The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 14.1 million across Southeast Asia, with 28,827 new cases reported on Wednesday (December 1), higher than Tuesday’s tally at 26,937. New deaths are at 498, decreasing from Tuesday’s number of 370. Total Covid-19 deaths in Asean are now at 292,255.
Vietnam’s National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology announced that the third phase trial of a Vietnamese Covid-19 vaccine “Covivac” has been suspended over difficulties in finding volunteers. The trial needed around 4,000 volunteers, but with no district having thousands of unvaccinated residents who qualify for clinical trials, finding the needed volunteers has proved difficult.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has temporarily banned the entry of travellers from countries that have reported the Omicron Covid-19 variant or are considered high-risk. Malaysia will also delay plans to set up Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTL) with the affected countries, and reimpose quarantine requirements for Malaysian citizens and long-term residents returning from those nations, regardless of their vaccination status.
Less than a week after the new omicron variant of the coronavirus was reported to the World Health Organization, global leaders on Wednesday agreed to start negotiations to create an international agreement to prevent and deal with future pandemics – which some have dubbed a “pandemic treaty.”
The special session of the World Health Assembly, only the second ever held by the WHO’s governing body, pledged by consensus to begin work on an agreement, amid a round of applause, after three days of talks.
“I welcome the decision you have adopted today, to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The commitment by countries to negotiate a “global accord” would “help to keep future generations safer from the impacts of pandemics,” he added.
However, agreeing to agree is a slow process, and any final treaty could take years and is likely to come well after the end of the coronavirus pandemic. “Of course, there is still a long road ahead,” Tedros acknowledged.
The news was generally welcomed by advocates for a global system more equipped to address the inequity and supply constraints that have emerged during the pandemic. “The timetable for action is realistic,” said James Love, director of the nonprofit watchdog group Knowledge Ecology International. “All of that said, the ambitions are high in terms of both the legal status and the subjects to be addressed, and it will be difficult to keep this up.”
But some experts said the proposal wasn’t ambitious enough. “I think we need a ‘public health treaty’ that is broader and covers all big diseases,” said Srividhya Ragavan, an expert in global health at Texas A&M University’s School of Law, adding that a “pandemic treaty” would be a “self-center approach” for the West.
“Fact is, too many people are lost from lack of access to available medications for diseases such as cancer,” Ragavan said.
The assembly’s decision will see the creation of an “intergovernmental negotiating body” to draft and negotiate the final convention, which would then need to be adopted by member states. The negotiating body will hold its first meeting by March 1, the WHO said. It will also hold public hearings to inform its deliberations and deliver progress reports.
As the session got underway Monday, the WHO warned of a “very high” global risk from the omicron variant. Tedros said it “demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics,” and called for a “legally binding” agreement.
The decision adopted by the assembly on Wednesday, however, stops short of calling for a legally binding instrument, but aims to beef up global action plans toward preventing, preparing and responding to future pandemics. The recent arrival of a fast-spreading variant from an under-vaccinated country should bolster those who favor a treaty. For over a year, experts have warned that “no one is safe until everyone is safe.”
Supporters say a “pandemic treaty” or other international instrument could address some of the failures of the coronavirus pandemic. For example, it could put in place a global structure to identify threats earlier; better share data or genome sequences of emerging viruses; and ensure the equitable distribution of vaccines or other drugs.
But some nations, including major players China and Russia, have reacted with apprehension to any calls for a treaty. The pandemic has shown that often, when threatened, governments don’t tend to think globally, choosing instead to look out for themselves.
The United States has said it is largely in favor of such an accord.
“The United States is committed to working with member states to take forward the recent recommendations of the working group on preparedness and response. That includes developing a new WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument and making agreements to improve the effectiveness and agility of international health regulations,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “Of course, that’s in all of our interests.”
Britain and European Union states have also championed an agreement. Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel called this week for “reliable financing” for the WHO and greater contributions from its member states – while alluding to the E.U. position of supporting a binding agreement.
“Viruses know no national borders,” Merkel said by video message. “That’s precisely why we should lay down measures to be taken to improve prevention, early detection and response in internationally binding fashion.”
DAKAR, Senegal — Nigeria has confirmed its first cases of the omicron coronavirus variant after three travelers arriving from South Africa tested positive, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control said Wednesday.
The travelers all landed in Africa’s most populous country over the past week, Ifedayo Adetifa, the NCDC’s director general, said in a statement. The infections are “widespread globally,” he added.
“Therefore,” he said, “it is a matter of when, not if, we will identify more cases.”
Confusion abounded, however, after the nation’s top health agency initially reported that omicron was found in samples collected in October, which would have made Nigeria the first place the variant was known to have existed. The wording of the statement was subsequently changed.
A medical official who works with the NCDC, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, told The Washington Post that the information was a mistake, saying the passengers were actually swabbed in the last days of November.
Nigeria was the first West African nation to record an omicron infection since scientists in southern Africa flagged the variant last week. Ghana also confirmed cases Wednesday, saying the variant was detected in people entering the country from Nigeria and South Africa.
Thus far, around two dozen countries have reported detecting omicron.
