At least one killed and five others wounded in a shooting in California, a day after a white gunman killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York state.
At least one person has been killed and five others wounded after multiple shots were fired at a church in southern California, authorities said, just a day after a white gunman 10 people at a grocery store killed in New York state’s Buffalo city.
The shooting was reported shortly before 1:30pm on Sunday at the Geneva Presbyterian Church located in the town of Laguna Woods, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Los Angeles, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said on Twitter.
A man died at the scene and four others were critically wounded, while a fifth injured person suffered minor injuries, officials said. All the victims were adults.
Deputies detained a suspect, an adult male, and recovered a weapon at the scene, officials said. It was not immediately clear where inside the church the shooting had happened.
About 30 people witness the violence, said Carrie Braun, a sheriff’s spokesperson. The majority of those inside the church are believed to be of Taiwanese descent, she said.
Investigators were looking at many factors, including whether the bloodshed could be a hate crime and whether the gunman was known to the church community, she said.
authorities in California have not made any statement regarding a possible motive in the church shooting [David Swanson/Reuters]
More details were expected from a sheriff’s department news conference scheduled for 5pm local time.
Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were responding to the scene. The FBI was also sending agents to the scene to assist the sheriff.
The Orange County Fire Authority earlier said on Twitter that its firefighters and paramedics were “on scene and treating and transporting multiple patients.”
‘Upsetting and disturbing news’
The incident occurred in an area with a cluster of houses of worship, including Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist churches and a Jewish synagogue.
Pictures posted on social media appeared to show emergency vehicles lined up outside a church.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said on Twitter that he was closely monitoring the situation.
“No one should have to fear going to their place of worship. Our thoughts are with the victims, community, and all those impacted by this tragic event,” the tweet said.
The shooting came a day after an 18-year-old white gunman targeted a supermarket in a black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York state, killing 10 people [Joshua Bessex/AP Photo]
The shooting came a day after an 18-year-old white gunman targeted a supermarket in a black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York state, killing 10 people.
“This is upsetting and disturbing news, especially less than a day Democratic after a mass shooting in Buffalo,” tweeted Congresswoman Katie Porter, who represents Orange County in Washington.
“This should not be our new normal.”
Laguna Woods was built as a senior living community and later became a city. More than 80 percent of residents in the city of 18,000 people are at least 65.
The shooting throws the spotlight on mass shootings that have become a sadly familiar scene across the US.
Somali legislators have elected former leader Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as the country’s next president, following a long-overdue election on Sunday in the troubled Horn of Africa nation.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who served as Somalia’s president between 2012 and 2017, won the contest in the capital, Mogadishu, amid a security lockdown imposed by authorities to prevent deadly rebel.
After a marathon poll involving 36 candidates that was broadcast live on state TV, parliament officials counted over 165 votes in favor of former president Mohamud, more than the number required to defeat the incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
Supporters of Somalia’s new leader defied the curfew to pour onto the streets of Mogadishu, cheering and firing guns as it became clear that Mohamud had won the vote.
Many hope the vote will draw a line under a political crisis that has lasted well over a year, after Mohamed’s term ended in February 2021 without an election.
The president – who is also known as Farmaajo because of his appetite for Italian cheese – conceded defeat, and Mohamud was immediately sworn in.
The new leader struck a conciliatory tone in his acceptance speech from the airport compound in Mogadishu, which was patrolled by African Union (AU) peacekeepers.
“It is indeed commendable that the president is here standing by my side,” Mohamud said, referring to the former leader, who had sat with him as ballots were counted.
“We have to move ahead, we do not need grudges. No avenging,” the new president said.
War, drought
The 66-year-old Mohamud is the leader of the Union for Peace and Development party, which commands a majority of seats in both chambers.
A member of the Hawiye clan, one of Somalia’s largest, Mohamud is regarded by some as a statesman with a conciliatory approach. He is also well-known for his work as a civic leader and education promoter, including for his role as one of the founders of Mogadishu’s SIMAD University.
Mohamud had promised during the campaign that his government would be inclusive, acknowledging the mistakes of his previous government, which faced multiple rival corruption claims and was seen as aloof to the concerns of groups.
He now inherits several challenges from his predecessor, including an increasing number of attacks from the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab group and a devastating drought that threatens to drive millions into famine.
