Category: Full Text Articles – Audio Posts

A ransomware attack on Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) was the root cause of the agency’s service disruptions.

On December 23, 2024, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) announced it was actively responding to a ransomware attack that was first detected on Thursday, December 19.

Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) is the public transportation agency that serves the Pittsburgh metropolitan area in Pennsylvania, USA. It operates a variety of transit services, including buses, light rail (the “T”), and incline services, providing transportation options for commuters and residents in the region. PRT aims to offer safe, affordable, and reliable transit solutions to meet the needs of the local population.

The ransomware attack caused significant service disruptions to local transportation in Pittsburgh.

The agency has notified law enforcement and is investigating the security breach with the assistance of cybersecurity experts.

Rail services were temporarily disrupted Thursday morning, but transit services have resumed normal operations.

“Upon discovering the incident, PRT immediately launched an investigation, activated its Cyber Incident Response Team, notified law enforcement, and engaged nationally recognized third-party cybersecurity and data forensics experts. These teams are working diligently to determine if any information has been compromised.” reads the statement published by the agency on its website.

“While rail service experienced temporary disruptions on Thursday morning, transit services are currently operating as normal. However, some other rider services remain negatively impacted, including PRT’s Customer Service Center, which is temporarily unable to accept or process Senior and Kid’s ConnectCards.”

At this time it is unclear if the threat actors have stolen data after having breached the agency’s systems.

The agency did not provide further details about the cyber attack such as the ransomware gang behind the incident. No ransomware group has claimed responsibility for the cyber attack.

On January 23, 2023, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) suffered a ransomware attack.

The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA) is a public transit agency in metropolitan Kansas City. It operates the Metro Area Express (MAX) bus rapid transit service in Kansas City, Missouri, and 78 local bus routes in seven counties of Missouri and Kansas.

In April 2021, China-linked APT breached New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) network exploiting a Pulse Secure zero-day.

In December 2020, Egregor ransomware operators hit Metro Vancouver’s transportation agency TransLink causing the disruption of its services and payment systems.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Pittsburgh Regional Transit)

Rejon Taylor awoke to the sound of voices outside his death row cell just after 5 a.m. on Monday morning. A neighbor in the Special Confinement Unit at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the federal government sends men it has sentenced to die, was talking about a segment he caught on NPR. 

“One guy, he wakes up early and listens to the radio,” Taylor told me later that morning. “And he was like, ‘Hey, I think I heard them say something about Biden — he commuted the sentences of 37 guys.’” 

Taylor turned on CNN. Sure enough, the news was written on the screen. 

“And he was like, ‘Hey, I think I heard them say something about Biden — he commuted the sentences of 37 guys.’”

“And I was surprised,” he said softly, with a blend of joy and relief. “Surprised.” 

Since the reelection of Donald Trump, a rising chorus of activists, lawmakers, and members of the legal community had been calling on President Joe Biden to commute the sentences of all 40 men on federal death row to life without parole. 

Although Taylor was one of the dozens who had filed an application asking for clemency, he was not optimistic. He started feeling a glimmer of hope on Friday night, when he checked his email to find an article from the Wall Street Journal saying that Biden was mulling mass commutations. He printed it out and made copies for his neighbors. “This is my FIRST time feeling REAL hope about commutations for the row!” he said.

Only four years ago, Taylor and his neighbors lived through an unprecedented execution spree that left him deeply traumatized. Between July 2020 and January 2021, the Trump administration executed 13 people in the federal death chamber. As an orderly, Taylor cleaned out the death watch cells where the men would await their execution. His clemency petition described how he carefully packed up any belongings left behind, approaching the task “as a small measure of dignity he could give to his fellow man.”  

Taylor was sentenced to death in 2008 for fatally shooting an Atlanta restaurateur named Guy Luck. His lawyers described it as a botched kidnapping that crossed state lines into Tennessee. Taylor was 18 years old at the time and had never been convicted of a crime. 

His trial, which took place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was rooted in racism, his post-conviction attorneys argued. A woman who served as an alternate on his jury later told a local reporter that she’d heard other jurors say they needed to “make an example” of Taylor. “It was like, here’s this little black boy,” she said of fellow jurors’ sentiment. “Let’s send him to the Chair.” 

Like many who commit violent crimes in their youth, Taylor, who is now 40, matured considerably over his 16 years on death row, developing a reputation as someone who showed deep empathy and care toward his neighbors. My own correspondence with Taylor dating back to 2020 reflects this too. In our most recent conversations, he was more interested in advocating for his neighbors than he was to talk about himself.

Taylor had not yet spoken to his family when he sent me an email on Monday night. His lawyer Kelley Henry, a supervisory assistant federal public defender, had shared the news with his sister, whose birthday is Christmas Eve. Recounting their exchange, Taylor said, “My sister cried, saying this was the BEST birthday gift for her.”

Henry, who still represents people on Tennessee’s death row, wrote in a statement that she was “profoundly grateful to President Biden for his extraordinary act of mercy and grace.” She expressed hope that the commutations would serve as an example to state executives like Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee. She wrote, “The death penalty is a relic of the past and should be left there.”

Wither the “False Promise”

Biden’s 37 commutations were historic — a sweeping act of mercy never seen before from a U.S. president. Although his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama presided over a de facto moratorium on federal executions, due in part to the inability to procure drugs for lethal injection, he commuted only one federal death sentence, along with that of one man on military death row. Of the 13 people executed by Trump, 10 of them had sought clemency from Obama before he left office. 

In his statement announcing the commutations, Biden, who reimposed the moratorium immediately upon taking office, made clear he did not wish to repeat Obama’s mistake. “In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” he said.

Although Biden ran on an anti-death penalty platform in 2020, many advocates had quietly worried that he would leave office without taking action. Over his decades in government, Biden made a name for himself as a “tough on crime” senator who did more than almost anyone to expand the federal death penalty in the first place. 

Pressure on Biden to make good on his vow to end the federal death penalty came from all quarters, behind the scenes at the White House, and in public demonstrations. Last week, activists and death row family members appeared alongside Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., at a briefing on Capitol Hill. 

Related

Power of the Pardon 

After the commutations were announced, some argued that Biden did not go far enough. Members of the abolitionist group Death Penalty Action called on him to commute the sentences of the remaining three men on federal death row, who include Dylann Roof, the self-declared white supremacist who murdered nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In his statement, Biden characterized the three men denied clemency as guilty of “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”

Death Penalty Action Board President Sharon Risher, who lost her mother and cousin in Roof’s massacre, was emotional in a Zoom call for reporters on Monday morning. 

“I need the president to understand that when you put a killer on death row, you also put their victim’s families in limbo with the false promise that we must wait until there is an execution before we can begin to heal,” she said.

Among those who represent people facing execution, however, each life spared was a source of celebration — and palpable relief. 

Veteran attorney Margaret O’Donnell, who has spent decades advocating for people on federal death row, described a flurry of phone calls from men whose sentences were commuted.

“Over the years, I have learned their life stories, shared their fears, known their pain of living in solitary confinement so far from those they love and have come to deeply appreciate how they do their best to live meaningful lives,” she told me. 

O’Donnell had spent part of her time since Trump’s execution spree coordinating a visitation program to help death row families stay in touch with their loved ones. Earlier this year, I met Rose Holomn, who had made use of the program so that her son, Julius Robinson, could see his father for the first time in years. In January, she told me she felt betrayed by Biden: “He didn’t keep his promise.” 

In a phone call Monday, however, Holomn was exuberant. She saw the news around 8 a.m. on the Fox affiliate in Atlanta, where she lives. 

