“Today I can confirm that nuclear is making a comeback,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) at an Atlantic Council event on Thursday. Birol, who is also an Atlantic Council International Advisory Board member, spoke about his organization’s first-ever report dedicated solely to nuclear energy and what its findings could mean for the future of global energy security.
“More than forty countries have concrete plans and projects in place to build or expand their nuclear capacity,” said Birol. “We have never seen this before.”
The IEA, an independent intergovernmental organization based in Paris, commissioned its report on nuclear energy in June 2024 amid growing global interest in nuclear power and increased electricity demand. Birol discussed the reasons for the recent resurgence, the challenges hindering the nuclear industries in the United States and Europe, and what he believes Western policymakers will need to do to ensure that nuclear power helps provide energy security.
“From the IEA’s point of view, energy security is the full spectrum of the traditional energy security risks plus the emerging energy security risks, such as critical mineral supply chains,” said Birol.
Read below for more highlights from the discussion with Birol on the state of nuclear energy, which was moderated by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe.
A growing global interest in nuclear power
Birol said increased demand for electricity is a major factor in the push for nuclear energy, including growing demand for air conditioning and artificial intelligence data centers. “In the age of strong electricity demand growth,” he said, “countries are moving forward to make nuclear part of the power generation mix again.”
“We have never seen such a big amount of the construction of nuclear power plants in the last three decades,” Birol said. He mentioned Italy, Japan, Sweden, and other countries that are showing renewed interest in nuclear energy after previous opposition. He also noted “strong momentum” from countries such as Poland and Turkey, which have demonstrated interest in launching their first nuclear energy projects.
Birol also highlighted the growing interest in developing small modular reactors, which he said are “easier to finance,” “more flexible, less complex projects to implement,” and “faster to build” compared to traditional large-scale nuclear power plants.
Difficulties ahead
Despite the increased enthusiasm for nuclear projects, including in the West, the IEA found that there are significant challenges to project implementation and increasingly stiff competition from China. “In the last five years, more than 80 percent of the new nuclear capacity came from China,” Birol said. He added that “China, with the current policies, before the end of this decade will overtake the United States and will be the number one nuclear power in the world.”
One of the reasons China has made such strides, Birol said, is that in the United States and Europe, “it is rare that a project finishes on time and on budget.” He added that, on average, US and European nuclear projects face eight years of delay and cost more than two-and-a-half times the planned budget.
Birol also highlighted the need for countries to develop greater enrichment capacity. Russia alone currently holds more than 40 percent of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity, according to the IEA’s analysis. “In Europe, we have experienced the bitter consequence of over-reliance on one single country” for energy, Birol said. “Diversification is the magic word.”
Nuclear priorities for the US and Europe
Birol outlined potential areas of cooperation between the IEA and the new US administration, including “pushing the innovation button” to bring down the costs of developing small modular reactors, as well as collaboration on geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage.
Birol also spoke about how Western nations can become the partners of choice for countries seeking to develop their first nuclear power plants. To win partners for future nuclear projects, he stressed the importance of making long-term commitments to advancing nuclear energy initiatives and avoiding an inconsistent “stop-and-go” approach.
“We need governments to be creative” when it comes to funding nuclear energy projects, Birol said, since it can take a long time for private funders to reap their returns on investment. He suggested that governments could “provide instruments to the investments and guarantee some of the revenues” to get more buy-in from private capital.
Daniel Hojnacki is an assistant editor on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s humanitarian waiver for foreign aid is a “performative” bit of “lip service,” said former contractors with the U.S. Agency for International Development who worked on programs to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and Ebola.
Instead of a functioning waiver system, they told The Intercept, the programs are grinding to a halt amid the chaos — putting aid recipients at grave risk.
With USAID staffers forced out on leave and agency contractors laid off, and with scattershot advice from the State Department, organizations outside the U.S. have been left with little idea of how to request new waivers or how to implement those already granted for HIV/AIDS treatment.
Rubio, meanwhile, is placing the blame on aid workers themselves. On Tuesday, he lashed out at the foreign aid partners who have endured days of chaotic and shifting instructions from the U.S., suggesting that they might be “deliberately sabotaging” lifesaving projects “for purposes of making a political point.”
