World News

By Daina Beth Solomon, Ted Hesson and Matt Spetalnick

LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has pooled $3.2 billion in corporate pledges aimed at addressing some of the economic factors driving migration from Central America, her office said on Tuesday, lending impetus to measures to be discussed at the Summit of the Americas this week.

The new commitments from U.S. companies, including Visa Inc and apparel maker Gap Inc , were announced a day before President Joe Biden formally opens the Los Angeles gathering, which has been marred by controversy over the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Biden’s decision to cut out Washington’s three main leftist antagonists in Latin America on the grounds of human rights and democratic shortcomings prompted Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and several other leaders to stay away, threatening to undercut Biden’s summit agenda.

The corporate pledges form a major part of Biden’s plan to address “root causes” of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, a region known as the Northern Triangle. Curbing irregular migration is a top priority for Biden at a time when record numbers of people are trying to enter the United States at the Mexican border.

Republicans, who hope to take control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in the November mid-term elections, have fiercely criticized the Democratic president for reversing the restrictive immigration policies of former Republican President Donald Trump.

The latest funding commitments announced by Harris exceed $1.9 billion, adding to $1.2 billion in pledges made in December. They are intended to create jobs, expand access to the internet and bring more people into the formal banking system, officials said.

Biden, who travels to Los Angeles on Wednesday to open the summit with a policy speech, will promote a new economic “partnership” for the Western Hemisphere building on existing trade agreements, U.S. officials said. He also plans to preview a “declaration” to be announced on Friday that officials say will include specific commitments from leaders to address the problem.

Even as he grapples with pressing concerns such as mass shootings, high inflation and the Ukraine war, the Democratic president wants to use the summit to repair Latin America relations damaged under Republican predecessor Trump, and to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

But the dispute over the guest list has raised questions about prospects for meaningful agreements.

U.S. efforts to stem migration from the Northern Triangle have been hampered by corruption, with projects likely worth millions shelved and some private sector engagement stalled.

Further complicating matters, the presidents of Guatemala and Honduras have signaled they will not attend the summit and will instead send other officials. It was unclear whether El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, would attend; the White House’s official guest list shows his foreign minister as head of the delegation.

Several thousand migrants, many from Venezuela, set off from southern Mexico on Monday on a journey to the United States border timed to coincide with the summit.

At least 6,000 people, according to Reuters witnesses, left the city of Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

CORPORATE PLEDGES

The latest corporate pledges include $270 million from Visa focused on bringing 6.5 million people into the formal banking system, and $150 million from Gap to increase materials sourced from the region.

The other firms span a variety of sectors, including auto parts, agriculture, telecommunications and digital services.

A CEO summit running parallel to the leaders’ gathering could yield commitments for further investment in economically troubled Latin America, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and is struggling to recover.

Harris also announced an initiative with the private sector that aims to connect 1.4 million women to the financial system and train more than 500,000 women and girls in job skills.

Despite friction over summit invitations, most leaders in the Americas plan to attend. White House officials insist the controversy will blow over and the event – the first hosted by the United States since the first such gathering in 1994 – will be a success.

But before heading to the summit, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, in a newspaper op-ed, accused the United States of being “inconsistent, if not contradictory” for refusing to invite Communist-ruled Cuba and leftist-led Venezuela and Nicaragua while engaging with non-democratic governments in other regions such as Southeast Asia.

(Reporting by Daina Solomon and Matt Spetalnick in Los Angeles and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Dave Graham and Humeyra Pamuk in Los Angeles and Alexandra Valencia in Quito; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)

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(Reuters) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Tuesday that Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin, the country’s top electoral authority, committed “rape against Brazilian democracy” by meeting with foreign diplomats to brief them on upcoming elections in the country.

Last month, Fachin, head of Brazil’s Electoral Court (TSE), invited international organizations to send observers to monitor the October elections, which Bolsonaro has criticized, asserting that the electronic voting machines are not reliable. His government opposed the invitation of European Union observers.

(Reporting by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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BERLIN (AP) — A Catholic diocese in Germany said Tuesday that a former priest has been convicted in a church trial of sexually abusing a minor over several years almost three decades ago.

The man, who wasn’t identified, was ordered to pay an unspecified fine for the crimes committed between 1986 and 1993, the diocese of Limburg said in statement. It didn’t immediately respond to queries about the amount of the fine.

