By Deborah Bloom

PORTLAND, Ore. – From his home in Seattle, Andrey Nokhrin sent his mother in Moscow a clip of a television editor interrupting a live Russian state-run news bulletin to hold up a sign and shout slogans protesting the Ukraine invasion.

The editor, Marina Ovsyannikova, told Reuters earlier this month that she hoped her protest would open Russians’ eyes to propaganda.

But his mother said the protest looked fake, as if it had been staged with a green screen, according to Nokhrin.

It is an example of how Russian Americans are sending their relatives in Russia accounts of the war in Ukraine produced by Western and other media outlets that contrast with what Russian state media is reporting. Reuters interviews with 11 Russian Americans suggest that, as with the case of Nokhrin’s mother, skepticism about the war in Ukraine runs deep.

“The propaganda there works very well,” said Nokhrin, a 37-year-old IT entrepreneur. “They’ve been told that this is a peacemaking operation and they truly, honestly believe it.”

State TV, the main source of news for many millions of Russians, closely follows the Kremlin line that Russia was forced to act in Ukraine to demilitarize and “denazify” the country, and to defend Russian-speakers there against what the Kremlin calls “genocide.”

Russia passed a law earlier this month banning the “public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” Offenders face up to 15 years in jail.

Russian state TV did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Kremlin declined to comment.

Russian Americans interviewed by Reuters said they are engaging in conversations with family over messaging apps WhatsApp and Telegram, sharing material they collect from social media and international news sites.

Nokhrin has sent his relatives pictures of injured Ukrainian children, dead Russian soldiers, and bombed-out apartment buildings and hospitals. He sent his mother the link to a news site that aggregates content about Ukraine from international news sites and translates them into Russian. He used WhatsApp to message his mother a YouTube clip of Russia’s independent news broadcaster, TV Rain, signing off with “No to war.”

Reuters has seen the messages sent by Nokhrin and others interviewed for this story and verified the sources of the videos and pictures they included. Reuters was unable to interview the relatives in Russia to verify the conversations.

“This military operation has been presented to them as if there were Ukrainian fascists that are trying to enslave the Russian population,” Nokhrin said. “My mom, she thinks (President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy is this evil monster who wants to join NATO, which wants to nuke Russia.”

“It’s crazy for us to think of this, since we see the other side of this, but when you are isolated in Russia and just seeing government media it really informs what you believe.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in the past that the United States is an “empire of lies” that sows disinformation about Russia. Senior Russian officials such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov say Western media has misreported the conflict in Ukraine and has repeatedly failed to show the persecution of Russian-speaking people there.

Julia Bari, a New York City-based insurance broker who emigrated from Moscow 26 years ago, described a cousin’s reluctance to engage in a fraught discussion about what was happening in Ukraine.

Bari said she is frequently in touch over WhatsApp with the cousin living in southwestern Russia. After the invasion, “I called her to say, ‘Oh my God, war is happening,’ and she shut me down. She said, ‘Look, we don’t know anything. This is politics.’ I became quiet because my insides were boiling from anger.”

Bari sent her cousin what she could find: pictures of Ukrainian children sleeping in bomb shelters, videos of buildings being hit by artillery strikes, photos of orphans being evacuated on trains.

“I told her, you know, this is real. This is murder,” Bari said. “She said that it was unpleasant to see but she couldn’t be involved with it. She wants to act like everything is normal.”

International reaction to the invasion has been severe and includes sweeping sanctions that have sent the rouble plunging to record lows and left Russians isolated.

Bari said she is concerned for her cousin, whose salary with one of Russia’s largest state-owned companies was recently cut by 60%, according to Bari. She declined to name the company.

“She thinks (Russia) can switch to its own production lines or get whatever they need from China,” Bari said. “I’m scared for her.”

After leaving Moscow in 2018, Sasha and Vitaly, a couple in their mid-30s who asked that their last names not be used out of concern for the safety of their family, started a WhatsApp chat with their relatives. Until three weeks ago, their content was mostly pictures of their two young children. These days, they send news updates and videos about the invasion.

Vitaly’s mother, who works in healthcare in Moscow, reads the stories he sends her from independent Russian news sources that post on Telegram.

“She would bring up the war with her colleagues, and they’d say, ‘You think this way because your son is in America and has brainwashed you. That’s why you’re not supporting President Putin,'” Vitaly said in an interview at a café in Portland, Oregon. Vitaly’s mother, he said, was open to the idea of seeing the invasion of Ukraine as an atrocity.