“I ran around the house — ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jesus!’” she said. 

For 27 years, she has only seen her son through plexiglass; no contact is allowed at death row visits. Now she was overjoyed at the thought of being able to hug him sometime in the near future. 

Though many questions remain about what comes next, Holomn sounded undaunted. She helped her son survive death row for nearly 30 years. She asked me to include something in my article: “Be sure to put in there: ‘A mother’s love goes a long way.’”

The post “And I Was Surprised”: On Federal Death Row, They Feared Biden Would Set Up Another Trump Killing Spree appeared first on The Intercept.

In this season of reflection and community, we are keen to return to one of our favorite Just Security traditions: our end-of-year book recommendations. As always, we invited our extraordinary team of editors to recommend books they read in 2024 that especially spoke to them this year, including both books that help illuminate visions for just futures and books that may help relax, unwind, and recharge for the year ahead.

Whether you’re looking for a last-minute gift for the book lover in your life, or for something to curl up with yourself – perhaps in front of a fireplace or on a beach, depending on your hemisphere! – we hope that the suggestions here will enrich your reading life.

As we reach the end of 2024, we would like to warmly thank our Just Security readers for being central to our community. We hope that you will continue to turn to us for legal and policy analysis and information in the year ahead. As we are a non-profit organization, if you have found our work meaningful this year, please consider making a tax-deductible end-of-year donation (link).

And now, for your reading enrichment …

Monica C. Bell

Some excellent books I read this year that have, to varying degrees, shattered and reconstructed my views on important world issues:

The Miracle of the Black Leg by Patricia J. Williams. A sweeping text that is at once an explication of contract law and a critical dissection of the demise of commitment to collective well-being in our nation. A meditation on ancient paintings, vintage photographs, pandemics, and technology, Williams reminds us of why she is one of the most important scholars for multiple generations.

Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe. An innovative and beautiful text, Ordinary Notes is comprised of 248 notes that range from a single line to several pages, including explication of images, personal stories, letters to friends, and more. Across these diverse manifestations, the notes offer sharp and poignant analyses of contemporary issues of racial and social justice. This book expanded my conception of what scholarship could be.

The Constitution of the War on Drugs by David Pozen. Pozen offers an important, original story about how constitutional law, and the strategic decisions of relatively few high-powered constitutional lawyers, created and sustained America’s catastrophic war on drugs. Much scholarship about the war on drugs focuses on its racial politics with less discussion of the interstices of constitutional law practice. This book fills in those gaps and invites the reader to imagine new, alternative directions.

The Minneapolis Reckoning by Michelle S. Phelps. A deep examination of the historical and structural conditions that led to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 as well as the movement for police reform that swelled in response. The book is full of complex stories and ethnographic details that situate both the past and the future of organizing for the transformation of public safety.

The Danger Imperative by Michael Sierra-Arévalo. This book unsettles multiple central myths about the institutional dynamics and culture of policing in America. Sierra-Arévalo’s detailed exploration of the concrete strategies police departments use to sustain the idea among police officers that they are constantly in exceptional danger and must thus react violently to any perceived threat. There were new, sometimes jarring insights in every chapter.

David D. Cole

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley. A beautifully written, carefully reported, and sympathetic and nuanced account of the intriguing and sad case of Reality Winner.

Megan Corrarino

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. Allende’s characters grapple with national ghosts in a lush and deeply human world. Thinking about parallels between Chilean and U.S. history, I picked it up for a re-read this year, which in turn prompted a deep dive into Allende’s history and philosophy as a writer, and a read of two of her later novels, Ripper and Zorro. Whether writing about pulp heroes or history, one of the author’s great strengths is the humanity of her writing, exploring social and political issues in ways that feel universal, never letting them overtake the centrality of a good story. Allende writes as someone who understands the power of drama to move the human heart.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s National Book Foundation Medal speech. Compiling this wonderful community’s thoughtful entries – always a highlight of the season – prompted me to think about how law, policy, and imagination intersect, bringing to mind a passage from Le Guin’s 2014 speech, relevant then and only more so with each passing year. She calls on “the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope,” and who serve as “realists of a larger reality.”

Viola Gienger

Ukraine Remember Also Me: Testimonies From The War by George Butler is a remarkable collection of personal stories told by the author and illustrated by his spare, poignant drawings. It’s a kind of year-in-the-life of the Ukrainian people under Russia’s bombardment: an English lit major-turned combat medic and drone pilot; a 99-year-old matriarch and grandmother too frail to make it to the bomb shelter; a 70-year-old locksmith and gatherer of books, which he calls “spiritual food.”

American Mother by Colum McCann and Diane Foley is the moving story of Foley’s encounter with the man convicted in the 2014 killing of her son, freelance journalist James “Jim” Foley, by the so-called “Beatles” trio (for their British accents) in a gruesome videotaped beheading in the Syrian desert. It’s told through the simple, powerful prose of National Book Award-winner McCann. (Readers also might be interested in her article for Just Security and a segment of the Just Security Podcast with her reflections 10 years on.)

“In the Name of God” by Sari Horwitz, Dana Hedgpeth, Emmanuel Martinez, Scott Higham and Salwan Georges, published in May in the Washington Post was one of the best news investigations I read this year – and I read a lot of them. The culmination of a year-long investigation of how Catholic priests, brothers and sisters abused Native American children taken from their homes by the U.S. government to live at remote boarding schools. Followed up now with a new installment in the series: More than 3,100 students died at schools built to crush Native American cultures by Dana Hedgpeth, Sari Horwitz, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Andrew Ba Tran, Nilo Tabrizy and Jahi Chikwendiu. Just jaw-dropping.

Rebecca Hamilton

This year, I have a trio of recommendations for those wanting to pay attention to the climate emergency, while also immersing themselves in stunningly beautiful writing:

No Country for 8-Spot Butterflies by Julian Aguon, founder of Blue Ocean Law.

More Than Human Rights: An Ecology of Law, Thought and Narrative for Earthly Flourishing by César Rodríguez-Garavito, one of the early innovators of integrative thinking about human rights and the climate emergency.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. It is hard to believe that this extraordinary work of speculative fiction, set in the year 2024, was written over two decades ago.

Adil Ahmad Haque

The World After Gaza by Pankaj Mishra. Writes the publisher: “From one of our foremost public intellectuals, an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza that reframes our understanding of the ongoing conflict, its historical roots, and the fractured global response.”

Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha. “‘A powerful, capacious, and profound’ (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet.”

Rachel Kleinfeld

Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum. Simply the best analysis of how autocracies are working together, regardless of professed ideology, to strengthen each others’ regimes and enrich each others’ oligarchies. Fundamental to understanding what democracies are up against today.

Invisible Rulers by Renee diResta. What has happened to information, shared knowledge, and the truth? A guide to the new media landscape by someone who has been through the ringer and understands what the rest of us are just starting to perceive.

Circe by Madeleine Miller. Beautiful, brilliant, and the sort of novel that makes one feel in one’s bones what is unique about the human condition, and why we fragile people are deserving of care. Never has an immortal Greek witch been given such an interior voice – and as a fellow fierce woman, it’s one I love.

Barbara McQuade

Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America by Kurt Anderson. Journalist Anderson explains how economic policy beginning in the “greed-is-good” 1980s has driven huge inequality in the United States. Through deregulation, tax cuts, and dark money in political campaigns, big business and wealthy individuals have created today’s new gilded age. Anderson calls for systemic change to restore a larger piece of the pie for workers and ordinary Americans.