While financial payouts have been included in confidential settlements between the church and victims of abuse, the announcement of a financial penalty against a priest as a result of a canonical investigation is unusual.

The male victim had filed a complaint about the abuse in 2018 following the publication of a study into sexual abuse within the church.

German prosecutors declined to open an investigation because the alleged crimes had passed the 20-year statute of limitations, but church authorities launched a probe.

After receiving a dossier from the diocese, the Vatican asked it to open criminal proceedings.

The diocese said that the church now considers the man to be a convicted sex offender. It said the man would have been defrocked as part of his conviction, but he left the priesthood during the trial.

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia denied again Tuesday that it will allow any Chinese military presence at a port where it and China are beginning an expansion this week that has prompted concern in the United States and elsewhere that it will be used by Beijing as a naval outpost on the Gulf of Thailand.

Chief government spokesman Phay Siphan described the expansion of the Ream Naval Base as “cooperation between China and Cambodia” and said the Chinese ambassador to Cambodia will preside over the groundbreaking on Wednesday along with Cambodia’s defense minister and other senior military officials.

He denied, however, a report in the Washington Post newspaper citing an anonymous Chinese official that the facility on the northern side of the Cambodian base would be used in part by the Chinese military.

Siphan said it would be a violation of Cambodia’s Constitution to host a foreign military power, and that there had been no change in the terms of his country’s agreement with China on constructing the facility.

“I think that’s a strong accusation,” he said in a telephone interview.

He would not comment on the extent of the Chinese involvement and said the project involved constructing a facility for repairing ships.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Tuesday said the work would be a “renovation” of the base which “aims to strengthen the Cambodian navy’s capability to maintain maritime territorial integrity and combat maritime crime.”

Ream faces the Gulf of Thailand, adjacent to the South China Sea, where China has aggressively asserted its claim to virtually the entire strategic waterway. The U.S. has refused to recognize China’s sweeping claim and routinely conducts military maneuvers there to reinforce that they are international waters.

A Chinese base in Cambodia could become a chokepoint in the Gulf of Thailand close to the strategically important Malacca Strait.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that allegations China intends to establish a military presence at the Ream base are “consistent with credible reporting we’ve seen from the PRC (People’s Republic of China) that the PRC is engaged in a significant ongoing construction project at Ream Naval Base.”

“As we’ve said, an exclusive PRC military presence at Ream could threaten Cambodia’s autonomy and undermine regional security as well,” he said.

China recently signed a security deal with the Solomon Islands that the U.S. and others worry could lead to a military presence there, and Price noted that Beijing has also reached out to a number of other South Pacific islands.

“We have seen the PRC attempt to put forward a series of shadowy, opaque deals that they would like to see signed in the dead of night with no input or transparency,” he said. “This has been a pattern on the part of the PRC.”

The U.S. itself has more foreign military bases than any other country, including multiple facilities in the Asia-Pacific region.

At a regular Foreign Ministry briefing, Zhao accused the U.S. of “bullying” Cambodia and ignoring its denials that Ream would be used for Chinese military purposes, while noting Washington’s own network of bases around the world.

“China and Cambodia are comprehensive strategic partners, and our cooperation in various fields is open, transparent, reasonable and legitimate, which benefits the two countries,” he said.

China so far operates just one acknowledged foreign military base, in the impoverished but strategically important Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. Many believe that China’s People’s Liberation Army is busy establishing an overseas military network, even if they don’t use the term “base.”

Cambodia’s authoritarian leader, Hun Sen, has long cultivated relations with China, and reportedly signed a secret agreement in 2019 allowing the Chinese to establish a base at Ream.

Though Hun Sen has strongly denied that Cambodia would allow China to set up a military outpost at Ream, China has already been dredging the harbor to allow larger ships to dock, and is building new infrastructure to replace a U.S.-built naval tactical headquarters.

Hun Sen suggested last month that the water would still be too shallow for any warships to dock, and reiterated that it would be a violation of Cambodia’s Constitution to host a Chinese military facility.

“Why would we need foreign forces, for what?” he said. “What Cambodia really needs at the moment is foreign investment, not foreign forces.”

