Europe
rusich

Russian paramilitary leader gets life for war crimes —in Finland

The Helsinki District Court in Finland sentenced a 38-year-old man to life for committing war crimes in Ukraine. Voislav Torden, 38, a Russian-Norwegian better known as Yan Petrovskiy, was deputy commander of a neo-Nazi paramilitary unit called Rusich, which participated in Russia’s first incursions into Ukraine in 2014. According to prosecutors, Petrovskyi was responsible for leading an attack on Ukraine’s eastern frontier in 2014, which left approximately 20 Ukrainian troops dead. Petrovskyi was accused of ordering his men to carve Rusich’s emblem into the chest of a wounded Ukrainian soldier. He was also charged for posing with a dead soldier’s body for photos, which were later uploaded to social media. (Photo of Azov Battalion fighters: Carl RidderstrĂĄle/Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East
warplanes

Trump launches air-strikes on Yemen, Iraq

President Donald Trump ordered a series of air-strikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, promising to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthi rebels cease their attacks on shipping along a vital maritime corridor. Houthi authorities said 13 civilians were killed in the strikes. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who control the capital, have said they will resume attacks on ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s renewed blockade on aid to Gaza. Following the January Hamas-Israel ceasefire, the Houthis had paused their campaign of attacks on shipping, which they depict as a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians (although many targets are not linked to Israel). Days before the strikes on Sanaa, a US air-raid in Iraq’s Anbar province reportedly killed Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, the second-highest ranking ISIS leader. (Photo: CENTCOM)

Africa
Darfur

Sudan sues UAE for complicity in Darfur genocide

Sudan instituted proceedings against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before the International Court of Justice, charging that the UAE has directly supported the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its associated militia in West Darfur state, violating the Genocide Convention. Sudan’s claim is based on weapons seized by the Sudanese Armed Forces in active war zones. Sudanese forces reportedly discovered several passports of Emirati nationals inside armored personnel carriers and 4Ă—4 combat vehicles that originated in the UAE. According to Sudan, this reveals illegal military and logistical support that has allowed the RSF to commit genocidal acts in West Darfur, including the killings of civilians, and the deprivation of access to medical care and basic necessities. (Map via Radio Tamazuj)

North America
MĂ©tis

Canada high court allows MĂ©tis challenge of mine leases

The Supreme Court of Canada allowed an application by the MĂ©tis Nation-Saskatchewan (MNS) for judicial review of the Saskatchewan government’s approval of mining permits to proceed. The court ruled that the application, launched in 2021, was not an abuse of process because previous proceedings between the parties had not addressed the dispute in the present case. At issue are three uranium exploration permits within territory over which the MNS asserts Aboriginal title and rights. (Image: MNS)

Africa
Azawad

Jihadists and separatists to form alliance in Mali?

Talks are reported to be underway between JNIM, the main jihadist coalition in Mali, and the Tuareg-led secessionist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) over a possible alliance against the Malian army and its Russian mercenary allies. Mali’s military regime terminated a peace deal with the separatists last year after driving them out of their northern strongholds. The junta has consistently labelled secessionist groups as “terrorists'” and accused them of collusion with jihadists. Separatists deny this, though combatants from both groups share family and community ties, have allied opportunistically at times in the past, and operate in the same areas. According to France 24, current points of negotiation include JNIM softening its demands, especially regarding the application of sharia law, and breaking ties to al-Qaeda. A sticking point may be the FLA’s goal of an independent Azawad—the name they give to northern Mali. Intensified fighting in the north over the past year has had severe humanitarian consequences, driving tens of thousands of people to neighboring Mauritania. (Map of Azawad, the claimed Tuareg homeland, via Twitter)

Syria
SDF

Syria: interim government, SDF sign integration pact

Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) chief Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement to integrate the Kurdish-led SDF into Syria’s state institutions. A statement by the Syrian Presidency said a pact was reached to “integrate all civil and military institutions in northeast Syria [Rojava] under the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the [Qamishli] Airport, and oil and gas fields.” The statement emphasized that “the Kurdish community is indigenous to the Syrian state, which ensures this community’s right to citizenship and all of its constitutional rights.” (Image: Rudaw)

Palestine
UNRWA

Israel blocks Gaza aid, ceasefire teeters

Israel is imposing a total blockade on aid entering the Gaza Strip, raising fears of a return to violence, and of a rapid further deterioration in the dire humanitarian situation in the devastated enclave. The move is intended to pressure Hamas to accept a temporary extension of the first phase of the three-stage ceasefire deal. The second phase was supposed to see Israel and Hamas hammer out a plan for Gaza’s post-war governance. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instead repeatedly expressed support for US President Trump’s widely condemned proposal to expel the 2.1 million Palestinian residents of Gaza and take control of the territory. Arab leaders meeting in Cairo endorsed a $53 billion reconstruction and post-war governance plan as a counter-proposal to Trump’s vision, but it was immediately rejected by the US and Israel. (Photo:  Mohamed Soulaimane al-Astal/TNH)

Africa
south sudan

South Sudan: peace accord on brink of collapse

South Sudanese troops deployed around the house of Vice President Riek Machar and arrested officials from his SPLA-IO party, marking one of the most serious threats yet to the peace deal that Machar’s group signed with President Salva Kiir in 2018. The arrests follow reports of clashes in northeastern Upper Nile state between the national army and the ethnic Nuer militia known as the White Army, which was allied to Marchar during the 2013-2018 civil war. Tensions have been mounting since the government’s decision last year to postpone long-overdue elections, a delay that critics called a failure to implement the 2018 agreement—which has itself been blamed for fuelling instability. Commanders and politicians compete for power in a transitional government based in the capital, Juba, by fighting local wars in the peripheries.  (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Syria
SDF

Podcast: Free Syria and the Kurdish question II

In Episode 268 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the continued fighting in Syria since the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship in December. The recent outburst of violence in the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast made headlines, but this week also saw anti-regime protests by Druze in Syria’s south. And fighting has never stopped between forces aligned with the new transition government and those of the Kurdish autonomous zone in the northeast. The situation is complicated by continuing military adventures on Syrian territory by foreign powers—Israel, Turkey, Russia and the US. Will Syrians be able to overcome these challenges and forge a democratic and multicultural order, in repudiation of sectarianism, ethno-nationalism and Great Power intrigues? (Photo: SOHR)

Africa
wagner group

Wagner-trained forces commit atrocities in CAR

A UN report finds that armed groups operating in the Haut Oubangui region of the Central African Republic (CAR) have been carrying out attacks against Muslim communities and Sudanese refugees, resulting in grave human rights violations. The report, prepared jointly by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), mainly attributes these attacks to Wagner Ti Azande (WTA), a militia affiliated with the national army. The WTA received training last year from the Russian private military company Wagner Group, from whom it takes its name. (Photo of CAR troops wearing the Wagner Group insignia via Corbeau News Centrafrique)

Syria
Syria

External, internal challenges for Syrian Revolution

Apparent Assad loyalists have taken up arms against Syria’s transitional government in the Alawite heartland of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast. Fighting meanwhile continues between the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the northeast, while Israel grabs a “security zone” in the south and continues intermittent air-strikes. Elsewhere in the south, the Druze of Suweida protest their perceived exclusion from the transition process. All this as Russia opens talks with the new authorities in a bid to keep its military bases in Syrian territory. (Map: PCL)