However, since Russia passed the law on information dissemination, Vitaly said his mother, at his request, has stopped talking to colleagues about the war, for fear she could be accused of spreading falsehoods.

(Reporting by Deborah Bloom in Portland, Oregon. Editing by Donna Bryson and Rosalba O’Brien)

WASHINGTON -The White House on Wednesday criticized Donald Trump’s request for Russian President Vladimir Putin to release potentially damaging information on U.S. President Joe Biden’s son, calling the move particularly poorly timed as war rages in Ukraine.

Reporters asked White House spokesperson Kate Bedingfield about the former president’s comments on the “Just the News” TV program that raised unsubstantiated questions about Hunter Biden’s former business dealings in Russia. Trump said, “I think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it.”

His comment came as Western nations are trying to persuade Putin to end his five-week-long assault on Ukraine, the biggest European war since World War Two. Russia calls its actions there a “special military operation.”

“What kind of American, let alone an ex-president, thinks that this is the right time to enter into a scheme with Vladimir Putin and brag about his connections to Vladimir Putin? There is only one, and it’s Donald Trump,” Bedingfield said.

Trump’s remarks came the week that a federal judge ruled he “more likely than not” committed a felony by trying to overturn his election defeat on Jan. 6, 2021, and as his business remains under investigation.

During the military buildup preceding the invasion of Ukraine, Trump praised Putin as a “genius.” Once the attack had commenced, he condemned it as “appalling.”

Trump’s long-running search for information on Hunter Biden that could be politically damaging to Joe Biden led to the first of his two impeachments, over what presidential aides said was an effort to withhold nearly $400 million in military aid and a White House visit unless Ukrainian officials announced investigations into Biden.

During his 2016 presidential campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Republican publicly suggested Russian hackers could help find Clinton emails, saying, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Writing by Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone, Leslie Adler and Jonathan Oatis)

By Vitalii Hnidyi and Sergiy Karazy

MALA ROHAN/NEAR IRPIN, Ukraine – Russian forces bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv and a besieged city in northern Ukraine on Wednesday after promising to reduce attacks there in what the West dismissed as a ploy by Moscow to stem its heavy losses and regroup for other offensives.

Nearly five weeks into an invasion in which Russia has failed to capture any major city, the top U.N. human rights official said Moscow had bombed 50 hospitals as well as homes and schools across Ukraine in what may amount to war crimes.

Ukrainian officials called Russia out for having said on Tuesday it would curtail operations near the capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust” for peace talks.

“It’s not true,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a video address to European Union regional officials. “The whole night we listened to sirens, to rocket attacks and we listened to huge explosions east of Kyiv and north of Kyiv. There are immense battles there, people died, still die.”

Intensified bombardment could be heard in Kyiv on Wednesday morning from suburbs where Ukrainian forces have regained territory in recent days. Windows rattled from the relentless artillery on its outskirts.

Southeast of Irpin, a Kyiv suburb which has seen intense fighting for weeks, frequent shelling and ordnance exploding on the ground and in the air could be heard. Ukrainians evacuating spoke of heavy shelling north of Irpin and shells landing in Irpin itself.

Ukraine and Western leaders had cautioned that Moscow’s apparent peace gesture at Tuesday’s talks in Istanbul was a cover for reorganizing forces that had failed to take Kyiv.

Russia said on Wednesday its forces had achieved their objectives near Kyiv and Chernihiv and were regrouping to focus on the “liberation” of the breakaway eastern Donbas region.

The Pentagon said that Russia had started to reposition under a fifth of its forces arrayed around Kyiv, but warned Moscow was expected to refit and resupply them for redeployment.

OIL AND GAS SUPPLY DOUBTS

Western sanctions imposed on Russia as punishment for its invasion have largely isolated its economy from world trade but Moscow is still the biggest supplier of oil and gas to Europe. Russia’s new demand for payment in roubles, rejected by the West, has raised fears of energy shortages and heightened recessionary risks in Europe.

Germany, Russia’s biggest gas customer, declared an “early warning” on Wednesday of a possible emergency if Russia were to cut off supplies. Economy Minister Robert Habeck urged people to reduce consumption, saying “every kilowatt-hour counts”.

Russian sources told Reuters it might keep the energy contract currency as is, with final payment in roubles.