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, established by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, posted satellite images in January of two “clamshell” dredgers at work in the harbor, and said while the extent of the dredging is unknown, it could mark a “significant upgrade” to the base.

“The shallow waters around Ream mean it is currently only able to host small patrol vessels,” it said. “A deep-water port would make it far more useful to both the Cambodian and Chinese navies.”

Newer images from April analyzed by The Associated Press show the dredgers still on site and at work.

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Rising reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Matthew Lee in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

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By Elizabeth Piper and Andrew MacAskill

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a confidence vote on Monday but a large rebellion in his Conservative Party over the so-called “partygate” scandal dealt a blow to his authority and leaves him with a struggle to win back broad support.

Johnson, who scored a sweeping election victory in 2019, has been under increasing pressure after he and staff held alcohol-fuelled parties in his Downing Street office and residence when Britain was under strict lockdowns because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was met with a chorus of jeers and boos, and some muted cheers, at events to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in recent days.

Several lawmakers said the vote, which saw 211 lawmakers cast ballots in favour of Johnson against 148, was worse than expected for a prime minister, once seemingly unassailable after winning the Conservatives’ largest majority in more than three decades.

“Boris Johnson will be relieved at this vote. But he will also understand that the next priority is to rebuild the cohesion of the party,” David Jones, a former minister, told Reuters. “I am sure he will be equal to the challenge.”

Others were less optimistic, with one Conservative lawmaker saying on condition of anonymity: “It is clearly much worse than most people were expecting. But it is too early to say what will happens now.”

Roger Gale, a long-time critic of Johnson, urged the prime minister “to go back to Downing Street tonight and consider very carefully where he goes from here”.

By winning the confidence vote, Johnson has secured a reprieve for 12 months when lawmakers cannot bring another challenge. But his predecessor Theresa May scored better in her 2018 confidence vote only to resign six months later.

Johnson said after the vote that was not interested in holding a snap national election.

“I think it’s a convincing result, a decisive result and what it means is that as a government we can move on and focus on the stuff that I think really matters to people,” he told reporters.

Dozens of Conservative lawmakers have voiced concern over whether Johnson, 57, has lost his authority to govern Britain, which is facing the risk of recession, rising fuel and food prices and strike-inflicted travel chaos in the capital London.

But his Cabinet rallied around him and highlighted what they said were the successes of the government: a quick rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations and Britain’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

(GRAPHIC-Johnson vs May: confidence votes compared: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/polling/myvmnwlgrpr/Pasted%20image%201654547616367.png)

DRAW A LINE?

A majority of the Conservatives’ lawmakers – at least 180 – would have had to vote against Johnson for him to be removed.

Earlier, a spokesperson for Johnson’s Downing Street office said the vote would “allow the government to draw a line and move on” and that the prime minister welcomed the opportunity to make his case to lawmakers.

Johnson, a former London mayor, rose to power at Westminster as the face of the Brexit campaign in a 2016 referendum, and won the 2019 election with the slogan to “get Brexit done”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit opportunities minister, told Sky News that completing Britain’s departure from the European Union would be “significantly at risk without his drive and energy”.

Johnson has locked horns with Brussels over Northern Ireland, raising the prospect of more barriers for British trade and alarming leaders in Ireland, Europe and the United States about risks to the province’s 1998 peace deal.

But it was the months of stories of what went on in Downing Street, including fights and alcohol-induced vomiting, when many people were prevented from saying goodbye to loved ones at funerals, that did the real damage.

The move led to lawmakers from different wings of the party revealing that they had turned against their leader. One former ally accused the prime minister of insulting both the electorate and the party by staying in power.

“You have presided over a culture of casual law-breaking at 10 Downing Street in relation to COVID,” Jesse Norman, a former junior minister, said before the vote.

Johnson’s anti-corruption chief John Penrose also quit.

(Additional reporting by David Milliken, William James, Alistair Smout, Farouq Suleiman and Helena Williams; Editing by William Schomberg and Grant McCool)

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LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that his victory in a confidence vote, when 41% of his lawmakers voted against him, was a convincing and decisive win that would enable the country to move on.

Having scored a sweeping election victory in 2019, the prime minister has been under mounting pressure after he and staff held alcohol-fuelled parties in his Downing Street office and residence when Britain was under strict COVID-19 lockdowns.