The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz. This book is the follow-up to Korelitz’s earlier psychological thriller, The Plot. Hence the name. The plot of the sequel (sorry) is too good to divulge, but it’s full of twists and sly observations of contemporary society. Delicious.

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin

Homeland Insecurity: The Rise and Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law by Conor Gearty.  Gearty’s book delves into the long history of counter-terrorism and gives rightful place to its colonial roots.  He lucidly demonstrates how “promiscuous and insidious” counterterrorism has conquered and maimed the rule of law across the globe over recent decades. We are all less safe and less secure as a result.

Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine by Lisa Bhungalia is a tour de force. It is a forensic examination of how foreign aid, shaped and distorted by counterterrorism priorities has securitized aid, impoverished civil society, and enabled unrelenting surveillance and policing of Palestine lives. Extraordinarily insightful.

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín. After avoiding this book for many years (too much hype and a fear of being disappointed) I finally read it and enjoyed every page. The perfect capture of life in Ireland in the 1950’s and lives of Irish women in this time, it was word-perfect.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka.  A gripping tale of a Sri Lankan war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—who wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office.  The story feels like a fast-paced dive in a world that combines magical realism with grim war reality, colliding head on. I could not put it down.

Laura Rozen

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (audiobook narrated by Juliet Stevenson). Young, independent Isabel Archer goes to Europe, inherits a fortune, and gets deceived into a bad marriage. Was on the edge of my seat.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (audiobook narrated by Arian Moayed). Iranian American writer on experiences in recovery, with a holy smokes moment deep in it.

The Cazalet Chronicles, Elizabeth Jane Howard’s five volume WWII era family chronicle.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín, and when you want another one by him, Nora Webster.

Joyce Vance

Attack from Within by Barbara McQuade. McQuade’s excellent book is a highly readable look at the problem of disinformation that is as much about solutions as it is about diagnosing the problem.

IMAGE: Svittlana Kuchina via Getty Images.

The post The Just Security 2024 Year-End Book Recommendations appeared first on Just Security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of antisemitism after claiming that “ethnic Jews” are seeking to “tear apart” the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian leader’s controversial statements, which came during his annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow on December 19, were the latest in a series of similar outbursts since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that have either directly or indirectly targeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish.

“These are people without any beliefs, godless people. They’re ethnic Jews, but has anyone seen them in a synagogue? I don’t think so,” Putin stated during the flagship event, which is broadcast live on Russian state television and traditionally runs for hours. “These are people without kin or memory, with no roots. They don’t cherish what we cherish and what the majority of the Ukrainian people cherish as well.”

Putin’s comments came as the Ukrainian authorities seek to limit the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which is seen as closely tied to the Kremlin. Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill has emerged since 2022 as an outspoken supporter of the invasion, which he has sought to defend on spiritual grounds. His backing for the war has shocked many and sparked international criticism, with Pope Francis warning him not to become “Putin’s altar boy.”

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

Many commentators have noted the similarity between Putin’s recent attack on people “with no roots” and Stalin’s earlier Soviet era persecution of Jews as “rootless cosmopolitans.” The Kremlin leader’s comments also offered alarming echoes of Russia’s most notorious antisemitic fake, the early twentieth century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which alleged a Jewish plot to take over the world by infiltrating and destroying Western institutions.

Putin and his Kremlin colleagues have faced multiple accusations of antisemitism since 2022 as they have sought to defend Moscow’s claims to be “denazifying” Ukraine despite the country’s popularly-elected Jewish president and its role as a prominent destination for Jewish pilgrimages. This toxic trend has included frequent attacks on Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage. “I have a lot of Jewish friends,” Putin stated in June 2023. “They say that Zelenskyy is not Jewish, that he is a disgrace to the Jewish people. I’m not joking.”

Following these comments, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum accused the Russian leader of repeatedly employing “antisemitic lies” to justify the invasion of Ukraine. US officials have been similarly critical. “President Zelenskyy’s Jewishness has nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine and Putin’s continued focus on this topic and “denazification” narrative is clearly intended to distract from Russia’s war of aggression against the Ukrainian people,” commented US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt in 2023.

Eurasia Center events

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Thu, December 19, 2024 • 12:30 pm ET

Putin loses in Syria. Is Russia in retreat?

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Similar slurs feature regularly in the Kremlin-controlled Russian state media, with leading propagandists such as Vladimir Solovyov known for questioning the authenticity of Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity. Meanwhile, during the initial months of the invasion in spring 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded to a question about the absurdity of “denazifying” a country with a Jewish leader by claiming that Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.” Lavrov’s remarks sparked outrage and were branded “unforgivable” by Israeli officials.

Many within the Jewish community see Putin’s most recent inflammatory comments as part of a broader trend that is legitimizing antisemitic tropes and raising serious safety concerns. “This is just one example of his regime’s explicit and virulent antisemitism, which has intensified following his 2022 invasion of Ukraine,” commented Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis and former Chief Rabbi of Moscow, who fled Russia following the attack on Ukraine after coming under pressure to publicly endorse the invasion. In December 2022, Goldschmidt warned of rising antisemitism in Putin’s Russia and advised Jews to leave the country.

Goldschmidt is now appealing to the international community to address the antisemitic rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin. “As a representative of Jewish communities across Europe, and someone who was forced to flee my home and community in Moscow, I call on Europe and the free world to unequivocally condemn President Putin’s dangerous propaganda before it spreads further,” he stated.

Joshua Stein is a researcher with a PhD from the University of Calgary.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Nov 18, 2024

Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not stop Putin or bring peace to Europe

By
Mykola Bielieskov

Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not bring about a durable peace in Europe. On the contrary, it would leave Ukraine at Putin’s mercy and set the stage for a new Russian invasion, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert
Dec 19, 2024

Five things Russia’s invasion has taught the world about Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has thrust the country into the global spotlight and transformed international perceptions of Ukraine in ways that will resonate for decades to come, writes Peter Dickinson.

Defense Technologies
Disinformation

UkraineAlert
Dec 10, 2024

Russian victory in Ukraine would spark a new era of global insecurity

By
Victor Liakh

If Vladimir Putin’s Russia is allowed to claim even a limited victory in Ukraine, it will embolden other authoritarian regimes and plunge the world into a new era of insecurity, writes Victor Liakh.

Civil Society
Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post Putin faces antisemitism accusations following attack on ‘ethnic Jews’ appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The collapse of the governing coalition in Germany, which was made official on December 16 when Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a Bundestag no-confidence vote, has been followed closely in Kyiv. This interest is understandable; Germany is one of Ukraine’s most important supporters in Europe and has provided military aid valued at over 11 billion euros since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost three years ago. This is more than any other European country and second only to the United States.

The next government in Berlin will be confronted by a number of challenges as it addresses the future of German support for Ukraine. However, there are indications that Kyiv and the wider transatlantic community may have reason to welcome the early Bundestag elections slated for February 2025.

With the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) currently well ahead in nationwide polls, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is widely expected to be the next chancellor. This is potentially good news for Ukraine. Merz is more hawkish toward Russia than current German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He is also poised to have a stronger majority in the Bundestag than Scholz, whose three-party coalition ultimately imploded amid internal feuds. For Ukraine, this would hopefully mean more predictability in bilateral relations with Berlin.

Before the election campaign officially began in Germany, Merz traveled to Kyiv in early December for meetings with the Ukrainian government. He is a vocal proponent of delivering German Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, which Scholz has consistently refused to allow.

Scholz has also been criticized for a recent phone call to Vladimir Putin, which critics saw as indicating Western disunity at a critical point in diplomatic efforts to set the stage for possible peace talks. Meanwhile, Scholz’s party has been emphasizing “peace” rather than security in its campaign messaging, further widening the gap with the CDU, which is seen as being comparatively tougher on Russia.

