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Hong Kong activist who coined banned independence slogan released from prison | Hong Kong

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Hong Kong activist Edward Leung, who coined the now-banned slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” has been released from prison and placed under strict supervision after spending four years behind bars.

The prominent independence activist said in a statement posted on his Facebook page – hours after his reported release at about 3am on Wednesday – that he was back with his family.

“As required by law, I am subject to a supervision order upon release,” he wrote in the post, adding that he would stop using social media and will not be taking any media interviews or visits.

“After four years, I want to cherish this precious time to reunite with my family and resume a normal life with them,” Leung said, before thanking his supporters for their concern and love. His Facebook account was deleted an hour later.

Leung was the spokesman of Hong Kong Indigenous, a pro-independence group in the city that was outspoken about “localism” and the need to preserve a distinct Hong Kong identity.

In 2018, the 30-year-old activist was convicted of assaulting a police officer and rioting in 2016 during what is now known as the Fishball Revolution. The unrest began when authorities attempted to crack down on unlicensed hawkers selling street food during the 2016 lunar new year holidays in Mong Kok, but clashed with protesters who opposed their actions as an attack on local traditions.

A rioter tries to throw bricks at police in Mong Kok district of Hong Kong, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016. Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year celebration descended into chaotic scenes as protesters and police clashed over a street market selling fish balls and other local holiday delicacies. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu) Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

Initially sentenced to six years of imprisonment, Leung had his sentence reduced by two years for good behaviour, according to local media reports.

Leung’s release comes during a crackdown on political dissent in Hong Kong, with authorities arresting a majority of Hong Kong’s outspoken pro-democracy activists over the past two years. Many of the city’s prominent activists are behind bars or have fled overseas to continue their activism.

Leung is known for coining the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” for his election campaign, when he attempted to run for a seat in the legislature in 2016. He was later disqualified.

The phrase became a popular protest slogan during the 2019 protests, but authorities have since banned the slogan, stating it has secessionist connotations that are illegal under the national security law (NSL) implemented in 2020. The NSL outlaws secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign collusion to intervene in the city’s affairs.

Leung advocated so-called forceful resistance against political violence in his campaigns, which was considered a polarising opinion and drew opposition from the city’s more traditional pro-democracy camp.

However, his stance of a more active form of resistance also drew the attention of young voters, and many of his ideas, such as “leaderless” protests, were later employed during the months of anti-government protests in 2019.

In a post on Leung’s Facebook page on Tuesday – a day before his release – Leung’s family urged supporters to let Leung “reunite with his family” and urged supporters to prioritise their own safety.

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Political setbacks diminish India PM Modi’s strongman image

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a public meeting at Jerenga Pathar in the Sivasagar district of India’s Assam state on Jan. 23, 2021.

Biju Boro | AFP | Getty Images

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revels in his image as a strong and decisive leader. But the premier was forced to make a stunning U-turn recently and abandoned controversial farm laws after year-long protests — a move one analyst called a “public policy failure.”

“While apologizing to the countrymen, today I want to say sincerely that perhaps there must have been some deficiency … that we could not explain the truth like the light of the lamp to the farmer brothers,” Modi said in a national televised address in November last year.

“I want to tell you, the entire country, that we have decided to repeal all three agricultural laws,” he announced. 

India’s parliament passed those laws in September 2020 triggering months of protests, which saw tens of thousands of farmers take to the streets. The reforms would have removed state protections that have shielded India’s farmers for decades, and subject them to unfettered free-market mechanisms where competition would be high.

This was one of Modi’s biggest policy reversals since assuming power in 2014. The rare apology was a humbling moment for the prime minister, who learned there are drawbacks to his strongman approach.

“This is not Modi’s first public policy failure, though certainly it was the most public reversal,” said Akhil Bery, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute. The political cave in on the agriculture reforms “did show that there are limitations to his power,” he told CNBC.

A hallmark of Modi’s governing style has been the use of executive power, with little public debate for “big bang” reforms or policy declarations, said Neelanjan Sircar, a senior visiting fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.

When the government is unable to stanch protest and criticism, it dents Modi’s image and he must look to change course.

Neelanjan Sircar

Centre for Policy Research

“Yet, when we look at some of the notable attempts to use executive power in this manner, we do not find a lot of successes,” he added.

“Whether [it’s] land use changes, modifications to India’s citizenship rules or agricultural reforms, the government has been forced to either stall or reverse its proposed policies,” Sircar said. “When the government is unable to stanch protest and criticism, it dents Modi’s image and he must look to change course.”

High-stakes state polls

These policy missteps couldn’t come at a worse time for the prime minister as India heads to the polls in several key states in February and March.