“I think it’s a convincing result, a decisive result and what it means is that as a government we can move on and focus on the stuff that I think really matters to people,” he told reporters.

“We can focus on what we’re doing to help people with the cost of living, what we’re doing to clear the COVID backlogs, what we’re doing to make streets and communities safer by putting more police out,” he said.

“It gives us the opportunity to continue to unite, to level up, and to strengthen our economy.”

He also said he was not interested in holding a snap national election, which some had suggested may be his next move to attempt to reassert his authority.

“I’m certainly not interested in snap elections, what I’m interested in is delivering right now for the people of this country,” he said.

(Reporting by William James and Farouq Suleiman; Editing by Kate Holton)

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By Matt Spetalnick and Dave Graham

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The White House on Monday excluded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas this week, prompting Mexico’s president to make good on a threat to skip the event because all countries in the Western Hemisphere were not invited.

The boycott by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and some other leaders could diminish the relevance of the summit in Los Angeles, where the United States aims to address regional migration and economic issues. U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, hopes to repair Latin America relations damaged under his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, reassert U.S. influence and counter China.

The decision to cut out Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua followed weeks of intense deliberations and was due to concerns about human rights and a lack of democracy in the three nations, a senior Biden administration official said on Monday.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a news briefing that the United States understands Mexico’s position, but that “one of the key elements of this summit is democratic governance, and these countries are not exemplars, to put it mildly, of democratic governance.”

Biden aides have been mindful of pressure from Republicans and some of the president’s fellow Democrats against appearing soft on America’s three main leftist antagonists in Latin America. Miami’s large Cuban American community, which favored Trump’ harsh policies toward Cuba and Venezuela, is seen as an important voting bloc in Florida in November elections that will decide control of the U.S. Congress.

Lopez Obrador told reporters at a regular news conference on Monday that Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard would attend the summit in his place. The Mexican president said he would meet with Biden in Washington next month, which the White House confirmed.

“There can’t be a Summit of the Americas if not all countries of the American continent are taking part,” Lopez Obrador said.

Lopez Obrador’s absence raises questions about the significance of summit discussions focused on curbing migration at the U.S. southern border, a priority for Biden, and could be a diplomatic embarrassment for the United States. A caravan of several thousand migrants, many from Venezuela, set off from southern Mexico early Monday aiming to reach the United States.

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat and chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the Mexican president in a statement, saying his “decision to stand with dictators and despots” would hurt U.S.-Mexico relations.

CUBA CRITICAL

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a right wing populist and Trump admirer who leads Latin America’s most populous country, will attend after initially flirting with staying away.

The exclusion of leftist-led Venezuela and Nicaragua had already been flagged in recent weeks. President Miguel Diaz-Canel of Communist-ruled Cuba said last month he would not go even if invited, accusing the United States of “brutal pressure” to make the summit non-inclusive.

In a critical statement on Monday, Cuba called the decision “discriminatory and unacceptable” and said the United States underestimated support in the region for the island nation.

The United States invited some Cuban civil society activists to attend the summit, but several said on social media that Cuban state security had blocked them from travel to Los Angeles to participate.

Having ruled out Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Biden administration expects that representatives for opposition leader Juan Guaido will attend, State Department’s Price said on Monday. Price declined to say who might attend and whether it would be in person or virtually.

Washington recognizes Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate president, having condemned Maduro’s 2018 re-election as a sham.

Also barred from the summit is Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla who won a fourth consecutive term in November after jailing rivals.

Most leaders have signaled they will attend, but the pushback by leftist-led governments suggests many in Latin America are no longer willing to follow Washington’s lead as at times in the past.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Kylie Madry and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City, Jose Torres in Tapachula; and Dave Sherwood in Havana; Writing by Ted Hesson; Editing by Grant McCool and Alistair Bell)

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Controversy in Gaza over How Much ‘Axis of Resistance’ Helps Palestinian War Effort

Media greatly exaggerates the capacity and role of allies Iran, Syria and Hizbullah, professor says

[Gaza City] The fierce fighting during the May 2021 war fought between Hamas in Gaza and Israel was led in Gaza by a joint security room that included intelligence officers from the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of Hamas, the Lebanese Hizbullah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

High-ranking Hamas commander Muhammad Sinwar, the brother of Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, in his first-ever media appearance on the Al Jazeera investigative program “What is Hidden is Greater” made the revelation of the cooperation between Hamas and the “Axis of Resistance” composed of Iran, Syria and Hizbullah.

