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Updated April 6, 2023 at 7:06 p.m. EDT|Published April 6, 2023 at 2:38 a.m. EDT
French President Emmanuel Macron met with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing on April 6, as European leaders urged China to help stop Russia’s war in Ukraine. (Video: Naomi Schanen/Reuters)
Efforts by U.S. diplomats to gain access to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained last week by Russian authorities over espionage accusations that he and his employer have denied and that the U.S. government has classified as “wrongful,” remain unsuccessful.
“We still have not been able to get consular access,” White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday. “And that’s an issue that we continually bring up through our embassy in Moscow with the Russians.”
“It’s inexcusable,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing as European leaders try to shore up ties with China, a major trade partner for the continent, and to persuade Beijing to use its relationship with Moscow to help stop the war in Ukraine. Macron’s visit follows a meeting between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin last month in Moscow.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
The Biden administration says classified documents detailing U.S. and NATO plans to support an upcoming Ukrainian offensive appeared on Twitter and Telegram, the messaging app popular in Russia, the New York Times reports. The documents are five weeks old, and focus on what materiel Ukraine may require for the offensive. They do not outline any battle plans. Asked about the Times report, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh acknowledged that social media posts had come to the Pentagon’s attention and were under review.Microsoft will pay a $2,980,265.86 settlement relating to a violation of sanctions levied by the United States against Russia. According to a Treasury Department statement, the tech giant exported more than $12 million worth of software and services to actors sanctioned by the U.S. government; these actions “facilitated the operations of, or otherwise benefited [sanctioned figures] including major Russian enterprises that generated substantial revenues for the Russian state.” The low settlement amount reflects the fact that Microsoft self-reported the violation and undertook “significant remedial measures,” according to the Treasury statement.China has a “major role to play in building peace,” Macron said Thursday ahead of talks in Beijing, where he was joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Xi said China and France urge “restraint from all international partners” to avoid an escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.Sitting across from Xi, Macron said Russia’s war in Ukraine has ended decades of peace in Europe. “I know I can count on you to bring Russia back to reason and everyone back to the negotiating table,” he told the Chinese leader.“We count on China not to provide” military equipment to Russia, von der Leyen said Thursday, according to Reuters. She held a meeting with Xi and Macron, which she described as an opportunity for European-Chinese dialogue.“Intense battles” continue for control of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka in eastern Ukraine, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement on Facebook on Thursday.Russian prosecutors requested a 25-year prison sentence for Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician, author and Washington Post opinions contributor, one of his attorneys told local news outlets Thursday. Kara-Murza has been imprisoned in Moscow since April 2022 on charges of treason and spreading ‘false’ news about Russia’s military by speaking out against the war on Ukraine.U.S. journalist detained
The Moscow City Court is set to hear an appeal from Gershkovich’s defense on April 18, a court press service told Russian news agencies. The hearing is expected to be recorded but closed to the public. The Wall Street Journal described the espionage charges against him as bogus, and international rights groups and media organizations have called for his release.More than 200 Russian journalists and activists also demanded Gershkovich’s immediate release. In a letter, the group called the case “preposterous and unjust.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the American journalist was “wrongfully detained.”Global impact
Putin hosted Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a staunch Russian ally, in Moscow on Thursday, according to Russian state-owned news agency Tass. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked about the potential deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, said the plan is a response to NATO moving closer to Russia’s borders.Moscow and Minsk have begun creating the Union State Security Concept, a document outlining Russia and Belarus’s cooperation goals, including in defense and security, according to Tass. The document was being drafted in response to “growing tensions on our states’ external borders and the sanctions and information war against us,” Putin said. “If necessary, we will use everything to defend our Union State and our people,” Lukashenko said.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said “the U.S. and the military bloc of NATO shoulder unshirkable responsibilities on the Ukraine crisis.” The comments came during a Thursday briefing after Mao was asked to respond to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s calls for China to condemn Russian aggression. “NATO is in no position to criticize or pressure China,” she said.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov landed in Ankara on Thursday to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to discuss the war in Ukraine and energy issues, among other topics, Tass reported. Turkey last week approved Finland’s application to join NATO — much to Russia’s chagrin — but has continued to withhold support for Sweden to enter the military alliance.The Swedish Prosecution Authority said it remains unclear who was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea last year. The circumstances “are difficult to investigate,” said Mats Ljungqvist, the public prosecutor leading an investigation into the explosions that hit the pipelines built to carry natural gas from Russia to Europe.Analysis from our correspondents
Russia’s Lefortovo prison is a relic of Soviet control that never left: Gershkovich is being held at Lefortovo prison in eastern Moscow. The facility was built as a military penitentiary by czarist authorities in 1881. Today, it is used largely by the KGB’s successor, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, as a pretrial detention facility, Adam Taylor writes.
The prison is known for the isolation that it places on prisoners, Taylor reports. “The arrest of an accredited foreign journalist on seemingly far-fetched espionage charges is an echo of the Soviet Union’s Cold War tactics — and a move his employer and those who know him say is preposterous and politically motivated,” he writes.
Natalia Abbakumova and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