Local elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur will be a crucial indicator of public sentiment ahead of the 2024 general elections. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) controls four of the five states.

“The upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh will be a key test for his popularity — whether or not people are growing disenchanted with his governing style,” said Bery.

“In some parts of the state, yes, he will be a drag — especially in western [Uttar Pradesh] where there is a strong farming constituency. These farmers are fairly opposed to the government due to the farm laws,” he added.

Still, Modi remains India’s most popular leader. According to the data intelligence agency Morning Consult, his popularity is still the highest among the world leaders they track, and he maintains a strong base of support in India.

Criticism over Covid handling

But the prime minister’s popularity was eroded last year as India battled a deadly second Covid-19 wave.

According to India Today’s “Mood of the Nation” survey released in August, only 24% of respondents felt Modi was the best choice for the next prime minister at that time. It was a sharp decline from 38% in January 2021.

A key reason for the drop in ratings was the way he handled the Covid crisis and related economic concerns, such as surging inflation and rising unemployment.

Modi was widely criticized for his extensive campaigns and for holding large rallies while India was in the middle of the delta outbreak, which took a devastating toll on its public health system.

Undoubtedly, he can make a comeback. From 2001 to date, Modi has constantly reinvented himself…

Milan Vaishnav

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Carefully crafted persona

Despite his current political problems, Modi is a highly skillful politician who is good at reinventing himself to protect his carefully crafted persona, said Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Undoubtedly, he can make a comeback. From 2001 to date, Modi has constantly reinvented himself — from Hindu strongman to CEO prime minister. One does not necessarily know what his next avatar is. But he has stayed a step ahead of the opposition at every turn,” Vaishnav noted.

Another factor working to Modi’s advantage is India’s divided opposition, which has failed to capitalize on the prime minister’s political stumbles.

“The Congress party certainly seems to be in the doldrums at a national level,” said Sircar from the Centre for Policy Research. “The rise of ‘third parties’ in India on the national scene … is a symptom of the problem. It is unclear whether the opposition can put up much of a fight in electoral terms, whether unified or not.”

Hardline tone will remain

One thing seems clear, however. Modi is unlikely to moderate his hardline approach in the run-up to the state elections. This is evident in the current tone and tenor of the campaign so far, political analysts say.  

“The governance style Modi has adopted in Delhi has been honed after a dozen years in Gujarat and seems intrinsic to who he is as a person and a leader. Coalition-building and diffusing power are simply not compatible with his style,” Vaishav said.

What recent events in India show is that political leaders in India can be defeated, even if they are personally very popular.

Neelanjan Sircar

Centre for Policy Research

The one thing “we’ve learned from Indian politics is that political actors — whether Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi or Mamata Banerjee, rarely change their governing and organizational tactics,” said Sircar, adding the prime minister will not abandon his hardline tactics in order to limit the political damage to his image.

This is mainly because, he argued, Modi’s populist persona isn’t built on his ability to enact policy, saying his record is “poor” on that front. Rather, it stems from projecting “an image of a person in whom the population places its faith,” said Sircar.

“What recent events in India show is that political leaders in India can be defeated, even if they are personally very popular,” he added.

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‘We want peace’: Blinken to meet Russian, Ukrainian officials, U.S. says

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WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s top diplomat will seek to defuse a crisis with Moscow over Ukraine when he meets the Russian foreign minister in Geneva this week following visits with Ukrainian leaders in Kyiv and European officials in Berlin.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel amid concerns voiced by Ukraine and its Western allies over the tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed in and near Ukraine.

“The United States does not want conflict. We want peace,” a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday.

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“(Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin has it in his power to take steps to de-escalate this crisis so the United States and Russia can pursue a relationship that is not based on hostility or crisis,” the official told reporters.

Russia denies planning a new military offensive but has made several demands and said it could take unspecified military action unless the West agrees to them. read more .

Blinken will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday.

Then in Berlin he will meet German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and later the Transatlantic Quad, referring to a format that involves the United States, Britain, France and Germany.

A State Department statement said the discussions would focus in part on a readiness among allies to impose “massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia.”

Blinken will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Friday to seek a diplomatic off-ramp with Moscow, the senior official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks in the briefing room of the State Department in Washington, U.S. January 7, 2022. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

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Blinken spoke with Lavrov on Tuesday and the senior official said the two decided in the call that it would be useful to meet in person.

Lavrov separately said Moscow would welcome U.S. diplomatic efforts and reiterated Russian accusations that Ukraine was “sabotaging” agreements aimed at ending the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Despite diplomatic engagements this month, Washington has yet to see Russia de-escalate tensions and Moscow could launch an attack on Ukraine at any time in January or February, the senior official said.

