Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny says he doesn’t feel lonely and is in a “great” mood despite serving a lengthy prison sentence in Siberia, but he still misses interacting directly with his family and friends.
In a New Year’s Eve message shared by Navalny’s team on social media, Navalny is quoted as saying that this will be the third time “I have taken the traditional family New Year’s Eve photo with Photoshop.”
“I am trying to keep up with the times, and this time I asked an artificial intelligence to draw me. I hope it turned out something fantastic – I will not see the picture myself until the letter with it arrives on Yamal,” he joked.
Navalny’s team has said he is currently serving his prison sentence in the IK-3 penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region of Russia.
“‘I miss you terribly’ is a kind of incorrect construction from the point of view of the Russian language. It’s better to say: ‘I miss you a lot’ or ‘I miss you so much,” he said. “But from my point of view, it is more accurate and correct. I miss my family terribly. Yulia, my children, my parents, my brother. I miss my friends, colleagues, our office, and my work. I miss you all terribly.”
However, Navalny went on to say that he doesn’t have “feelings of loneliness, abandonment, or isolation at all.”
“My mood is great and quite Christmassy. But there is no substitute for normal human communication in all its forms: from jokes at the New Year’s table to correspondence in Telegram and comments on Instagram and Twitter [currently known as X],” he said.
Navalny was located at a penal colony in Siberia earlier this month, two weeks after his team lost contact with him. Until then, he was imprisoned in a penal colony about 150 miles east of Moscow.
His disappearance, which came just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he will run for re-election in March 2024, had sparked concerns for his well-being and safety.
The Russian opposition leader was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August after being found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activities and numerous other crimes. He was already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges he denies.
Supporters of Navalny claim his arrest and incarceration are a politically motivated attempt to stifle his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny hasposed one https://sayurkana.com/ of the most serious threats to Putin’s legitimacy during his rule. He used his blog and social media to expose alleged corruption in the Kremlin as well as Russian business, and organized anti-government street protests.
As 2023 draws to a close, Russian President Vladimir Putin is all about a vibe: projecting confidence as he sails to inevitable re-election in March.
Presidential elections in Russia are perhaps best described a kind of political theater. Putin has no serious rivals; his most prominent opponent, Alexey Navalny, is in a prison 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle; and pliant media portray the sitting president as Russia’s indispensable man. But this spring’s vote is an important public ritual for the Kremlin leader, who stands to secure power until the end of the decade.
Putin announced his bid in an almost casual fashion. Following a “heroes of Russia” ceremony earlier in December, Putin held an on-camera chat with a group of servicemen who had fought in Ukraine – and who, unsurprisingly, implored the president to run in 2024.
“On behalf of our people, of Donbas as a whole and our reunified lands, I would like to ask you to take part in this election, said Artyom Zhoga, a representative of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region. “After all, there is so much work that needs to be done… You are our president, and we are your team. We need you, and Russia needs you.”
Putin’s aw-shucks reply?
“I won’t deny that at different times I had different thoughts [about this],” he said. “But now, you are right, the time has come to make a decision. I will run for the post of president of the Russian Federation.”
But if Putin is running as a wartime president, he has to massage the facts. Russia does not fully control the Ukrainian regions it claimed in September 2022; the war on the ground has been extremely costly in terms of Russian lives and equipment; and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has taken a serious beating.
But the biggest blowback from war in Ukraine occurred in June, when Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an insurrection amid a feud with Russia’s top military brass and marched on Moscow.
Putin faced the greatest threat to his authority in more than two decades when Yevgeny Prigozhin led an abortive march on Moscow in June.Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
Prigozhin’s Wagner paramilitaries stopped short of the Russian capital, in a murky deal apparently brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. But the images of Wagner forces rolling virtually unopposed toward Moscow – and the downing of Russian military aircraft by the mercenaries – were a massive blow to Putin’s image as guarantor of Russian domestic stability.
Within two months of the mutiny, Prigozhin was dead: The mercenary boss died in a still-mysterious plane crash late August. Putin had survived the biggest challenge to his hold on power in over two decades, but the rebellion undermined one of the key pillars of his rule: the president’s aura of invulnerability.
