seizing

Ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine may soon be under way, but Ukraine’s economic recovery will be hobbled unless the European Union fast-tracks the war-torn country’s membership and provides hundreds of billions of euros’ worth of insurance and investment, experts tell Al Jazeera.

“I think what Ukraine needs is some kind of future where it will have a stable and defendable border, and that will only come, I would think, with EU membership,” historian Phillips O’Brien told Al Jazeera.

The US administration of President Donald Trump last month handed Ukraine and Russia a ceasefire proposal that excluded future NATO membership of Ukraine, satisfying a key Kremlin demand and leaving Ukraine without the security guarantees it seeks.

“What business is actually going to take the risk of getting involved there economically?” asked O’Brien. “With NATO off the table, I think if Ukraine is going to have a chance of rebuilding and being integrated into Europe, it will have to be through a fast-tracked EU membership.”

That membership is by no means assured, although the European Commission started negotiations in record time last June, and Ukraine has the support of EU heavyweights like France and Germany.

If Ukraine becomes an EU member, it would still face a devastated economy requiring vast investment.

The Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) estimated that between Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and November last year, Moscow’s onslaught had destroyed $170bn of infrastructure, with the housing, transport and energy sectors most affected.

That figure did not include the damage incurred in almost a decade of war in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since 2014 or the loss of 29 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product (GDP) from the invasion in 2022. The estimate also did not put a value on the loss of almost a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, which Russia now occupies.

That territory contains almost half of Ukraine’s unexploited mineral wealth, worth an estimated $12.4 trillion, according to SecDev, a Canadian geopolitical risk firm.

It also does not include some types of reconstruction costs, such as chemical decontamination and mine-clearing.

The World Bank put the cost of infrastructure damages slightly higher this year, at $176bn, and predicts the cost of reconstruction and recovery at about $525bn over 10 years.

‘The Kremlin has certainly looted occupied territory’

Economic war has been part of Russia’s strategy since the invasion of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014, argued Maximilian Hess, a risk analyst and Eurasia expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

“The Kremlin has certainly looted occupied territory, including for coking coal, agricultural products, and iron,” Hess told Al Jazeera.

The KSE has estimated Russia stole half a million tonnes of grain, included in the $1.9bn damages bill to the agricultural sector.

Using long-range rocketry, Russia also targeted industrial hubs not under its control.

Ukraine inherited a series of factories from the Soviet Union, including the Kharkiv Tractor Plant, the Zaporizhia Automobile Plant, the Pivdenmash rocket manufacturer in Dnipro and massive steel plants.

“All were targeted by Russian forces,” wrote Hess in his recent book, Economic War. “Russia’s attacks were, of course, primarily aimed at devastating the Ukrainian economy and weakening its ability and will to fight, but they also raised the cost to the West of supporting Ukraine in the conflict, something the Kremlin hoped would lead to reduced support for Kyiv.”

Through occupation and targeting, Russia managed to deprive Ukraine of a flourishing metallurgy sector.

According to the United States Geological Survey, metallurgical production decreased by 66.5 percent as a result of the war.

That is a vast loss, considering that Ukraine once produced almost a third of the iron ore in Europe, Russia and Central Eurasia, half of the region’s manganese ore and a third of its titanium. It remains the only producer of uranium in Europe, an important resource in the continent’s quest for greater energy autonomy.

Ukraine’s claims to have built a $20bn defence industrial base with allied help, a rare wartime economic success story.

That can make up for the losses in metallurgy, Hess said, “but only in part and in different regions of the country from which those mining and metallurgical ones were concentrated. Boosting [metallurgical activities] in places like Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and ideally territory ultimately freed from Russian occupation, will be necessary to win the peace.”

Trump’s minerals deal, and other instruments

Weeks ago, Ukraine and the US signed a memorandum of intent to jointly exploit Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

Ukraine committed to putting half the proceeds from its metallurgical activities into a Reconstruction Fund, but experts doubted the notion that mineral wealth can rebuild Ukraine.

“Projects have a long launch period … from five to 10 years,” Maxim Fedoseienko, head of strategic projects at the KSE Institute, told Al Jazeera. “You need to make documentation, environmental impacts assessment, and after that, you can also need three years to build this mine.”

The US and EU might invest in such mines, Fedoseienko said, because “we have more than 24 kinds of materials from the EU list of critical [raw] materials,” but they would only contribute to the Ukrainian economy if investments were equitable.

Trump presented the minerals deal as payback for billions in military aid.