As the world watches the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold, UkraineAlert delivers the best Atlantic Council expert insight and analysis on Ukraine twice a week directly to your inbox.

The outlook from Ukraine’s perspective is not entirely favorable. If he does secure election victory, Merz will face many of the same issues that confronted his predecessor. This includes Germany’s constitutional debt brake, which in effect limits the German government’s ability to spend more on defense without cutting expenditure elsewhere.

The CDU would have limited tools to safeguard funding for Ukraine. They could potentially reform the debt brake or seek to reduce state funding in other areas like welfare and transportation (which voters would be unlikely to appreciate). Alternatively, they may repeat the approach adopted by Scholz and attempt to pass another extra-budgetary “special fund.” While this is not a long-term solution for Germany’s defense spending, a new special fund specifically for Ukraine could potentially win enough political will in the Bundestag under the right stewardship.

Eurasia Center events

Online Event
Thu, December 19, 2024 • 12:30 pm ET

Putin loses in Syria. Is Russia in retreat?

Conflict
Europe & Eurasia
Middle East
Russia

With Donald Trump’s election victory fueling uncertainty over the future of US military support for Ukraine, finding solutions to maintain German aid should be high on the agenda for the new government in Berlin in early 2025. In addition to Trump’s imminent return to the White House, France also remains stuck in a period of domestic political instability, which could disrupt French aid to Ukraine at a time when Europe’s Franco-German engine is more necessary than ever.

Officials in Kyiv will be keen to avoid any developments in Germany that raise questions over the country’s continued backing for Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely believed to be counting on an eventual weakening of Western resolve as he looks to outlast the democratic world in Ukraine. Any signs of disunity or uncertainty in Berlin could help convince Putin that time is on his side, thereby further reducing the chances of meaningful peace negotiations.

Trump has vowed to end the war and is widely expected to push for the start of talks once he takes office in January. However, with the Russian army advancing in eastern Ukraine amid mounting signs of deteriorating Ukrainian morale and increasingly acute troop shortages, Putin will be in no hurry to compromise. Unless the battlefield dynamics change significantly in the coming weeks, it may prove difficult to persuade Putin to accept any peace terms that do not legitimize his invasion or represent a clear Russian victory.

There is a good chance that Germany’s snap elections will result in increased support for Ukraine in Berlin. However, the uncertainty of the next two months presents an unwelcome challenge, particularly as Kyiv seeks to convey a message of Western unity to Moscow. As they face another wartime winter, Ukrainians must wait to see who will lead the new German government and how they will articulate their plans.

Stuart Jones is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. Katherine Spencer is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Further reading

UkraineAlert
Nov 18, 2024

Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not stop Putin or bring peace to Europe

By
Mykola Bielieskov

Imposing neutrality on Ukraine will not bring about a durable peace in Europe. On the contrary, it would leave Ukraine at Putin’s mercy and set the stage for a new Russian invasion, writes Mykola Bielieskov.

Civil Society
Conflict

UkraineAlert
Dec 19, 2024

Five things Russia’s invasion has taught the world about Ukraine

By
Peter Dickinson

Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has thrust the country into the global spotlight and transformed international perceptions of Ukraine in ways that will resonate for decades to come, writes Peter Dickinson.

Defense Technologies
Disinformation

UkraineAlert
Dec 10, 2024

Russian victory in Ukraine would spark a new era of global insecurity

By
Victor Liakh

If Vladimir Putin’s Russia is allowed to claim even a limited victory in Ukraine, it will embolden other authoritarian regimes and plunge the world into a new era of insecurity, writes Victor Liakh.

Civil Society
Conflict

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

Read more from UkraineAlert

UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics, economy, civil society, and culture.

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Learn more

The post How might Germany’s coming election shape future support for Ukraine? appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The newest front in dark money’s war on election transparency shares an address with Patagonia, according to a new complaint.

The outdoor clothing company known for its high quality, high prices, and liberal leanings may have funded illegal campaign donations over the summer, a watchdog group alleged this month.

The Campaign Legal Center has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that a mysterious corporation made $1.4 million in what appear to be illegal “straw donor” contributions to funds supporting Democratic candidates within days of its creation. The ultimate source of the money was likely Patagonia, the Campaign Legal Center says.

The complaint is the second of its kind this year involving Patagonia, raising fresh questions about whether left-leaning donors at ideological odds with “dark-money” groups on the right should resort to similar tactics.

For Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the nonpartisan, nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, the donations also highlight the need for swifter action from the FEC, which has yet to take action against another alleged “straw donor” that made donations to a right-wing Senate candidate two years ago.

“The amounts of money involved, the brazenness of setting up a company and making a seven-figure contribution almost immediately — it shows that this tactic is alive and well, and I don’t see any reason for that to change unless the FEC starts enforcing the law and dishing out penalties,” Ghosh said.

Ties to Patagonia

Neither Patagonia nor the entity in question, Save our Home Planet Action, responded to requests for comment. But to hear the Campaign Legal Center tell it, linking them together was a straightforward detective job.

Save Our Home Planet Action was incorporated in Delaware on August 6. Within 10 days, it began doling out money to campaign organizations: $450,000 to the Senate Democratic campaign fund, $425,000 to the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, $450,000 to House Democrats, $50,000 to a super PAC supporting Kamala Harris, and $50,000 to a committee supporting Democrats in state races.

Why would a newborn company go on a campaign spending spree? Ghosh alleges that the answer lies in a web of evidence tying Save Our Home Planet Action to Patagonia.

Save Our Home Planet Action uses the same mailing address, and its name also matches a slogan that Patagonia has used in marketing materials and on clothing for years.

“These circumstances plainly suggest that Patagonia and/or one or more of its owners, executives, or employees may, in fact, be the unknown true source(s) that provided sufficient funds to SOHPA for it to contribute over $1.4 million while concealing their identities,” the Campaign Legal Center complaint states.

Corporate filings in California unearthed by The Intercept indicate that Save Our Home Planet Action has the same CEO, Greg Curtis, as the Holdfast Collective, a nonprofit organization that owns 98 percent of Patagonia. Curtis, who did not respond to a request for comment, previously worked as corporate counsel for Patagonia.

The Holdfast Collective was created under the direction of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard in 2022. Using what the trade publication Inside Philanthropy called “a complex and unconventional structure,” Holdfast and a network of affiliated trusts redistribute money earned from Patagonia sales to environmental causes.

The California filings reinforce the theory that Patagonia is the ultimate source of the contributions, Ghosh said.

“Curtis’s involvement here, alongside his role as the CEO of the Holdfast Collective, is interesting, since it suggests that SOHPA was designed to operate in a similar vein — namely, the distribution of corporate profits to finance philanthropy. That might work for environmental causes, but it undermines the transparency the law requires for money spent influencing elections,” Ghosh said.

Steering corporate profits to super PACs and campaign committees aimed at boosting environmental causes would not run afoul of federal laws. The nonprofits associated with Patagonia, which are known as social welfare groups and are legally allowed to make campaign donations, have disclosed spending money on conservation projects and even on a Democratic super PAC before.

But using what are known as “straw donors” — people or corporations designed to mask the original source of funds — to make campaign contributions would be illegal. Such entities often argue that they are legitimate corporations that just happened to have enough money to make big donations, Ghosh said.

According to the complaint, there is “reason to believe” that “unidentified person(s)” violated straw donor laws, and that Save Our Home Planet Action did the same when it “knowingly permitted its name to be used to effect contributions of one or more other persons in its own name.”