“Many ultra-patriots were baffled by the mercy initially shown toward Prigozhin and interpreted it as a sign of weakness: both of the state and of Putin himself,” wrote Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya in the aftermath of the crash. “Even in the unlikely event that Prigozhin’s death was a genuine accident, therefore, the Kremlin will undoubtedly do everything it can to make people believe it was an act of retribution. Putin sees this as his personal contribution to the strengthening of Russian statehood.”
By year’s end, the Kremlin’s PR machine seemed to have swept the whole Prigozhin affair under the rug. In Putin’s marathon, year-in-review press conference, Prigozhin’s name was never uttered, although Putin did concede “setbacks that the Defense Ministry should have prevented” when it came to private military companies.
As always, the annual summing-up was a master class in spin, with Putin confidently presenting the message that Russia was again on the front foot and reeling off statistics to bolster his point. The economy, he said, was returning to GDP growth, bouncing back from 2.1% decline the previous year, and Russia’s industrial output is growing. The country’s unemployment rate, he boasted, had dropped to a historic low, 2.9%.
Putin speaks during his annual press conference in Moscow, December 14, 2023.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Reuters
Russia has indeed weathered sanctions and its economy is on a war footing: According to the US Treasury Department, defense spending has been the main driver of economic growth. And that looks set to continue, as Putin has promised to spend whatever it takes to prosecute his war on Ukraine.
And the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine has given Putin another opportunity to project self-confidence. Ukraine’s much-vaunted counter-offensive failed to yield any breakthrough, and the Biden administration’s request for more than $60 billion in aid for Ukraine has stalled in Congress over Republican demands on border security and immigration policy. Hungary blocked the latest proposed European Union aid deal for Ukraine.
Putin clearly wants the world – as well as his electorate – to believe that he is winning, and he is counting on support for Ukraine to waver. Asked in his press conference when there will be peace in Ukraine, Putin offered the same open-ended formula he used to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“There will be peace when we achieve our goals, which you have mentioned,” he said. “Now let’s return to these goals – they have not changed. I would like to remind you how we formulated them: denazification, demilitarization, and a neutral status for Ukraine.”
On Friday, the Russian military reminded the world what “denazification” means in practice, showering Ukrainian cities with the largest missile and drone attack since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
The relentless attacks on Ukrainian https://kolechai.com civilians, however, may have an unintended effect. Following the latest wave of strikes, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and France all called for continued support for Ukraine. What remains to be seen in 2024 is how creative Ukraine’s allies can be in delivering on those pledges.
At least 24 people, including three children, were killed and 108 others wounded in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod on Saturday, Russian authorities said, vowing to retaliate.
The latest toll was given by Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who blamed “massive shelling” by Ukraine’s armed forces.
“This crime will not go unpunished,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“The Kiev regime … is trying to divert attention from the defeats on the front lines and to provoke us into taking similar actions.”
Ukrainian attacks on Russian regions near the border have continued almost daily for over a year, sometimes resulting in civilian casualties, but this would be one of the single deadliest incidents yet reported. CNN cannot independently confirm the death toll.
The attack also comes soon after Russia launched its largest aerial assault on Ukraine of the conflict, which simmered for years before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed about the attack in Belgorod, the Kremlin said, ordering a health ministry team and emergencies ministry rescuers to be sent to the city to help those affected.
A fresh wave of Russian strikes targeting locations across Ukraine overnight on Saturday left three people dead and 28 injured in the Kharkiv region.
The head of the regional military administration said in a post on Telegram that rescuers had retrieved the bodies of two men and a woman from a house damaged by Russian attacks on the village of Borova.
A view shows a damaged car following what was said to be Ukrainian forces’ shelling in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Belgorod, Russia.Governor of Russia’s Belgorod Region Vyacheslav Gladkov via Reuters
After calling for a last minute emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council over the attack on Belgorod, Russia faced backlash from several council members.
Russia’s ambassador Vasily Nebenzya described the attack as “a deliberate act of terrorism planned against civilians” and claimed that a sports complex where children were present and an ice ring with kids were hit.