Two suicide bombings in killed March killed 48 people in central Somalia, while an attack on an AU base earlier this month 10 Burundian peacekeepers. The attack was the deadliest raid on AU forces in the country since 2015.
The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe unless early action is taken, with workers fearing a repeat of the devastating 2011 famine, which 260,000 people – half of them children under the age of six.
Mohamud will also need to repair the damage caused by months of political chaos and infighting, both at the level and between the central government and state authorities.
“It’s really been a lost year for Somalia,” said Omar Mahmood, an analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-ank.
“This long-awaited election has been divisive. Reconciliation is the most immediate challenge,” Mahmood told the AFP news agency.
‘Lesser of two evils’
Though just holding Sunday’s election was a success of sorts, many Somalis were sceptical of any real improvement.
Most of the 36 candidates were old faces recycled from the past who had done little to stem war and corruption, they complained. Votes are anyway influenced more by money changing hands than political platforms, Somalis and analysts say.
“Hassan Sheikh is not good but he is the lesser of the two evils. We hope Somalia will be better,” said Halima Nur, a mother-of-four in Mogadishu.
“We hope this time Hassan Sheikh Mohamud will improve and become a better leader. We hope Somalia will be peaceful, though this may take time,” said student Mohamed Ismail.
Somalia has not held a one-person, one-vote election in 50 years. Instead, polls follow a complex indirect model, whereby state legislatures and clan delegates pick lawmakers for the national parliament, who in turn choose the president. The third round of voting was decided by 328 legislators, and a simple majority was enough to choose a winner.
Analysts had predicted that incumbent president Mohamed would an uphill battle to be broad amid criticism from Somalis and foreign donors for trying to extend his tenure last year.
Somalia’s international partners had repeatedly warned that the election delays – caused by political infighting – were a dangerous distraction from the fight against al-Shabab fighters who have been trying to overthrow the government for more than a decade.
Mohamed, who rose to power in 2017 as a symbol of a Somali diaspora eager to see the country prosper after years of turmoil, leaves behind a country even more volatile than before he took over, and with rising al-Shabab attacks.
In his concession speech, Mohamed said his successor faced a “huge task” and pledged solidarity with him.
“Let us pray for the new president, it is a very tedious task,” he said. “We will be in solidarity with him.”
Somalia has endured conflict and clan battles with no strong central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The government has little control beyond the capital and the AU contingent guards an Iraq-style “Green Zone”.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned as Russia pummels positions in the east of Ukraine.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned and calls for more military support.
Russia pummels positions in the east of Ukraine as it seeks to encircle Ukrainian forces in the battle for Donbas.
Finland announces its intention to seek NATO membership, hours before Sweden’s governing party backed a plan to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.
(Al Jazeera)
Here are the latest updates:
Ukraine says Russia attempting to encircle its forces in Donbas
Russia is pummelling positions in the east of Ukraine, its defense ministry has said, as it seeks to encircle Ukrainian forces in the battle for Donbas and fend off a counteroffensive around the strategic Russian-controlled city of Izium.
Russia said it had struck Ukrainian positions in the east with missiles, targeting command centers and arsenals as its forces seek to surround Ukrainian units between Izium and Donetsk.
Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force said its troops had repelled 17 attacks and destroyed 11 pieces of Russian equipment while its air defenses shot down two Russian helicopters and five drones.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the situation in Donbas remained very difficult and Russian forces were still trying to salvage some kind of victory in a region riven by conflict since 2014. “They are not stopping their efforts,” he said.
NATO chief says Ukraine can win the war, calls for military support
At a meeting in Germany, the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said Ukraine could win the war, calling for more military support and fast-track approval of expected bids by Finland and Sweden to join the alliance.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not going as Moscow had planned,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
An assessment by British military intelligence found Russia had lost about a third of the ground combat force in February. Its Donbas offensive had fallen “significantly behind schedule” and was unlikely to make rapid advances during the coming 30 days, the assessment said.
Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Saturday condemned the attack on mourners at the East Jerusalem funeral procession of slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
In remarks delivered in Geneva, High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet called footage of the Israeli police’s attack on mourners at the funeral procession “shocking,” noting that at least 33 people were injured in the violence.
“The Israeli use of force, which was being filmed and broadcast live, appeared to be unnecessary and must be promptly and transparently investigated,” Bachelet said.
“There must be accountability for the terrible killing not just of Shireen Abu Akleh but for all the killings and serious injuries in the occupied Palestinian territory,” she added.