“There’s nothing remotely fair about it. The aid was not given to be paid back,” said O’Brien.

As Fedoseienko put it, “It is not fair if everyone will say, ‘OK, we will help you in a time of war, so you are owned [by] us.’”

In addition to fairness, Ukraine needs money. Some of that needs to come in the form of insurance.

A state-backed war-risk insurance formula Kyiv reached with the United Kingdom in 2023, for example, brought bulk carriers back to Ukraine’s ports and defeated Russian efforts to blockade Ukrainian grain exports.

As a result, Ukraine exported 57.5 million tonnes of agricultural goods in 2023-2024, and was on track to export 77 million tonnes in the 2024-2025 marketing year, which ends in June, its agriculture ministry said.

“There needs to be a substantial expansion of public insurance products in particular, as well as a move to seize frozen Russian assets,” said Hess.

Seizing some $300bn in Russian central bank money held in the EU was deemed controversial, but the measure is now receiving support.

“The Russian state has committed these war crimes, has broken international law, has done this damage to Ukraine –  that actually becomes a just way of helping Ukraine rebuild,” said O’Brien. “[Europeans] have a very strong case for this, but they, right now, lack the political will to do it.”

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has already repeatedly asked Europe to use the money for Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction.

What Europeans have done in the meantime is going some way towards rebuilding Ukraine.

Some $300m in interest payments proceeding from Russian assets are diverted to reconstruction each year.

A European Commission programme provides 9.3 billion euros ($10.5bn) of financial support designed to leverage investment from the private sector.

Financial institutions such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank are providing loan guarantees to Ukrainian banks, which gives them liquidity.

“So Ukrainian banks can provide loans to Ukrainian companies to invest and operate in Ukraine. This is a big ecosystem to finance investment and operational needs to the Ukrainian economy,” said Fedoseienko.

Together with the finance ministry, the KSE operates an online portal providing information about the various instruments available, which has already helped bring 165 investments to fruition worth $27bn.

“Is it enough to recover the Ukrainian economy?” Fedoseienko asked. “No, but this is a significant programme to support Ukraine now.”

April 12 (UPI) — The U.K. Parliament authorized the government to seize control of the Chinese-owned British Steel plant in Scunthorpe to prevent its closure and the loss of up to 2,700 jobs.

Members of Parliament approved a government takeover of the steel plant that is owned by Chinese firm Jingye during an emergency session Saturday morning to stop its owners from shutting down two blast furnaces and ending steel production in the United Kingdom, the BBC reported.

The British government and Jingye officials had been negotiating to keep the steel plant open, but those talks broke down, which triggered Saturday’s emergency session of Parliament.

King Charles granted royal assent for the government takeover, and steel workers stopped a group of Chinese executives from accessing” critical parts” of the steelworks Saturday morning, The Times reported.

The emergency law was introduced, passed and given assent in one day and authorizes U.K. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds to take control of British Steel and any other steel asset and order materials to keep producing steel while continuing to pay steelworkers and support staff.

The emergency law also allows for the arrest and imprisonment for up to two years of anyone who violates it.

Saturday’s emergency session was only the sixth for the U.K. Parliament since the end of World War II, The Guardian reported.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and several cabinet ministers on Friday morning agreed special powers were needed to keep the steel plant open and called on Parliament to convene on Saturday.

U.K. government officials had negotiated with Jingye representatives since July to keep the steel plant open.

The government’s negotiators offered to buy raw materials for the British Steel blast furnaces, but Jingye’s negotiators demanded an “excessive amount” from the government, according to The Guardian.

King Charles granted his assent after the emergency session ended, and Starmer traveled to the steel plant to address its workers.

“You are the people who have kept this going,” Starmer told them. “You and your colleagues for years have been the backbone of British Steel.”

The plant is the last primary maker of virgin steel in the United Kingdom.

Reynolds said Jingye planned to “refuse to purchase the necessary raw material” for the blast furnaces and cancel and refuse to refund payments for existing orders.

Rwandan-backed M23 rebels pledge to restore security in Bukavu as an escalation in fighting fans fears of an all-out regional war.

Rwanda-backed rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have promised to “restore security” in Bukavu, the second major city in the country’s east to fall under the control of the M23 since late last month.

Residents of the capital of South Kivu province were tentatively walking the streets again on Monday, a day after M23 rebels overran the city with next to no resistance from the fleeing Congolese army.

Thousands of people have fled to neighbouring Burundi while some residents who stayed behind welcomed the M23 as columns of fighters entered Bukavu on Sunday morning.