Inside the U.S., a major contractor that helped the government procure vital anti-retroviral drugs said Wednesday that it had yet to receive an explanation of what the waiver meant and has not restarted work.
“You don’t have the staff to oversee it, you don’t have the systems in place to move the products. It’s gone.”
A former USAID contractor who worked as a supply chain adviser on an HIV/AIDS project until their termination last month panned the waiver process.
“It’s beyond lip service at this point, given that you don’t have the staff to oversee it, you don’t have the systems in place to move the products,” said the aid worker, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. “It’s gone.”
Waiver for What?
Rubio announced the waiver on January 28, a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing all foreign assistance for a 90-day review.
His announcement of the waiver came at the same time that Elon Musk and his allies were dismantling the agency that oversees much of foreign assistance, USAID.
The “humanitarian waiver” was supposed to ensure that lifesaving and politically popular programs such as President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR — an HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention program launched by George W. Bush in 2003 — would continue.
Time is crucial when it comes to the anti-retroviral drugs that treat and prevent the spread of HIV. It can take just three weeks for viral loads to rebound once patients stop receiving the drugs.
Rubio’s announcement of the waiver process did not amount to an instant revival of PEPFAR, however. The program’s waiver wasn’t granted until February 1, and even the limited waiver has left America’s foreign partners piecing through what they can and cannot do with U.S. dollars and drugs.
HIV clinics in South Africa, where PEPFAR helps provide daily treatment to 5.5 million people, were still closed days after the waiver was announced.
Many groups have yet to receive further word after the initial stop-work instructions from U.S. government officials, the South African newspaper Daily Maverick reported Wednesday.
“Even though it’s been issued at the State Department level, a lot of programs on the ground haven’t gotten any formal communication yet that they can start,” said Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of the global health and HIV policy program at KFF. (The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.)
The partner organizations are also scrambling to figure out who to contact with questions.
USAID staffers have been locked out of the organization’s Washington headquarters since Monday, and the organization announced Tuesday that all direct hires will be placed on “administrative leave” starting Friday. Thousands had already been locked out of their email accounts and told to stay home.
Even if communications with foreign partners resume, it will take time to undo the damage of the initial freeze, Kates said. Community organizations abroad often have little in the way of cash reserves and in many cases have already laid off staffers.
She said, “If they’ve had to let go of providers, for example, it’s not so easy to turn a switch back on and start again.”
Rubio Blames Everyone but Himself
Two days after the waiver was issued, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, said some patients still were not receiving HIV medication.
“PEPFAR is the epitome of soft power. It is a Republican initiative, it is pro-life, pro-America and the most popular U.S. program in Africa,” he posted on X. “There’s even a waiver acknowledging this, yet I’m told that drugs are still being withheld at clinics in Africa. This must be reversed immediately!!”
In response to complaints about the blizzard of vague and conflicting orders coming out of the State Department, Rubio decided, during a stop in Costa Rica on Tuesday, to shift blame to the workers scrambling to get the programs up and running again.
“I issued a blanket waiver that said if this is lifesaving programs, OK — if it’s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you’re not included in the freeze,” he said. “I don’t know how much more clear we can be than that. And I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point.”
A nurse talks to an HIV-positive patient inside a USAID mobile clinic in Ngodwana, South Africa, on July 2, 2020. Photo: Bram Janssen/AP
His stance left leaders in the development world bewildered and angry.
“A very cheap shot by Rubio to accuse the NGOs of politicizing this, when the breakdowns are in fact coming from the (willful?) dysfunction within the administration,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a top USAID official under President Joe Biden who now serves as the president of Refugees International, posted on X.
Outside of the HIV/AIDS program, the emergency food programs that Rubio highlighted in Costa Rica are also experiencing problems, according to Kates.
“I have talked to an organization that does emergency food interventions, and they haven’t been given any indication that they can continue to do that. So, it doesn’t seem clear at all to people in the field,” Kates said.
One senator from a farm state took to social media on Tuesday to ask for help on that front.
“I urge @SecRubio to distribute the $340 million in American-grown food currently stalled in U.S. ports to reach those in need,” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said. “Time is running out before this life-saving aid perishes.”
