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A Russian Orthodox choir has distanced itself from a group of men who wore "disgusting" pro-Russia symbols to attend agovernment-sponsored performance in Sydney.

Several men wearing shirts with the letter Z a symbol representing support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine gathered at the front of Sydney Town Hall following a performance of the Russian Orthodox Male Choir on Friday night.

The symbol is not banned in Australia.

In a video by self-described "protest livestreamer" known on social media as Chriscoveries, the men are filmed walking down the aisles toward the stage, and standing in a line to face the audience.

One man was also photographed shaking hands with Russian Consul GeneralIgor Arzhaev.

Asked by Chriscoveries in the video why they were there, one man said it was to "support Russia".

As the group made its way down the aisle, an audience member is heard saying, "I don't approve, I totally object".

State government agency Multicultural NSW and the City of Sydneysponsored the event andsaidthe pro-Russian display was not part of the performance.

In a statement to the ABC, the Russian Orthodox Male Choir of Australia said it was not associated with the men.

"The choir condemns this group who sought to sow the seeds of division in an attempt to taint the image of this concert," the statement read.

"The Russian Orthodox Male Choir of Australia is apolitical, and promotes peace, harmony and inclusion.

"We intend to work with partners at future events to ensure similar incidents do not occur."

Photos and video of the event have been shared in a social media group run by pro-Putin YouTuber Simeon Boikov, known as "Aussie Cossack".

Ukraine's Ambassador to AustraliaVasyl Myroshnychenko has condemned the group's attendance as a "disgusting public display".

"Z stands for the Russian aggression in Ukraine, rape and murder," he said in a tweet.

In January Mr Myroshnychenko called for tennis star Novak Djokovic's father to be banned from Australiawhen he was seen posing with a man wearing the "Z" symbol, following Djokovic's quarterfinal win over Russian Andrey Rublev.

Russian and Belarusian flags were banned from the tournament after a Russian flag was waved during the opening round.

A City of Sydney spokeswoman said Friday night's Sydney Town Hall event was described to council as a performance by Greek, Serbian and Antiochian community choirs in celebration of Orthodox Easter.

Event organisers applied for a grant for free venue hire, which was approved.

"The City of Sydney does not tolerate displays of hate or discrimination anywhere in our city, and we are disappointed that this event, designed to celebrate our diverse communities, was hijacked by a political group," the spokeswoman said.

"We are reviewing what happened and the impact of this event on future bookings with this and other organisations."

Australian anti-Kremlin organisation, Svoboda Alliance, said it had written to the Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, expressing "deep concern" about the appearance of Russian aggression symbols at the concert.

It has previously lobbied for the Russian "Z" symbol to be banned, alongside the Nazi swastika.

Joseph LaPosta, the chief executive of Multicultural NSW, said he had been assured the Russian Orthodox Male choir had no idea the group was coming.

"I condemn any kind of violence, glorification of violence or symbols of violence," he said.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has apologised to the Ukrainian community.

"We are extremely disappointed, even angry, that this event, designed to celebrate our diverse communities, was hijacked by a political group that promoted Russia's bloody invasion of Ukraine," she said in an Instagram post.

"I am sorry that the weekend's events caused the Ukrainian community additional concern during this trying time."

Link:
Russian Orthodox choir denounces group of men wearing pro-war Z symbol shirts at Sydney Town Hall event - ABC News

Ukraine

People turn to handouts and pawning goods as Kyivs bustling bars belie reality of life in wartime for many

In the Treasure pawn shop in Kyiv, Oleksandra, 40, a well turned out woman in a hooded wool coat and Nike trainers, has come to redeem her sewing machines. Like all those visiting the store, she does not want to give her family name.

She says that when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, she was working as an accountant for a firm that employed 14 people, who were all laid off because of the conflict. Since then she has struggled to find regular work. With savings running out, like many others in Kyiv, she turned to pawning her possessions to get by, only finding a job a year later that allowed her to claim back her machines.

As Oleksandra leaves clutching her belongings, save for a mobile phone she has decided not to redeem, the cashier, Oleksandr Stepanov, remarks from behind his hardened glass window that on a busy day the shop can get 50 people coming in to surrender mobile phones and household appliances.

Those who can afford it, he says, will come back to get their goods within two weeks. Almost half, he adds, will not, leaving Treasure to sell on the items from a back room with displays of phones and watches. People are struggling because of the war. They dont have money. Many have lost their jobs, he says, while prices have skyrocketed even for those who have jobs.

