NCSEJ WEEKLY NEWS BRIEF Washington, D.C. June 3, 2016

Slovakia, Lithuania open pro- parliamentary caucuses Jerusalem Post, May 29, 2016 http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Slovakia-Lithuania-open-pro-Israel- parliamentary-caucuses-455391

Pro-Israel caucuses will be formed this week in the parliaments of Slovakia and Lithuania, the result of an initiative by the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus, World Jewish Congress and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

The caucuses, which will be formed on Monday and Wednesday, will be the 34th and 35th such caucuses formed in countries around the world by the Israel Allies Foundation.

The Israeli delegation will include Shas MK Ya’acov Margi, Knesset Christian Allies Caucus director Josh Reinstein, World Jewish Congress-Israel chairman Shai Hermesh, World Jewish Congress-Israel director, Sam Grundwerg, Israel Allies Foundation European director Andras Patkai, retired IDF colonel Moshe Leshem, Ambassador to Slovakia Zvi Aviner Vapni and Ambassador to Lithuania Amir Maimon.

The delegation will travel to Bratislava and Vilnius to meet with members of parliament and meet with Jewish and Christian leaders in Slovakia and Lithuania to mobilize support for Israel through faith-based diplomacy.

They will meet with high-ranking politicians including MP Marek Krajci, who is arranging the meetings for the delegation in the Slovak parliament. The chairmen of the Israel Allies Caucus in the Slovak parliament will be elected within the group in a democratic process. The Lithuanian Israel Allies Caucus will be chaired by MP Emanuelis Zingeris. MPs from both the opposition and coalition parties will take part in the meetings to further their nations’ relationship with the State of Israel.

“It is heartening to witness the support for Israel among parliamentarians in Slovakia and Lithuania – countries with a rich Jewish heritage which was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust,” said Hermesh, a former Kadima MK. “As anti-Semitism manifested in hatred of Israel continues to increase in Europe, the support from our friends in new member states of the EU becomes especially important.”

Reinstein added: “As Western European countries continue to turn their backs on the Jewish state, we see that Eastern European countries are more supportive than ever of the only democracy in the Middle East – Israel.”

Putin to hold talks with Israeli PM in next week TASS, June 1, 2016 http://tass.ru/en/politics/879442

Russian President will hold talks next week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamini Netanyahu who will arrive in Moscow for a visit.

According to Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the situation in Syria will be one of the issues discussed at the talks.

"Of course, (the situation in Syria will be discussed)," he said answering a question on the subject.

The Kremlin spokesman noted that this visit was planned well in advance. "The agenda is quite extensive," he said. "The relations (between and Israel) are advanced and partnership in various fields. There is a huge potential in economy, there are extensive grounds for cooperation in security and international politics." The meeting's agenda

Putin and Netanyahu will discuss the situation in and around Syria and the current state and prospects of the Israeli-Palestinian settlement, the Kremlin press service said.

"A detailed exchange of views on regional problems is expected as well, above all, in the context of efforts to combat international terrorism," the press service said. "Among the most important issues is the situation in Syria and around it as well as the current state and prospects of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement."

The Kremlin noted that the talks between Putin and Netanyahu will be held on June 7. The Israeli prime minister will pay an official visit to Russia timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic relations. "During the forthcoming meeting it is planned to discuss the progress in implementing the agreements reached during Benjamin Netanyahu’s working visit to Moscow on April 21, 2016," the press service said. "Special attention is expected to be paid to the topical issues of bilateral cooperation, including the prospects of further boosting the trade and economic cooperation, cultural and humanitarian ties."

Ukraine Proposes Working With U.S. To Replace Russian Rockets RFE/RL, June 1, 2016 http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-proposes-working-with-united-state-replace-russian-rocket- engines-military-satellites/27771660.html

Ukraine has proposed that Kyiv and the jointly develop and produce a rocket engine to replace Russian rocket engines currently used to launch U.S. military satellites.

The head of Ukraine's Space Agency, Lyubomyr Sabadosh, said on May 31 that he proposed the plan to replace Russian RD-180 rocket engines, which the U.S. Congress has ordered to be phased out by 2019, on a visit to the United States last month.

"We have proposed using our capabilities for implementing a joint design solution. ... It's quite a complicated task, but we can cope with it," he said.

Sabadosh said the United States expressed an interest in the idea. He said further talks will be held in Kyiv in November and will address the time frame for development, conducting tests, and funding.

Congress directed the U.S. military to find alternatives to the Russian rocket engines in 2014 after relations between the United States and Russia deteriorated sharply with Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

The Pentagon has said U.S. private contractors need time and incentives to develop alternatives, however, and trying to replace the Russian engine immediately would be costly.

U.S. Ambassador welcomes adoption of constitutional amendments on judicial reform Ukraine, June 2, 2016 http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/347627.html

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has welcomed the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the judicial reform and said the United States is ready to support its implementation to transform judiciary into an independent institution.

"A historic day. Welcome Rada's approval of constitutional amendments on the judicial reform, a big step forward on Ukraine's European path. The U.S. is ready to support implementation and work ahead to transform judiciary into an independent accountable and efficient institution," he wrote on his Twitter page.

Kremlin denies allegations Russia is building up troops on Belarus border TASS, June 2, 2016 http://tass.ru/en/politics/879670

The Kremlin calls absurd the very wording of statements alleging that Russia is reinforcing its contingent on the border with Belarus, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"It would be a strong exaggeration to speak about the strengthening of some alignment of forces on the border with Belarus, the very presentation of the problem as ‘strengthening on the border with Belarus’ seems absurd to me," Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

He said Russian Defense Ministry officials "will be able to explain movement of this units or the other". Peskov admitted that he knew nothing about reports about beefing up of Russian armed forces on the border with Belarus.

Some media outlets reported earlier that the 28th separate motor rifle brigade had been moved from Yekaterinburg (in the Urals) to the Bryansk region for permanent stationing. The source of these reports is a group of volunteers that was investigating into the situation in Crimea, Donbass and Syria, and which draws conclusions on redeployment of troops on the basis of analyzing social networking systems.

Belarusian Opposition Leader, Associates Detained RFE/RL, June 2, 2016 http://www.rferl.org/content/belarus-lyabedzka-opposition-leader-detained/27774624.html

A Belarusian opposition leader has been detained "brutally" by police in a town some 110 kilometers east of the capital of Minsk and charged with illegally distributing printed material.

Anatol Lyabedzka, leader of the opposition United Civic Party (AHP), and two associates were taken into police custody in Krupki on June 2.

Speaking to RFE/RL, an AHP spokeswoman accused the police of brutality when arresting Lyabedzka, and Dzyanis Krasochka, a party activist, and Henadz Veratsinski, a photographer.

Hanna Krasulina said the three were facing charges of illegally distributing printed materials.

According to Krasulina, Lyabedzka was in Krupki to try to organize a public roundtable discussion on how to tackle local unemployment.

Lyabedzka has been fined and briefly jailed several times in the past for his opposition activities.

Moscow Police to Interrogate Ekho Moskvy Editor for Publishing Navalny Blog Moscow Times, May 31, 2016 http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/moscow-police-to-interrogate-ekho-moskvy-editor-for- publishing-navalny-blog/571097.html

Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station has said that police will interrogate him after a blog post by opposition leader was published on the station's website.

“Employees of the Interior Ministry came to Ekho about a court case against Navalny — they want to interrogate the editor-in-chief for publishing his blog post,” Venediktov tweeted on Tuesday.

The Interior Ministry have filed a court case on behalf of former investigator Pavel Karpov, accusing Navalny of slander.

