World
Moscow ally Serbia cracks down on anti-war Russians living in the Balkan country
ROGACA, Serbia (AP) — When Elena Koposova signed an open letter against Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she didn’t expect a backlash in her newly adopted home state of Serbia.
After all, Serbia is formally seeking to join the European Union while adopting all the democratic values that go along with the membership, she thought. Now, she sees she was wrong.
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Two years after signing the letter, the 54-year-old Russian woman is appealing an expulsion order after she was declared a threat to the national security of Serbia and her residency permit was revoked. The beleaguered literature translator said the only reason she could think of is the anti-war petition that she had signed.
“I am not an activist, but I did sign an anti-war letter when the Russian aggression in Ukraine just started,” she said in an interview. “Even not being an activist, I couldn’t just be quiet about it. So, I just put my name on the open letter where it was said that the war is a crime, and we must all unite to stop it.”
Koposova is not alone. Serbia opened its borders in recent years to tens of thousands of Russians fleeing the government of President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. Russian pro-democracy activists in the Balkan country now say at least a dozen recently faced entry bans or had their residency permits revoked on grounds that they pose a threat to Serbia’s security.
At least eight others are afraid to speak publicly about their legal problems with the Serbian authorities, fearing it could only jeopardize their chance of remaining in the country together with their families, Russian anti-war campaigners say.
“It was very sudden, very shocking,” Koposova said of the moment she received the expulsion order, which did not explain the reason for the measure, only declaring that she poses “a threat to national security” and that she must leave the country within 30 days.
She and her husband have built a modern house on a piece of land in a remote village outside Belgrade where they live with two children, ages 6 and 14, who are attending local school and preschool classes.
Rights activists say the residency problems point to a close relation between Serbia’s increasingly autocratic president, Aleksandar Vučić, and Putin, despite Serbia’s formal EU bid. Vučić has refused to join Western sanctions against the traditional Slavic ally while allowing Moscow propaganda outlets such as RT and Sputnik to spread their narrative throughout the Balkans.
“The authorities in Belgrade and the authorities in Moscow are politically very close,” said Predrag Petrović, research coordinator at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, an independent think tank that has sought an explanation from the Interior Ministry about the measures against the Russians.
“People who are critical of Putin’s regime present a big threat to the regime in Moscow,” Petrović said. “This is why these people are being targeted by the Serbian authorities.”
Serbian officials so far haven’t commented about the reported cases involving Russian citizens, and Serbia’s Interior Ministry hasn’t responded to an email from The Associated Press requesting an interview or a comment on the issue.
Since the war in Ukraine started two years ago, many Russians came to Serbia because they don’t need visas to enter the friendly Balkan state, a potential stepping stone for possible future emigration to the West. Many were dodging the draft, while others, like the Koposova family, who came earlier, simply were fed up with Putin’s government and sought a better life somewhere outside of Russia.
Peter Nikitin, one of the founders of the pro-democracy Russian Democratic Society, himself spent two days at Belgrade airport last summer when his entry permit was revoked, although he has a Serbian wife and has lived in Serbia for seven years. Nikitin was later allowed into the country, but a legal procedure regarding his residency papers is ongoing.
“I have no doubt that this is being done on direct orders from Russia, either via the embassy or directly from Moscow,” insisted Nikitin, whose group has also organized protests against the war in Ukraine and demonstrations demanding freedom for political prisoners including Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader and a Putin critic who died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony in Russia.
Nikitin said other anti-war activists who faced scrutiny by Serbian authorities include fellow founder of the RDS group, Vladimir Volokhonsky, who now lives in Germany.
Also under sanctions were Yevgeny Irzhansky, who organized concerts by anti-Putin bands in Serbia and who has since moved to Argentina with his wife, and Ilya Zernov, a young Russian who was banned from returning to Serbia after being attacked by a far-right Serbian nationalist when he tried to erase a wall painting calling for death to Ukraine in downtown Belgrade.