Some 260 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed in Gaza, and one soldier and 14 civilians, including one child, were killed in Israel during last year’s 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Ibrahim al-Madhoun, the director of the Turkey-based Association for Palestine Communicators and Media (FIMED), believes that the level of coordination and communication among the parties in the Axis of Resistance, “especially between Hamas and Hizbullah, is increasingly growing.”

“Obviously, the joint operations room is in continuous session where there is direct communication and joint arrangement toward reinforcing fighters’ capability and supply mechanisms, in addition to sharing experiences and information in order to advance a comprehensive plan to confront any Israeli aggression, whether on Gaza or on Lebanon,” Madhoun told The Media Line.

Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary-general of Hizbullah, confirmed in an interview with Al-Aqsa TV in April that cooperation between Hamas and the Axis of Resistance is ongoing and “includes training, arming and transferring expertise.”

This cooperation is not limited to financial and military aid, but also includes intelligence support, Ibrahim Habib, professor of strategic and regional studies at Al-Awda University College in Gaza, told The Media Line.

“The Palestinian resistance factions benefit greatly from the joint security room at the intelligence level. It has become easier for the Palestinian resistance to conduct sensitive hacking operations knowing that the information it receives from Iran is reliable, as the latter owns a satellite that has several functions, including intelligence gathering and espionage,” he explained.

The Palestinian resistance factions “realize that it is not wise to disperse operational orders in case of military confrontations. Rather, it is better to focus on the goal and ensure an integrated flow of work. Therefore, all Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad, are part of the joint operations room,” Habib said.

He expects that, in the next stage, “we may witness joint cooperation on several fronts between the three parties [Hamas, Iran, Hizbullah] and perhaps more if other players join the alliance.”

Obviously, Israel is fully aware of the seriousness of this and is preparing for such scenarios, Habib noted.

Three weeks ago, the Israel Defense Forces began “Chariots of Fire,” its largest training exercise in decades. The four-week drill simulates a multifront and multidimensional war against Israel’s enemies in the air, at sea, on land and on the cyber front.

Sources on the ground say the Axis of Resistance alliance may become the most important factor on the political scene.

Ibrahim Ibrash, professor of political science at Azhar University and a former culture minister, believes that the reports of the Axis’ strength and power are inflated.

“There is a great exaggeration, made by media outlets such as Al Jazeera, in estimating the Axis of Resistance’s support of the Palestinian factions and of their capacities as well,” he told The Media Line.

“If it’s true [the claims of strength], then why didn’t the parties to the Axis of Resistance defend themselves when they were targeted by Israel many times?” Ibrash asked.

“The real question here is, when all red lines have been crossed, when will this Axis of Resistance react? Israel assassinated senior top officials in Iran, Syria and Lebanon, yet no response has been made. Israel is occupying the entire Palestinian land, declared Jerusalem its capital; Israeli settlers are constantly storming Al-Aqsa Mosque, illegal Israeli settlement, oppression and demolition of Palestinian homes continue until this very moment. When will they act? What are they waiting for?” he said.

According to Ibrash, Palestinians, mainly the Jerusalemites, are the ones actually defending Palestine and Jerusalem, and not the Axis of Resistance.

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3 Months Into Ukraine War, Israeli-Russian Commercial Relations Still Prosper

Despite a few cancellations, Israel remains the only Western country with no sanctions on Russian entities or capital

A Russian ballet performs in Tel Aviv, Russian products that bear the Russian flag can be found easily in Israeli supermarkets, Israel exports its vegetables to Russia, while Yango, part of the Russian giant Yandex Group, supplies Israelis with taxis and grocery deliveries.

Today Israel is the only Western country that does not exercise any sanctions against Russian entities or capital. However, financial limitations do exist. How has the war in Ukraine affected the trade between the two countries and how have the Jewish state’s communities of Russian speakers from Russia and Ukraine responded to it?

A taxi, a deli delivery, and a prewar image of Bucha

Commercials for Yango Deli – a new delivery service that enables a customer to get a quick supply of milk, bread, or any other product in a record time of just 15 minutes – were lately seen in many cities across Israel.