“We are now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine,” the official said

A second senior State Department official on Tuesday voiced concern about Russian troops being deployed since Monday in Belarus close to its southern flank with Ukraine for what Moscow and Minsk say will be joint military drills. read more

The numbers of Russian troops are beyond what the United States would expect in a normal exercise and potentially could be used to attack neighboring Ukraine, the official said.

Biden has warned of severe economic consequences for Moscow if Russia invades Ukraine.

Baerbock, in Moscow for talks with her counterpart, on Tuesday said Germany was ready to pay a high economic price to defend its fundamental values in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. read more

Kyiv has sought weapons from Western nations to shore up its defense. On Monday, Britain said it had begun supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons to help it defend itself. read more

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Reporting by Susan Heavey, Simon Lewis, Daphne Psaledakis and Jonathan Landay; Editing by Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Opinion: America has taken its eyes off the ball on Iran

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“We are reaching a point where Iran’s nuclear escalation will have eliminated the substance of the JCPOA,” the Arms Control Association said earlier this month of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear agreement signed by Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the United States, as well as Iran, in 2015.
Three years later, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the pact and reimposed sanctions on Iran. While the JCPOA is still recognized by the remaining signatories, Iran has since embarked on an accelerated program of enriching uranium that could allow it to create a weapon more quickly.
Every delay in the negotiations that have just resumed after a brief break in the eighth round in Vienna allows Iran time to make further progress toward the ability — if not the will — to make at least a testable nuclear weapon. And indeed there is a theoretical off-ramp barely two weeks away when the sixth month of negotiations is reached and the talks could come to a real, and toxic, end.

“Iran today is probably within a month or two of having enough material that could, with further enrichment, be sufficient to actually build a bomb,” Gary Sick, head of Columbia University’s Gulf/2000 project and the Iran expert on the National Security Council under President Jimmy Carter, told me via email interview.

“The skill and experience that they have developed in this round, however, will not be forgotten. So even if Iran returns to the original status of 2015, it will be better poised to get there quicker the next time, if there is a next time,” Sick added.

However Sick and others believe that Iran has not yet made the final determination to go that last step toward a testable nuclear device. The Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will make such a decision, has said an atomic bomb is “haram” or forbidden in Islam. Moreover, Sick points out that Iran is at least a year or two away from producing a device that could be mounted on a missile and fired at a neighboring country or beyond.
Meanwhile the White House is playing the blame game — ever more vocally laying Iran’s accelerating progress toward a bomb on Trump’s withdrawal from the process. But in fact, the US is at risk of taking its eye off the ball, focusing intently on talks with Russia over Ukraine, without seeing how they might in some fashion be tied together.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Moscow no longer shares a land border with Iran, but the last thing Russia wants is another nuclear power that close by. Bring China into the equation and this quickly becomes three-dimensional chess. While concerned about a broader conflict in the Middle East that could disrupt some of its energy supplies, China shares few of Russia’s fears of a nuclear-armed Iran.

At the same time, as one of the very few customers for Iranian oil under sanctions, China has few incentives to see sanctions lifted. The White House insists, however, that the administration has been able to engage with Russia and China within the JCPOA format and that it is still only Iran that is dragging its heels.

Still, both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his top negotiator Wendy Sherman, the original architect of the JCPOA under President Barack Obama, have been focusing intently on the Russia-Ukraine talks and seeking European agreement to sanctions should Putin invade. Indeed, when Blinken was interviewed on NPR last week, he spent much of his time talking about Russia and Ukraine. At the end, when talk turned to Iran, Blinken devoted most of his energy to blaming Trump.

There is no question that the immediate impact of a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be most appalling, but the inexorable moves by Iran toward enrichment of uranium and the evidence that the US appears at least to have prioritized negotiations with Russia over Ukraine cannot be lost on a very savvy Iranian leadership.

Senior Biden administration officials have told me that they believe they are able to engage with Russia and China with respect to the JCPOA. The key evidence will be where the negotiations stand when they reopen following the current break.

Indeed now, virtually everyone with a stake in Iran’s nuclear capabilities is beginning to reposition itself in the event of a breakdown in the negotiations.