The complaint says the FEC “should find reason to believe” that straw donor laws were violated “and conduct an immediate investigation” under its enforcement powers.

A Growing Pattern?

In its complaint with the FEC, the Campaign Legal Center notes that Save Our Home Planet Action does not appear to maintain a website or a social media presence, leaving the reason for its creation something of a mystery.

Patagonia has long worn its politics on its sleeves — and once on a tag stitched into the rear of a pair of shorts, which read “Vote the assholes out.”

In the case of Save Our Home Planet Action, however, much of the money went to committees such as the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC, which supported some candidates with views at odds with the environmental movement, such as supporters of fracking in Pennsylvania and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit that owns most of Patagonia, the Holdfast Collective, was already under scrutiny in the form of a February FEC complaint from the conservative group Americans for Public Trust for allegedly misidentifying the source of political contributions. Patagonia has previously stated that the errors in that case could have been on the part of the entities that received the money. Caitlin Sutherland, that group’s executive director, told The Intercept she was still waiting for a determination from the FEC.

The election commission, which is supposed to act as watchdog for violations of campaign finance law, is deadlocked along partisan lines and notoriously reluctant to take action.

These days, many of the biggest donations to federal campaigns are routed through what are known as “dark-money” groups, which take advantage of the federal tax code to wrap their donors in anonymity.

Although liberals have been far more critical of developments in campaign finance that opened the spigots on corporate spending, there are dark-money groups operating from both the left and the right to influence American politics, ranging from the Koch brothers network to George Soros.

“These corporate entities and other ‘social welfare’ nonprofits have extremely smart lawyers to figure out how to game the system,” said Aaron Scherb, the senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonprofit group pushing for more disclosure. “That, combined with an FEC in which half the commissioners refuse to enforce disclosure laws, ends up yielding a very unhealthy system in which voters can’t fully understand in many cases who is trying to influence their votes.”

While the Campaign Legal Center believes alleged “straw donor” groups should be investigated because the donations appear to be illegal, the FEC has been slow to crack down on them. Two years ago, Ghosh’s group filed an FEC complaint against an alleged straw donor called the Leadership Action Fund, which sent more than $600,000 to a Republican Senate candidate in Oklahoma.

The Campaign Legal Center is still waiting on a response, Ghosh said. Increasingly, he believes, corporations are making a “risk calculation” of whether to follow the law or to violate it.

“There’s the upside, in their mind, of not disclosing their political spending, and then the potential downside, which is really quite minimal. These schemes in most cases will either go undetected or unpunished,” he said.

The post Patagonia’s Ties to a Dark-Money Operation Bankrolling Democratic Candidates appeared first on The Intercept.

On Dec. 9, 2021, a trailer truck crammed with dozens of migrants overturned while speeding on a highway in Chiapas, in southern Mexico. Fifty-six people died and 113 were wounded.

Earlier this month, on the third anniversary of the accident — one of the deadliest involving migrants in recent history — authorities in Guatemala and the United States arrested six people on human smuggling charges. Five were apprehended in Guatemala and one in Texas.

An investigation by Noticias Telemundo, the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), ICIJ and local outlets in Central America and Mexico published in April found the smuggling of migrants in trucks is on the rise.

The arrests and likely extradition to the U.S. of the four arrested in Guatemala are part of a recent trend of cross-border law enforcement cooperation targeting human smuggling. After decades of focusing mostly on border enforcement and following a record number of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in 2023, authorities have increasingly shifted their attention to smuggling networks that help migrants reach the border.

In a Dec. 9 press conference, announcing the arrests, Guatemala’s Minister of Interior Francisco Jimenez credited law enforcement agents in both countries with “dismantling a criminal network” dedicated to trafficking people to the U.S. Tomas Quino Canil, Alberto Marcario Chitic, Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino and Josefa Quino Canil De Zavala were arrested in Guatemala. Jorge Agapito Ventura was detained at his house in Cleveland, Texas. The name of the sixth person is blacked out in an unsealed indictment. The group, identified by authorities as “Los Quino,” is accused of recruiting migrants, collecting payment and moving them “on foot and inside microbuses, cattle trucks, and tractor trailers” to bring them to the U.S. without authorization. The criminal charges include placing life in jeopardy, causing serious bodily injury and death, according to the indictment. ICIJ could not contact an attorney representing the people indicted.

The suspects were indicted in the southern district of Texas and federal prosecutors said they will formally request their extradition to the U.S. In a post on X, Jimenez described four of the five people arrested in Guatemala as “extraditables.”

URGENTE

Desarticulamos estructura de tráfico de migrantes “Los Quinos”. Vinculados a un caso del 2021 en el que 56 migrantes perdieron la vida en Chiapas, MX.

6 capturados, 4 extraditables. @mingobguate @Ejercito_GT @DHSgov y Mp. https://t.co/UtFQE5izLF

— Francisco Jiménez (@FJimenezmingob) December 9, 2024

“While this crash transpired beyond our borders, it is imperative that the pursuit of justice transcends those boundaries,” U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Alamdar Hamdani said in a press release.

Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor in New York and a law professor at Columbia University, noted that while human smuggling cases are recent compared to those related to other forms of transnational crime, authorities in the U.S. and abroad already have a legal blueprint for prosecuting them.

“The structure of this is not exactly normal, but pretty normal if you think about drugs,” Richman said. “The principle of prosecuting individuals intending to commit crimes in the U.S. is well-developed, primarily in drug cases, and it’s easily transferable.”

Under long-standing extradition treaties with Mexico, Colombia and Central American countries, the U.S. has convicted some of the most notorious leaders of drug cartels, from Carlos Lehder in 1987 to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in 2017. The U.S. has also extradited presidents and other high-ranking officials in connection to drug trafficking and corruption cases. Cartels have also expanded into human smuggling, which has become a multibillion-dollar business. In recent years, some have taken over smuggling operations that were previously controlled by a loose network of smugglers called coyotes or polleros.

In June 2021, after border crossings nearly doubled during the first few months of the Biden administration, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the creation of Joint Task Force Alpha, which combined the work of prosecutors and agents from law enforcement agencies like the DEA, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to tackle smuggling cases. The Department of Justice would also “enhance the assistance provided to counterparts” in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, “and Mexico to support their efforts to prosecute smuggling and trafficking networks in their own courts,” Garland said in a statement at the time.

The arrests in Guatemala and Texas, as well as recent convictions of smugglers, are the result of those efforts, Garland said in a statement on Dec. 9, 2024. “Since we launched Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA) more than three years ago, we have secured more than 330 domestic and international arrests and more than 275 convictions on smuggling offenses, as well as significant jail sentences and substantial forfeitures.”

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HUMAN CARGO

Deadly human smuggling through Mexico thrives in ‘perfect cycle of impunity’

Apr 30, 2024

IMPACT

Mexico’s president calls deadly human smuggling ‘unfortunate,’ shifts blame to US

May 03, 2024

DATA JOURNALISM

From Chiapas to Tamaulipas, new database maps thousands of migrants’ dangerous journeys through Mexico in trailer trucks

Apr 30, 2024

In April, ICIJ and media partners in Latin America, Europe and the U.S. published Cargo Trucks: a trap for migrants, an investigation that documented nearly 19,000 migrants’ journeys to the U.S. border under dangerous conditions.

The investigation, led by Noticias Telemundo and CLIP, found that the illegal use of cargo trucks to smuggle people across Mexico is on the rise, as are accidents and deaths involving migrants and trucks. This is happening as the Mexican government, pressured by the United States, toughens its policies to limit the record number of people crossing its territory in recent years, pushing migrants to seek more dangerous and often deadly ways to travel.