The Interior Ministry filed the case because Navalny wrote about a film in his blogs and social media pages that accused Karpov of being involved in the death of Hermitage Capital employee Sergei Magnitsky in 2009. Magnitsky died in an isolation cell in a Moscow prison in 2009.

His colleagues accused the Russian authorities of arresting Magnitsky after he had uncovered corruption scandals, which involved — among others — employees of the Interior Ministry. In 2012, the United States approved the so called “Magnitsky Bill” — a list of sanctions on individuals believed to be involved in his death. Pavel Karpov is among them.

Baku Ordered To Pay Compensation To Prominent Rights Defenders RFE/RL, June 2, 2016 http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan-compensation-leyla-yunus-arif-yunus-echr/27774701.html

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Azerbaijan to pay compensations to human rights activists Leyla Yunus and her husband, Arif Yunus, for "inadequate medical treatment" that led to "prolonged mental and physical suffering."

In a ruling made public on June 2, the Strasbourg-based court ordered Baku to pay 15,000 euros ($17,000) to each applicant.

Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus were arrested in summer 2014 and sentenced to 8 1/2 and 7 years in prison, respectively, in August 2015 for alleged economic crimes.

They were released on health grounds late last year and their prison sentences reduced to suspended sentences.

The sentencings were denounced as a travesty of justice by the two defendants and international human rights groups.

Prominent Kyrgyz Rights Defender Called In For Questioning RFE/RL, June 1, 2016 http://www.rferl.org/content/kyrgyzstan-rights-defender-questioning-ukmk/27772164.html

A prominent Kyrgyz rights defender who has sued President Almazbek Atambaev says she's been called in for questioning by the State Committee for National Security (UKMK).

Tolekan Ismailova, the director of the Bishkek-based Bir Duino-Kyrgyzstan (One World-Kyrgyzstan) rights group, told RFE/RL on June 1 that she refused to comply with the UKMK request, saying it was invalid without an official subpoena.

According to Ismailova, the action by the UKMK was linked to her professional activities.

Ismailova and another well-known Kyrgyz rights defender, Aziza Abdyrasulova, have recently sued Atambaev for publicly calling the two women "saboteurs" last month.

Ismailova's group and Abdyrasulova have criticized Kyrgyz authorities for failing to review a number of criminal cases linked to deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan in 2010.

On April 29, Ismailova's group strongly criticized a move by the authorities to seize a home belonging to Azimjan Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek political activist serving a life sentence after being convicted on charges linked to the deadly ethnic clashes.

Askarov has insisted the case is politically motivated.

Ukraine's corrupt judges targeted in constitutional reforms By Alexei Kalmykov and Alessandra Prentice Reuters, June 2, 2016 http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-parliament-reform-idUKKCN0YO1QB

Ukraine's parliament approved on Thursday judicial reforms that Western backers say are needed to fight corruption, in the first constitutional vote the ruling coalition has pushed through since an overhaul of the government in April.

Bribery in the court system is seen as a major obstacle to Ukraine's broader reform effort under a $17.5 billion International Monetary Fund bailout programme that political infighting has threatened to derail.

The bill, which aims to curb political influence on the appointment of judges and limit their immunity in case of malpractice, was backed by 335 lawmakers, 35 more than the required votes needed for changes to the constitution.

The result was welcomed by Ukraine's international backers, including the United States and the European Union, which along with the International Monetary Fund have urged Kiev to step up its fight against corruption.

The IMF, which is in negotiations with Ukraine for disbursing more aid worth $1.7 billion (, has threatened to suspend such assistance if matters do not improve.

"We will return to Ukrainians the right to truth, the right to justice, fight for a fair trial in Ukraine," President Petro Poroshenko told parliament before the vote.

"In the last two weeks my desk has been littered with appeals from our partners, EU leaders, the United States and Canada, Australia and Japan, addressing me and you, members of parliament. Don't stop the pace of decisive reforms and implement judicial reform."

Senior EU officials Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn said they hoped the vote would pave the way for other changes to the constitution, including a law to give greater independence to regions that is required under the 'Minsk' peace deal with pro-Russian separatists.

"We hope today's vote will create momentum for the adoption in the final reading of the pending constitutional amendments related to decentralization and other important reforms," they said in a joint statement.

The judicial legislation was opposed by some lawmakers, including the servicewoman Nadiya Savchenko, who returned home last week after spending nearly two years in a Russian jail and is viewed by many Ukrainians as a national heroine.

In an emotional appeal she asked the parliament to keep its hands off the constitution, "or else the country will blow up like a hand grenade". She did not take part in the vote.

The reform is aimed at making judges more professional. It partly limits their immunity from prosecution, which used to be unconditional. From now on they will be appointed by a judicial council rather than parliament, which is intended to shield them from political meddling.

"Today we have a historic opportunity to carry out this judicial reform, to break the back of the current corrupt judicial system," the head of the opposition Radical Party Oleh Lyashko said.

Ukraine Honors Nationalist Whose Troops Butchered Jews By Cnaan Liphshiz JTA, May 31, 2016 http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/341578/ukraine-honors-nationalist-whose-troops-butchered- jews/

Amid a divisive debate in Ukraine on state honors for nationalists viewed as responsible for anti-Semitic pogroms, the country observed the first minute of silence in memory of Symon Petliura — a 1920s statesman blamed for the murder of 50,000 Jewish compatriots.

The minute was observed on May 25, the 90th anniversary of Petliura’s assassination in Paris. National television channels interrupted their programs and broadcast the image of a burning candle for 60 seconds, Ukraine’s Federal News Agency reported.

A French court acquitted Sholom Schwartzbard, a Russia-born Jew, of the murder even though he admitted to it after the court found that Petliura had been involved in or knew of pogroms by members of his militia fighting for Ukrainian independence from Russia in the years 1917-1921. Fifteen of Schwartzbard’s relatives perished in the pogroms.

Separately, the director of Ukraine’s Institute of National Remembrance, Vladimir Vyatrovich, said in a statement on Monday that Kiev will soon receive a street named after two other Ukrainian nationalists who are widely believed to bear responsible for lethal violence against Jews: Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. Another street is to be named for Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Polish Jewish teacher who was murdered in Auschwitz.

Both Bandera and Shukhevych collaborated with Nazi forces that occupied what is now Ukraine and are believed to have commanded troops that killed thousands of Jews. Once regarded by Ukrainian authorities as illegitimate to serve as national role models because of their war crimes against Jews and Poles, Petliura, Bandera and Shukhevych are now openly honored in Ukraine following a revolution spearheaded by nationalists in 2014.

Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, condemned the plan to name streets after Bandera and Shukhevych. “My countrymen should know that Bandera and Shukhevych considered me and all of the Ukrainian Jews – children, women, the elderly — enemies of Ukrainians,” he wrote on Facebook.

In the 2014 upheaval, street protesters brought down the government of former president Viktor Yanukovych, whom critics perceived as a corrupt Russian stooge. The revolution unleashed a wave of nationalist sentiment and with it naming of streets and memorial events for the three men and their peers across Ukraine, where they are honored for fighting Russian domination.

The issue is divisive among Jews and non-Jews in Ukraine, where 40 percent of the population are Ethnic Russians, and where thousands have died since Russian-backed separatists sparked a conflict in 2014 between Ukraine and Russia.

Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and some Ukrainian Jewish leaders have protested this trend, calling it a whitewashing of involvement in anti-Semitic murders by Ukrainians and Nazis.

But other Ukrainian Jewish leaders, including Josef Zissels, chairman the Vaad organization of Ukrainian Jews, argue that the preoccupation with this subject “leads to unnecessary assignment of blame that serves only retrospection but fails to offer a vision for the future” in a country where Jews enjoy equal rights and suffer fewer anti-Semitic assaults than in many other European states, Zissels told JTA last month.