At a meeting of Chinese and Iranian foreign ministers last week, the countries announced a 25-year cooperation agreement aimed at strengthening economic and political ties. China has become a major customer for Iranian oil, importing some 590,000 barrels per day last year, the highest level since Trump reimposed sanctions. Lifting sanctions could threaten that exclusivity.
At the same time, Russia and Iran are also strengthening links, with President Vladimir Putin to host his counterpart President Ebrahim Raisi later this month amid plans for a 20-year trade and military agreement.
Other nations in the region have also begun hedging their bets. Israel and Russia have big stakes in Iran’s nuclear capabilities — perhaps even larger than Western Europe or the United States, which is outside the range of any Iranian missile that’s been tested so far.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Putin “agreed on continued close cooperation on this area,” according to the Israeli prime minister’s office. The two countries already have a “deconfliction” agreement that allows Israeli warplanes to attack Iranian bases and weapons convoys in Syria — deconfliction being an essential extension if Israel were to mount an air strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia has begun cozying up to Beijing. China is helping the Saudis with everything from a missile development program to a massive desalination network, and is already one of Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partners. It’s a relationship that could prove a fruitful source of nuclear technology should Iran develop its own weapon.
Back at the JCPOA negotiating table, Iran’s key conditions remain all but unchanged. Nournews, a news service affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported last week that “verification and assurances” — code for the continued demand that all sanctions be lifted — are a precondition for Iran consenting to resume the agreement.

But there are more questions on which any successful outcome at the Iran talks may well hinge.

Will Iran settle for being a state permanently on a nuclear threshold and will that satisfy the security needs of its neighbors and potential targets?

For the moment, the US must thread this impossibly slim eye of a needle. It is difficult to see how the JCPOA process could survive an utter breakdown in East-West security talks or more particularly any incursion into Ukraine by Russian forces.

But the Biden administration must find a way to stay focused on Iran. At the next round of Vienna talks, there must be some real, concrete evidence of progress.

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U.S. warns Russia may attack Ukraine from Belarus

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The U.S. believes that Russia may use joint military exercises inside Belarus as cover for an invasion of Ukraine from the north, according to a senior State Department official.

Why it matters: New deployments to the Belarus-Ukraine border in the coming weeks — in addition to the 100,000 Russian troops already encircling Ukraine from the north, east and south — could allow Russia to open up a new front less than 100 miles from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

  • It would also position Russian troops close to the borders of NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

What they’re saying: “I think what we should be concerned about is not whether it increases the intent [to attack Kyiv], but whether or not it increases the capability and their ability to launch that invasion of Ukraine with an intent to topple the government,” the senior State Department official told reporters.

  • “What I know about the Kremlin and what I know about President Putin is that he is an opportunist and he creates opportunities,” the official stressed.
  • “And so it is incredibly important that when we see these kinds of movements and when there is a concrete change in capabilities, that we acknowledge it and call it for what it is.”

Context: Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko has clung to power over the last year and a half thanks to the support of Russia, after his crackdown on nationwide protests led to Western sanctions and international isolation.

  • “We know that Putin doesn’t give that support for free. It’s clear Russia is preying Lukashenko’s on vulnerability, and he is calling in some of those accumulated IOUs,” the official said.
  • The official suggested that Lukashenko may not even be a part of the decision-making on how Russian troops are using Belarus territory, and that he has sacrificed his claim as “the guarantor of Belarus’s sovereignty and independence” for the last 27 years in a desperate bid to stay in power.
  • Russia continues to deny that it is planning to invade Ukraine while threatening unspecified action if the U.S. and NATO don’t agree to a set of demands, including ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine.

The big picture: The new warning about Belarus is the latest example of the Biden administration urgently sounding the alarm about the possibility of an imminent Russian invasion.

  • White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. believes “this is an extremely dangerous situation. We are now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack.”

What’s next: Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to travel to Kyiv and Berlin this week, before heading to Geneva on Friday for a meeting with his Russian counterpart.

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Blinken to Meet With Russia as U.S. Pushes For More Diplomacy on Ukraine

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WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will meet with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia on Friday in Geneva, a sign that the two sides are willing to continue discussions on what the Biden administration called “an extremely dangerous situation.”

Mr. Blinken is scheduled to depart on Tuesday for Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, where he will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in a show of American support on the brink of what U.S. officials fear is an imminent Russian invasion.

Mr. Blinken will follow that visit with stops in Berlin on Thursday before meeting with Mr. Lavrov, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.

Mr. Blinken’s mission is part of a U.S. scramble to head off a potential Russian assault on Ukraine. A senior State Department official warned on Tuesday that Russia — which has assembled as many as 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern borders — could launch an attack at any time.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in a news briefing on Tuesday that Mr. Blinken would “urge Russia to take immediate steps to de-escalate.”

“We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point want an attack in Ukraine,” she said, “and what Secretary Blinken is going to go do is highlight very clearly there is a diplomatic path forward.”