Nikitin said that the goal of these measures is to intimidate anti-war campaigners.
“The only explanation for that is that they want to scare everyone,” he said. “Because if you can’t sign an anti-war letter, then there’s really nothing you can do. And it does have a chilling effect.”
“The point is the anti-war Russians are not protesting here against anyone in Serbia,” Nikitin said. “We are only concerned with our own country and with our neighboring country, which is suffering from our country right now.”
Serbia’s close relations with Russia date back centuries and the two countries also share a common Slavic origin and Orthodox Christian religion. Russia has supported Serbia’s bid to retain its claim on Kosovo, a former province that declared independence in 2008 with Western backing.
Serbia and Russia also maintain close links between their security services.
Former Serbian state security chief Aleksandar Vulin, who was sanctioned by the U.S. for aiding Russia’s “malign” influence in the Balkan region, recently received a decoration from the Federal Security Service of Russia for close cooperation between the two spy agencies. Vulin reportedly was involved in wiretapping prominent Russian opposition activists who met in Belgrade on the eve of the war in Ukraine and who were later jailed in Russia.
For Koposova, the decision by Serbian authorities to kick her out of the country, means that she and her family could lose everything if her appeal is rejected.
The family can’t go back to Russia because they have sold all their property, are now labelled as anti-Putin and her husband could be drafted into the army to fight in Ukraine, Koposova said.
“This house is our only house, the only house that our kids have,” she said, with tears in her eyes.
U.S. installations damaged in strikes
Iran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli assault on the country by launching drones and missiles at American targets across the Middle East, hitting embassies, killing U.S. soldiers, and damaging military bases and air defense infrastructure.
The New York Times has identified at least 17 damaged U.S. sites and other installations, several of which have been struck more than once since the war began. Our analysis is based on high-resolution, commercial satellite imagery, verified social media videos and statements by U.S. officials and Iranian state media.
The intensity of the retaliatory strikes has signaled that Iran was more prepared for the war than many in the Trump administration had anticipated, U.S. military officials say.
For this article, we are presenting satellite images to show the scale of the damage from Iran’s attacks on U.S. sites and installations. Many of these images have been circulating publicly on news sites and social media. But in cases where they have not been, we present the imagery we obtained from satellite image companies and show only a zoomed-out view of each location to limit the amount of detail viewable in those images.
Military sites
Iran has fired thousands of missiles and drones at both U.S. and allied country military sites across the region. The United States and its allies have intercepted most of them, U.S. officials say, but at least 11 American military bases or installations have been damaged — nearly half of all such sites in the region.
On Feb. 28, the first day of conflict, Iran targeted several U.S. military facilities, including Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia; Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring Base in Kuwait; and Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. base in the Middle East.
Satellite images show extensive damage to buildings and communication infrastructure at several locations.
A video taken on March 1 shows an Iranian drone exploding near sports facilities at Camp Buehring in Kuwait. No casualties were reported.
It is difficult to estimate the full cost of damage inflicted by Iran’s retaliatory strikes. A Pentagon assessment provided to Congress last week put the cost of the single strike on the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain on Feb. 28 at about $200 million, according to a congressional official.
On March 1, an Iranian drone struck a structure housing military personnel at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait, killing six American service members.
Satellite imagery shows the roof of that building partially collapsed.
An additional U.S. service member was killed in a separate Iranian strike on March 1 at a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, bringing the toll to seven, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
The pace of Iranian attacks has slowed since the war’s opening days, but the strikes have continued. Al Udeid Air Base, Ali Al Salem Air Base, Al Dhafra Air Base, Camp Buehring and the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters have all been struck more than once.
Missiles launched from Iran have flown as far away as Turkey. On March 4, NATO intercepted an Iranian ballistic missile headed toward Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, according to a senior U.S. military official. The base hosts a large U.S. Air Force contingent. Iran’s military denied firing the missile.