During a debate on the subject last week in Kiev, Zissels said he doubted “that Jewish books describe what some Jews did to Ukrainians” the way they describe Ukrainian atrocities against Jews. In Ukraine, many believe Communist Jews bear a responsibility for Soviet oppression.

Dolinsky condemned Zissels’ statement, saying it creates a false moral equivalence and perpetuates anti- Semitic stereotypes. Soviet Jews, he argued on Facebook, oppressed Ukrainians not as Jews but as Soviets along with officials of various ethnicities, while Ukrainian nationalists murdered Jews while flying the Ukrainian nationalist banner.

Moscow chief rabbi: Ukraine, Russia Jews worry over Kiev honors for mass murderers of Jews JTA, June 2, 2016 http://www.jta.org/2016/06/02/news-opinion/world/moscow-chief-rabbi-ukraine-russia-jews-worry-over- kiev-honors-for-mass-murderers-of-jews

The chief rabbi of Moscow condemned the honoring in Ukraine of nationalists whose troops massacred Jews.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who is also the president of the European Conference of Rabbis, spoke of his “concern” over the trend in an interview Tuesday with JTA during a gathering of the standing committee of the Conference in Vienna.

Goldschmidt was referring to a minute of silence observed on May 25 in memory of Symon Petliura, a 1920s statesman whom a Russian Jew killed 90 years ago because the killer blamed Petliura for mass murders of Jews committed in the years 1917-1921 by militias under Petliura’s command.

A French court acquitted the killer in 1927 in what many interpreted as confirmation of Petliura’s culpability for pogroms that claimed the lives of 50,000 Jews. Earlier this week, a government official said Kiev would name streets after Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazi Germany and whose troops also killed Jews.

“Russian Jews and Ukrainian Jews share our concern by this celebration of the memory of known anti-Semites and collaborators,” Goldschmidt said, noting that Ukraine has a Jewish prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman.

“We are counting on Ukrainian Jews to stop the revisionist commemoration of the Holocaust,” the rabbi said.

In Ukraine, celebrations of controversial figures like Petliura have become more widespread since 2014, when a revolution spearheaded by nationalists swept from power former president Viktor Yanukovych, who was accused of being a corrupt Kremlin stooge. They are held in high esteem for their opposition to Russia.

Ukrainian Jewish leaders are split on this issue, with the Ukrainian Jewish Committee condemning it, whereas the Vaad Jewish association calling the preoccupation a distraction from working on a harmonious future in an independent multicultural Ukraine.

At the meeting in Vienna, 40 members of the standing committee of the Conference of European Rabbis discussed threats facing the continent’s Jewish communities, including the targeting of Jews over Israel by Islamists and the rising far right.

Last month, a candidate from Austria’s far right Freedom Party, which the local Jewish community has shunned for what the community called neo-Nazi tendencies, lost the second round of the presidential election by less than 1 percent of the vote.

“It’s a definite sign of the difficult times and the fear of many Austrians of Islamic radicalism,” Goldschmidt said about the nationalist party’s popularity. He added the shift to the right was also occurring among some Jewish voters.

The keys to solving both the Islamic threat and the “dangerous backlash” it is producing, Goldschmidt said, are education and dialogue.

As fighting surges again in Ukraine, an environmental disaster looms By Jack Losh Washington Post, June 2, 2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/as-fighting-surges-again-in-ukraine-an-environmental- disaster-looms/2016/06/01/3696b6dc-2358-11e6-b944-52f7b1793dae_story.html

Land mines and sniper fire, tank traps and unexploded shells have shut down Highway 20, the main artery into eastern Ukraine’s separatist stronghold of Donetsk. But despite the upheavals caused by two years of war, ordinary life along the route has struggled on.

As violence surges again, that could change.

One building near the desolate arc of tarmac is a water-filtration plant, staffed by 117 Ukrainian engineers and others. Hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides of the front line depend on this crucial public utility, a symbol of resilience in an intractable conflict that has cost more than 9,000 lives.

Now, international cease-fire observers warn, renewed fighting between Ukraine’s army and Russian-backed separatists in the area threatens to destroy the plant, potentially triggering environmental havoc and a humanitarian emergency.

Although the war generates few headlines these days, ongoing hostilities remain deeply troubling to many, from civilians on the ground to leaders in the West. Last week, President Obama urged members of the Group of Seven to resolve the situation in Ukraine, admonishing, “We’re still seeing too much violence.”

[As focus remains on Syria, Ukraine sees heaviest fighting in months]

In April, the cycle of strikes and counterstrikes flared to the worst levels seen since last summer. A new truce last month to mark the Orthodox Easter provided a respite for front-line communities, but that brief peace unraveled within days. On Sunday, the Ukrainian military said five of its soldiers had died in fighting just north of Donetsk — the second-highest daily death toll this year since the deaths of seven in fighting the previous Tuesday.

Artillery explosions around the government-held city of Avdiivka not only risk wrecking the nearby filtration plant and cutting off water for some 400,000 civilians. A direct hit could also disperse hazardous chemicals, including chlorine, in the already war-blighted area.

“It is important that the sides stop firing, especially close to residential areas and vital infrastructure,” said Alexander Hug, deputy head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. An accidental release of the plant’s chemicals, he said, could result in “an environmental disaster.”

More than a ton of chlorine, which in concentrated forms is highly toxic, arrives daily at the plant. Damage to storage containers could expose up to 20,000 people to serious health problems, according to Voda Donbassa, which operates the facility.

Ukrainian commanders have forbidden their soldiers to return fire from separatists dug in around the plant, recognizing the magnitude of that risk as well as the prospect of a public-relations disaster for Kiev.

“The separatists use the water-filtration plant as cover to launch attacks on us,” said Vlad Yushkevich, 41, a platoon commander in Ukraine’s 58th Mechanized Brigade, which is stationed on the hillside opposite the plant. “We’re banned from firing back. The enemy knows this and uses it to his advantage.”

Yushkevich’s position overlooks Highway 20, its concrete bunkers and muddy warren of trenches offering a bleak vista of scrubby fields, bombed-out cottages and the first line of Russian-backed separatist fighters, as well as the plant. His men endure spartan conditions and monotonous routines, punctuated by sporadic bouts of combat.

“It’s a very tough situation right now,” he said as he sheltered behind a screen of camouflage webbing. “The Russian Federation keeps sending in new ‘humanitarian convoys.’ And we know what these are carrying — weapons and ammunition.”

His claims are supported by Ukrainian intelligence officials, who say that Russia has supplied separatist militants with dozens of artillery systems, more than 300 tanks and armored fighting vehicles and 6,800 tons of ammunition since the start of this year.

Oleksandr Turchynov, who heads Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said last week that separatists had “significantly increased the intensity of shelling.” Avdiivka’s industrial district, known as the “Prom Zone,” bears the brunt of the war zone’s fiercest assaults, occasionally involving raids but generally taking the form of trench warfare.

The static conflict has locked eastern Ukraine into a sustained yet apparently contained cycle of violence.

[As Ukraine enters 2016, peace remains elusive]

More than two years after the war erupted, the battlefield — like the dynamics that govern it — has changed drastically, with a mass offensive now seemingly as remote as constructive political dialogue.

Even as Western leaders feel impelled to court the Kremlin’s cooperation over the impasse in Syria, Russia feels the pinch of sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea and clandestine invasion of Ukraine in 2014. The European Union is expected to renew those sanctions in a matter of weeks.