Prevention and Treatment
The State Department’s limited waiver for the HIV/AIDS program has a perplexing omission: the pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, that can prevent people from getting infected in the first place.
PrEP is only covered for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers to prevent the transmission to their children, according to Kates. Other patients do not appear to be included in the waiver.
“They granted a waiver in lip service, but they never turned on the payment system.”
“PrEP is extremely effective. If you take it in advance of an HIV exposure, your risk of becoming infected with HIV is reduced by 97 percent,” Kates said. “It would be this unfortunate irony if they got HIV because they couldn’t get PrEP, but now they can get treatment because the waiver allows for treatment.”
If the waiver for HIV/AIDS medicine and treatment does become more of a ground reality in the days to come, former USAID officials are still worried about what will happen further down the line.
Many of the anti-retroviral drugs that prevent HIV patients from getting sick were procured by a contractor, Chemonics, that received a stop-work orders from Rubio. The company has not been paid for any contracts since Trump’s inauguration and has laid off 70 percent of its U.S. staff, according to CNN.
“We are still awaiting clarifying guidance from USAID about how to apply the waiver to our programs. As of now, all work remains on pause,” a Chemonics spokesperson, Payal Chandiramani, said in a written statement Wednesday. “As a result of the stop-work order we are unable to procure or deliver lifesaving anti-retroviral therapy.”
The USAID contractor who provided support for the HIV drug supply chain, through another company, said the lack of action on the purchasing contract showed how hollow the waiver process has been so far.
“They granted a waiver in lip service, but they never turned on the payment system to be able to pay for work to continue,” they said. “This is again why I come back to this being lip service, because tell me how we expect private companies to work and function without being paid?”
Then there are other projects formerly overseen by USAID that do not appear to have received a waiver thus far — but which provide services just as vital to preventing the spread of disease.
For years, USAID has been working to build up African countries’ capacity to detect and halt the spread of Ebola and another hemorrhagic fever virus, Marburg. One former contractor, who was working as a senior adviser on that project and requested anonymity because they will soon be searching for another job in the field, said that the waiver process has not brought it back online.
“I think it’s largely performative, to quell some of the backlash that has been coming. I know for a fact that the programs that I was working on were not part of that waiver, and I very much think that work in this outbreak field is lifesaving, and keeps America safe,” they said. “I don’t really understand why people are no longer concerned when these are multiple, concurrent, viral hemorrhagic fevers.”
Future waivers for such projects should refer to specific federal government budget lines and departments to prevent confusion, Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, wrote in a blog post.
The government also must reinstate the staffers and contractors who actually oversee the projects, he said.
“Otherwise, the waiver program is a fig leaf,” Kenny wrote, “and the deaths that will result squarely the responsibility of those who could act to fix it.”
A U.S. political strategist says an Uzbek businessman asked him to lobby for sanctions against a huge cement manufacturer owned by a political and business rival over the business’s alleged Russia links.
Stephen Payne, a top partner in Texas lobbying firm Linden Strategies, says that at his Uzbek client’s behest, he briefed Congressman Wesley Hunt, a Texas Republican, last year about possible sanctions violations by the Uzbek cement company, known as the United Cement Group.
Payne, a one-time aide to former President George W. Bush, said he and his staff didn’t urge any specific action, but left it to Hunt and his staff to decide what to do with the information.
In remarks on the House floor in March 2024, Rep. Hunt expressed concern that U.S. focus on “Russian assets” in Europe had “overlooked assets and agents in former Soviet republics such as Uzbekistan” — and then specifically mentioned the Cyprus-registered cement company without elaborating.
Hunt would also write to the U.S. Treasury’s sanctions unit for a “formal inquiry” into “potential violations” of U.S. Russia sanctions by the Uzbek cement company, according to documents seen by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Because of UCG’s alleged Russia links, Hunt expressed concern about UCG’s 2022 acquisition of a state-owned cement plant in Uzbekistan. A few days later, Payne made a $3,300 donation to Hunt’s campaign.