Her comments come after the killing of 51-year-old Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera journalist based in the Middle East. The reporter was shot in the head while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank.
Bachelet placed the journalist’s killing in the context of a slew of other killings of Palestinian people by Israeli security forces, including 48 deaths this year alone.
“As I have called for many times before, there must be appropriate investigations into the actions of Israeli security forces,” she said Saturday, noting that the “culture of impunity must end now.”
The brutality at the funeral process has also been condemned by other officials including United States Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“Deeply distressed by the images from Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral procession. The tragedy of her killing should be handled with the utmost respect, sobriety, and care,” Thomas-Greenfield tweeted last week.
The White House called the images from Abu Akleh’s funeral “deeply disturbing,” while President Biden has supported calls for an investigation into the violence.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
NATO expects the Nordic countries’ membership bid will not be hindered by Ankara, whose concerns will be addressed.
NATO and the United States say they are confident Turkey will not impede the membership of Finland and Sweden in the Western military alliance, despite Ankara expressing reservations.
Turkey laid out demands on Sunday on the sides of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin, saying it wanted the two Nordic countries to end support for Kurdish militant groups present on their territory, and to lift the ban on sales of some arms to Turkey .
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said his talks with Swedish and Finnish counterparts in Berlin had been helpful.
The two countries had made suggestions to respond to Ankara’s concerns, which Turkey would consider.
Cavusoglu added that he had provided proof that “terrorists” were present on their territory.
He singled out Sweden in particular, saying the Kurdish militant group the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), banned as “terrorist” by the US and European Union, had held meetings in Stockholm over the weekend.
In, he said, Turkey did not oppose the alliance’s policy of being open to all European nations that wish to apply.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he was confident “that we will be able to address the concerns that Turkey has expressed in a way that doesn’t delay the membership”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declined to go into details after closed-door conversations on the issue in Berlin, but echoed Stoltenberg’s position.
“I’m very confident that we will reach consensus on that,” Blinken told reporters, adding that NATO was “a place for dialogue.”
Finland, Sweden announced intention to join NATO
Finland and Sweden on Sunday took firm steps to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, breaking away from a tradition of non-alignment and neutrality.
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto confirmed that his country would apply to join, while Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats announced an official policy change that would pave the way for their country to apply within days.
“Today the Swedish Social Democratic Party took a historic decision to say yes to apply for a membership in the NATO defense alliance,” Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde tweeted.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has deteriorated the security situation for Sweden and Europe as a whole.”
Today the Swedish Social Democratic Party took a historic decision to say yes to apply for a membership in the NATO defense alliance. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has deteriorated the security situation for Sweden and Europe as a whole. https://t.co/UkEcFhfwXZ
Any decision on NATO enlargement requires approval by all 30 allies and their parliaments.
Ankara, a NATO member for 70 years, is under immense pressure to yield to the accession of Finland and Sweden, which would hugely strengthen the alliance in the Baltic Sea.
If Turkey’s objects are overcome, approval could come in just a matter of weeks, although ratification by allied parliaments could take up to a year, diplomats and officials have said.
Moscow has responded to the prospect of the Nordic states joining NATO by threatening retaliation, including unspecified “military-technical measures”.
Finland’s Niinisto, who spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, said their conversation was measured and did not contain any threats.
“[Putin] confirmed that he thinks it’s a mistake. We are not threatening you. Altogether, the discussion was very, could I say, calm and cool,” Niinisto said in an interview with CNN.
JERUSALEM (AP) — As Israel and the Palestinians wrangle over the investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, several independent groups have launched their own probes. One open-source research team said its initial findings lent support to Palestinian witnesses who said she was killed by Israeli fire.
The outcome of these investigations could help shape international opinion over who is responsible for Abu Akleh’s death, particularly if an official Israeli military probe drags on. Israel and the Palestinians are locked in a war of narratives that already has put Israel on the defensive.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American and a 25-year veteran of the satellite channel, was killed last Wednesday while covering an Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was a household name across the Arab world, known for documenting the hardship of Palestinian life under Israeli rule, now in its sixth decade.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said he had spoken to Abu Akleh’s family to express convoy and respect for her work “as well as the need to have an immediate and credible investigation” into her death.