The scene in the pawn shop illustrates the crisis of growing poverty in Ukraine, the reality of which stands in contrast to the surface bustle of Kyivs busy restaurants and bars where it is often hard to get a table, with many living a precarious existence.

Poverty increased from 5.5% to 24.2% in Ukraine in 2022, pushing 7.1 million more people into poverty with the worst impact out of sight in rural villages, according to a recent report by the World Bank. With unemployment unofficially at 36% and inflation hitting 26.6% at the end of 2022, the institutions regional country director for eastern Europe, Arup Banerji, had warned that poverty could soar.

Behind his window in Treasure, Stepanov describes the hardships experienced even by those who have work. The price of everything has gone up. Food is the most expensive and then it is fuel for the car. Some things have gone up by 40-50%. Before the war my wife would go to the supermarket to shop and it would cost 200 hryvnia, now the same shop costs 400-500.

For those in the most difficult circumstances that has meant relying on handouts, no matter how small. In the town of Irpin just outside Kyiv, where heavy fighting took place at the beginning of the war as Russian armoured columns attempted to take the capital, the wrecked bridge that was used as an escape route by fleeing refugees is being rebuilt.

Elsewhere damaged buildings are being repaired, cranes and work crews busy. But while the ground war long ago receded from Irpin, the economic consequences of conflict are still being felt sharply in a town where the population has been swelled by internally displaced fleeing the frontlines in the south and east.

The most visible sign of the poverty crisis can be found at a protestant church in the town where priests have set up six distribution centres for free bread across the area, the busiest in Irpin itself. There, on most days, about 500 people can be found queuing for a free loaf, with tables and a tent also set up outside the centre on the day the Guardian visits, offering free secondhand shoes, clothes and childrens toys.

One resident of Irpin, Veronika Pravyk is looking through the clothes and trying to find free nappies and baby milk for her toddler, which are sometimes available but not today. She tells a typical story. Working in retail before the war, the 30-year-old lost her job and fled with her family to Spain for six months where she burned through her savings before returning to Ukraine in the autumn.

Im not working but my husband is, she says. But all the prices have gone up because of the war and my husbands salary buys less than it used to because of the falling exchange rate with the dollar. We still have to find the money to pay for our apartment and to heat it during this past winter. I just never imagined we would be living like this. Before the war we managed everything. Its very difficult and everyone is suffering the same.

In his office in the church, the pastor, Vitali Kolesnyk, who organised the bread distribution, which takes place five days a week, with his colleague Vasyli Ostriy, describes the situation in Irpin. One of the biggest private employers, he says, was a wood carving business with a workforce of 400 spread across three sites, but its factories were badly damaged during the fighting.

It relocated to western Ukraine and as a consequence the workers in Irpin were made redundant. A lot of people are ready to work for peanuts here, he says. The salaries are already less [than they were]. But people will do anything to earn some money.

While he says that some of those coming for bread are internally displaced, he offers an anecdote that describes how people are trying to manage their dwindling resources. You see some people come in cars for a free loaf of bread that would cost $1. That gives you an idea of how carefully people are watching every penny spend. We talk and pray with people about what is going on. They talk about the economy and tell us how hard it has become.

The economist Olena Bilan sees a deepening crisis, but says that without a huge package of financial support from the international community, including pledges worth $43bn (34bn), the situation would be worse.

Weve seen GDP decline by 30% in large part because Ukraine exports 80% of its goods through ports it no longer has access too. Weve had inflation of 26% again which could have been worse but peoples salaries have also been flat and the currency has devalued against the dollar by 20%. The biggest challenge is going to be how to create new jobs.

In Irpin, the long queue, snaking under the trees, to pick up loaves imprinted with the word victory is thinning. At one of the clothes stalls, a church volunteer, Larysa Kuzhel, 58, is not optimistic.

I think it is going to get more difficult especially for the younger people. The pensioners who you see here get support. Its only $50 a month but it is something. But it is the younger people who have lost their jobs who are really suffering.

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Pawn shops and bread queues: poverty grips Ukraine as war drags on - The Guardian

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine is working with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and American companies to collect evidence of war crimes by Russians, such as geolocation and cellphone information, senior officials said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian authorities are collecting digital information from battlefields and Ukrainian towns ravaged by the war since Russia invaded the country last February, said Alex Kobzanets, a FBI special agent who previously worked as a legal attache for the agency in Ukraine.