A second Iranian missile entered Turkish airspace and was shot down by NATO, according to a Turkish defense ministry statement on Monday.
Air defense and communication infrastructure
Among the costliest American losses to infrastructure have been to the air defense systems that protect U.S. and allied interests across the Middle East.
Iran has systematically targeted radar and communications systems, including components of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, which uses a radar to track and intercept incoming aerial threats throughout the region.
At Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, an important hub for the U.S. Air Force in Jordan, satellite imagery from February shows radar equipment at the base’s southern edge. An image taken two days after the war began shows severe damage to what appears to be an air defense sensor.
Military budget and contract documents indicate a single radar unit of this type can cost up to half a billion dollars.
A video from Feb. 28 shows an Iranian drone striking the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain, damaging what appears to be a communications radome, a weatherproof cover that protects radar and communication equipment.
Gulf nations have also bought air defense equipment from American companies and deployed them near critical infrastructure, including oil refineries. Those foreign radar systems share information with the U.S. military, forming what defense analysts describe as a de facto, expanded U.S. military sensor network.
Iran has targeted such sites where air defense equipment was recently observed, like the Al Ruwais facility in the United Arab Emirates. Satellite imagery of the site from last year shows a THAAD unit near storage structures.
A satellite image taken after Iranian attacks shows significant damage to the storage structures. The Times was unable to verify whether the mobile THAAD unit was inside the storage structures at the time of the strikes.
Near Umm Dahal in Qatar, a long range AN/FPS-132 radar — built at a cost of $1.1 billion to provide early warning coverage across a 3,000 mile radius — apparently sustained damage to its main radar structure, as seen in satellite imagery.
The full extent of damage to U.S. air defense and communication infrastructure remains unclear. Michael Eisenstadt, a director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the affected radars would be difficult to repair or replace.
But Seth G. Jones, a president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the damage would most likely not significantly degrade U.S. military capabilities in this war. “The U.S. has such redundancy in collecting intelligence and other information from sensor networks, whether it’s land-based radars, aircrafts or space-based systems,” he said.
Diplomatic sites
Iran has also struck nonmilitary U.S. targets such as the consulate in Dubai, and embassies in Kuwait City, Kuwait, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, forcing temporary closures. There have been no reported injuries in any of these attacks.
On Saturday night, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was targeted in a rocket attack. No casualties were reported. It was not immediately clear who was behind it and how much damage was caused. It is not included in The Times’s tally of damaged sites.
Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, said on March 7 that Iranian ballistic missile attacks had dropped 90 percent since the first day of the conflict and drone attacks by 83 percent. Despite the declining pace, Iran has continued to strike American targets across the region.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” accusing the Taliban of “unjustly” detaining Americans and other foreign nationals.
In his announcement on Monday, Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.”
“I am designating Afghanistan as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” Rubio said in a statement. “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions. These despicable tactics need to end.”
The secretary also called on the terror group to free a pair of Americans who are “unjustly detained” in Afghanistan.
IRAN REGIME CITED AS TRUMP ADMIN SET TO DESIGNATE SUDAN’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD A TERROR GROUP
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention.” (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“It is not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals,” he said. “The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever.”
Coyle, 64, was detained more than a year ago without charges by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to his family, noting that he still has not been charged. His family said he was legally working to support Afghan language communities as an academic researcher.
Habibi, a 38-year-old American citizen who was born in Afghanistan, was taken along with his driver from their vehicle in the capital of Kabul in August 2022 by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to the State Department.
The FBI said Habibi was previously Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation and worked for the Kabul-based telecommunications company Asia Consultancy Group. The FBI said the Taliban detained 29 other employees of the company but has released most of them.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.” (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Habibi has not been heard from since his arrest, and the Taliban has not disclosed his whereabouts or condition, according to the State Department and FBI. The Taliban has previously denied it detained Habibi.
The U.S. is also calling for the return of the remains of Paul Overby, an author who was last seen close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan in 2014, according to Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the situation.