Palestinian officials and witnesses, including who were with her, say she was killed by army fire. The military, after initially saying Palestinian gunmen might have been responsible, later backtracked and now says she may also have been hit by errant Israeli fire.
Israel has called for a joint investigation with the Palestinians, saying the bullet must be analyzed by ballistics experts to reach firm conclusions. Palestinian officials have refused, saying they don’t trust Israel, and have invited other countries to join the investigation. Human rights groups say Israel has a poor record of investigating wrongdoing by its security forces.
With the two sides at loggerheads over the Abu Akleh probe, several research and human rights groups have launched their own investigations.
Over the weekend, Bellingcat, a Dutch-based international consortium of researchers, published an analysis of video and audio evidence gathered on social media. The material came from both Palestinian and Israeli military sources, and the analysis looked at such factors as time stamps, the locations of the videos, shadows and a forensic audio analysis of gunshots.
The group found that while gunmen and Israeli soldiers were both in the area, the evidence supported witness accounts that Israeli fire killed Abu Akleh.
“Based on what we were able to review, the IDF (Israeli soldiers) were in the closest position and had the clearest line of sight to Abu Akleh,” said Giancarlo Fiorella, the lead researcher of the analysis.
Bellingcat is among a growing number of firms that use “open source” information, such as social media videos, security camera recordings and satellite imagery, to reconstruct events.
Fiorella acknowledged that the analysis cannot be 100% certain without such evidence as the bullet, weapons used by the army and GPS locations of Israeli forces. But he said the emergence of additional evidence typically bolsters preliminary conclusions and almost never overturns them.
“This is what we do when we don’t have access to those things,” he said.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said it too is its own analysis. The group last week played a key role in the military’s backtracking from its initial claims that Palestinian gunmen appeared to be responsible for her death.
The Israeli claim was based on a social media video in which a Palestinian gunman fires into a Jenin alleyway, and then other militants come running to claim they have shot a soldier. The army said that because no soldiers were hurt that day, the gunmen might have been referring to Abu Akleh, who was wearing a protective helmet and flak jacket.
A B’Tselem researcher went to the area and took a video showing that the Palestinian gunmen were some 300 meters (yards) away from where Abu Akleh was shot, separated by a series of walls and alleyways.
Dror Sadot, a spokeswoman for the group, said B’Tselem has begun gathering testimonies from witnesses and may attempt to reconstruct the shooting with videos from the scene. But she said at this point, it has not been able to come to a conclusion about who was behind the shooting.
Sadot said any bullet would need to be matched to the barrel of the gun. The Palestinians have refused to release the bullet, and it is unclear whether the military has confiscated the weapons used that day.
“The bullet on its own can’t say a lot” because it could have been fired by either side, she said. “What can be done is to match a bullet to the barrel,” she said.
The Israeli military did not respond to interview requests to discuss the status of its probe.
Jonathan Conricus, a former Israeli military spokesman and expert on military affairs, said reconstructing a gunfight in densely populated urban terrain is “very complex” and said forensic evidence, such as the bullet, is crucial to reach firm conclusions. He accused the Palestinian Authority of refusing to cooperate for propaganda purposes.
“Without the bullet, any investigation will only be able to reach partial and questionable conclusions,” Conricus said. “One might assume that the strategy of the Palestinian Authority is exactly that: to deny Israel the ability to clear its name, while leveraging global sympathy for the Palestinian cause.”
Meanwhile, Israeli police over the weekend launched an investigation into the conduct of the officers who attacked the mourners at Abu Akleh’s funeral, causing the pallbearers to nearly drop her coffin.
Newspapers on Sunday were filled with criticism of the police and what was portrayed as a public relations debacle.
“The footage from Friday is the very opposite of good judgment and patience,” commentator Oded Shalom wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily. “It documented a shocking display of unbridled brutality and violence.”
Nir Hasson, who covers Jerusalem affairs for the Haaretz daily, said the problems run much deeper than Israel’s image.
“This was one of the most extreme visual expressions of the occupation and the humiliation of the Palestinian people experience,” he wrote.
___
Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Matthew Lee in Berlin contributed to this report.
“We’ve seen four successive failures of the rains,” says Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian
A top United Nations humanitarian official has raised concern about people going hungry in a remote part of northern Kenya, joining calls for the international community to commit more resources to address the wider region’s crisis crisis.
Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said he saw families in Kenya’s Turkana region that have nothing left after their animals starved to death. Turkana is an epicenter of the drought affecting parts of the East African country.