Yango, an abbreviation of Yandex Go, is an international brand of Yandex – the so-called Russian Google, a giant conglomerate that started as a search engine and now offers anything from taxis and scooters to shipping, deliveries, news, and data.

Yandex employs 450 people in Israel and according to recent publications in Russian and Israeli media, it is planning to relocate its headquarters to Israel and split the company into a Russian and an international division.

The European Union lately added Yandex’s Deputy CEO Tigran Khudaverdyan to its sanctions lists (he soon resigned from the company), while pro-Ukrainian activists and observers had noticed that the Yandex search engine only offers prewar images of Bucha, where massacres were allegedly carried out by the Russian military. Some Yandex officials resigned soon after this became public.

Denis Dlugach, an Israeli of Ukrainian origin and an activist with the nongovernmental organization Israeli Friends of Ukraine, told The Media Line the main issue with Yandex was that it manipulated the data, and consequently public opinion.

“People who want to find out the facts will not be able to do it through Yandex. It’s important that Israel understands what kind of company it lets into the country. They can put anything in their algorithms – no one will ever know – and it eases the task of manipulating public opinion. Also, they keep paying tax in Russia, and we know how this money is used by the Russian state,” he said.

Roman Bronfman, a businessman and a former member of Knesset who was born in Ukraine, warns of yet another problematic aspect.

“Personally, I stopped doing business with Russia back in 2014, yet I understand the market dependence when we talk about companies that are not involved in the military industry or weapon sales,” he told The Media Line. “But Yandex and its offshoots are busy with gathering information and data. It can compromise Israeli security and its activity here in Israel must stop at once.”

Bronfman called on Economy Minister Orna Barbivai to use her powers to halt Yandex’s activities in Israel.

In reply to an inquiry by The Media Line, the ministry spokesperson said, “The issue is not the responsibility of the Economy Ministry. The State of Israel does not restrict the activities of international companies that operate in accordance with the law.”

The Israeli government has so far avoided imposing sanctions on Russia or expressing criticism of Vladimir Putin’s regime, trying to keep up the balancing act between Moscow and Kyiv. The Russian oligarchs haven’t been sanctioned and their assets haven’t been seized, while many of the Russian billionaires of Jewish origin have immigrated to Israel.

While Europe, the US, Canada, and other Western countries are struggling with dependence on Russian oil and gas and expanding the existing sanctions, Russian-made products – from ice cream to cooking oil – can be found in most supermarkets across Israel, Russian artists (recently the Russian National Ballet Theatre) arrive to perform and Russian state TV channels such as Channel 1 continue to broadcast as usual.

A few concerts by Russian artists who support Putin were canceled due to pressure from pro-Ukraine activists, and this development triggered a furious debate between Israelis who support and object to this kind of activity.

“People should choose by themselves. That’s how it’s done in civilized states,” Marina Polinoski, a resident of Beersheba, wrote on Facebook. “Who gets to decide who will perform in Israel and who will not? The artists do not have to answer these questions, just to perform and make the audience happy.”

Hundreds of other Facebook users enthusiastically supported the cancellation of scheduled concerts of Grigory Leps, Elena Vaenga, and other Russian performers known for their support of Putin’s regime.

No credit insurance and a lot of uncertainty about the future

The value of trade between Israel and Russia reached some $3.5 billion in 2021, of which about $3.16 billion was in goods and about $350 million consisted of services, according to data from the Foreign Trade Administration in the Economy Ministry. The figures were up 52% from 2020.

According to the ministry, no official data can yet be published on exports and imports with Russia in 2022.

It was announced in March that Israel would not issue credit insurance to Israeli companies that maintained their business with Russia, but some continued to export and operate in Russia without this insurance.

Sources in the vegetable-producing sector told The Media Line there was much uncertainty regarding the continuation of cooperation with the Russian Federation, especially regarding the ability of Russian companies to transfer international payments.

At the same time, large Israeli high-tech firms such as Wix.com, Fiverr, Playtika, and Tipalti have suspended or pulled their commercial operations in Russia over Russian aggression in Ukraine.

More than 100 others – including Check Point, Tadiran, Gottex, Netafim, and Ahava – remain active in Russia. Also, as of today, the Israeli diamond industry continues to import rough stones from Russian state-owned Alrosa.