In a statement read on local radio on Monday, a rebel alliance that includes M23 said it would assist the population of Bukavu who were “abandoned” by the army and allied combatants.

“Our forces have been working to restore the security for the people and their property, much to the satisfaction of the entire population,” it said.

Bukavu is the latest city to fall into the hands of the M23, also known as the March 23 Movement, which in recent months has seized swathes of territory in the eastern DRC after again taking up arms in late 2021.

The capture of the commercial hub of 1.3 million people has dealt a further blow to Kinshasa’s authority and escalated a conflict that has fanned fears of an all-out regional war.

The M23 began advancing in South Kivu after last month taking control of Goma, the capital of neighbouring North Kivu province, which borders Rwanda. Fighting between the M23 and the Congolese army there left thousands dead, according to the United Nations.

Erasto Bahati Musanga, the rebel-appointed governor of North Kivu, announced that ports in Bukavu and Goma would reopen on Tuesday.

Navigation on Lake Kivu, one of the largest lakes in Africa, had been banned since late January as a result of the rebel offensive on Goma.

Although a bloodbath was avoided in Bukavu, the city’s streets were still littered with rubbish left by residents who took advantage of the confusion to loot humanitarian warehouses, shops and the local brewery.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday said looters made off with 7,000 tonnes of humanitarian food supplies at the weekend.

The agency condemned the attack on its Bukavu warehouses in a post on X, saying the food supplies “were meant to provide vital support to the most vulnerable families who now face a growing humanitarian crisis”.

It also urged all parties to the conflict “to respect their obligations vis-à-vis international humanitarian law”, which includes the protection of civilians and humanitarian workers.

1 /3 #WFP condemns the looting of our warehouses in #Bukavu, #SouthKivu, in the eastern #DRCongo🇨🇩 over the weekend. The vital food supplies stored were intended to provide life-saving support to the most vulnerable families who now face a growing humanitarian crisis, pic.twitter.com/sYUzbRXdUw

— WFP DRC (@WFPDRC) February 17, 2025

Standing before his looted shop, Pascal Zulu said he did not know how he could repay the loan he took out to buy merchandise.

“The thugs arrived, they took everything, and nothing remains. I’m really upset. I don’t know how I’m going to repay the money I borrowed,” he said.

Economic activity was gradually resuming in the city, however. In two markets, traders returned to their stalls, although customers were few and far between.

“We are taking advantage of this calm to restart our commercial activities, otherwise how will we live?” fruit and spice seller Maman Nyabadeu told the AFP news agency.

The M23 is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of eastern Congo’s trillions of dollars in mineral wealth.

The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts. Rwanda has rejected allegations from the DRC, the UN, and Western powers that it supports the group with arms and troops.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department under President Trump has disbanded a Biden-era program aimed at seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs as a means to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

The move to disband Task Force KleptoCapture is one of several moves undertaken by the Justice Department under the new leadership of Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi that presage a different approach toward Russia and national security issues.

The department also ended the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation. The U.S. government in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election aggressively moved to disrupt propaganda campaigns by Russia, which officials have assessed had a preference for Trump.

In a memo addressed to all employees Wednesday — the first day of Bondi’s tenure — the attorney general’s office stated that “attorneys assigned to those initiatives shall return to their prior posts, and resources currently devoted to those efforts shall be committed to the total elimination of Cartels and TCOs” — an acronym for Transnational Criminal Organizations.

The Trump administration has made combating the illicit flow of fentanyl into the U.S. a priority. The opioid is blamed for some 70,000 overdose deaths annually.

The Justice Department this week also shifted its approach to enforcement of a World War II-era law known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people to disclose to the government when they lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign governments — including Russia — or political entities. Under the policy change, prosecutors were directed to focus criminal enforcement on acts of more traditional espionage rather than registration violations.

Trump has said he will bring about a rapid end to the war in Ukraine and said talks are ongoing to bring the conflict to a close. “We made a lot of progress on Russia, Ukraine,” Trump said this week. “We’ll see what happens. We’re going to stop that ridiculous war.”

Hussein and Tucker write for the Associated Press.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Witnesses say they saw rebels entering the centre of the eastern city of Goma amid gunfire, as the UN calls for an end to the offensive.

Gunfire rang out across parts of Goma, the largest city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), hours after Rwanda-backed M23 rebels said they had seized it despite the United Nations Security Council calling for an end to the offensive.