In rebel-held territory, many senior commanders regarded by Moscow as too ideological or headstrong have been relieved of their posts, often in bloody and suspicious circumstances. And last week’s dramatic prisoner swap involving Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko and two Russian special forces soldiers marked a moment of detente between Moscow and Kiev.

Yet the warring parties persistently trade blame for cease-fire violations. The latest round of talks among Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, in April, failed to reach a breakthrough on such issues as the status of separatist-held territory and local elections. And brinkmanship persists in the Baltic, where Russian fighter jets keep buzzing U.S. military aircraft and warships while the United States boosts troop numbers along NATO’s eastern flank.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would respond to U.S. moves in Europe and branded Washington’s missile-shield bases in Poland and Romania a direct threat to his country’s security.

On the ground, meanwhile, eastern Ukraine remains highly volatile. Some days, the line of contact is subjected to heavy fire from antiaircraft guns, mortars and grenade launchers. Other days, hot spots are eerily quiet. The net result is a region that continues to destabilize the post-Cold War order and impede Ukraine’s further integration with Europe.

A few miles west of the filtration plant and Avdiivka’s besieged Prom Zone lies a wood that was once a popular hunting spot. It is now a no-man’s land, riddled with land mines and the scene of random, fruitless skirmishes.

To Taras Lypka, 51, a conscript stationed here, no end to the deadly unrest is in sight.

“This is not a fighting war, this is a waiting war,” he said. “Give it a few years. Mind-sets will change, people will change. No one can win this with a military. Better just to hold the line and wait.”

On Ukraine, the E.U. should not follow Russia’s script Editorial Board Washington Post, May 27, 2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-ukraine-the-eu-should-not-follow-- script/2016/05/27/f10654dc-229f-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html

European Union sanctions on Russia for the war it has waged in eastern Ukraine will be up for renewal in a few weeks, and some governments have been looking for a way to loosen them even though Russia has never observed the terms of a 15-month-old peace deal it signed. So it should not have been a surprise when Vladi­mir Putin’s government on Wednesday released the Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, a national hero Moscow had been holding as a de facto hostage, in exchange for two Russian military officers captured inside Ukraine last year. Mr. Putin not only got his soldiers back but also bought a chance that E.U. leaders will seize on his “concession” as a pretext to betray Ukraine.

For the moment, Ukrainians are rightly celebrating the return of Ms. Savchenko, a military pilot who was abducted from the front in eastern Ukraine while fighting with a volunteer battalion in 2014. After illegally transporting her to Russia, the Putin regime blamed her for the deaths of two journalists who were killed by mortar fire inside Ukraine. Though the evidence showed she had nothing to do with what was, in any case, a legitimate military attack, she was sentenced to 22 years in prison in March.

Ms. Savchenko gained renown by defying the Putin regime. She went on a hunger strike, refused to cooperate in her trial and offered the judge a raised middle finger. While in Moscow’s detention, she was elected to the Ukrainian parliament, making it virtually impossible for President Petro Poroshenko to implement Ukraine’s side of the peace deal before her release.

The prisoner swap consequently raises hopes among the sponsors of that deal, Britain and France, as well as in the Obama administration, that it will finally move forward. That looks like a long shot. The deal calls for elections in Russian-occupied territories and a modification of the Ukrainian constitution to give local authorities more power. But Moscow has never complied with what should have been the first step of the process: a cease-fire and withdrawal of heavy weapons. On Tuesday, even as the prisoner swap was being arranged, Ukrainian authorities said seven of their soldiers had been killed and nine wounded by shelling and other attacks in the previous 24 hours.

E.U. leaders have repeatedly resolved not to lift economic sanctions on Russia until the peace deal, known as Minsk 2, is fully implemented and Ukraine regains control of the border with Russia. The E.U.’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, told us this month that she expected a renewal of the sanctions before they expire in July because Russia had not met its Minsk obligations.

Mr. Putin evidently has no intention of complying with the deal. Instead, he is hoping to use continued conflict in Ukraine to destabilize the shaky democratic government in Kiev while inducing the Europeans to lift or loosen sanctions anyway. Some in Europe will be tempted to follow Moscow’s script, which would lead to the destruction of a free and independent Ukraine. The Obama administration should work to ensure that they do not.

The Unraveling Of Moscow's 'Novorossia' Dream By Sergei Loiko RFE/RL, June 1, 2016 http://www.rferl.org/content/unraveling-moscow-novorossia-dream/27772641.html

The Kremlin’s project to create “Novorossia” in southern and eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea was conducted in secrecy and haste in the first months of 2014.

Details of how that project rose and ultimately fell have been hard to come by. But Aleksandr, a Moscow businessman who asked that his identity not be revealed, had a front-row seat as an insider in Crimea and agreed to tell RFE/RL what became of the dream he still cherishes, despite the disenchantment of his months in Crimea.

“Russia lost its chance to create any ‘Novorossia’ on July 17 [2014], when the passenger airliner was shot down over territory held by the militants,” Aleksandr said during a recent interview in Moscow, in reference to the downing of Flight MH17 by a Russian-made, surface-to-air missile that killed 298 people and shocked the world. “After that, the idea of Novorossia was closed. So it was shut down and the war was soon frozen.”

Aleksandr traveled to the Crimean capital, Simferopol, in February 2014 to work for the Russian Unity party of Sergei Aksyonov, who went on to become Crimea's de facto governor following Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region. After the annexation, Aleksandr worked within Aksyonov’s administration.

'Little Green Men'

His main duties involved organizing Crimea’s “local defense volunteers.” These hastily assembled and poorly equipped groups were tasked with standing between the Ukrainian military and the infamous “little green men” -- Russian military forces operating in masks without insignias.

Initially, Aleksandr said, there was no money for arms or equipment. But on March 3, the Russia-backed insurgents managed to take over local branches of several Ukrainian banks. “Money started coming in by the bagful every day,” Aleksandr said.

Soon, he was able to offer “volunteers” up to 800 rubles (roughly $22.40 at the time) a day, and the number of recruits skyrocketed. After Russian intelligence forces took over the regional Supreme Soviet on February 28, Ukrainian police forces across Crimea seemingly melted away, and Aleksandr’s self-defense forces scrambled to replace them.

He remembers the first week of March as particularly tense, as pro-Russia Crimeans waited nervously for any sign from Moscow.

“Until March 6, it was forbidden to speak about unification with Russia or to hang the Russian flag,” he says. “Everyone was waiting for a final decision to be made in Moscow.”

Aleksandr believes Moscow was waiting to see how Ukraine’s military would respond to the unfolding situation. Only after it became apparent that Kyiv was not ready for a confrontation did the Kremlin give the final go- ahead.

Russian flags -- that had been shipped in by the ton -- were unfurled, and a referendum on independence was scheduled. Aleksandr’s self-defense forces began arming themselves with weapons taken from Ukrainian armories. Aleksandr says the outpouring of public support was incredible, with citizens bringing food, money, and supplies to the self-defense forces’ office in Simferopol. By March 29, six self-defense units of 80-100 men each had been fully equipped. After the Ukrainian base at Mazanka was occupied, all the units’ hunting rifles were replaced with automatic weapons and side arms.

At the same time, more and more “representatives of Moscow” were appearing in the offices of the de facto Crimean government. One day a man showed up at Aleksandr’s office and said, “I’m Sasha, a PR specialist from Moscow.”

“Later I found out that his last name was Borodai, after he became prime minister of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Aleksandr said in a reference to a separatist group that came to control swaths of Ukraine's Donetsk region. “What he was doing in Crimea, I don’t know. But before the referendum I saw him here and there, but later he completely disappeared. So many strange people arrived from Moscow and the rest of Russia that there is no way to remember them all.”