A spokesperson for UCG’s owner, prominent Uzbek businessman Ulugbek Shadmanov, said the U.S. Treasury conducted a “light investigation” of the company for sanctions violations after Hunt’s remarks, but it “concluded without any allegation of Russian involvement.”
Lobbyist Stephen Payne. Image: via Linden Energy
Linden Strategies was acting on behalf of Uktam Aripov, a little-known Canada-based entrepreneur who, Payne alleges, was seeking to convince the U.S. to sanction UCG, Central Asia’s biggest cement producer.
The lobbying campaign offers a window onto the world of sanctions lobbying — a bustling cottage industry in Washington since the 2022 Ukraine invasion caused a spike in U.S. and other Western sanctions against firms and individuals seen as aiding Russia’s war effort.
Typically, political strategy and law firms lobby lawmakers and other officials to push regulators, including the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, to remove someone already on a sanctions list, or prevent their clients from being listed. The lobby firms sometimes conduct publicity campaigns in support of their efforts.
Yet lobbying for sanctions or official condemnations against rivals has become an increasingly popular tool in particular for business actors across Eurasia.
In December, the Financial Times revealed that a newly sanctioned Dutch oil trader alleges a former business partner was responsible for EU sanctions against him, which the partner denied. In 2023, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project showed how a private intelligence firm working for a U.S. healthcare company allegedly fed questions about a rival being an alleged Russian agent to a British MP. In January, The Diplomat reported that an Uzbek businessman had been detained in Tashkent last year after allegedly refusing to push for U.S. sanctions against two high-ranking public officials.
In an interview with ICIJ, Payne, the Linden partner, said that Aripov, the entrepreneur, had hired his firm to “go after United Cement,” including with sanctions pressure. Aripov’s company paid Linden $25,000, according to lobbying filings.
In a series of emails to ICIJ, Aripov said he was “not a side of conflict” with UCG and Shadmanov and denied asking Payne to lobby for sanctions against UCG. He said the assertion could be easily proven false with documents, but declined to provide them.
Aripov said his relationship with Payne soured over a business dispute.
Payne acknowledges having a previous business relationship with Aripov and having ended it, but denies it ended because of a business dispute. He declined to elaborate.
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Family feud
Uzbekistan’s political scene has been roiled in recent months by a string of anonymously sourced media reports of an alleged feud between powerful family members of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
Analysts and news reports have suggested a conflict between Mirziyoyev’s eldest daughter and adviser, Saida Mirziyoyeva, and a son-in-law, Otabek Umarov, who until recently was deputy head of the country’s Presidential Security Service.
The name Shadmanov, UCG’s owner, hit headlines this month after he was detained in a raid by security forces at his home in Dubai and extradited to Uzbekistan. Uzbek authorities have declined to say why they sought Shadmanov’s extradition.
“Ulugbek Shadmanov is the victim of a blatant political prosecution by authorities in Uzbekistan,” said his lawyer Marc Agnifilo.
The Shadmanov spokesperson told ICIJ that Aripov had approached Shadmanov about potential business projects in 2023 but the interaction later devolved into a dispute.
According to RFE/RL and The Diplomat, Shadmanov is allegedly an ally of President Mirziyoyev’s son-in-law, Umarov. The spokesperson for Shadmanov said he “does not have a business or personal relationship with Otabek Umarov” in a comment to ICIJ.
Payne also says Shadmanov and Aripov are business rivals.
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In Uzbekistan, a 36-million-strong country situated in the heart of Central Asia between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the U.S. is sometimes referred to the country’s “sixth neighbour” — a reference to the U.S.’s important economic and security support for Uzbekistan in the 2000s. The relationship later faltered after then-President Islam Karimov orchestrated a domestic crackdown and shut down a U.S. airbase.
Since coming to power in 2016, President Mirziyoyev has sought to end the country’s international isolation, and improve relations with the U.S.
Uzbekistan has spent millions of dollars on high-powered D.C. lobbying and consulting firms to attract U.S. investors.