The armed group announced the city’s capture in a statement early on Monday, as the DRC government said their advance was a “declaration of war” by Rwanda and the UN said the capture has caused “mass panic” among Goma’s two million residents.

The M23 claim came minutes before a 48-hour deadline it had given to Congolese troops to surrender their weapons expired. Its fighters also urged Goma residents to remain calm and for members of the DRC military to assemble at the central stadium.

Two witnesses told the Reuters news agency rebels had entered the centre of Goma. One of them shared a brief video showing heavily armed men walking through the streets, the agency reported.

The advance by the M23 rebel alliance has forced thousands in DRC’s mineral-rich east from their homes and triggered fears that a decades-old simmering conflict risks reigniting a broader regional war.

M23 fighters have been locked in a conflict with the Congolese army and UN peacekeepers on Goma’s outskirts for several days.

The battle for the key city is the latest chapter of fighting in the eastern DRC, a volatile area that has struggled with regional rivalries, ethnic disputes and armed militia conflicts for more than three decades, triggering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

In a video posted on X, DRC government’s spokesman Patrick Muyaya called for the protection of civilians and said the country is “in a war situation”.

Furious over the M23 advance on Goma, the DRC cut ties with Rwanda on Saturday and called for UN sanctions on its neighbour.

With international pressure mounting for an end to the battle for Goma, Kenya announced on Sunday that DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame had agreed to attend a summit in the next two days.

Kenyan President William Ruto appealed to both leaders to “heed the call for peace from the people of our region and the international community”.

Ruto, chairman of the East African Community bloc, will hold an emergency meeting for heads of state on the situation, said Korir Sing’Oei, principal secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At an emergency meeting of the UNSC on Sunday in response to the crisis, Kinshasa’s top diplomat warned that more Rwandan troops were crossing the border “in an open and deliberate violation” of sovereignty.

“This is a frontal assault, a declaration of war that no longer hides behind diplomatic artifice,” said DRC Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner.

Kigali dismissed statements that “did not provide any solutions”, and blamed Kinshasa for triggering the recent escalation.

“The fighting close to the Rwandan border continues to present a serious threat to Rwanda’s security and territorial integrity and necessitates Rwanda’s sustained defensive posture,” Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

UN experts say Rwanda has deployed 3,000-4,000 soldiers and provided significant firepower, including missiles and snipers, to support the M23 in fighting in DRC.

In a statement late on Sunday, the UNSC called for the withdrawal of aggressive “external forces” in the region but stopped short of explicitly naming them.

The statement came after UN chief Antonio Guterres called on Rwanda to pull its armed forces out of DRC – a call rejected by Kigali.

About a dozen foreign peacekeepers have been killed in the escalating clashes.

“The fate of the Galaxy Leader ship and its crew is in the hands of the Palestinian negotiator,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said in a statement on X.

“Its crew was released today in coordination with Hamas and with Omani mediation.”

The crew consisted of nationals of Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico, including 17 from the Philippines. President Bongbong Marcos of the Philippines announced in a statement that the Filipino crew members were under the care of the Philippines Embassy in Muscat, Oman, and would “very soon” be reunited with their families at home.

The release of the crew suggests that the Houthi rebels may be seeking to reduce tensions in the region following the Hamas-Israel cease-fire, which began last week.

The Galaxy Leader vessel and its crew were seized by the Yemen rebels in November 2023 as the Houthis began to enforce a military blockade of the important trade route of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Houthis stated the blockade was in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel had launched a full-scale war against Hamas, another Iran-proxy militia, a month earlier.

During the blockade, the Houthis conducted some 160 attacks targeting commercial and U.S. naval ships during the blockade, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

The administration of then-U.S. President Joe Biden, focused on preventing the Israel-Hamas war from escalating across the Middle East, responded to the blockade by launching the multinational Operation Prosperity Guardian security initiative. The U.S. military also conducted numerous strikes into Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen to degrade its military capabilities. It also imposed rounds of sanctions against the group and designated it a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in January of last year.

The release of the came shortly before newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump moved to re-designate the Houthi rebels as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a step that could further escalate tensions in the region.

Yemeni Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Moammar al-Eryani issued a statement to emphasize that the Houthis release of the sailors was not a gesture of of goodwill but “a blatant attempt to manipulate the facts and cover-up the truth of what happened — a fully fledged piracy crime on a commercial ship in international waters.”

“The late release of the crew of the Galaxy Leader … does not eliminate the harm they have suffered or alleviate the suffering they have endured, but rather should reflect the international community’s concern about the militia’s illegal actions and human rights violations,” he said.