The whirlwind week of diplomacy comes after a series of three negotiating sessions between Russia and the West last week failed to provide a breakthrough. Russia has demanded a guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward, a request that the United States and Western Europe have rejected.

A senior Russian diplomat warned last Thursday that the talks were reaching a “dead end.” The Kremlin signaled it could refuse to engage in further negotiations and instead take unspecified “military-technical” measures to assure its security, insisting Russia would not allow the West to bog it down in long-running negotiations.

That Mr. Lavrov will travel to Geneva to meet with Mr. Blinken on Friday indicates that Russia is prepared for at least one more round of diplomacy. The two spoke by phone on Tuesday before Mr. Blinken’s departure for Kyiv. In the call, Mr. Lavrov rejected the idea that Russia was planning to attack Ukraine and insisted that it was up to Kyiv to calm tensions, according to a description of the call published by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“The minister urged the secretary of state not to replicate speculation about allegedly impending ‘Russian aggression,’” the Foreign Ministry said.

The State Department has not described Mr. Blinken’s agenda for the meeting with his long-serving Russian counterpart. Russian officials have said that they are expecting a written American response to demands that Russia made weeks ago about NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe. The Russian Foreign Ministry said Mr. Lavrov told Mr. Blinken in Tuesday’s phone call that Moscow was expecting “article-by-article” comments from the United States on Russia’s proposals.

The State Department official would not say whether Mr. Blinken would provide such a response, and said it remained unclear whether Moscow was serious about finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Mr. Blinken will meet in Berlin with German officials, as well as British and French diplomats as the United States and Europe work to coordinate severe economic sanctions to punish any Russian incursion into Eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has been supporting a separatist insurgency for years.

“There’s a diplomatic path forward,” Ms. Psaki said, adding: “It is up to the Russians to determine which path they’re going to take, and the consequences will be severe if they don’t take the diplomatic path.”

Michael Crowley reported from Washington, and Anton Troianovski from Moscow.

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Ukraine crisis: US weighs more military support for Ukraine to resist Russia if it invades

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The discussions, described by multiple sources familiar with them, reflect a sense of pessimism in the administration following last week’s diplomatic talks with Russian officials that yielded no breakthroughs and as Russia has continued to raise its force levels in the last few days.

In addition to considering how to help the Ukrainian military and government fend off an invasion, the US is evaluating options for bolstering Ukrainian forces’ ability to resist a potential Russian occupation. That includes potentially providing the Ukrainian Army with additional ammunition, mortars, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft missile systems, which would likely come from NATO allies, a senior US official told CNN.

The news comes ahead of a face to face meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday. A senior State Department official said the scheduled meeting “suggests that perhaps diplomacy is not dead.”
President Joe Biden has said that sending US combat troops to Ukraine to fight a war with Russia is off the table. But special operations forces already rotate in and out of the country to provide training to Ukrainian forces and a senior administration official said it is possible that other agencies could provide some support, likely the CIA. CIA Director Bill Burns traveled to Kyiv last week to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and discuss risks to Ukraine, a US official said.

“We are looking at a range of options to help defend Ukraine,” a senior administration official told CNN. This may include additional defensive arms sales, “advice,” and “helping Ukraine be able to stay in the fight against a larger, conventional Russian military presence.”

The deliberations about supporting a resistance campaign reflect an increasingly pessimistic view inside the administration about Putin’s willingness to invade and occupy large swaths of Ukrainian territory. Russia has increased force levels since Friday, the senior administration official said.

“Let’s be clear. Our view is this is an extremely dangerous situation. We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday. “And what Secretary Blinken is going to go do is highlight very clearly there’s a diplomatic path forward. It is the choice of President Putin and the Russians to make whether they’re going to suffer severe economic consequences or not.”

Right now, military sources familiar with the planning say there has been no official change in guidance from Washington, and officials emphasized that these are early considerations that have not yet been formally presented to the President for approval. Some members of the administration are wary of getting bogged down in an anti-occupation support effort and have argued that US forces should leave if a war erupts.

Increased pessimism

US officials left the meetings in Europe last week even more pessimistic about what Putin could be planning, and how limited the west’s leverage is to stop it—even with the punishing sanctions and increased NATO presence in eastern Europe currently on the table.

“We can exact some pain, but there is a big difference between exacting pain and actually having leverage,” a senior US official said.

As recently as late last week, Biden administration officials were conducting table-top exercises gaming out all of the possible US and allied policy responses, sources familiar with the planning told CNN. Top US officials also spent much of the weekend in senior-level meetings to discuss the way forward, a senior State Department official said.