A mother helps her malnourished son stand after he collapsed near their hut in the village of Lomoputh in northern Kenya, Thursday, May 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
“The world’s attention is elsewhere, and we know that,” Griffiths said during a visit to the region Thursday. “And the world’s misery has not left Turkana, and the world’s rains have not come to Turkana, and we’ve seen four successive failures of the rains.”
Griffiths and other humanitarian representatives visited a pastoralist community in Turkana’s Lomuputh area as part of efforts to draw attention to the humanitarian challenge stemming from the drought.
“Lomoputh deserves our attention,” Griffiths said, noting that children scavenging for fruit to eat need help “to have the slightest possibility to survive to the next day.”
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta declared the drought conditions a national disaster in September 2021.
Some residents of Lomoputh spoke to The Associated Press of their desperate need for food aid.
“I have not received any help, and this child has not eaten anything since yesterday,” Jecinta Maluk, a mother of five children, said. “This is the main problem.”
The extreme drought in Kenya, where 3.5 million people are affected by severe food insecurity and acute malnutrition, has excacerated the factors causing people to go hungry.
The UN warned earlier this year that an estimated 13 million people are facing severe hunger in the wider Horn of Africa region as a result of persistent drought conditions. Malnutrition rates are high in the region, and drought conditions are affecting pastoral and farming communities.
Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya face the driest conditions recorded since 1981, the UN World Food Program reported in February.
Somalia is seen as particularly vulnerable. About 250,000 people there died from hunger in 2011, when the UN declared a famine in some parts of the country. Half of them were children.
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Sweden is also expected to follow Finland’s application to join the NATO military alliance.
The Finnish government has officially announced its intention to join NATO, as Sweden’s ruling party held a determining meeting that could pave the way for a joint application to the military alliance.
Less than three months after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Finland’s announcement on Sunday is a stunning reversal of Finland’s policy on military non-alignment dating back more than 75 years.
Sweden, which has been militarily non-aligned for more than two centuries, is expected to follow a suit with a similar announcement, possibly on Monday.
“This is a historic day. A new era is opening,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto told reporters at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Sanna Marin.
NATO membership needs to be approved and ratified by all 30 members of the alliance.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed last-minute objects, but NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday that Ankara was not opposed to the two countries’ bids.
“Turkey made it clear that its intention is not to block membership,” Stoltenberg told reporters virtually after a NATO alliance foreign ministers meeting in Berlin.
“I am confident we’ll be able to find common ground, consensus on how to move on membership issues,” Stoltenberg said, adding that he was in touch with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Cavusoglu, meanwhile, lauded Finland’s conciliatory approach in their talks, but criticized Sweden’s foreign minister for “provocative” statements.
Turkey’s objectives, directed in particular at Stockholm, focus on what it considers to be both countries’ leniency towards the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken nonetheless insisted he was “very confident that we will reach consensus” on the two countries’ NATO bids.
Niinisto said he was “prepared to have a new discussion with President Erdogan about the problems he has raised”.
Finland’s will convene to debate the membership proposal on Monday.
Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto attends a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Berlin, Germany, May 14, 2022 [Michael Sohn/AP]
“We hope the will confirm the decision to apply for NATO membership during the coming days. It will be based on a strong mandate,” premier Marin said.
A vast majority of Finnish members of parliament backed the decision after Marin’s Social Democratic Party on Saturday said it was in favor of joining.
“Hopefully, we can send our applications next week together with Sweden,” Marin had said on Saturday.
The two Nordic countries broke their strict neutralities after the end of the Cold War by joining the EU and becoming partners to NATO in the 1990s, solidifying their affiliation with the West.
But the concept of full NATO membership was a non-starter in the countries until the war in Ukraine saw public and political support for joining the alliance soar.
May 15—Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch describes the feeling of complex emotions about Ukraine, the country where she spent a fateful three years as a US ambassador.
She has a strong, personal connection to Ukraine and its people, who are suffering the ravages of the unprovoked war Russia is waging as President Vladimir Putin seeks to recapture some Soviet-era dominance in the region.
Ukraine also became a political battlefield for Yovanovitch, 63, who was drawn into shadowy machinations that made her the target of a smear campaign, thrust her into an unwanted spotlight and abruptly cut short
her mission to help the country solidify its democracy.
