Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at alleged Russian election interference across Europe, the United States tackling North Korean and Chinese threats, and escalating violence in Myanmar.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at alleged Russian election interference across Europe, the United States tackling North Korean and Chinese threats, and escalating violence in Myanmar.
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Kremlin Propaganda Campaign
Belgium launched an investigation late Thursday into alleged Russian interference in the European Parliament’s upcoming continentwide elections, slated for June 6 through 9. On Friday, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Brussels’s intelligence service confirmed the existence of a pro-Russian network trying to influence Europe’s vote and undermine its backing for Kyiv. “Weakened European support for Ukraine serves Russia on the battlefield, and that is the real aim of what has been uncovered in the last weeks,” De Croo said.
Among the allegations, Brussels accused Moscow of offering money to European Parliament members to promote Kremlin propaganda. Czech intelligence suggested that the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site had been funded by Russia to pay parliamentarians from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Poland to make pro-Russian statements.
A Politico investigation found that 16 European Union lawmakers appeared on Voice of Europe, all of them far-right politicians. “If it is a war of civilization, well, I hope the civilization in Ukraine will lose,” Dutch far-right politician Marcel de Graaff said last October during a Voice of Europe-organized debate. Czech authorities sanctioned two of the agency’s executives last month, including Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, a longtime friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s.
“The objectives of Moscow are very clear,” De Croo said. “The objective is to help elect more pro-Russian candidates to the European Parliament and to reinforce a certain pro-Russian narrative in that institution.” The Kremlin has not publicly commented on the allegations.
Russia has long been at the center of alleged interference campaigns across the West. Last month, Latvia’s security service began criminal proceedings against EU lawmaker Tatjana Zdanoka after Russian, Nordic, and Baltic news outlets accused her in January of being a Russian agent since at least 2004. And in the United States, Russian-backed operatives hacked and released Democratic emails as part of a Putin-ordered campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence suggests that Putin also authorized influence operations in 2020 to undermine confidence in the U.S. voting system, exacerbate social divisions, and disparage then-candidate Joe Biden in favor of Trump.
“This is a global phenomenon,” said a U.S. intelligence assessment on Russian influence efforts that was released to more than 100 countries last October. Putin has since dismissed these findings.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. The United States, Japan, and South Korea conducted the second day of trilateral naval drills in international waters on Friday. The exercises included anti-submarine warfare drills to improve readiness against North Korean missile and nuclear threats as well as search and rescue training and interdiction exercises to block Pyongyang’s illegal weapons transports.
The training happened alongside Biden’s first-ever joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday. The summit aimed to deepen “maritime and security ties” against rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, specifically Chinese attacks in the South China Sea. Beijing’s coast guard has repeatedly fired water cannons at Philippine vessels in recent weeks, as both nations claim sovereignty over parts of the region.
“These minilateral meetings among three or four countries have really become a hallmark of the Biden administration’s strategy of developing a loose network of security relationships,” Lisa Curtis, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told FP’s Robbie Gramer.
The fall of Myawaddy. Hundreds of Burmese refugees fled to Thailand on Friday after Myanmar’s ruling junta lost a strategic border town to rebels from the Karen ethnic group. The country’s military, or Tatmadaw, used to oversee the eastern town of Myawaddy, which is home to around 200,000 people. But pro-democracy rebels and armed ethnic groups have long sought control. Now, residents are fleeing to Bangkok out of fear that the junta will bomb the town in retaliation.
Thai officials said they will accept as many as 100,000 Burmese refugees, with Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara urging the junta on Friday to scale back the violence. Bangkok, meanwhile, continues to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to negotiate a peace plan for Myanmar’s ongoing conflict but said it will remain neutral.
Iran’s threat to Israel. The U.S. Embassy in Israel issued a security alert on Thursday restricting government employees and their families from traveling outside Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beer Sheva for personal matters. Washington’s warning aims to protect U.S. citizens from an expected impending Iranian attack on Israel, which U.S. officials told CBS could happen as soon as Friday.
Israeli forces bombed an Iranian consular building in Syria last Monday, killing seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the attack on the consulate was “like they attacked our territory” and vowed to take revenge in what experts worry could be a direct strike from Iranian soil rather than from regional proxy groups. Israel said it would target Iran if Tehran did so—escalating the threat of a wider war.
Iran also reportedly sent a message to Washington via several Arab countries this week warning the United States not to get involved in the fight between Israel and Iran and threatening to attack U.S. troops in the Middle East if Washington does so. On Friday, a U.S. defense official told reporters that the Defense Department is “moving additional assets to the region to bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection for U.S. forces.”
What in the World?
Mexico requested that which Latin American country be suspended from the United Nations on Thursday?
A. PeruB. EcuadorC. NicaraguaD. Argentina
Odds and Ends
In a bid to appeal to Britain’s youth, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wore white Adidas Sambas to an interview last week—only to ruin the sneaker brand’s popularity seemingly overnight. “I offer a fulsome apology to the Samba community,” Sunak said on Wednesday after fashion outlets and trendsetters accused the Conservative leader of taking “an eternally cool sneaker, and [ruining] it for everyone.” His party can only hope to have better success at the ballot box next January than at the shoe box.
And the Answer Is…
B. Ecuador
Ecuadorian police stormed Mexico’s embassy in Quito last week to arrest a former Ecuadorian vice president who was sheltering in the building. The move violated diplomatic norms and has fractured Mexican-Ecuadorian relations, FP’s Catherine Osborn writes in Latin America Brief.
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The post Brussels Accuses Moscow of Interfering in EU Parliament Elections appeared first on Foreign Policy.