The US has continued to say that diplomacy is “crucial” and that talks will hopefully continue. But there have been no details on what the next diplomatic steps look like, and Russia has been drawing down its diplomatic presence in Kyiv in what a US official said was ominous and concerning to the US. Russia’s foreign ministry denied on Tuesday that it had begun evacuating diplomatic personnel, saying “The Russian embassy in Kyiv is operating in a standard way.”

Pentagon officials, meanwhile, have been drawing up options for how the US could help to fuel a sustained resistance campaign in Ukraine and inflict the highest possible costs on Russia in the wake of any invasion, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

The CIA continues to operate an intelligence collection training program in the US for Ukrainian special operators and intelligence officials, current and former officials familiar with the program tell CNN. The program was first reported by Yahoo News.

A CIA spokesman pushed back on any suggestion that the program has helped to train a Ukrainian insurgency in waiting, but former intelligence officials familiar with it say that the program includes the kind of covert paramilitary training needed to collect intelligence in a warzone.

“The purpose of the training, and the training that was delivered, was to assist in the collection of intelligence, not to assist in an insurgency,” a senior intelligence official said.

Putin’s plans still unclear

US officials still don’t know what Putin’s plans are, or whether he has even made up his mind to invade. Some officials who have seen the intelligence say there is evidence Russia is planning to try to take Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and overthrow the government. The deployment of forces from Russia’s Eastern Military District into Belarus on Monday struck many US officials and Russian military analysts as particularly ominous, as have a spate of cyberattacks targeting Ukraine last week.

But others believe it is more likely that Russia will launch a more limited operation in eastern Ukraine aimed at securing a land bridge to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. The US on Friday accused Russia of prepositioning a group of operatives in eastern Ukraine to conduct a false-flag operation, accusing Ukraine of provocations and using it to justify an invasion.

Like within the Biden administration, Ukrainian officials have not concluded that Putin has made up his mind, a Ukrainian official said, adding that the talks in Europe had no perceptible impact on the crisis. Meanwhile, the buildup of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders — and in neighboring Belarus — has continued to grow.

“We see that it’s not de-escalating, it’s ongoing,” the official said. “Still not enough to do a full-scale invasion and sustain it but it’s still a lot.”

As part of the build-up, Russia has deployed more aircraft closer to the border, which has raised fears of a significant air component to an eventual invasion. Two to three dozen Sukhov-34 fighter jets have joined helicopters positioned near Ukraine, the official said.

Ukrainian defense officials are in daily contact with US counterparts at the Pentagon, the official said, preparing for a variety of different actions the Russians could take.

“We prepared a response for each scenario,” the official said. “We are going to fight if something happens. Our people are ready to fight. Every window will shoot if [Russians] go [in].”

“Everyone who is willing to fight will do so and will receive a weapon for this, like in 2014,” the official continued, adding that individual “reservists” who have received some training will simply have to sign up at a recruiting office. Asked where the weapons for those reservists will come from, the official said they would come from the NATO-supported Ukrainian stockpiles. “Material support from partners will go to them as well,” he said.

CNN’s Kylie Atwood contributed reporting.

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Images and patchy communications reveal devastation in Tonga after tsunami unleashed by massive volcano eruption

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Wellington — A volcano that exploded on the Pacific island nation of Tonga has almost disappeared from view, new images revealed Tuesday, with swathes of the island nation smothered in grey ash and dust or damaged by a tsunami. Tonga has been virtually cut off from the rest of the world since Saturday’s volcanic blast — one of the largest recorded in decades.

The volcano erupted about 19 miles into the air and deposited ash, gas and acid rain across a large area of the Pacific. Three days after the eruption, the outside world was still scrambling on Tuesday to understand the scale of the disaster, using patchy satellite phone connections, surveillance flights and satellite images.

The human toll remained largely unknown on Tuesday, but New Zealand said at least two people had been confirmed killed, citing Tongan police. One of them was Angela Glover, a 50-year-old British woman who ran an animal rescue charity. Her family said her body was found after she was swept away by the tsunami.

An aerial handout photo provided by the New Zealand Defense Force shows homes covered in ash on January 17, 2022, in Nomuka, Tonga.

Handout/New Zealand Defense Force/Getty


Satellite images released by Maxar Technologies on Tuesday showed that where most of the volcanic structure stood above sea level a few days ago, there is now just open sea. Only two relatively small volcanic islands were still visible above sea level after the eruption.

“What we saw above the water, that has now been destroyed, was only the tip of a volcano that had grown on the rim of the massive underwater volcano,” said Monash University volcanologist Heather Handley.

New Zealand released aerial images taken from a surveillance flight the previous day, revealing a tree-lined coast transformed from green to grey by the volcanic fallout. Wrecked buildings were visible on the foreshore alongside others that appeared intact.