And U.S. investors have taken an interest in Mirziyoyev’s “Uzbek spring.” Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, former CIA chief Mike Pompeo and a former top State Department official, Tom Shannon, for instance, serve as advisers to Gor Investment, an Uzbekistan-focused investment firm based in London and Tashkent.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev shake hands during a May 2018 meeting at the White House. Image: president.uz
Sanctions frenzy
A brief biography of Aripov on the website of a Latvian-registered company he owns called Euro Luxe Trading, says he began his career in international business in 1993, including roles as an official country consultant for Motorola and the U.S. defense and IT giant Harris Corp. in Uzbekistan. The webpage on Aripov has since become inaccessible after ICIJ made contact with him.
Payne, who also runs energy company Linden Energy, said he met Aripov back in 2011 while Payne served as honorary consul — a sort of quasi diplomat or representative — to Texas on behalf of the Baltic state of Latvia.
Amid the sanctions frenzy following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. began accusing Uzbek companies of breaking sanctions on Russia by supplying key components to the Russian military-industrial complex.
In January 2024, records show, Euro Luxe contracted with Linden Strategies to lobby on “issues relating to fair business practices in Uzbekistan” in the House of Representatives.
Payne told ICIJ that Linden Strategies “did not specifically register” to push for sanctions pressure against UCG on behalf of Aripov. However, he said, pushing for such sanctions against UCG did “fall under our registration parameters,” the disclosed reasons for hiring a lobbyist.
Linden Strategies contacted Rep. Hunt on behalf of Aripov about UCG.
U.S. Congressman Wesley Hunt. Image: via U.S. House of Congress
In remarks in the House of Representatives on March 15 last year, Hunt stood and inquired about “a possible and deliberate violation of U.S. imposed sanctions” by UCG.
“As the war in Ukraine carries on and as Russian sanctions are imposed, I worry that our focus on Russian assets and agents in Europe has overlooked assets and agents in former Soviet republics such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan,” Hunt said.
He said UCG’s 2022 privatization deal was “opaque” and came at a “significant discount,” adding, “We are seeing monopolization under the guise of privatization, to the benefit of Russia.”
On March 19, according to U.S. Federal Election Commission data, Payne made his $3,300 donation to Hunt’s campaign for re-election. The donation was recorded in Linden Strategies’ lobbying disclosure filing.
Payne said the donation and Hunt’s remarks were unconnected.
“I have contributed the maximum allowed amount to Congressman Hunt since his first campaign in 2021,” Payne said. “I have held several fundraisers for [Hunt], and we have attended social events with one another and our wives.”
Hunt did not respond to ICIJ’s requests for comment
Payne said the lobbying parameters of his contract with Euro Luxe also included Linden Strategies writing to Uzbek president Mirziyoyev in April to inform him that the Office of Foreign Assets Control had been directed to investigate UCG, “’which undoubtedly harms the image of Uzbekistan”.
That letter to President Mirziyoyev referenced “discussions” in U.S. Congress on UCG as the source of the directive to investigate UCG for possible sanctions violations.
The claim that UCG was collaborating with Russia to circumvent U.S. sanctions is “logistically implausible”, said the Shadmanov spokesperson. “Cement production and distribution economics make such allegations technically impossible,” they said.
Payne told ICIJ he had ended the $25,000 contract with Aripov. Linden Strategies’s Euro Luxe contract ended on April 1, 2024, according to lobbying filings.
Payne said he also “rescinded” Linden Strategies’s letter to President Mirziyoyev warning about UCG in August 2024, citing “internal disagreements” and other factors in comments to ICIJ.
Aripov didn’t respond to an emailed question from ICIJ about whether he had instructed Payne to lobby for sanctions against Shadmanov’s firm.
The U.S. Treasury did not respond to requests for comment about whether it had conducted any inquiries into UCG.
NEW ORLEANS (NewsNation) — After a New Year’s Day terror attack struck New Orleans‘ historic French Quarter, city officials say they are confident in the security plans they have in place for Sunday’s Super Bowl.
More than 125,000 visitors — including President Donald Trump — are expected to converge on the Big Easy this week for days of revelry capped off by the clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles at the Caesars Superdome to crown this season’s NFL champion.
Following the truck-ramming attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens more along Bourbon Street, alleged security lapses triggered multiple lawsuits and investigations. But the city, the NFL and law enforcement officials insist they are ready after more than a year of preparations.