Disputed Referendums

The disputed Crimean-status referendum was held under occupation on March 16, despite being declared illegal by Ukraine’s Constitutional Court. Aleksandr conceded it was illegal but said he remains convinced that the results were an accurate snapshot of the mood at the time.

“It was one of those referendums where you don’t have to falsify anything,” he said. “At the time, the overwhelming majority of the population voluntarily voted for unification [with Russia]. Now the mood isn’t the same as it was in the beginning.”

The enthusiasm was short-lived. “Already on March 20 the process of dividing up positions was under way, as a result of which the majority of corrupt officials from [ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s] Party of Regions either kept their posts or got new ones.”

“The entire Party of Regions organically merged into United Russia, while the people expected something completely different,” Aleksandr recalled. “They wanted new authorities.”

One of the most mysterious strangers from this period was a man who introduced himself as “the Kremlin’s emissary, Igor.” It turned out to be Igor Girkin, aka Strelkov, who took over the command of separatists united under the banner of "Crimean self-defense forces" and was later self-proclaimed defense minister of the Donetsk fighters opposing Kyiv's control.

Girkin was clearly in command in Crimea at this time, Aleksandr said, and even Aksyonov deferred to him. His main task in March was accelerated military training for newly formed Crimean forces and selection of the best among them for transfer to Donbas, as a belt of eastern Ukraine is known. Aleksandr said Girkin personally negotiated and oversaw the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Crimea.

“Specialists from Moscow” brought in communications equipment for the commanders fighting in Donbas. “By the beginning of May, there were about 20 [special four-digit] numbers for them,” Aleksandr said.

Initially, arms and equipment came from Russia via Crimea. But as Moscow grew more confident, he said, it began sending the equipment directly across the open border between Ukraine and Russia’s Rostov Oblast.

Very soon, however, the militant groups in Donbas “turned into bands occupied with violence and looting,” Aleksandr said. “People were taken hostage and released for ransom. Often they fought among themselves for spheres of influence.”

“I knew the situation was hopeless when I found out that our fighters themselves had fired on a truck with our wounded that were being evacuated from the Donetsk airport on May 26,” he said. “My good friend was killed in that bloodbath. That’s when I understood it was all over, that people had been deceived and sent to die for nothing.”

“In the pro-Russian zone [in Donbas], weapons were handed out to criminals and drug addicts who robbed people, ‘commandeered’ businesses, homes, and cars,” he said. “The situation for the Russian World project became more and more catastrophic. That romantic of the Russian World, Girkin, could not cope with the anarchy that was developing around him.”

In addition, the Russia-backed forces in Donbas held a “referendum” on self-rule that was “so unconvincing” that even the Russian media barely mentioned it.

The project literally ended in disaster, Aleksandr said, when a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet was shot down over Donbas, killing all 298 people aboard. The Kremlin at that point gave up on the Novorossia idea, he added.

Aleksandr himself continued working in Crimea, although corruption flourished from the beginning when it became clear that the region’s tourism-driven economy had been hit hard. He said criminals and corrupt officials were making good money smuggling sanctioned goods from the European Union across the Kerch Strait into Russia as “aid for refugees.”

He left Crimea after a run-in with one such smuggling operation that he said was protected by someone in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

“The Russian World that I dreamed of, that the people of Crimea expected, that the volunteers who died in Donbas believed in, crumbled into dust before my very eyes,” he recalled.

South Ossetia Postpones Referendum On Accession To Russian Federation By Liz Fuller RFE/RL, May 30, 2016 http://www.rferl.org/content/georgia-russia-south-ossetia-accession-referendum-delay/27766068.html

Leonid Tibilov, de facto president of 's breakaway Republic of , has been forced to abandon his plans to hold a referendum in August on amending the region's constitution to empower its leader to request South Ossetia's incorporation into the Russian Federation. On May 26, Tibilov and South Ossetia parliament speaker Anatoly Bibilov issued a joint statement announcing that the referendum will take place only after the presidential election due in early 2017.

The two men, who are widely regarded as the only candidates with any chance of winning that ballot, have long held diverging views on the optimum relationship between Russia and South Ossetia, and the time frame for achieving it. Moscow formally recognized South Ossetia as an independent sovereign state in August 2008, shortly after Russia and Georgia's five-day war over it and another breakaway Georgian republic, Abkhazia.

In January 2014, Bibilov publicly advocated holding concurrently with the parliamentary elections due in June of that year a referendum on the unification within the Russian Federation of South Ossetia and Russia's Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. And in early 2015, he criticized the planned bilateral Treaty on Union Relations and Integration between Russia and South Ossetia as falling far short of the desired level of integration. That treaty obliged Moscow, among other things, to work for broader international recognition of South Ossetia, which only a handful of countries besides Russia have recognized as an independent state.

Both before and after his election as de facto president in April 2012, Tibilov stressed the need to preserve South Ossetia's nominally independent status. At the same time, he described South Ossetia's incorporation into the Russian Federation as a separate federation subject (rather than merged with North Ossetia) as the long-term dream of the region's population, although he never suggested a time frame for it.

In October, however, just months after the ratification of the bilateral Treaty on Union Relations and Integration, Tibilov announced plans for a referendum on the region's incorporation into the Russian Federation. Moscow pointedly declined to endorse that initiative. Then in April, he floated the concept of forming a "union state" with Russia and simultaneously called for the holding of a referendum by August on amending South Ossetia's constitution to empower its leader to formally request its incorporation into the Russian Federation as a separate federation subject.

Bibilov immediately objected to that proposal, arguing that if a referendum took place, the sole question put to voters should be whether or not South Ossetia should become part of Russia.

Tibilov and Bibilov met on May 19 to discuss the planned referendum, after which Tibilov announced they would issue a joint proposal "within days." Then on May 23, Tibilov scheduled a meeting on May 26 of the presidential Political Council, which comprises representatives of both the executive and legislative branches.

That session lasted over four hours and at one point degenerated into a shouting match between Tibilov and Bibilov, who demanded permission to walk out on the grounds that "there have been too many insults directed at lawmakers." Tibilov refused to allow him to leave. Council members finally voted overwhelmingly (with just three votes against and one abstention) to "recommend" postponing the referendum until after next year's presidential ballot, and Tibilov acceded to that proposal. It is not clear whether the council discussed the wording of the referendum question as well.

The rationale for the postponement cited in the joint statement released later by Tibilov and Bibilov was "the need to preserve political stability" in the run-up to the 2017 presidential vote. But Bibilov himself told the Russian daily Kommersant that the current political situation could in no way be described as tense.

It is not known what other arguments Tibilov's opponents adduced, although Bibilov was quoted as protesting that there was not enough time to organize a referendum by August. Bibilov also predicted that if the referendum were held now, the vote in favor of joining Russia would be lower than the 99 percent registered in 1992. RFE/RL's Echo Of The Caucasus quoted the chair of breakaway South Ossetia's election commission, Bella Pliyeva, as raising the possibility that the vote in favor could be as low as 51 percent, or even that a majority might prefer independence. That would constitute a slap in the face for Russia, which subsidizes South Ossetia's budget to the tune of 90 percent.

The postponement of the referendum, and the continued lack of clarity over the wording of the question it will pose, constitute a setback for Tibilov insofar as a referendum on whether and on what terms South Ossetia should become part of the Russian Federation will now inevitably be the central issue in the election campaign. Bibilov's aggressive campaign for such a referendum certainly contributed to the victory in the 2014 parliamentary elections of his One Ossetia party, which controls 20 of the 34 parliament mandates.