That led to her scathing testimony in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
Yovanovitch, now retired, observes Ukraine from US shores rather than working as a diplomat within its borders. But she is painfully aware of the deep wounds Russia is inflicting on a nation seeking to move beyond its tumultuous past.
She and worked in Kyiv, which has been under constant siege, and knows Ukrainians who have become the consequence of the Russian onslaught.
“There’s that saying that when many people die, it’s a statistic. When one person dies, it’s a tragedy,” Yovanovitch said in a phone interview. “That’s what it’s like for me, and what it’s like for every Ukrainian who knows somebody who’s been killed in this war of choice by Putin.”
Yovanovitch will talk about her 33-year foreign service career, world politics and her recently published memoir Lessons from the Edge at a Wednesday fundraiser for Global Santa Fe, a local nonprofit previously known as the Santa Fe Council on International Relations. The sold-out event will be held at La Fonda on the Plaza.
No victory for Russia
Despite Russia’s efforts to intensify the bombing, missile strikes and overall brutality, Yovanovitch said the world should prepare for a lengthy war, crediting Ukrainians’ fighting spirit and steely resolve.
“The Ukrainian people are not going to give up — we’ve seen that in terms of their morale, how they are fighting, their capabilities and their successes,” Yovanovitch said. “I think ultimately the Russians will be defeated, but it’s going to take some time.”
When Russia might concede defeat is still an open question, she said. Although the exact death toll for Russian solders is unknown, it is thought to be higher in the first 2 1/2 months of this war than in the decadelong Soviet Afghan War, she said.
Ukraine officials have estimated 25,000 Russian troops have been killed, though Russian leaders put the deaths closer to 1,300 as of late March. The Soviets suffered about 15,000 deaths in Afghanistan.
As a dictator, Putin is willing to absorb the losses, but they aren’t going unnoticed in Russia, Yovanovitch said.
Putin signaled on Victory Day the war wasn’t going his way, she said, referring to Russia’s yearly May 9 celebration of the Soviets defeating the Nazis.
Some experts speculated Putin would use the day to proclaim a victory over Ukraine, announce the annexation of Donbas in the east and declare the invasion a war instead of a “special military operation,” which would trigger a national military draft.
But none of that happened, Yovanovitch said.
Putin never mentioned Ukraine in his speech.
The US and other countries supplying weapons and security systems have helped Ukraine fend off the invaders, but the Ukrainians themselves are in the caldron, standing up to relentless assaults and mounting atrocities, she said.
As horrible as the devastation is to watch, the Ukrainians are the ones who decide whether to carry on, and so far they are unwavering, even in the face of civilians being killed in Bucha and Mariupol, Yovanovitch said.
“What we’re seeing is a hardening of Ukrainian will,” she said. “Certainly the people I talk to in Ukraine are furious.”
Putin wants empire, not alliance
Some analysts blame NATO’s post-Cold War expansion, which reeled in many former Soviet Eastern Bloc countries, for spurring Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, a country he deems a Russian appendage and not an independent nation that should ever join Western alliances such as NATO.
NATO co-opting countries the Kremlin once controlled aggravated Putin’s long-simmering anger about the Soviet Union’s collapse, which he has called the greatest tragedy of the
20th century, they say.
Yovanovitch doesn’t entirely agree.
Putin bemoaning the Soviet Union’s demise has been a big factor in his push to rebuild at least some of the old empire since he came into power two decades ago, she said.
But the growing antagonism between Russia and NATO stems from Putin’s autocratic aversion to democracy and desire to expand his sphere of power, not from the West throwing salt on the wounds, Yovanovitch said.
The West didn’t engage in a spirited victory day to celebrate the Cold War’s end, instead of offering Russia economic aid and help in safeguarding and eliminating nuclear weapons as part of deescalating the arms race, she said.
Russia was invited to become the eighth nation in the G-8 and participated in some of NATO’s major military exercises. Putin and NATO leaders also met for years to discuss issues of concern.
“We made a lot of effort to include Russia in the community of nations after the fall of the Soviet Union,” Yovanovitch said. “There were some people imagining that Russia ultimately would join NATO.”
But from the start, Putin showed a pinchant for ruling with an iron fist, cracking down on any perceived opposition, both in Russia and in he still considered within his control, she said.
He carpet bombed Chechnya in 1999 and ordered Russia to invade Georgia in 2008.