Volcanic ash blanketed island fields, images from an Australian Defence Force P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft showed. Shipping containers had been knocked over like dominoes at a port on the main island.

In this handout photo provided by the New Zealand Defense Force, an aerial view from a P-3K2 Orion surveillance flight shows ash covering a coastal area on January 17, 2022, in Nomuka, Tonga.

Handout/New Zealand Defense Force/Getty


Australia’s HMAS Adelaide and New Zealand’s HMNZS Wellington and HMNZS Aotearoa were ordered to be ready for a possible aid request from Tonga, which lies three to five days’ sailing away.

With water sources feared to be poisoned by volcanic fallout, the Red Cross said it was sending 2,516 water containers.

France, which has territories in the South Pacific, pledged to help meet the people of Tonga’s “most urgent needs.”

The United Nations said a signal had been detected from a distress beacon on the low-lying island of Mango.

This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, shows an undersea volcano eruption at the Pacific nation of Tonga on January 15, 2022.

Japan Meteorology Agency via AP


The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said surveillance flights had confirmed “substantial property damage” on Mango, home to some 30 people, and another island, Fonoifua. Later on Tuesday the Reuters news agency quoted Tongan government officials as saying every single home on Mango had been destroyed, and only two remained standing on Fonoifua. The officials said fresh water supplies across Tonga were contaminated with ash.

The U.N. agency also reported “extensive damage” on the western beaches of the main island Tongatapu, “with several resorts and/or houses destroyed and/or badly damaged.”

Tonga’s capital Nuku’alofa was shrouded in almost two inches of volcanic ash and dust, it said. Power had been restored to parts of the capital. Local phone systems had been restored but international communications were still difficult as the blast severed an undersea communications cable between Tonga and Fiji. Operators said it would take up to two weeks to repair the cable.

This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC, shows an overview of Kanokupolu in Tongatapu, Tonga on January 14, 2022, top, and on January 16, 2022, after the January 15 eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano.

Planet Labs PBC via AP


The capital’s waterfront, the U.N. body said, was “seriously damaged with rocks and debris pushed inland from the tsunami.”

Satellite images released by the United Nations Satellite Center showed the impact of the eruption and tsunami on the tiny island of Nomuka, one of the closest to the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano.

The satellite center said out of 104 structures analyzed in the cloud-free area visible from space, 41 were identified as damaged.

Tonga’s airport was working to remove volcanic ash from the capital’s runway. Australia said the ash must be cleared before it can land a C-130 military plane with aid.

Even when relief efforts get under way, they may be complicated by COVID-19 entry restrictions.  

Saturday’s eruption was recorded around the world and heard as far away as Alaska, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the United States.

The U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Oceans, Peter Thomson, told CBS News’ Pamela Falk that the eruption was “a dramatic reminder we live within nature’s embrace.” 

“Our thoughts and sympathies are with the people of Tonga and South East Fiji,” Thomson, Fiji’s former  Ambassador to the U.N. who has spent years warning of the threat climate change poses to small island nations like his own, told Falk.

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World

Abu Dhabi: Why drone attacks in UAE could mark a dangerous turning point

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In response, the UAE and Saudi Arabia responded by pummelling the Yemeni capital of Sana’a with airstrikes, killing at least 12 people, in the deadliest bombardment in the city since 2019.

Aside from escalating violence in a region that has sought to turn the page on a decade of proxy wars, the exchange of fire could also cloud a series of high-level talks between regional and international foes. Negotiations between Iran and Western powers on how to revive the 2015 deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear program have recently shown signs of progress. And there are also indications that historic but difficult discussions between Saudi Arabia and regional rival Iran were beginning to bear fruit.

But the unprecedented Houthi attacks in Abu Dhabi could throw a wrench into those talks.

And if the rebels make good on their promise to launch further strikes, it could dent the UAE’s image as a safe place to live, work and do business in a troubled region.

Here’s what to know about the crisis.

Why was the Houthi attack so significant?

In addition to being the first deadly attack in the UAE in many years, the drone attacks on Monday demonstrated the Houthis’ ability to launch long-range attacks. Yemen’s rebels frequently conduct cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s neighbor, but these were relatively short distances in comparison with Abu Dhabi, and the vast majority of the missiles and drones were intercepted before they hit their targets.

Oil prices spiked after the attacks, which spurred a flurry of international condemnation from the US and other world leaders. UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed asked the US to reclassify the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization — a label that was instituted in the final days of the Trump administration before being lifted by President Joe Biden.

The Houthis previously claimed to have conducted strikes on the UAE, which it does not share a border with. But Emirati authorities never acknowledged the alleged attacks, and many observers considered the claims to have been farfetched.