A large question mark remains over Moscow's agenda. Russian President Vladimir Putin was quoted in April, just after Tibilov floated the idea of holding a referendum by August, as noting, first, that the precise formulation of the referendum question was still unclear, and second, that the Russian leadership would be guided by the will of the people of South Ossetia.

That latter remark implies that Putin anticipates that the referendum question will be the "Bibilov variant," meaning that voters will be asked whether or not they want South Ossetia to become part of Russia, rather than whether or not the de facto South Ossetian president should be empowered to petition Moscow for the region's incorporation into the Russian Federation. From Putin's point of view, a nationwide vote in favor of accession to the Russian Federation would give a marginally more substantial veneer of legitimacy to that annexation than a request by one man whose election the international community regards as devoid of legitimacy.

On the other hand, as Aleksei Makarkin, deputy director of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies, pointed out to the news portal Caucasian Knot, Tibilov's strategy of empowering the South Ossetian president to raise the question of accession to Russia at his discretion has the advantage for Moscow that it does not require an immediate response, and therefore would not necessarily precipitate a further deterioration in relations with the West. Tibilov himself told the Political Council that Russia was not currently even considering the possibility of incorporating South Ossetia precisely because it would create new problems in international relations.

Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation By Andrew Higgins New York Times, May 30, 2016 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/world/europe/russia-finland-nato-trolls.html?_r=0

Seeking to shine some light into the dark world of Internet trolls, a journalist with Finland’s national broadcaster asked members of her audience to share their experience of encounters with Russia’s “troll army,” a raucous and often venomous force of online agitators.

The response was overwhelming, though not in the direction that the journalist, Jessikka Aro, had hoped.

As she expected, she received some feedback from people who had clashed with aggressively pro-Russian voices online. But she was taken aback, and shaken, by a vicious retaliatory campaign of harassment and insults against her and her work by those same pro-Russian voices.

“Everything in my life went to hell thanks to the trolls,” said Ms. Aro, a 35-year-old investigative reporter with the social media division of Finland’s state broadcaster, Yle Kioski.

Abusive online harassment is hardly limited to pro-Russian Internet trolls. Ukraine and other countries at odds with the Kremlin also have legions of aggressive avengers on social media.

But pro-Russian voices have become such a noisy and disruptive presence that both NATO and the European Union have set up special units to combat what they see as a growing threat not only to civil discourse but to the well-being of Europe’s democratic order and even to its security.

This “information war,” said Rastislav Kacer, a veteran diplomat who served as Slovakia’s ambassador to Washington and at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, “is just part of a bigger struggle.” While not involving bloodshed, he added, it “is equally as dangerous as more conventional hostile action.”

For Ms. Aro, the abuse increased sharply last year when, following up on reports in the opposition Russian news media, she visited St. Petersburg to investigate the workings of a Russian “troll factory.” The big office churns out fake news and comment, particularly on Ukraine, and floods websites and social media with denunciations of Russia’s critics.

In response to her reporting, pro-Russian activists in Helsinki organized a protest outside the headquarters of Yle, accusing it of being a troll factory itself. Only a handful of people showed up.

At the same time, Ms. Aro has been peppered with abusive emails, vilified as a drug dealer on social media sites and mocked as a delusional bimbo in a music video posted on YouTube.

“There are so many layers of fakery you get lost,” said Ms. Aro, who was awarded the Finnish Grand Prize for Journalism in March.

As Ms. Aro’s experiences illustrate, Finland, a country at the center of Russia’s concerns about NATO’s expansion toward its borders, has emerged as a particularly active front in the information wars. A member of the European Union with an 830-mile-long border with Russia, Finland has stayed outside the United States- led military alliance but, unnerved by Russian military actions in Ukraine and its saber-rattling in the Baltic Sea, has expanded cooperation with NATO and debated whether to apply for full membership. Today’s Headlines: European Morning

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Public opinion is deeply divided, making Finland a prime target for a campaign by Russia.

“Their big thing is to keep Finland out of NATO,” said Saara Jantunen, a researcher at the Finnish Defense Forces in Helsinki, who last year published a book in Finland entitled “Info-War.” She said that she, too, had been savaged on social media, sometimes by the same and apparently fake commentators who have hounded Ms. Aro.

“They fill the information space with so much abuse and conspiracy talk that even sane people start to lose their minds,” she added.

Europe’s main response so far has been to try to counter outright lies. In November, the European Union launched “Disinformation Review,” a weekly compendium of pro-Kremlin distortions and untruths.

But facts have been powerless against a torrent of abuse and ridicule targeted at European journalists, researchers and others labeled NATO stooges.

Pro-Russian activists insist that they are merely exercising their right to free speech, and that they do not take money or instructions from Moscow.

The most abusive messages against Ms. Aro were mostly sent anonymously or from accounts set up under fake names on Facebook and other social media.

One of her most vocal critics in Finland, however, has openly declared his identity. He is Johan Backman, a tireless supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia who highlights the blurred lines between state- sponsored harassment and the expression of strongly held personal views.

Fluent in Russian, Mr. Backman now spends much of his time in Moscow, appearing regularly in the Russian news media and at conferences in Russia as “a human rights defender.” He also serves as the representative in Northern Europe for the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, a state-funded research group led by a Soviet-era intelligence officer.

Mr. Backman, who also represents the Donetsk People’s Republic, the breakaway state set up with Russian support in eastern Ukraine, denied targeting Ms. Aro as part of any “information war.” Rather, he insisted that Russia was itself the victim of a campaign of disinformation and distortion conducted by the West.

In a recent interview in Moscow, he said that Ms. Aro was part of this campaign and that she had tried to curtail the freedom of speech of Russia’s supporters in Finland by labeling them as “Russian trolls.” All the same, Mr. Backman added, her complaints about being targeted for abuse “have been very beneficial for Russia” because they have made others think twice about criticizing Moscow.

“She says she is a victim, and nobody wants to be a victim,” he said. “This changed the atmosphere in the journalistic community.”

Mr. Backman said he used his own private means to fund his activities in support of what he described as an “entirely defensive” campaign by Russia to counter Western propaganda. His activities, however, invariably follow Moscow’s political and geopolitical script, particularly on NATO, which he regularly denounces as a tool for United States military occupation. NATO at a Glance

Aside from NATO, Mr. Backman’s biggest bugbear of late has been Ms. Aro and the “Russo-phobic” tendencies that she, in his view, represents.

Just days after Ms. Aro made her first appeal in September 2014 for information about Russian trolls, Mr. Backman told Russian People’s Line, a nationalist Russian website, and other media that she was a “well- known assistant of American and Baltic special services.”

Around the same time, she received a call late at night on her cellphone from a number in Ukraine. Nobody spoke, and all she could hear was gunfire. This was followed by text and email messages denouncing her as a “NATO whore” and a message purporting to come from her father — who died 20 years ago — saying he was “watching her.”

The hardest blow, Ms. Aro said, came early this year when a Finnish-language news site, MVLehti.net, which is based in Spain and mostly focuses on vilifying immigrants, dug up and published court records that showed she had been convicted of using illegal amphetamines in 2004. She had been fined 300 euros.

The website’s headline: “NATO’s information expert Jessikka Aro turned out to be a convicted drug dealer.” It also posted photographs of Ms. Aro dancing in a slinky outfit at a nightclub in Bangkok.

Mr. Backman requested and received Ms. Aro’s old case file from the court shortly before the website published the documents. He denied passing them on to the site.

The false claim that Ms. Aro was a drug dealer triggered an unusual open letter signed by more than 20 Finnish editors infuriated by what they denounced as the “poisoning of public debate” with “insults, defamation and outright lies.” The Finnish police began an investigation into the website for harassment and hate speech.