In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and instigated the armed conflict in the eastern region between separatist rebels — whom the Kremlin backs — and the Ukrainian government, Yovanovitch noted.
If the West is guilty of anything, it’s not taking a stronger stance against these aggressive actions, which emboldened Putin and made an all-out invasion of Ukraine more likely, Yovanovitch said.
Putin was banking on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy being a weak leader, the West being too divided to oppose the attack and the Russian military prevailing, Yovanovitch said. He was wrong on all three counts, she said.
It’s important now for nations to band together and make it clear to Putin that Russia doesn’t get to forcefully take Ukraine or any other country — otherwise, he’ll keep trying to seize more, putting the entire international order at risk, Yovanovitch said, adding, “This is a dangerous pattern, and it has to be stopped.”
Beginning of the end
Born in Canada and raised in Connecticut, Yovanovitch is the daughter of immigrants who fled a Soviet regime and later the Nazis.
In her memoir, she describes her strict but caring parents as instilling a sense of caution that made her a staunch rule-follower, a trait that would serve her well as a diplomat who had to comply with the foreign policies set by various administrations.
Her first foreign post was in Ontario in 1986, followed by stints in Moscow, London, Somalia, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Her first posting in Ukraine was from 2001 to 2004 as a deputy chief in the US Embassy.
President Barack Obama appointed her as US ambassador to Ukraine in 2016, and she began carrying out anti-corruption initiatives backed by Democrats and Republicans.
Her efforts earned her, including Ukraine’s chief prosecutor enemies, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was supposed to be an ally in fighting corruption.
Instead, Lutsenko stalled anti-corruption efforts on his end and was later accused of undermining the Ukrainian bureau investigating those crimes.
He also teamed up with Rudy Giuliani to find incriminating evidence on Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine. In a reported quid pro quo, Lutsenko agreed to investigate the Bidens if Giuliani could find a way to get rid of Yovanovitch.
By all accounts, Giuliani and his associates led a smear campaign against Yovanovitch, claiming she bad-mouthed the president to foreign leaders, defied his orders and told Ukrainian officials who they could prosecute.
The allegations shocked her longtime colleagues who knew her as a steadfast professional who was always neutral and never voiced political opinions.
Trump allies vilified her, calling her disloyal and corrupt, and amped up the pressure to have her fired. In April 2019, Trump ordered Yovanovitch removed from her Ukraine post.
Later, during his infamous phone call with Zelenskyy, Trump called Yovanovitch “bad news” and said she’s “going to go through some things.” This was the conversation in which Trump asked Zelenskyy to look into Joe Biden.
Testifying to Congress during the impeachment inquiry, Yovanovitch said she was “shocked and devastated” that Trump would disparage her like that to a foreign president.
She told lawmakers she expected shady Ukrainian interests would dislike her anti-corruption efforts, but she never thought they would find Americans to partner with to oust a US ambassador. Suddenly, following the rules and doing her job made her a liability, she said.
In her interview with The New Mexican, Yovanovitch said she understood a president can recall an ambassador at any time, but there was no reason to tarnish her reputation.
She said beneath her stoic public face during this dark period was a swirl of emotions — she was angry, afraid, bewildered and disappointed. And she felt betrayed by her bosses who refused to defend her.
“I had done nothing wrong and yet I was being removed from office, and it was a smear campaign,” Yovanovitch said.
When Trump was elected, she had hoped he would let the established diplomatic apparatus run in places like Ukraine without meddling, she said.
Then came the 2018 Helsinki summit in which Trump went into a closed-door meeting with Putin.
When they emerged, Trump told the gathering Putin denied Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, and he believed him, even though US intelligence said otherwise.
Yovanovitch wrote in her book this display unsettled her so much she couldn’t finish her french fries. When asked about this passage, she elaborated.
“An American president toadying up to a Russian president,” she said. “Trump was willing to take Putin’s word for it over our intelligence services, publicly. I found that shameful, disturbing, and I wondered what would come next.”
Little did she know her ouster would come the following year.
After she lost her ambassadorship, she became a State Department fellow at Georgetown University. Then after testifying in impeachment hearings, she decided it was time to part ways with the agency.
“I felt like I was leaving on my terms, rather than being hounded out by forces not friendly to me,” Yovanovitch said. “I think I served the people of the United States well. I also brought some good to the countries in which I served.”