Ukraine was quick to respond as its representative, Serhii Dvornyk, told the Council that “the only way to stop human suffering” is “to stop the war itself” – calling on Russia to cease its aggression and withdraw its troops.
His comments were echoed by Ukraine’s western allies who put the blame squarely on Russia and its leader.
“Putin should be honest with his own people about the true and mounting cost of this war,” John Kelley, who represented the United States at the Council, said and added “we are here again today because the Kremlin refuses to halt its illegal invasion.”
The Security Council meeting took place hours after a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv in which at least 26 people were injured, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russian authorities said Belgorod was also shelled Friday night with one civilian killed, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Four others, including a child, were injured, he added.
On Saturday, a child also died as a result of Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Bryansk region, the region’s Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said.
Ukraine has not publicly commented on the incidents and rarely claims responsibility for attacks on its neighbor.
Rescuers comb through Kyiv rubble
The toll from the Russian strikes overnight Thursday into Friday on Ukraine – which saw an unprecedented number of drones and missiles fired at targets across the country – meanwhile continued to mount.
At least 45 people are now confirmed dead. Kyiv authorities said they recovered two more bodies killed by Russia’s missile strikes, bringing the city’s death toll from the attack to 19.
Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in Friday’s barrage, prompting widespread international condemnation and renewing calls for more military aid.
“The attack https://jusnarte.com/ on the capital city on December 29 was the largest in terms of civilian casualties” since the start of the full-scale invasion, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.
During the wave of strikes, Poland’s military authorities claimed that an “unidentified airbourne object” briefly entered its airspace.
Russia said it would not give any any explanation “until concrete evidence is presented.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on X that NATO remained vigilant over the incident.
CNN’s Victoria Butenko, Svitlana Vlasova and Christian Edwards contributed to this report.
A woman (R) mourns her husband, killed when the tent where the Salah and Abu Hatab families were sheltering was hit by apparent Israeli bombardment, at the morgue of the Nasser medical center in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 4.AFP/Getty Images
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.CNN —
Israel is set to appear before the International Court of Justice this week in a high stakes case that could determine the course of the brutal war in Gaza.
It is an unprecedented case. Experts say it is the first time that the Jewish state is being tried under the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, which was drawn up after the Second World War in light of the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during the Holocaust.
The South African government, a successor to the apartheid regime that was made a pariah on the international stage three decades ago, brought the case against Israel, accusing it of being in breach of its obligations under the convention in its war on Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Tuesday that his country will present a case “using self-defense” to show that it is doing its “utmost” under “extremely complicated circumstances” to avert civilian casualties in Gaza.
Eliav Lieblich, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, told CNN the case is significant politically and legally. “An allegation of genocide is the gravest international legal allegation that can be made against a state,” he said.
Here’s what we know about this case.
What is South Africa saying?
South Africa is taking Israel to the ICJ, also known as the World Court, on claims that it is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and failing to prevent genocide.
“More gravely still, Israel has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” South Africa said in its 84-page filing to the court.
South Africa says Israel’s acts in Gaza are genocidal “because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”
“The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction,” the filing says.
More than 23,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza hold signs and photos of their loved ones at a protest calling for their return, outside a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on January 9.Oded Balilty/AP
In pictures: Israel at war with Hamas
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The United Nations defines genocide as an act “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The UN says that it was developed “partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust.”
In eight pages, the filing at the ICJ details what South Africa describes as “expressions of genocidal intent” by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet.
South Africa has also asked the court to issue “provisional measures” ordering Israel to stop its war in Gaza, which it said was “necessary in this case to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people.” A provisional measure is a temporary order to halt actions, or an injunction, pending a final ruling.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a grouping of 57 Muslim countries, as well as Jordan, Turkey and Malaysia have so far backed the case.
What is the International Court of Justice?
The ICJ is based in https://kueceng.com The Hague in the Netherlands and was set up in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations.
The court tries governments while the International Criminal Court, also in The Hague, prosecutes individuals. Israel doesn’t recognize the ICC so the court has no jurisdiction over it. Israel however is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, which gives the ICJ jurisdiction over it.