Now Yemen’s Houthis have delivered on a threat that they have for years made against the UAE, a major coalition partner in a six-year Saudi-led military campaign to crush the Iran-backed rebels.

In 2019, the UAE pulled most of its troops from Yemen, after privately deeming the war unwinnable. The campaign failed to crush the rebels but exacted a huge humanitarian toll, with thousands of Yemenis dead and malnourishment and disease widespread.

More recently, however, the UAE has returned to the fray, backing Yemeni groups in flashpoints like the oil-rich provinces of Shabwa and Marib and repelling Houthi fighters from the strategic desert town.

Now, analysts say the rebels are eager to spark another Emirati withdrawal.

“The intervention of the UAE-supported forces was a game-changer. This angered the Houthis,” said Maged al-Madhaji, executive director and co-founder of the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies. “The Houthis are trying to create some sort of balance by striking the image of stability and security in the Emirates.”

What’s at stake for the UAE?

The oil-rich nation has for decades managed to stave off the political turbulence occurring elsewhere in the region. Stability is one of the UAE’s major selling points — helping to attract millions of expatriates and billions of dollars in foreign investment — but that image could be shattered if the conflict with the Houthis escalates.

The UAE relies heavily on foreign workers, who make up the vast majority of the country’s workforce. Authorities intensively manage the country’s reputation, and freedom of political expression is practically non-existent. Defenders of those restrictions on expression argue that they’re necessary to maintain stability against all odds in the conflict-ridden Middle East.

But for years, the UAE’s muscular foreign policy — which saw it intervene in Egypt, Libya, Syria and the horn of Africa, in addition to Yemen — imperiled that very stability. When tankers were being targeted by its regional arch-nemesis Iran in 2019, off the coast of the UAE, Abu Dhabi quickly changed tack.

Since then it’s been on a diplomatic spree to heal years-old rifts. It has made a number of overtures to Iran, including sending a high-level delegation reportedly in October 2019 and then again in late 2021. It’s also mended ties with Syria’s pariah president Bashar al-Assad, after backing armed groups that sought to overthrow him in that country’s war. The UAE’s leadership has repeatedly said that it seeks to become a deescalating force in the region.

Yet Monday’s attack underscored a point that many observers have made, which is that turning the page on a decade of blood-drenched proxy war will be neither smooth nor instantaneous. All countries in the region, not just the UAE, will have a vested interest in a rapid deescalation of Monday’s violence.

Was Iran involved in the Houthi attack on the UAE?

We don’t know. What we do know that the drones were likely supplied by Iran, the principal supporter of the Houthis in their war on the internationally-recognized government of Yemen. But it is unclear if the Houthis’ backers in Tehran ordered the strike, or if the rebel group suddenly went rogue.

It wouldn’t be the first time Iran-aligned groups appeared to go their own way. In November 2021, the head of Iran’s elite Quds force Esmail Qaani paid a visit to Iraqi Prime Minister Mostafa al-Kadhimi, shortly after an attempt on the life of Iraqi Prime Minister Mostafa al-Kadhimi by Iran-backed militias. Some observers saw the visit as a bid to distance Iran from the actions of their militant allies.

Another reason to suspect that Houthis acted on their own accord is that Iran has repeatedly said that it wishes to revive relations with its regional foes. Iran’s new hardline President Ebrahim Raisi has received at least two invitations to visit the UAE, according to Iranian state media.

In their statements condemning the attack in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — uncharacteristically — steered clear of blaming the rebel group’s backers in Tehran. Iran has not yet publicly commented on the attack.

Yet, as ever, Iran’s leadership is hard to read. A Lebanese news network, Al Mayadeen, reported that Raisi met with the head of Sana’a’s negotiation team in Tehran on Monday, the day of the attack. Some observers viewed that as an admission of responsibility in the Abu Dhabi attack.

What does this mean for the Iran nuclear talks?

The violence on Monday has the potential to derail the nuclear negotiations in Vienna, as well as parallel talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran seen as critical to the success of a possible second version of the 2015 deal.

If Iran is believed to be behind the Monday attack in Abu Dhabi — in the same way that they were widely accused of being responsible for the 2019 attacks on ARAMCO oil refineries (Iran denied the allegations) — then confidence-building measures could collapse and it would be difficult to see how the negotiations could continue.

If, on the other hand, Iran brings the Houthis to heel, as an overture to its regional foes, then Monday’s violence may blow over and the negotiations could carry on, possibly unabated.

CNN’s Sarah El Sirgany contributed to this report from Abu Dhabi.

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