“Israel has been extremely careful about international financial affairs since Israeli banks operate around the world. The financial and insurance structures are very careful and mostly avoid doing business in Russia. Those who continue the trade, do it on their own responsibility,” Bronfman said.

Recently, David Davidovich, a business partner of Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Abramovich, sued Israel’s Bank Hapoalim after it blocked his account and credit card. Hapoalim replied that it acted in accordance with the British sanctions that were imposed on Davidovich in April. Some experts in Israel believe that Davidovich was acting as a frontman for Abramovich and so was the bank account.

Almost 100 days into the war, Israeli trade with Russia has probably slowed down due to international financial restrictions, difficulties in shipping, and so on. However, due to the lack of any Israeli sanctions or legislative base, many Israeli and Russian businesses continue as usual.

In the absence of basic data from the Economy Ministry for 2022, it’s hard to talk about the numbers, but it’s still easy to talk about the political aspects of commercial relations between the two countries: Israel is still reluctant to act against oligarchs, “Russian Google” and cooperation with state-run companies.

“This behavior is definitely a very serious exception to what has already become the rule in the West,” Bronfman says.

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By Pavel Polityuk and Max Hunder

KYIV (Reuters) – Russia hit Kyiv with cruise missiles fired from the Caspian Sea on Sunday, striking a rail car repair facility in the Ukrainian capital, in the first such attack for weeks, Ukraine’s army and the country’s railway chief said.

Dark smoke funnelled into the sky above Kyiv’s eastern outskirts. At least one person was hospitalised though no deaths were immediately reported, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Ukrainian air defences shot down one incoming missile at around 6 a.m. local time (0300 GMT), the military said.

Kyiv resident Kostyantyn Nikitenko, who lives near the repair facility, said that he immediately took shelter in his apartment’s corridor when he heard several powerful explosions around that time.

“Every 10-30 seconds the next explosions came. With every new explosion, it was more and more powerful, and I got the impression that it was getting closer and closer,” he said, adding that afterwards he saw a 100-metre column of black smoke emerging from behind a nearby building.

“There hasn’t been a strike on Kyiv in a while, and perhaps most people, including myself, developed a kind of illusion that the worst was behind us. But this was a reminder that the war is still going on,” Nikitenko said.

One Russian missile that was probably headed for Kyiv flew “critically low” over a major nuclear power plant in the southern Mykolaiv region, state-run nuclear power operator Energoatom said on Telegram. It later posted a video appearing to confirm its account. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its missiles had destroyed T-72 tanks and armoured vehicles supplied to Ukraine by eastern European countries housed in a rail car repair facility in Kyiv.

Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of the Ukrainian railway, confirmed that four missiles had smashed into the Darnytsia rail car repair facility in eastern Kyiv, but said there was no military hardware at the site.

“Their (Russia’s) target is the economy and the civilian population,” he said.

Moscow has denied targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation.”

The sprawling railway system has served as a vital lifeline as Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion has crippled the Ukrainian economy and severed export routes via the Black Sea.

The missiles were the first to hit the capital since late April when a Radio Liberty producer was killed in a Russian strike that hit the building she lived in.

“According to preliminary data, the (Russians) launched missiles from Tu-95 aircraft from the Caspian Sea,” the Ukrainian air force said in a statement.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak called on the West to impose more sanctions on Russia to punish it for the strikes and to supply more weapons to Ukraine.

“The Kremlin resorts to new insidious attacks. Today’s missile strikes at Kyiv have only one goal – kill as many as possible,” he wrote in a tweet.

The mayor of the historic town of Brovary, around 20 km (12 miles) from Kyiv’s centre, urged people to remain inside their homes as there had been reports of a sooty smell coming from the smoke.

Air raid sirens regularly disrupt life in Kyiv, but there have been no major strikes on the city in several weeks after Moscow turned the focus of its invasion to the east and south.

The Darnytskyi district on the left bank of the Dnipro River stretches from the fringes of Kyiv to the river’s shores while the Dniprovskyi area in the city’s north lies along the river.

Oleksandr Honcharenko, mayor of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in the east, reported overnight strikes on the city, resulting in widespread damage but no casualties.

(Writing by Lidia Kelly and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Tomasz Janowski)

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