Member states of the UN and those who have accepted the ICJ’s jurisdiction can present cases. The court accepts cases in which the states involved have each accepted its jurisdiction. The ICJ is composed of 15 judges who serve nine-year terms. Current judges are from the US, Russia, China, Slovakia, Morocco, Lebanon, India, France, Somalia, Jamaica, Japan, Germany, Australia, Uganda and Brazil. Five seats come up for election every three years, with no consecutive term limit.
Four new judges will take their seats in February, one of whom is South Africa’s Dire Tladi.
Ad-hoc judges can be appointed by parties in contentious cases (between two states) – in this instance Israel and South Africa – bringing the number of judges in the case to 17. South Africa has appointed Dikgang Moseneke, the country’s former deputy chief justice, and Israel has named Aharon Barak, ex-president of the country’s Supreme Court.
Experts say a final ruling could take years.
Exterior view of the United Nations International Court of Justice, or the Peace Palace, in The Hague, The Netherlands in March 2022.Michel Porro/Getty Images/File
How has Israel responded?
Israel has called the case a “blood libel” by South Africa, a thinly veiled accusation of antisemitism, and Netanyahu has in turn said that it is Hamas that has committed genocide, adding the Israeli military is acting in “the most moral way” and “does everything to avoid harming civilians.”
“And I ask: where were you, South Africa, and the rest of those who slander us, where were you when millions were murdered and displaced from their homes in Syria, Yemen and other arenas. You weren’t there,” the prime minister said.
Israel will nonetheless appear before the court.
That’s because it is a signatory to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention, which was drafted in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The treaty gives the ICJ the authority to adjudicate in cases, which can be brought by parties not directly affected by the alleged genocide in question.
“Since the court clearly has jurisdiction, it would be strange if Israel would simply not appear,” said Lieblich. “Also, genocide is a grave allegation, and states usually want to make their case.”
The Israeli public’s view of the case reflects the political disagreements in the country, Lieblich said. “Some view the proceedings as just another case of international bias against Israel. Many others are angry because they think that the case was only made possible because of irresponsible statements by far-right politicians, that in their views don’t represent actual policy.”
But he said that few in the Israeli mainstream are willing to accept the genocide allegations. “They mostly view the war as one of self-defense against Hamas, which due to the latter’s tactics result in wide but unintended harm to civilians.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads a weekly cabinet meeting at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv on January 7.Ronen Zvulun/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Citing an Israeli diplomatic cable, Axios reported that Israel has mobilized its diplomats to lobby host nations to back its position and create international pressure against the case. Its “strategic goal,” it said, is for the court to reject the request for an injunction, refrain from accusing Israel of committing genocide, and acknowledge that it is operating according to international law.
“A ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications,” Axios cited the cable as saying.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said Pretoria is “criminally complicit with Hamas’ campaign of genocide against our people.”
He also accused it of double standards, and backing former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who faces a warrant issued by the ICC.
“How tragic that the rainbow nation that prides itself on fighting racism will be fighting pro bono for anti-Jewish racists,” he said in a January 2 speech posted on X. “We assure South Africa’s leaders: History will judge you. And it will judge you without mercy.”
Lieblich said South Africa appears to be positioning itself in opposition to the US’ dominance in the international order.
“While it pursues the case against Israel, South Africa has criticized the ICC’s arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin, and has also refrained in the past from arresting Omar al-Bashir,” he said. “So, there is a clear international statement here. South Africa has been very vocal about what it views (as) Western ‘double standards’ and this case is a part of that campaign.”
Why is this case significant?
While the ICJ has ruled against Israel in the past, it did so through non-binding “advisory opinions” that are requested by UN bodies such as the General Assembly.
This is the first time Israel is being sued in the ICJ in what is known as a “contentious case,” where states directly raise cases against each other.
In 2004, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion declaring Israel’s separation barrier in the occupied West Bank to be in violation of international law, and called for it to be torn down. Israel ignored that decision.
If the ICJ eventually rules that Israel is directly responsible for genocide, it will be the first time it has found a state has commited genocide, experts said.
“This would be a significant precedent first and foremost because the ICJ never ruled, so far, that a state actually committed genocide,” Lieblich said. “The farthest it went was to rule that Serbia failed to prevent genocide by militias in Srebrenica. In this sense, such a ruling would be legally uncharted territory.”