“I don’t know if these people are acting on orders from Russia, but they are clearly what Lenin called ‘useful idiots,’” said Mika Pettersson, the editor of Finland’s national news agency and an organizer of the editors’ open letter. “They are playing into Putin’s pocket. Nationalist movements in Finland and other European countries want to destabilize the European Union and NATO, and this goes straight into Putin’s narrative.”

Ilja Janitskin, the founder and head of MVLehti, who is based in Barcelona, Spain, said in response to emailed questions that he had no connection with Russia other than his surname. His political views, he said, are closer to those of Donald J. Trump, not Mr. Putin.

He added that he had become interested in Ms. Aro only after she accused his website of “distributing Russian propaganda.”

Like Mr. Backman, he denied receiving any money from Russian sources, insisting that his website, which in just 18 months has become one of Finland’s most widely read online news sources, finances itself from advertising and donations by readers.

Ms. Aro acknowledged that she had used amphetamines regularly in her early 20s but dismissed as a “total lie” claims that she had been or is a drug dealer.

“They get inside your head, and you start thinking: If I do this, what will the trolls do next?” she said.

Chechnya: Russia’s Islamic State? By Yaroslav Trofimov Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2016 http://www.wsj.com/articles/chechnya-russias-islamic-state-1464859621

When a female visitor tried to enter the Chechen Republic’s parliament on a recent day, a bearded trooper looked disapprovingly at her skirt, well below the knee, and then touched his jackboot with the walkie-talkie antenna.

“The skirt must be long like that,” he growled. “We have orders: You can’t come in dressed like this.”

In theory, Chechnya—though overwhelmingly Muslim—is an integral part of the secular Russian Federation, governed by the same laws as Moscow. In practice, however, this North Caucasus republic of 1.4 million people, ravaged by two wars of secession, lives under very different rules.

Under strongman , a former rebel who has become a fervent ally of President Vladimir Putin , Chechnya underwent a striking Islamization in recent years. Most women on the streets of , the capital, wear the Islamic hijab, a dress code until recently enforced by drive-by paintball shootings.

Though no such rule officially exists, unveiled women are also banned from government offices. And, lest they forget, a building-size poster on Grozny’s main thoroughfare, Vladimir Putin Avenue, carries an example of proper attire. It is inscribed with Mr. Kadyrov’s admonition that the “hijab protects the dignity of the Chechen woman.”

Alcohol, officially allowed for sale only between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. since 2009, has become virtually unavailable. Ostentatious new mosques are mushrooming, lessons in Islam are mandatory in schools, and the government sponsors youths who memorize the Quran.

Mr. Kadyrov fills his Instagram feed—his main means of communication—with footage of himself performing prayers and urging piety. His biography is a pithy one-liner: “Love the Prophet, read the prayers.”

Aslan Abdullayev, the deputy mufti, or religious leader, of Chechnya, noted with pleasure that the level of Islamic observance here is much higher than it was in the 1990s, when the republic was de facto independent and a magnet for jihadists from around the world.

“It’s night and day,” said Mr. Abdullayev, who spent 10 years studying Islam in Syria and now delivers the weekly sermon at the opulent Heart of Chechnya mosque that Mr. Kadyrov had built next to the Dubai-style skyscrapers in central Grozny. “Islam plays the main role here in the Chechen Republic. When there was war, the mosques were empty and people were too preoccupied with their own family problems. Now that we have stability, people are flocking to the mosques again.”

In some ways, Chechnya has been transformed to an extent that even the leaders of its independence movement, such as the first President , who was killed in a Russian airstrike in 1996, could hardly have imagined.

“If Dudayev were alive today, he would like what he would see. He would say: Ramzan succeeded where I failed,” said Chechen parliament member Magomed Hambiev, a onetime aide to Mr. Dudayev who served as breakaway Chechnya’s defense minister during the second war with Moscow and remained an insurgent commander until accepting an amnesty in 2004.

With his authority near-absolute in Chechnya, Mr. Kadyrov has also become a force in Russia’s national politics, in part because of running a largely autonomous security force—several veterans of which are now on trial on charges of killing Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2015. Critics of Mr. Kadyrov already draw parallels between his mountain fief and Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“No single politician or government agency can guarantee today that the Islamic state which Kadyrov has created in Chechnya…will not be transformed over time into another ISIS [Islamic State] prepared to declare jihad against Russia,” Russian liberal politician Ilya Yashin wrote in a recent report investigating Chechnya.

Grozny today isn’t quite Raqqa or Mosul. There is a functioning church, and even plans to restore the synagogue that was destroyed in the war. But it is also a town where Islamic observance is enforced much more strictly than in many places in the Middle East.

“We are a normal secular republic. Russian laws are sacred to us,” said Djambulat Umarov, the minister of national policy, external relations and information. “But if you follow Kadyrov’s path, the path of creation, the path of returning to cultural values, then you are a Muslim and you must be an example in everything—and you should follow to the maximum the sacral truths, including in matters like clothing and chastity.”

The version of sacral truths promoted by Mr. Kadyrov is rooted in the relatively moderate Sufi Islamic tradition that was followed by his father, Ahmat, who was Chechnya’s mufti. The elder Kadyrov, who initially declared jihad on the Russians in the 1990s but then switched sides, headed the Moscow-backed administration in Grozny in 2000, just to be assassinated by Islamist radicals four years later.

Those radicals are much weaker today, with Chechnya’s once-perilous mountain roads safe for travel and only two militant attacks in Grozny in the past two years. In part, some Chechens say, that is because Mr. Kadyrov’s Islamization drive—which simultaneously cracked down on the Sufis’ traditional foes, the followers of Saudi-style, ultra-fundamentalist Islam—has taken the wind out of militants’ sails.

“That’s how Ramzan is trying to preserve our society,” said Kheda Saratova, a human-rights activist who works with the Chechen government and with families of Chechens who joined Islamic State. “With traditional Islam, Ramzan is keeping the people away from the kind of chaos that we had gone through in the past.”

Is Europe Wobbling Over Sanctions on Russia? By Judy Dempsey Carnegie Europe, June 1, 2016 http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=63706

A selection of experts answer a new question from Judy Dempsey on the foreign and security policy challenges shaping Europe’s role in the world.

Elmar BrokChair of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs

Having good relations is in the interests of both the EU and Russia; this is crucial for securing peace and stability in Europe. It is clear, however, that good relations are possible only in compliance with international law, which is a principle for internal cooperation in Europe. Consequently, the full implementation of the Minsk agreements is indispensable. Only then can the EU lift the sanctions imposed in view of Russia’s actions to destabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine. The restrictive measures in response to Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea, including the city of Sevastopol, will be suspended once the peninsula is returned to Ukraine.

The duration of the sanctions is therefore linked to Russia fulfilling the Minsk agreements. Regrettably, this was not achieved by the initial deadline of December 31, 2015. While it is Russia’s turn to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty within its internationally recognized borders, it is the responsibility of all parties concerned to work on the implementation of the Minsk accords. Therefore, it is important to maintain dialogue with Russia and—if and when the Minsk agreements are fulfilled—to offer prospects for EU-Russia relations.

Piotr BurasHead of the Warsaw Office of the European Council on Foreign Relations

The rollover of the EU sanctions on Russia in July 2016 seems certain, and recent noises from German Social Democratic Party grandees Sigmar Gabriel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier do not change much. Well-informed sources maintain that this summer, no EU member state intends to break the consensus among the 28 countries that links sanctions to the implementation of the Minsk II agreement to end the war in eastern Ukraine. Also, Moscow seems to have priced in a prolongation of the sanctions until the end of 2016.