Reporters looked into the Dec. 9, 2021 accident, which killed or wounded dozens of Guatemalans as well as migrants from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and El Salvador.  Reporters interviewed survivors and relatives of victims of the December 2021 accident.

Shortly after the accident, authorities from the U.S., Mexico and the countries of origin of the victims promised to swiftly investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the accident. But reporters revealed that the group met only twice and couldn’t find evidence of their work or anyone held accountable for the accident in any country. Although people were arrested in Mexico and the Dominican Republic in the weeks following the incident, no one has gone to trial.

In a statement sent to ICIJ, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office said the case is ongoing and that three of four suspects who were arrested following the accident remain under arrest.

Asked whether Mexico would also request to extradite the five people recently arrested in Guatemala — since the 2021 accident happened in Mexican territory — the Mexican Attorney General’s Office said in its statement, “if it turns out that any of the people detained by the governments of the United States of America and Guatemala are related to the events investigated in [Mexico], and have an outstanding arrest warrant to be fulfilled, if appropriate, their extradition will be requested.”

In a press release, the DOJ thanked the authorities in Mexico for their assistance in the recent arrests. Although the crash happened beyond U.S. borders, the indictment alleges that the suspects used Facebook Messenger to distribute written scripts to unaccompanied minors instructing them on what to say if they were detained by U.S. authorities.

“The U.S. isn’t the most natural place for this to be charged in terms of ordinary criminal law practices, that’s true. But there’s an overlay on those practices,” explained Richman, the former prosecutor. “Here, I could speculate, it serves the Biden administration to show that, while they have sensitivity to migrants’ interests, they come down hard on traffickers. That has always been a stance of this administration, and this case is consistent with that. It’s a strong statement to make before leaving office.”

The DOJ declined to answer whether it is cooperating with other countries whose nationals died in the Dec. 2021 accident and if more arrests in those countries are expected.

Kenia Castillo, whose son, Rafelin Martinez Castillo, was among the Dominican migrants who died during the accident, told ICIJ she is unaware of any efforts of delivering justice to the survivors and their relatives.

“No one has ever contacted me and it also isn’t my priority, really,” said Castillo, who is now raising the five-year-old daughter left by her son. “Justice would be to have my son back but the loss is irreparable … we are worse off than when he left.”

Justice would be to have my son back but the loss is irreparable … we are worse off than when he left.

— Kenia Castillo, whose son was killed in the 2021 accident

In his statement following the arrests in Guatemala, Garland said the DOJ “will continue to work across agencies and across borders to stop the scourge of human smuggling.” But it is unclear if or how a new Trump administration will advance these efforts. The incoming president’s immigration plans seem more focused on beefing up security at the border and increasing arrests and deportations. In 2019, ProPublica reported that during the first fiscal year of the Trump administration, the number of new human smuggling investigations launched by HSI dropped 60% as efforts shifted from complex investigations to detentions and deportations.

Jody García, from Plaza Pública, in Guatemala and Ronny Rojas, from Noticias Telemundo, contributed to this story.

• Recommended reading

HUMAN CARGO

Deadly human smuggling through Mexico thrives in ‘perfect cycle of impunity’

Apr 30, 2024

IMPACT

Mexico’s president calls deadly human smuggling ‘unfortunate,’ shifts blame to US

May 03, 2024

DATA JOURNALISM

From Chiapas to Tamaulipas, new database maps thousands of migrants’ dangerous journeys through Mexico in trailer trucks

Apr 30, 2024

The Collapse Of The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on December 8 caught the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s intelligence community —mainly Israel Military Intelligence (IMI) and the Mossad— by surprise. Assad’s collapse occurred much faster than Israel had estimated. Israel did not expect that the Syrian Arab Army would disintegrate so resoundingly, within 48 hours of the attack by the Syrian rebels.

Israeli intelligence assessed that, despite the shocks it had suffered in recent months, the so-called Axis of Resistance against Israel —mainly Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran— was stable. A scenario of rapid collapse of the government in Syria had not been assessed as a possibility, or even given a low probability tag. That was primarily because the Assad family had governed Syria for almost 60 years.

Following the Assad regime’s collapse, the focus of Israel’s intelligence is on analyzing the intentions of the major rebel organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and understanding how —if at all— it will lead the new administration in Syria. Israel is also examining developments in Despite the fall of the bitter enemy that was Assad’s Syria, and the deep shock suffered by the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance camp that has been dominant in the Middle East in recent decades, Israeli intelligence is not optimistic about the emerging situation in post-Assad Syria. Syria is a collection of minorities —Druze, Kurds, Alawites, and Christians— that have been artificially joined together despite carrying bitter, bloody scores. The latter may erupt sharply, especially against the Alawites. Concepts such as liberal politics, civil society, or a cohesive nation-state, have never existed inside Syria.

It follows that Israel is very concerned about the emerging uncertainty in Syria. Immediately after the fall of Assad, the IDF strengthened its defenses on the Golan Heights border to ensure that the chaos in Syria did not spill over into Israel. Meanwhile, Israel is in contact —both directly and through intermediaries— with several Syrian rebel groups, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The Israeli message at this stage is a demand that the rebels not approach the border, along with a warning that, if they violate the separation of forces agreement, Israel will respond with force.

Assessments in relation to the Syrian regime’s collapse continue to emerge in the IDF and the Israeli intelligence community. These assessments concern the extent to which the lessons of October 7 have been sufficiently analyzed and assimilated within Israel. Specifically, there are questions about whether this new intelligence surprise in Syria may stem from the fact that an in-depth investigation into the lessons of October 7 has yet to be carried out during the 14 months of the war with Hamas.

southern Syria, as well as what is happening at the Syrian and Russian military bases in Latakia and Tartus. Moreover, the IDF is monitoring the activities of Iranian elements in Syria, including on the border with Lebanon, to prevent the possibility of military equipment being transferred from Syria to Hezbollah.

It is clear to Israel that Turkiye stands behind the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organization and that Ankara armed and supported the group for a significant period. What is less clear is whether and how Turkey’s involvement in Syria could threaten Israel’s interests, given that Israel’s relations with Turkey have deteriorated dramatically in recent years.

More on this story: Israel intelligence analysis failure underestimating Hamas capabilities

Assad was a key member of the pro-Iranian Axis of Resistance. Following his fall from power, Iran and Hezbollah could lose their main logistical hub for producing, transferring, and storing weapons, as well as training their forces and militias. Additionally, Syria under Assad constantly posed the threat of turning into yet another battlefront against Israel. Without Assad, Russia could lose its grip on Syria —the only country in the Middle East where Russian influence dominates that of the United States. The Russians could also lose access to their military bases in Syria, which offered the Russian Navy access to the waters of the Mediterranean.

More on this story: Why intelligence failed to assess HAMAS attack on Israel

European Union foreign ministers rebuffed a call to end arms sales to Israel last month, despite mounting evidence of war crimes — and, potentially, genocide — presented to them in an internal assessment obtained by The Intercept.

The contents of the previously unknown 35-page assessment could sway future war crimes trials of EU politicians for complicity in Israel’s assault against Gaza, according to lawyers, experts, and political leaders. 

The appraisal was written by the EU’s special representative for human rights Olof Skoog and sent to EU ministers ahead of a council meeting on November 18, as part of a proposal by the head of the EU’s foreign policy to suspend political dialogue with Israel. The proposal was rejected by the council of foreign ministers from EU member states.