"Collection of that data, analysis of that data, working through that data is something the FBI has experience working through," Kobzanets said at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco.

That work includes looking into cellphone information, forensic analyses of DNA samples, as well as analysis of body parts collected off battlefields, he said.

"The next step is working with national U.S. service providers, and transferring that information...obtaining subscriber information, obtaining geolocation information, where possible," Kobzanets added.

The work reflects deepening collaboration between the U.S. and Ukraine on the cyber front, where Russia has been a common adversary for both nations.

The Russian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agent added that the U.S. FBI had for the past year and a half been working on helping Ukraine to also identify Russian collaborators and spies operating in Ukraine and the Russian forces that were operating outside of Kiev as the invasion was happening.

U.S. security companies and officials have been a major partner of Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russian cyberattacks, which it has battled since at least 2015.

Illia Vitiuk, head of the Department of Cyber Information Security in the Security Service of Ukraine, said that while the number of Russian attacks against Ukraine has grown in the last few years, in recent months they have become more targetted.

"Its very difficult to prove in a criminal case, who is responsible," said Vitiuk. "Its very important for us to get as much information about Russian cybercriminals...because we collect all this information and put it into our criminal cases."

We do believe that this case about cyber war crimes is something new, he added. This is where we have seen the first full scale cyber war.

Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in San Francisco; Editing by Michael Perry

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

See more here:
FBI working with US companies to collect war crime evidence in ... - Reuters

BRUSSELS, April 28 (Reuters) - EU governments agreed on Friday to extend by a year the suspension of duties and quotas on imports from Ukraine to help its economy during the war with Russia.

Sweden, which holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, said EU ambassadors had agreed to the extension at a meeting on Friday. The European Union lifted tariffs for an initial 12 months in June 2022.

The suspension of all duties has led to complaints from farming groups, culminating in Poland and Hungary banning some Ukraine grain imports earlier this month.

Before Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine was already benefiting from the elimination of the vast majority of EU tariffs, in some cases with transition periods, under the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement applied since 2016.

However, the EU did retain tariffs and quotas under that agreement on the most sensitive farm products from Ukraine such as meat, dairy, sugar and some cereals.

The European Commission has now proposed paying compensation to farmers in five countries bordering Ukraine as well as allowing those countries to bar domestic sales of certain grains from Ukraine, while allowing their transit for export elsewhere.

The countries became transit routes for Ukrainian grain that could not be exported through its Black Sea ports.

The European Parliament's trade committee overwhelmingly backed suspending import duties for another year on Thursday ahead of a full assembly vote in May.

Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Kirsten Donovan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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EU countries agree to extend import tariff suspension for Ukraine - Reuters

America's new envoy to Russia has warned that Moscow will pay a long-term "price" for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, adding that bilateral relations are at "one of the lowest points" in memory.

Ambassador Lynne Tracy took up her post in January 2023, ending an almost three-year period in which the U.S. did not have a permanent ambassador in Moscow. Those three years have seen a bilateral nadir, in particular due to the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In an interview with Russian newspaper Kommersant, Tracy said President Vladimir Putin's decision to expand Moscow's war on Ukrainein progress since the seizure of Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region from 2014has only worsened Russia's security outlook.

"Russia made a miscalculation, judging by the way it decided to enter Ukraine, clearly expecting the Ukrainians to greet the troops that entered, and the Ukrainians did not," Tracy said.

"The Ukrainians responded with resistance, we see this resistance, it is not a product of propaganda. We see that Ukrainians demonstrate the will to fight and defend their country."

The full-scale warnow into its second year with no sign of a peace deal or even a ceasefirehas, Tracy said, "weakened Russia and forced the Russians to pay a price that will only increase over time. Sanctions and export controls have caused billions of dollars in damage to the Russian financial sector and severely slowed down the country's technological progress."

"These are immediate costs, but there are also long-term costs resulting from missed opportunities to invest in Russia's future. Lost opportunities are usually hard to get back, almost impossible. Time cannot be turned back. And again, the main question arises: how will all this help the future of Russia? Her development? The future of her youth, her next generation?"

There appears little hope of a sudden dtente between Moscow and its Western adversaries. Putin and his top allies are doubling down on their Ukrainian gambit, seemingly hoping to outlast Western support for Kyiv and retain the 20 percent or so of the country still occupied by Russian troops.