Floating a potential compromise, Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that payments could be made in euros and sent to Gazprombank, which would convert the money to roubles, a German government spokesperson said.

Gazprombank is one of the main channels for payments for Russian oil and gas.

“Scholz did not agree to this procedure in the conversation, but asked for written information to better understand the procedure,” the spokesperson said.

TRAPPED

In northern Ukraine, Chernihiv’s Mayor Vladyslav Astroshenko said Russian bombardment of his city had intensified over the past 24 hours, with more than 100,000 people trapped inside with just enough food and medical supplies to last about another week.

“This is yet another confirmation that Russia always lies,” he told CNN. He said 25 civilians had been injured in a mortar attack in the city centre.

Reuters could not verify the situation in Chernihiv. Russia’s defence ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

Reuters journalists who entered the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, recaptured by Ukrainian forces this week, on Tuesday saw Ukrainian troops patrolling an abandoned ghost town of ruined buildings, with the body of an old man and a woman lying on the streets.

Around a quarter of Ukrainians have been driven from their homes and the United Nations said on Wednesday that the number who have fled the country had risen above 4 million. More than half of those refugees are children and the rest mostly women.

Over the past week, Ukrainian forces have recaptured towns and villages on the outskirts of Kyiv, broken the siege of the eastern city of Sumy and pushed back Russian forces in the southwest.

In the village of Mala Rohan in the eastern Kharkiv region, two burned-out tanks with their turrets ripped off stood near damaged houses. Maksym, a Ukrainian soldier, said the Russians were being pushed back “slowly but steadily”.

“Most of them already understood that they made a huge mistake when they came here. Therefore, I think they have no chance here, we will win.”

Russia’s defence ministry said the humanitarian situation in Kharkiv was getting worse and accused Ukrainian forces there of shooting at civilians, Russian news agencies reported, without presenting evidence.

Russia says it is carrying out a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” its neighbour. Western countries say Moscow’s invasion was entirely unprovoked.

The Donbas region, where Russia says it will now focus its efforts, includes the port of Mariupol, where heavy fighting was again reported on Wednesday.

Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of more than 400,000 people, has been laid waste in a month. The United Nations says thousands of people may have died there.

Russian forces were shelling nearly all cities along the region’s frontline on Wednesday, said the governor of Donetsk, which is part of the Donbas.

(Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets, Pavel Polityuk, Gleb Garanich and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff, Philippa Fletcher and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, Gareth Jones and Grant McCool)

WASHINGTON -The White House will not assert executive privilege for testimony by former President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law and former advisers, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, before the Jan. 6 committee, communications director Kate Bedingfield said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Bedingfield said President Joe Biden has been clear “the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield from Congress or the public information about an attack on the Constitution itself.”

Jared Kushner is due to testify by remote videolink on Thursday to the House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The panel also expects to speak to Ivanka Trump, Kushner’s wife and the former president’s older daughter, although it has not said when that would take place.

The committee also continues its scrutiny of the former president and will look into a seven-hour gap in Trump’s telephone records from Jan. 6, 2021, which was first reported by the Washington Post and CBS News this week.

“We would expect that most of the communications coming out of the White House, especially on Jan. 6, would have involved some semblance of authority,” Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the Select Committee, told reporters at the Capitol.

“And we believe, based on the gaps, that there’s additional work that we have to do to see whether or not that was an effort to avoid communication,” he said.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Chris Reese, David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)

By Aziz El Yaakoubi

RIYADH -United Nations and United States envoys on Wednesday welcomed unilateral truce moves by Yemen’s warring sides as encouraging steps, while stressing the need for a more comprehensive ceasefire that would help alleviate a dire humanitarian crisis.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis had said it would temporarily halt military operations from Wednesday after the Iran-aligned group this week declared a three-day cessation of cross-border attacks and ground offensives in Yemen.

As part of efforts to end the seven-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed millions into hunger, the initiatives followed a U.N. call for a truce during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that starts this week.

U.N. special envoy Hans Grundberg and U.S. special envoy Tim Lenderking, speaking at a gathering of allied Yemeni factions in Riyadh on Wednesday, said the unilateral announcements were a step in the right direction.

The two envoys have been pressing Riyadh to ease coalition sea and air restrictions on areas held by the Houthis, who ousted the Saudi-backed government from the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014, prompting the coalition to intervene months later.

They have also urged the Houthis to end an offensive in energy-producing Marib, the internationally recognised government’s last stronghold in North Yemen.