However, the economic impact of the sanctions on the EU is only one reason to expect some wobbling in the fall. The signals from Berlin are telling in that respect. Germany sees the use of sanctions in the first place as an instrument to advance the political Minsk process, not as a tool to punish Russia. This is Steinmeier’s message.

But what to do if the process has stalled? If there is effectively a frozen conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region with no agreement in sight, the temptation to ease the sanctions or change their philosophy will become stronger. The EU will then have to square the circle and define its concrete conditions for lifting the sanctions when full implementation of Minsk II is very unlikely to happen. The EU’s unity may start fraying then.

Fraser Cameron Director of the EU-Russia Centre

There are a few wobblies, but Europe has been remarkably united in imposing and maintaining sanctions against Russia in the wake of its annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Given Russia’s traditional and ongoing efforts to divide and rule, the sanctions have been a major success for the EU. The measures are also biting, so this is not the time to let up. G7 leaders made this clear at their May 26–27 summit in Japan, as did European Council President Donald Tusk in his press conference at the same meeting.

Russian action in Ukraine was a flagrant violation of international law, and the sanctions imposed by the EU were the least that could be done. The way forward is quite clear: fully implement the Minsk agreements on ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and the sanctions will be lifted. The EU cannot retreat from this position.

Knut FleckensteinVice chair of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament

The EU’s sanctions on Russia were adopted in response to Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea and its political destabilization of eastern Ukraine, which involved military support for so-called separatists.

Neither the EU nor its transatlantic partners wanted to engage militarily in this conflict. However, there was broad agreement that Russia’s transgression of basic principles of peace, security, and cooperation on the European continent could not go unsanctioned. Therefore, restrictive measures and sanctions—in the diplomatic and economic fields—emerged as the only means to counter Russia’s actions and to try to bring the country back to more constructive behavior.

The EU has tied its sanctions to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements aimed at resolving the conflict. In doing so, the EU has clearly communicated its expectations. Lifting the sanctions without any substantial progress on the Minsk accords would mean putting at risk what little has been achieved so far.

The EU cannot be satisfied with the slow implementation of the Minsk agreements. EU policymakers should therefore discuss a step-by-step approach for lifting the sanctions depending on progress on the Minsk accords. The clear priority must be that Ukraine regains full control of its eastern border.

Stefan MeisterHead of the Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia Program at the Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia of the German Council on Foreign Relations

There are many different voices in the EU member states who question the effect of the EU’s sanctions against Russia and argue that they should be lifted as soon as possible. There is also a growing impression that relations with Russia are too important, that other crises in Europe and the Middle East are too challenging, and that the EU needs to fix at least this problem.

But this is an illusion, because the Ukraine conflict and the crisis with Russia will not go away if the EU eases or lifts the sanctions. It might alienate Ukrainian society from the EU even more than the April 6 referendum in which voters in the Netherlands rejected the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. At the same time, the Russian leadership will not give up its main sources of legitimacy—its conflict with the West and its description of the EU as a failed institution.

The question is: What weakens the EU more, lifting the sanctions with an incomplete implementation of the Minsk II agreement to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, or facing the ongoing destruction of a united EU approach toward Russia? Both are attractive to the Kremlin. At the moment, the impression is that it is more interesting for Russian President Vladimir Putin to endure the sanctions and see European politicians outpace each other to chum up to him. If that goes on, the EU’s cohesion and credibility will reach a new low.

Amanda PaulSenior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre

The EU cannot afford to wobble, because Moscow will interpret any lack of resolve over the bloc’s sanctions on Russia as a sign of weakness. This will result in Russia boosting its already-considerable efforts to target the EU’s weakest links. Undermining the EU’s sanctions policy is a priority for the Kremlin in its ultimate goal of weakening the EU and its role in the shared neighborhood.

There are no grounds for lifting the sanctions. The condition that the EU attached to ending the measures—full implementation of the Minsk agreements aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine—has not been met. While some member states would like to go back to business as usual with Russia, at the same time there is broad recognition of what it would mean to break unity on the sanctions. Such a move would not only further undermine the EU’s credibility at a time when its image as a values-based actor has been harmed by its sorrowful response to the refugee crisis, but it would also give the impression that the EU accepts the Russian concept of spheres of influence.

Europe needs to play the long game on sanctions, maintaining unity and a readiness to formulate quick response to new challenges.

Gianni RiottaMember of the Council on Foreign Relations

Yes, but it has been wobbling since day one. German and Italian companies lobbied Chancellor and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hard, hoping for a quick end to the very unpopular sanctions. The Italian business press is awash with frenzied figures: “Anti-Russian sanctions have already cost Italian companies . . .” and then an ever-growing string of zeroes—millions, then billions.

Prominent politicians and columnists left, right, and center keep arguing that the right way is to engage Russian President Vladimir Putin, not to isolate him. European public opinion—discombobulated by populist war cries from France’s Marine Le Pen, the UK’s Nigel Farage, Italy’s Beppe Grillo, and their assorted foot soldiers—does not dislike Putin. He is considered a strongman. His manners may not be suited for a think tank seminar, but his bulging muscles do have a brutally macho appeal. U.S. President Barack Obama, nuanced, gentle, and cerebral, receives kudos from the educated enclaves, but the angry, populist crowds eschew his Hamletic doubts.

So not much stands between the Kremlin and the lifting of sanctions. Just one woman, Angela Merkel. She has single-handedly enforced the sanctions as a stern sign of a late European moral standing. She has to hold on until November, when the United States will vote for a new head of state. Then Merkel may have the support of the first female U.S. president or, if the other guy wins, her last stand will crumble in a matter of months.

Ulrich SpeckSenior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy

Yes, Europe is wobbling over the sanctions on Russia, but it’s going to hold the line—for now.

A tough policy toward Russia was never strongly supported by a majority of political forces in Europe. It was open Russian military aggression that forced the EU into imposing serious sanctions. Europeans had almost no choice in this matter as long as Russia was militarily advancing in Ukraine, unwilling to engage in serious diplomacy.

As Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region moves toward a frozen conflict, there is a growing unwillingness to keep a tough line against Russia. But the economic and financial sanctions are officially linked to the full implementation of the Minsk agreements—that is, Ukraine regaining control of its border—a condition that has been endorsed by the 28 EU member states and by the United States.

Many Europeans feel deep unease about the tensions with Russia. Some are attracted by economic advantages offered by the Kremlin, others are afraid of a military escalation. Moscow is playing with both groups, using carrots and sticks skillfully.

As a consequence, the pressure is rising to remove the sanctions, even if Russia is doing nothing to honor the Minsk agreements, either in deed or in spirit.

Stephen SzaboExecutive director of the Transatlantic Academy

Europe is wobbling but is likely to maintain its sanctions regime on Russia until the end of 2016. It must be kept in mind that the imposition of sanctions is an EU policy and not a member state decision, so that while a number of states may prefer to reduce or even eliminate the current measures, individual countries are unlikely to be able to break with the broader consensus.

Germany remains the key national player. Although a recent decision to move ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to link Germany and Russia is a cause for concern, it will not cause German Chancellor Angela Merkel to change her position that sanctions can be removed only with the full implementation of the Minsk agreements. That means the government of Ukraine must regain control of its border with Russia.

The year 2017 is likely to see some further slippage in the implementation of the EU’s sanctions, but the United States will continue to keep its sanctions policy—barring a reversal by the administration of a president Donald Trump—and U.S. sanctions will limit the extent that European measures can be lifted in practice. The less onerous sanctions on Crimea are likely to remain.

The bigger challenge for the West will be to maintain support for Ukraine’s economic and political development during a time of increasing Ukraine fatigue. This will have a greater policy impact than the sanctions regime.