Skoog’s analysis laid out evidence from United Nations sources of war crimes by Israel, Hamas, and Hezbollah since October 7, 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed during a Hamas-led attack that prompted Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip. The U.N. estimates some 45,000 people have died in Gaza since, with more than half estimated to be women and children.

“History will judge them harshly. And perhaps so will the ICC.”

Though the assessment did not spare Hamas and Hezbollah, much of its strongest language was reserved for the Israel Defense Forces.

“War has rules,” the paper says. “Given the high level of civilian casualties and human suffering, allegations focus mainly on how duty bearers, including the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), have seemingly failed to distinguish between civilians and combatants and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects against the effects of the attacks, in violation of the fundamental principles of IHL” — international humanitarian law.

Skoog cites an increased use of “dehumanizing language” by Israeli political and military leaders, which may “contribute to evidence of intent” to commit genocide.

“Incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence — such as that made in statements by Israeli officials — constitutes a serious violation of international human rights Law and may amount to the international crime of incitement to genocide,” the paper says.

The implications for senior officials from arms-exporting countries to Israel — such as Germany, Italy and France — were not lost on Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister and secretary-general of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025.

Related

EU “Bending” Rules to Allow Trade With Israeli Settlements, Leaked Analysis Shows

If the International Criminal Court finds Israeli officials guilty of war crimes, Varoufakis told the Intercept, the very distribution of the report to EU ministers carries significance because the Europeans will not be able plead ignorance.

“They cannot plausibly deny that they were privy to the facts given the contents of the EU’s special representative’s report that they had a duty to take under consideration,” Varoufakis said. “The world now knows that they knew they were in breach of international law because they were explicitly told so by the EU’s own special representative on human rights. History will judge them harshly. And perhaps so will the ICC.”

Blocked Diplomatic Action

The paper arose from a February request by Spain and Ireland to evaluate whether Israel’s war in Gaza violated human rights articles in the EU–Israel Association Agreement, which, among other things, enabled some 46.8 billion euros of trade in 2022. 

If the European Commission had identified a breach, it would have brought a suspension of the agreement onto the agenda. The Commission’s pro-Israel President Ursula von der Leyen, however, declined to act.

Consequently, Skoog was commissioned by the EU’s foreign service, the European External Action Service, to investigate. He produced an initial assessment in July. The Intercept obtained a version of the assessment that was updated in November.

The document, which has not been previously reported, was discussed internally as part of the EU’s foreign service propsal to suspend “political dialogue” with Israel, the only aspect of the relationship the union’s foreign service has power over; Skoog’s paper effectively backed the plan to freeze it. The proposal, however, was rejected by the EU ministers, along with a de facto recommendation to ban arms exports to Israel.

The report found that because the death toll in Gaza corresponds to the demographic breakdown of the territory’s civilian population, the pattern of killing indicated “indiscriminate attacks” that could constitute war crimes.

“When committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population,” the assessment added, “they may also implicate crimes against humanity.”

Skoog called on EU countries to “deny an export licence” — for arms — “if there is a clear risk that the military technology or equipment to be exported might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.”

“Lawyers across Europe are watching this closely and likely to initiate domestic and international accountability mechanisms.”

In the wake of the assessment, some EU politicians will be at risk of complicity if Israel is found to have committed war crimes, said Tayab Ali, a partner in the U.K. law firm Bindmans, which recently took the British government to court over its arms exports to Israel.

“Lawyers across Europe are watching this closely and likely to initiate domestic and international accountability mechanisms. Economic interests are not a defence to complicity in war crimes,” Ali told The Intercept. “It is astounding that, following the contents of this report, countries like France and Germany might even remotely consider raising issues of immunity to protect wanted war criminals like Netahyahu and Gallant” — referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser and negotiator for the Palestinian Authority suggested that the rejection of the EU’s own analysis by its member states was political.

“Legally, we know where the dominoes should be falling,” Buttu said. “It was a question of whether the politics would match with the law, and unfortunately, they did not.”

“Criminal Collusion”

Skoog’s paper pulls no punches in its treatment of Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, describing hostage-taking, for instance, as “a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime.”

Rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah were “inherently indiscriminate … and may constitute a war crime,” it says.

The probe also calls out the use of tunnels in civilian areas as being tantamount to using human shields, which is also a war crime. The Israeli military, however, had not offered “substantial evidence” to back up this allegation, which, even if proven, would not justify indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilian areas. 

“Even when their own services presented them with the facts, they refused to act.”

The paper rebuts a major Israeli defense against war crimes allegations over the targeting of hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Skoog’s assessment argues that the “intentional targeting of hospitals … may amount to war crimes,” regardless of any Hamas activity there.

Skoog’s assessment says international law allows Israel “the right and indeed the duty to protect its population,” but that this can only be exercised in response to an armed attack or imminent attack and must be proportional. Because it is an occupying power, the assessment says, Israel also had an obligation to ensure safety and the health of those living under occupation.

Agnès Bertrand-Sanz, an Oxfam humanitarian expert, said the assessment “reinforces the case that EU governments have been acting in complicity with Israel’s crimes in Gaza.”

“Even when their own services presented them with the facts, they refused to act,” she said. “Those that continued exporting arms to Israel in defiance of the report’s clear advice, are involved in a blatant case of criminal collusion.”

The post EU Officials Will Claim Ignorance of Israel’s War Crimes. This Leaked Document Shows What They Knew. appeared first on The Intercept.

(Editor’s Note: This is the next installment of our series, “Tech Policy under Trump 2.0.” Read the first article in the series here).

During a Dec. 18 press conference in Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald Trump took an unexpected tack, suggesting the United States and China could “work together to solve all of the world’s problems.” With China hawks poised to fill key posts in his administration, Trump’s conciliatory tone contrasts sharply with his team’s overarching tough-on-Beijing stance.

Yet Trump’s history with China suggests a willingness to pair tough public posturing with pragmatic dealmaking, a strategy that could define his artificial intelligence (AI) policy. Such an approach echoes Trump’s handling of the ZTE crisis during his first term in 2018, when a seven-year ban on U.S. firms selling parts to the Chinese telecom giant threatened to cripple the company. Trump reversed the decision in exchange for costly concessions, including a $1.4 billion fine, showcasing his readiness to break from hawkish pressures when a favorable bargain aligned with his goals.

In AI policy, the next administration will likely embrace a transaction-based approach to promote U.S. AI technology abroad and win global market share. Data centers, wide-ranging AI applications, and even advanced chips could all be for sale across the Gulf, Southeast Asia, and Africa as part of a concerted attempt to win what top administration officials often refer to as the “AI race against China.” Yet as Trump and his team are expected to pursue their global AI ambitions to strengthen American national competitiveness, the U.S.-China bilateral dynamic looms largest. With rapidly improving frontier AI capabilities, headlined by substantial capabilities increases in the new o3 model OpenAI released Dec. 20, the relationship between the great powers remains arguably both the greatest obstacle and the greatest opportunity for Trump to shape AI’s future.

Bringing American Innovation to the Global Stage

The United States currently leads the world in cutting-edge frontier AI models and outpaces China in other key areas such as AI R&D. This lead grew first and foremost from the United States’ early investment and accumulation of talent in AI. The lead was extended through export controls first imposed during Trump’s first administration aimed at stifling Chinese access to advanced semiconductors. Earlier this month, the Biden administration expanded its export controls with new restrictions on semiconductor equipment and high-bandwidth memory. These controls are expected to significantly increase the costs associated with the production of China’s most advanced chips. The current lead gives the United States power and leverage, as it has better products to sell than its competitors.