“Yemen needs a truce. I am engaging with the parties with a sense of urgency to reach this truce by the beginning of Ramadan. The truce will ease the fuel crisis and facilitate the freedom of movement,” Grundberg told the gathering.

Lenderking said the U.N. proposal could serve as a first step towards a comprehensive ceasefire and a “new, more inclusive political process”.

Two sources familiar with the matter had said the proposal was for a temporary truce in exchange for allowing fuel ships to dock at Houthi-held Hodeidah port and a small number of commercial flights to operate from Sanaa airport.

A senior U.S. State Department official said there were “real opportunities” for progress because there was “buy in” within Yemen and from countries in the region.

“We’ve seen positive statements from the Houthis that they would be willing to engage,” the official said.

A permanent ceasefire has proved elusive as both sides resisted compromise. The Houthis want the coalition to lift its blockade ahead of any truce talks while the alliance, which controls Yemen’s seas and air space, wants a simultaneous deal.

Houthi chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters the group has for over a month been discussing a “humanitarian truce” with Grundberg and hoped “those efforts will succeed”.

“On Riyadh’s dialogue, we are not concerned about it nor its outcomes,” he said, referring to the week-long Yemeni talks that the Houthis shunned for not being held in a “neutral” country.

Riyadh has struggled to exit the conflict that is largely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system and foreign aggression.

(Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Catherine Evans, Barbara Lewis, William Maclean and Richard Chang)

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON -The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday announced it has criminally charged nine anti-abortion activists, after they allegedly conspired in 2020 to storm a Washington, D.C.-based reproductive health clinic and set up a blockade to intimidate patients and staff.

The Oct. 22, 2020 incident was live-streamed on Facebook by Jonathan Darnel – one of the nine accused – who told his followers: “We have people intervening physically with their bodies to prevent women from entering the clinic to murder their children.”

According to the indictment, the group conspired to have one of them pose as a patient so she could book an appointment at the clinic at 9 a.m.

When the clinic opened its doors that morning, they allegedly forced their way inside the office, causing one of the nurses to stumble and sprain her ankle.

Once they were inside, they blocked the doors and roped themselves together to obstruct the clinic’s treatment area.

Darnel, 40, of Arlington, Virginia, is charged along with Lauren Handy, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia, Jay Smith, 32, of Freeport, New York, Paulette Harlow, 73, of Kingston, Massachusetts, Jean Marshall, 72, of Kingston, Massachusetts, John Hinshaw, 67, of Levittown, New York, Heather Idoni, 61, of Linden, Michigan, William Goodman, 52, of Bronx, New York, and Joan Bell, 74, of Montague, New Jersey.

They are charged with conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate patients and employees, in violation of their federal rights to seek and provide reproductive health services.

They are also charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) for using force to interfere with the clinic’s services.

If convicted, they each could face up to 11 years in prison and a fine of up to $350,000.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey on Wednesday signed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a restriction the U.S. Supreme Court could soon declare to be constitutional when it finishes reviewing a similar Mississippi ban this spring.

The Arizona measure, passed by the Republican-led legislature last week, states that physicians can provide abortions after 15 weeks only in cases of medical emergency. There are no exceptions for rape or incest.

Physicians who violate the law may be prosecuted for a felony and could have their licenses revoked if convicted.

“In Arizona, we know there is immeasurable value in every life – including preborn life,” the governor wrote in a letter on Wednesday. “I believe it is each state’s responsibility to protect them.”

Republican-led states are rapidly passing anti-abortion legislation this year with the anticipation that the Supreme Court will reinstate Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. The court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, expressed openness to Mississippi’s case during oral arguments in December.

The court’s decision could overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent, which established the right to abortion before the fetus is viable, and it could pave the way for states to successfully pass stricter bans.

Florida and Kentucky legislatures also recently passed 15-week bans that now await approval from those states’ governors.

Brittany Fonteno, president of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona, has criticized the state’s bill as “harmful to pregnant people and their families” and said it was part of a longer-term effort to make abortion illegal in Arizona.

“The continued attacks on reproductive rights and freedom have become commonplace and continue with Governor Ducey’s signing of S.B. 1164 into law today,” Fonteno said in a statement on Wednesday.

New laws typically take effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns in Arizona, which would make this law effective by late summer if it is not successfully challenged in court.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Aurora Ellis)