Approximately 2,000 law enforcement officers will be present for the Super Bowl, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters Wednesday.
No vehicle traffic will be allowed on Bourbon Street, and the city will block intersections leading to the most popular areas, Kirkpatrick said.
Security has had to “heighten” with Trump’s visit announced on Tuesday, and the city “will have to shut down some additional streets a little longer in order to provide a safe corridor for him,” Kirkpatrick said.
Drones are prohibited above downtown New Orleans and around the Superdome in the days leading up to the game, and there will be flight restrictions up to 18,000 feet, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
No one will be allowed inside a cordoned-off area surrounding the Superdome without credentials, and the city already has begun shutting down and limiting traffic on roads near the stadium. The perimeter will include blast barriers and trucks will be required to pass through giant X-ray machines typically used at border crossings, said Homeland Security Investigations New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Eric DeLaune, who is leading federal coordination of security.
In a move likely to cause considerable offense in the White House, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has compared US President Donald Trump’s “America First” concept to Nazi propaganda. This provocative statement from Russia’s top diplomat offers an indication of the mood in Moscow as the United States and Russia engage in preliminary talks over a possible deal to end the invasion of Ukraine.
In an article published on February 4 by the Russia in Global Affairs journal, Lavrov accused the US of undermining the international order with “cowboy attacks,” and claimed that the rhetoric of the Trump administration was reminiscent of Nazi Germany. “The ‘America First’ concept has disturbing similarities to the ‘Germany Above All’ slogan of the Hitler period,” he wrote.
Such attacks are nothing new, of course. The Kremlin has a long history of branding critics and adversaries as Nazis that can be traced all the way back to the height of the Cold War. When the Hungarians rebelled against Soviet occupation in 1956, Moscow condemned the uprising as a “fascist rebellion” before sending in the tanks. It was a similar story during the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring of 1968. Communist officials even referred to the Berlin Wall itself as “the Anti-Fascist Protective Wall.”
This trend survived the Soviet collapse and has been enthusiastically embraced by the Putin regime. Labeling opponents as Nazis is regarded as a particularly effective tactic in modern Russia as it strikes an emotive chord among audiences raised to revere the staggering Soviet sacrifices in the fight against Hitler’s Germany.
Throughout Putin’s reign, domestic political opponents including Alexei Navalny have been routinely demonized as Nazis. The same strategy is frequently employed in the international arena. When Estonia sought to remove a Soviet World War II monument from Tallinn city center in 2007, the Kremlin media went into a frenzy about “Fascist Estonia,” sparking riots among Estonia’s sizable ethnic Russian population. A long list of other international critics and adversaries have faced the same Nazi slurs.
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The most notorious Russian accusations of Nazism have been leveled at Ukraine. Ever since Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, Russian state propaganda has sought to portray Ukrainian national identity as a modern form of fascism that is virtually indistinguishable from Nazism. This propaganda campaign is rooted in Soviet era attempts to discredit Ukraine’s independence movement via association with World War II collaboration. It reached new lows in 2014 as Putin attempted to legitimize the occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Donbas region.
Moscow’s efforts to portray Ukraine as a Nazi state escalated further following the onset of the full-scale invasion three years ago, with a massive spike in references to “Nazi Ukraine” throughout the Kremlin-controlled Russian media. In this increasingly unhinged environment, few were surprised when Putin announced that one of his two principle war aims was the “denazification” of Ukraine.
It has since become abundantly clear that Putin’s frequent talk of “denazification” is actually Kremlin code for “deukrainianization.” In other words, the ultimate goal of Russia’s current invasion is to create a Ukraine without Ukrainians, with false accusations of Nazism serving as a convenient excuse to justify the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation.
The history of nationalist politics in independent Ukraine is far removed from the Kremlin’s fascist fantasies. In reality, Ukrainian far-right parties have never come close to holding political power and typically receive far fewer votes than nationalist candidates in most other European countries.
When Ukraine’s frustrated and marginalized nationalists banded together into a single bloc for the country’s last prewar parliamentary election in 2019, they managed to secure a meager 2.16 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, Russian-speaking Jewish comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election of the same year served to further highlight the absurdity of Russia’s entire “Nazi Ukraine” narrative.