The State Department could restrict the use of U.S. passports for travel to Afghanistan if the Taliban does not meet the U.S. government’s demands, the sources told the outlet.
A passport restriction of this kind is currently only in place for North Korea.
The Taliban called the decision by Rubio to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable, adding that it wanted to resolve the matter through dialogue.
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The Taliban called the decision to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable. (Reuters/Ali Khara)
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The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021 during the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country that ended the 20-year war in the region.
Rubio gave the “state sponsor of wrongful detention” designation to Iran late last month, just one day before the U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country. He warned that the U.S. could restrict travel to Iran over its detention of U.S. citizens, but there have not been any restrictions yet.
“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said at the time.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Gérard Araud, the highly connected former French ambassador to the United States, said Ursula von der Leyn is exceeding the powers of her mandate by tapping into foreign policy while pushing a German-like approach in an interview with Euronews.
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From Ukraine peace negotiations to the ongoing war in Iran, von der Leyen has managed to grow her role closer to that of a head of state in a move not without controversy.
Von der Leyen was the first EU official to call for a political transition in Iran in line with the goals of the United States and Israel, who have openly called for regime change in Tehran, and have urged the bloc to seek a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy.
“She’s [acting outside of] her competence,” Araud said on Euronews’ interview programme 12 Minutes With on Tuesday, a day after von der Leyen addressed a conference of EU ambassadors in which she declared the world order conceived after the Second World War to be over and never to return.
**”**The Treaties of the European Union, which is the basis of the EU, do not give her any special competence in foreign policy,” he added, calling her remarks “surprising.”
In the same conference, von der Leyen made headlines in Brussels after she suggested the EU would always defend the rules-based system, but it can “no longer be a custodian of the old-world order” or assume its rules will shelter Europe in the future.
Araud said her comments are problematic as the EU seeks to cement new partnerships across the world by presenting itself as the last bastion of international rules and respect for fundamental values in a brutal, increasingly chaotic world.
“Europeans are the last flag bearers of international law,” he said. “It’s a bit like someone committing adultery while saying ‘I am in favour of the principles of marital fidelity’.’
In 2019, as von der Leyen assumed her first mandate, she vowed to make the European Commission a geopolitical actor. But her power moves into foreign policy have not gone unnoticed across European capitals, with relations with Israel becoming a point of tension between EU member states, seen as supportive, critics and the Commission.
Her complicated relationship with Kaja Kallas, the European foreign policy chief and EU High Representative, has also led to a cacophony of views when it comes to foreign policy, an area where the EU historically struggles to unite 27 voices.
Her positioning since the start of the war in Iran “is not in line with Spain, and it’s not in line with France, it’s a German line,” Araud said.
Araud, who made a name for himself in European diplomatic circles after a stint as French ambassador in the US from 2014 to 2019, said Trump has miscalculated the ramifications of attacking Iran, which he described as far more complicated than Venezuela, where the US was easily able to swap the leadership to a more friendly one.
“What is the goal of this operation? At the beginning, it was regime change, then it was the nuclear programme, and now it’s a question of destroying the Iranian military apparatus,” Araud said. “He thought he would encounter a situation closer to Venezuela, but that hasn’t worked…Iran has made the choice of waiting.”
The former French ambassador to Israel said he also worries Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “dragged the US” into a war without a clear plan and cautioned that Israel will not stop in its main objective of becoming the main player in the region, even if that means another round of military escalation and broader conflict in the region.
“There is a trauma after October 7th. For Israel, it cannot go back to the (scenario) that existed before that, and now it is about a new regime in the Middle East. Until now, they have been successful. But the biggest obstacle remains Iran.”
Asked how the war could end, he said Trump could play the TACO card — an acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out — which could see the US President declaring victory and settling for a half-cooked resolution. Still, Araud said he does not believe Israel will leave its objectives incomplete when it comes to Iran. “I don’t think they will stop,” he said.
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