But leading tech policy figures – including some of Trump’s key backers – are concerned that current advantages in frontier models alone will not suffice. Some fear U.S. AI progress could slow, or that embedding AI into critical infrastructures or applications, which China excels in, will ultimately be as or more important for national competitiveness. China’s open source models have become as good – or better – than U.S. open source alternatives. Tencent’s Hunyuan model outperformed Meta’s LLaMa 3.1-405B across a range of benchmarks. Alibaba’s Qwen2.5 model did better across various capability evaluations than OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet models. And most impressively, DeepSeek has released a “reasoning model” that legitimately challenges OpenAI’s o1 model capabilities across a range of benchmarks.

Given the United States’ comparative advantages in compute access and cutting-edge models, the incoming administration could find the time to be right to cash in and put AI export globally at the heart of Trump’s tech policy. While the Biden administration sought to strategically protect U.S. AI advantages, Trump may seek to promote the country’s AI technology.

So far, the Biden administration has put off the challenging decision of whether to send advanced semiconductors to countries stuck in the middle of U.S.-China competition, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But the Trump administration will ultimately need to set a course for its international compute policy. It will need to decide whether to control U.S. compute resources, diffuse them globally or leverage them to secure diplomatic concessions.

While Trump will certainly try to use the United States’ advantage in frontier model capabilities for concessions, he may ultimately be more supportive of an international market-focused approach that unleashes U.S. overseas exports of graphic processing units (GPUs), computer chips especially critical for training state-of-the-art models. His administration may be more supportive of partnerships to build data centers abroad, such as the deal Microsoft struck with G42, a UAE-backed company critical to the country’s efforts to expand its investments in AI. And it might more actively support deals such as the one Nvidia recently made to partner with Vietnam’s government to open an AI research and development center.

These companies have pursued global expansion independently, but the Trump administration could provide incentives for these firms to build an international presence and entrench U.S. technology in key critical infrastructures, just as Chinese’s leading telecom company Huawei did in global 5G markets over the past decade. AI models are easy to replace; critical infrastructures, in contrast, are not. Moreover, Trump’s team could seek to specifically empower smaller firms and start-ups, which might otherwise struggle to compete on the international market without government backing. And it may begin to explore new ways to empower the open source ecosystem domestically with an eye toward international competitiveness, creating financial incentives to develop open source solutions.

Trump could also leverage the United States’ AI advantages in the development sector, where the country faces continued challenges from China. China’s Global AI Governance Initiative offers a platform for embedding Chinese AI systems globally, such as through implementing smart city technology like networked cameras and sensors. Through its AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, China has explicitly stated its goal of sharing its best practices with the developing world, carrying out AI education and exchange programs, and building data infrastructure to promote fair and inclusive access to global data.

China’s efforts build on a strong tradition of exporting both technology and talent in regions like Latin America, where the United States has failed to compete. Trump’s team will likely want to compete in the development sector, but hesitate to hand over development aid resources in AI to the United Nations, reflecting his wariness of international institutions with large membership and rigid bureaucratic structures. Specifically, the United Nations’s ambition to establish a global fund for AI might struggle to gain substantial U.S. backing.

But Trump’s reluctance to cooperate with the U.N. will not necessarily stop the next administration from pushing to increase access to talent, compute, and data in lower- and middle-income countries. Instead, Trump and his allies could empower development-focused agencies like USAID, which has already begun to leverage AI in its aid plans. It could also empower export promotion agencies, such as the Export-Import Bank, to engage in development-based dealmaking with the rest of the world. Such deals would allow the United States to set global standards through embedding technology in critical infrastructures as opposed to negotiating them in international fora. In a September report, now Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio explicitly stated the need for the United States to provide compelling technological alternatives in third countries to combat Chinese efforts abroad. His office wrote, “the United States will need to offer a substantive alternative, not just strong condemnations and humanitarian aid.”

Trump has long preferred one-on-one trade deals over working through international institutions.  Trump administration AI development deals could similarly be conducted bilaterally. But his first administration showed willingness to engage in carefully scoped multilateral efforts when they served U.S. interests. Trump and Michael Kratsios, who was recently nominated as Director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, brought the United States into the G7’s Global Partnership on AI, framed largely as a multilateral effort to counter China’s AI ambitions. Similar deals could plausibly be made for targeted development projects within the G7 or other carefully scoped multilateral efforts, so long as any deal is ultimately seen to boost U.S. national competitiveness.

Let’s Make a Deal, China AI Edition?

As Trump pursues this global AI strategy, the bilateral relationship with China looms as both the greatest challenge and, potentially, the most intriguing opportunity. He inherits a third round of export controls that, while heavily criticized, follows a core logic that places U.S. AI frontier model supremacy at the core of AI policy. Key nominees, such as Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth Jacob Helberg, a strong supporter of efforts to ban TikTok, signal continued pressure to decouple critical technology supply chains from China.

The broader context of U.S.-China relations presents additional hurdles. Trump’s threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on BRICS countries and ongoing cross-Strait tensions create an environment where substantive AI dialogue seems unlikely. Indeed, the first official U.S.-China AI dialogue, held in May in Geneva, yielded little progress toward consensus on frontier risks. Given the Trump administration’s general hawkishness, it is unlikely that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will prioritize a U.S.-China agreement on frontier AI when models in both countries are becoming increasingly powerful.

Yet history suggests opportunity in unlikely places. Just as Richard Nixon’s hawkish credentials enabled him to open relations with China in 1972, Trump’s position could create space for targeted cooperation. Such a deal is certainly unlikely. And it is a near impossible exercise to predict what types of deals might emerge in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment and an unforeseeable AI technological trajectory.

Trump may find compelling business or strategic reasons to engage China on AI. In adjacent parts of the emerging tech ecosystem, Trump is already toying with the idea of intervening in TikTok’s impending ban in the United States, saying, “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” and that he “won youth by 34 points, and there are those that say that TikTok had something to do with it.” The seeds for Trump wheeling and dealing with China in the emerging tech sphere have been planted.

Beyond economic motives, security concerns surrounding increasingly powerful frontier AI systems in both the United States and China could create a sufficiently large zone of possible agreement for a deal to be struck. There is already precedent for high-level U.S.-China coordination to tackle shared AI security concerns: last month, Biden and Xi agreed humans should make all decisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons.

There are already signs that the Trump administration will need to take model security systems concerns even more seriously. When led to believe it would be monitored and shut down for scheming to pursue a specific goal, OpenAI’s o1 model attempted to deactivate its oversight mechanism in five percent of cases, and Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus Model engaged in strategic deception to avoid its preferences from being modified in 12 percent of cases. DeepSeek’s R1 model, meanwhile, has proven easy to jailbreak, with one X user reportedly inducing the model to provide a detailed recipe for methamphetamine. These concerns have long been held by some of the most important figures in Trump’s orbit. Elon Musk, arguably Trump’s most influential advisor on AI, has said he believes there is a 10 to 20 percent chance artificial intelligence “goes bad.”

The convergence of rising AI capabilities and security concerns could create unexpected opportunities for U.S.-China coordination, even as competition between the great powers intensifies globally. Trump’s combination of dealmaking instincts and hawkish credibility positions him uniquely to pursue both aggressive global expansion of U.S. AI technology and targeted cooperation where interests align.

For now, the specific contours of any potential AI agreement remain speculative. But Trump’s track record suggests that deals once thought impossible can emerge when security imperatives and business opportunities align. In the high-stakes domain of frontier AI, Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy could prove conducive to breakthrough agreements – even, or especially, with China.

IMAGE: Visualization of U.S.-China chip competition (via Getty Images)

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