Ever since Zelenskyy’s election, Russian officials have been tying themselves in knots attempting to explain how a supposedly Nazi state could elect a Jewish leader. In one particularly infamous incident during a spring 2022 interview with Italian TV show Zona Bianca, foreign minister Lavrov responded to questioning about Zelenskyy’s Jewish heritage by claiming that Adolf Hitler “also had Jewish blood.”
Lavrov’s latest comments do not signal a significant shift in the Kremlin position toward the United States and should not be blown out of proportion. Nevertheless, it is always worth paying attention when Russia plays the Nazi card. In this instance, the decision to target Trump personally with Nazi slurs by comparing one of his core political messages to Hitler’s propaganda suggests a degree of unease in Moscow over what the Kremlin can expect from the new US administration.
If Trump follows through on his threats to pressure Putin into peace talks, this unease may soon give way to outright hostility. At that point, we can expect to see yet more lurid Russian accusations of Nazism, this time aimed at the United States. That, after all, is how the Kremlin propaganda machine works. Putin claims to venerate the memory of World War II, but he has done more than anyone to distort the legacy of the conflict for his own political gain.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.
Further reading
UkraineAlert Jan 15, 2025
Appeasement will only fuel Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine
By Anastasiia Marushevska
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an old-fashioned colonial war rooted in centuries of Russian imperial history that cannot be ended by limited territorial concessions or other attempts at appeasement, writes Anastasiia Marushevska.
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.
Russia’s war against the West will continue until Putin tastes defeat
By Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is part of a far larger war against the West. If he succeeds in Ukraine, Putin aims to destroy the existing rules-based world order and usher in a new era dominated by a handful of great powers, writes Andriy Zagorodnyuk.
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.
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.
The order gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the president’s view
(NewsNation) — Current and former officials have been raising the alarm after a team led by Elon Musk was granted access to the Treasury’s payment systems, which include sensitive data on millions of Americans.
The White House says that Musk, a South African tech billionaire, has a security clearance to access the system; however, the agency typically restricts access to a very small number of senior personnel because of the sensitivity of the information.
President Donald Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) through an executive order, renaming what was previously the Office of Digital Services and moving the office to be under the Executive Office of the President from the Office of Management and Budget, where it was previously located.
The office is tasked with modernizing government technology, and Trump has also directed Musk, who heads DOGE, to review finances.
Why has DOGE been controversial?
DOGE has been controversial from the start. Though it is not an agency or a Cabinet-level position, it has been treated similarly. Because it is not an agency, Musk has not had to go through a Senate confirmation hearing that would typically be required for someone at that level of power.
The White House has classified Musk as a special government employee with a limited contract, which means he is exempt from certain regulations regarding financial disclosure and transparency.
DOGE has also made unilateral changes to certain agencies, most notably USAID. The organization is responsible for providing humanitarian assistance abroad, and after accessing systems, DOGE put the majority of employees on administrative leave, recalled those stationed overseas and blocked staff from accessing the Washington, D.C., office.
Musk and Trump have alleged the agency is “criminal” and a “fraud” though there has been no evidence offered to back up any of those claims.
What information does DOGE have access to?
The Treasury Department’s payment system includes the systems that control money for federal grants, payments for Social Security and Medicare, tax information and payments to government contractors.
That means DOGE employees have access to the Social Security numbers of millions of Americans, along with sensitive tax information and banking accounts for direct deposit.
Trump and Musk have maintained that DOGE is conducting a financial audit. However, audits do not typically include (or require) direct access to the payment system. Trump also fired the inspector general whose role includes auditing government programs and who has extensive experience doing so.
Theoretically, with access to the payment system, DOGE could cut off any payments it or the president decides should be cut. That could range from broad moves, like cutting off the funds for school lunch programs, or granular ones, like deciding which individual Americans should or should not recieve Social Security payments.
DOGE also has access to information on government contractors, including a “Do Not Pay” list that prevents ineligible individuals or companies from receiving federal funds.
Headed by Musk, whose companies are heavily subsidized by government funds, DOGE could blacklist his competitors and make them ineligible for contracts or remove companies owned by his allies that are currently blacklisted.