While no state has been found to be directly responsible for genocide by the court, both Myanmar and Russia have faced provisional measures in genocide cases in recent years.
But the ICJ can’t guarantee compliance. In March 2022, for example, the court ordered Russia to immediately halt its military campaign in Ukraine. Kyiv, which brought the case, disputed the grounds for Russia’s invasion, and asked for emergency measures against Russia to halt the violence before the case was heard in full.
People inspect the rubble of a building where the displaced Palestinian Jabalieh family were sheltering after it was hit by apparent Israeli bombardment in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on January 3.AFP/Getty Images
What happens if the court orders Israel to halt the war?
Israel is set to appear in public hearings before the court on Friday to contest South Africa’s genocide accusations.
A ruling on genocide could take years to prove, but the injunction on the Gaza war that Pretoria has asked the ICJ for could come much sooner.
Daniel Machover, a London-based lawyer and international justice expert, told CNN that a provisional measure should be a quick decision that would be taken before there is a final ruling on genocide.
South Africa, he said, only needs to demonstrate that it has standing to bring the case, has acted on its duty to prevent genocide, that there is a “plausible legal argument” that violations of the Genocide Convention are or may be taking place, and that there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to Gaza residents before the court gives its final decision, such that the court needs to order Israel to stop the war.
Francis Boyle, an American human rights lawyer who won two requests at the ICJ under the Genocide Convention against Yugoslavia on behalf of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Democracy Now that based on his review of the documents submitted by South Africa, he believes Pretoria will indeed win “an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians.”
Boyle, based on his experience in the Bosnian case, said the order could come within a week of this week’s hearing.
Lieblich doubts that Israel would cease the fighting altogether should the court issue an injunction on the war. Instead, it could attack the legitimacy of the court and its judges, “considering that some of them are from states that don’t recognize Israel.” It would also matter whether the decision is unanimous, he added.
“The consequences of non-compliance might range from reputational harm and political pressure to sanctions and other measures by third states or further resolutions in the UN,” he said. “The key for Israel would probably be how its key allies would act in such a case.”
He added that while the threshold for an injunction is relatively low, in the main case, proving genocide requires two elements: proof that certain unlawful acts were committed, and that these acts were committed with specific intent to destroy a certain group.
“In past ICJ cases the court required a high threshold to prove such allegations,” he said. “Here the challenge for South Africa would be to prove that statements by some Israeli officials actually reflect the state’s ‘intent’ as a whole, and also that Israel’s actions on the ground were both unlawful and actually tied to an intent to destroy the group as such.”
Could a ruling have implications outside Israel?
The fallout of an ICJ ruling could spread beyond Israel, according to experts. It would not only embarrass Israel’s closest ally, the US, but could also deem Washington complicit in the alleged violation of the Genocide Convention.
“Even though the South African application focuses on Israel, it has huge implications for the United States, especially President Joe Biden and his principal lieutenants,” wrote John Mearsheimer, an American political scientist.
“Why? Because there is little doubt that the Biden administration is complicitous” in Israel’s war, he said.
A smoke plume erupts over Khan Younis from Rafah in the southern Gaza strip during Israeli bombardment on January 8.AFP/Getty Images
Biden has acknowledged that Israel is carrying out “indiscriminate” bombing in Gaza, but he has also vowed to protect the country. The US has bypassed Congress twice to sell military equipment to Israel during the war.
“Leaving aside the legal implications of his behavior, Biden’s name – and America’s name – will be forever associated with what is likely to become one of the textbook cases of attempted genocide,” Mearsheimer wrote.
Even if Israel ignores an order by the ICJ, there will be a legal obligation among other signatories to comply, said Machover. “So, anyone assisting Israel at that point will be in breach of that order.”
“We could have worldwide litigation if states don’t stop assisting Israel… there will be legal ripples across the world” he said.
The case could also have an impact on the Israeli public, Machover said. He believes that a significant number of Israelis “have not looked in the mirror” and lack awareness of the real impact of the war on Palestinians in Gaza.
The ICJ case, he hopes, would prompt the Israeli public to engage in “some sort of self-reflection.”