The internationally recognized Yemeni government does not want international pressure, which has been piling on the Houthis amid their blockade, to diminish now that a cease-fire has been achieved and welcomed Trump’s decision to impose harsher sanctions on the militia with the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation.

“We are that the continued control of the Houthis militia over parts of the Yemeni coastal strip and the three port of Hodeidah, and its use as a launching pad for piracy operations and threats to commercial ships and oil tankers pose a serious threat to maritime security and negatively affects global trade, which calls for urgent action by the international community,” he said, as he called on the European Union and Britain to follow in the United States’ steps and designate the Houthis.

The Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government have been locked in a civil war for a decade, creating what the United Nations has said is “one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time” with more than 4.3 million people internally displaced and 21.6 million in dire need of aid.

SYRIAN rebels are now just six miles from the capital after seizing major cities as their lightning advance continues.

Damascus is now facing an attack from the south with rebels claiming to control countryside around the city.

11

11

11

Turkish-backed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HST) and allies launched an offensive on the government from the northwest corner of the country last week.

But southern rebels, who are known as the Southern Operations Room, have risen up over the past few days and have struck north.

The southern rebels now threaten Bashar al-Assad directly with the Wall Street Journal reporting his family has fled to Russia.

Towns are being handed over to local rebels as regime forces withdraw to Damascus.

Syrian dictator Assad, who used nerve gas on his own people in 2013, now only holds the west and centre of the country as his rule faces total collapse.

Southern militants took the major southern city of Daraa on Friday evening and allowed government forces to retreat back to Damascus.

Yesterday and this morning those rebels have continued to capture smaller villages and towns on the road to the capital as government forces withdraw.

Rebels now control Syria’s border with Israel and almost the entire southwest of the country.

The southern rebels claim to also hold the town of Zakyah, a mere 16 miles from Damascus.

The Syrian military said it was repositioning, without acknowledging territorial losses, and denied it was withdrawing from areas near Damascus.

In a statement they said: “Our forces operating in Daraa and as-Suwayda implemented a redeployment, repositioning and established a strong and cohesive defensive and security cordon in that direction.”

But war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the “entire surroundings of Damascus” had seen the withdrawal of regime forces.

Since HTS’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defences have crumbled across the country at dizzying speed.

Rebels rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over, like Daraa – which was the cradle of the 2011 revolution.

11

11

In cities captured by the rebels, statues, signs, and paintings of the Assad family are being torn down and shot at.

Meanwhile, HST is now bearing down on the city of Homs – the site of a brutal three-year-long siege earlier in the civil war.

Government defences are focused on Homs, with state television and Syrian military sources reporting massive air strikes on rebel positions and a wave of reinforcements arriving to dig in around the city.

On Thursday, HST captured the key city of Hama allowing them to move further down the road towards Homs and capturing the centre of the country.

Another rebel group has seized the historic desert city of Palmyra after government troops withdrew to defend Homs.

Assad has also lost the eastern city of Deir al-Zor to rebels.

11

11

Earlier in Syria’s civil war, Assad was saved by Russia and Iran who used their proxy forces and air superiority to beat back the rebels.

But, Vladimir Putin doesn’t have a plan to save Assad and doesn’t see one emerging as government troops continue to give up the fight, Bloomberg reports.

The Kremlin has helped Assad with airstrikes to defend against this offensive, but it is too invested in Ukraine to throw much weight behind its ally.

It is not yet clear what will happen with Russia’s two military bases in the country: Khmeimim Air Base and Tartus Naval Base.

Russia has withdrawn its vessels from Tartus, the home of its Mediterranean fleet, but claims it is for exercises.

Meanwhile, Iran has begun to withdraw its military commanders from the country as another of its allied forces crumble.

HST rebels said they were “at the walls” of Homs after taking the last village on its northern outskirts late on Friday.

11

11

Inside Homs, a resident told Reuters the situation had felt normal until Friday, but had grown more tense with the sound of airstrikes and gunfire clearly audible and pro-Assad militia groups setting up checkpoints.

The resident said: “They are sending a message to people to keep in line and that they should not get excited and not expect Homs to go easily.”

Seizing Homs, a key crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, would cut off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

A Syrian military officer said there was a lull in fighting on Saturday morning after a night of intense airstrikes on the rebels.

Ahead of the rebel advance, thousands of people fled Homs towards the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government, residents and witnesses said.

11

11