufriev, as saying a court in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk ordered Dmitriev to be detained for two months.

‘INVENTED’

A court in northwest Russia cleared Dmitriev of child pornography charges involving his adopted daughter in April after a long campaign by human rights activists to free him.

However, a higher court in the Karelia region overturned his acquittal on June 14 on the basis of an appeal by state prosecutors and Dmitriev was detained by police again on Wednesday evening.

On Thursday, state investigators said they had opened a new criminal case against him, this time alleging sexual assault, a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Investigators said in a statement they would ask a court to remand him in custody later on Thursday while they investigated his alleged crimes which they said happened between 2012 and 2016.

Anufriev told Reuters earlier on Thursday that his client denied the new accusations, which he called “invented,” and suggested that investigators had opened the new case to try to show they had not been wrong the first time round.

The Investigative Committee of Karelia, whose investigators submitted the original case for prosecution, have previously not responded to Reuters’ questions about whether there was a political side to the case, saying only that they are guided by evidence that they collect.

Dmitry Gudkov, an opposition politician who hopes to run in Moscow’s mayoral race later this year, said he thought Dmitriev was being persecuted for his work as a historian.

“Who is so bothered about a person who has committed only one ‘offense’ — to investigate the crimes of the Stalin era?” Gudkov asked on Thursday on social media.

“Russia, the legal successor of the USSR.”

(Editing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, William Maclean)