Russian officials have repeatedly framed their invasion of Ukraine as a pre-emptive defensive conflict against NATO, the expansion of which the Kremlin has repeatedly cited as a key factor in its decision to launch its so-called "special military operation."

Indeed, figures including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have openly said that Russia is now effectively at war with the U.S. and its NATO allies.

Tracy suggested Putin's attack on Ukraine has only exacerbated Moscow's long-held concerns about NATO encroachment and strategic isolation.

"Now Ukrainians are even more determined to join NATO," she said. "And not only Ukrainians, but Finland and Sweden, countries that have been neutral for a long time. Finland has just joined NATO and we expect Sweden to be next."

"When I hear how in Russia all these actions are explained by security considerations, and then I look at the current situation, I can't find an answer to the question: how did all this help to strengthen Russia's security?"

Tracy told Kommersant that the U.S. "does not consider Russians as enemies." But, she added: "Our relationship is at one of the lowest points that can be remembered for a very long time [...] It is sad to see the direction in which Russia is moving: it seems to be moving into the past, in times of repression."

"Russia has the right to prioritize its foreign policy as it sees fit," the envoy added. "Now there is a lot of talk about Russophobia, the abolition of Russia, the abolition of the future of Russia. This is not the goal of the United States. And we certainly do not want to abolish the people of Russia in any way."

"Our differences are with the government of Russia, but not with its people," Tracy said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed Tracy's interview on her Telegram channel, writing: "The people of Russia are being killed on a tip from the United States tip, with United States money, with United States weapons, by the hands of a regime brought to power by the United States as a result of a coup d'tat directed by the United States."

Zakharova was referring to the 2014 Maidan Revolution, a popular uprising by a broad coalition of pro-Western groups that toppled pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych. Protests broke out after Yanukovych suddenly abandoned an agreed cooperation deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Moscow.

Yanukovych fled Ukraine for Russia after several months of escalating protests, and after Ukrainian security forces killed more than 100 protesters. The former president is still resident in Russia, and early in the 2022 invasion was touted as a potential puppet leader to be installed by the Kremlin.

Addressing that Russian talking point, Tracy told Kommersant of Yanukovych: "A situation in which a leader who has lost support and is afraid of his own people decides to flee cannot be called a 'coup.'"

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry to request comment.

Simon Smitha former British ambassador to Ukraine now at the Chatham House think tanktold Newsweek Tracy's interview was "what I would expect someone representing the U.S. administration to be staying," given the poor state of bilateral relations.

"Tracy has very skillfully combined the opportunity to say some pretty blunt things about how badly the Putin administration had messed up and its calculations on Ukraine, but also kept in mind the fact that she has a job to do in Russia and that you have to choose your words very carefully," explained Smith, who led the British embassy in Moscow's economic and trade departments from 1998 to 2002 and also served as the director for Russia, the South Caucuses, and Central Asia at the British Foreign Ministry.

Smith said there is little hope for a "return to normal" in Moscow-Western relations while Putinism reigns in Russia.

"While Putin is in powerand whether it's Putin or whether it's some other equally unworkable successorunless there is a fundamental change of strategy, vision, and approach from the Russian administration, I really don't see a basis for going back to the way we used to cooperate. In fact, I see a lot of arguments for a relationship which is pretty much whittled down to a minimalist one."

"I also think Putin has massively miscalculated the Western response," Smith added. "I think he probably doesn't fully grasp what is going on now, which is an accelerated process among many countries who used to have a cooperative relationship with Russia but are now in a process of accelerating their move to living without any dependence on Russia and without any need for Russia."

Smith compared Russia's trajectory to that of North Korea, with which Western powers have extremely limited relations outside of ensuring proper deterrence of Pyongyang's nuclear threats. "I'm not saying that Russia will end up as the next North Korea, but there is a similarity," he said.

"Putin has taken Russia down that path where we will not need Russia's energy exports," Smith added. "He thought that we would be chronically dependent on those for the indefinite future. We will not need industrial cooperation with Russia because the Russian economy will be in a pitiful state."

"We can do without Russia. And I think that is increasingly what is going to be the assumption of many states in the Euro-Atlantic community."

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Russians Will Pay for 'Miscalculation' in Ukraine: New U.S. Envoy to Moscow - Newsweek