The United States and other nations responded to the announcements with travel bans targeting southern African countries – against the advice of the World Health Organization – igniting outrage across the continent. Scientists condemned the move, saying it could discourage nations from sharing lifesaving information as the pandemic evolves.
“Instead of vilifying South Africans, we should be praising them,” said Christian Happi, director of the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases in Ede, Nigeria.
Dutch officials reported Tuesday that omicron was in the Netherlands and other European countries before South Africa rang the alarm, though the first samples of the new variant were in people who came from southern Africa. Scientists caution that little is known about the variant, which has been linked to a surge of cases in South Africa. Information on how speedily it spreads or if it resists vaccines isn’t expected to be available for weeks.
“It’s very possible that it has been here way before,” said Happi, who runs a sequencing laboratory in southwestern Nigeria, “but it’s too early to say.”
South Korea announced its first five cases of omicron on Wednesday – all with links to Nigeria – and earlier this week, Canada reported that its first two cases of the variant were detected in people returning from a trip to the West African nation. A case in Hong Kong was also in someone who had traveled to Nigeria.
Since the pandemic began two years ago, most African nations have recorded comparatively fewer coronavirus cases. Health officials caution that testing remains limited in many areas and that travelers tend to make up a significant share of those being swabbed.
The continent also has the slowest regional vaccination rate. Less than 2 percent of Nigerians are fully vaccinated. The nation of 213 million has counted about 214,000 coronavirus cases and 2,977 deaths.
The European Union recommended Wednesday that member states review essential travel restrictions on a daily basis and coordinate their actions in response to the omicron variant.
The daily assessment is needed to determine whether the temporary restrictions need to be applied to additional countries, as well as what kind of testing or quarantine of essential travelers is required, according to an EU official. The aim is to adapt the measures, or lift them as more evidence becomes available, the official added.
A group representing the airline industry said it hoped the European Commission’s approach would counter the divergent response it’s seen so far from European governments when it comes to travel rules and the omicron variant.
“We welcome the commission’s continued efforts to coordinate member states’ strategy to limit the spread of the omicron variant,” Agnes Leroux, the policy director for Airlines for Europe (A4E) said in a statement. “With further scientific updates expected in the coming days on the severity of infection linked to omicron, reviewing measures on a daily basis is a good approach in order to amend travel restrictions as needed.”
EU nations have implemented restrictions on travel to southern Africa and some have added in additional testing requirements.
The bloc’s executive arm also called on national governments to rapidly deploy booster shots and quickly implement proposals to limit the validity of the EU’s digital vaccine certificate to nine months without a booster.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that she believed EU nations should also discuss whether mandatory vaccinations are needed to help fight the ongoing spike in Covid-19 cases, as well as the new omicron variant.
“I think it is understandable and appropriate to lead this discussion now — how we can encourage and potentially think about mandatory vaccination within the European Union,” she said during a news conference. “This needs discussion. This needs a common approach. But it is a discussion that I think has to be led.”
The EU decided against holding an emergency virtual leaders’ summit, according to an EU official. Instead, health ministers will meet Tuesday to discuss the Covid situation and EU leaders will address it at their next scheduled summit on Dec. 16, the official added.
European governments should put in place targeted and proportionate precautions and restrictions to limit the spread of the virus, the EU said.
The bloc also pledged to accelerate its efforts to share vaccines worldwide in order to achieve the global vaccination target of 70% in 2022, which was agreed at the Group of 20 summit in October.
As of Tuesday, 11 EU members have recorded at least 59 cases of the omicron variant, including in the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain. EU agencies are currently collecting and analyzing data on the variant. The European Medicines Agency said on Tuesday that the approval of vaccines to address the new variant, if needed, could take three to four months.
U.S. companies, from United Airlines to Citigroup, are requiring employees to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. The situation looks very different in Europe, even as Covid-19 cases surge anew and governments take an increasingly tough line.
With rules around privacy making corporate “no jab, no job” mandates challenging, many European businesses are using subtler measures to convince workers to get immunized against the coronavirus.
Stellantis, the maker of Fiat, Peugeot and Chrysler cars, insists on its U.S. workers getting inoculated, a spokeswoman said. In Europe, it uses a lighter touch, making employees sign declarations that they’re symptom-free or haven’t been in contact with an infected person for two weeks.
“It’s a lot more gentle encouragement,” said Deborah Margolis, a senior associate at labor law firm Littler in London, referring to the European way. “Rather than that sort of heavy-handed approach.”
Almost two-fifths of the 530 European companies in a Littler survey said they’re trying incentives like paid days off and prizes to persuade staffers to get jabbed. Some are opting for anonymous workforce surveys to gauge how many people are vaccinated. Others hand out home Covid tests and rely on employees to report positive results.
The tactics suggest companies in Europe are still grappling with how to safely bring employees back to the office months after vaccines became widely available.
In the U.S., some companies imposing mandates have taken their cue from President Joe Biden. In September, he ordered all individuals supporting government contracts, as well as anyone who works in the same offices as those employees, to get fully vaccinated.
Banking giant Citigroup said in October it would require U.S. staffers to submit proof of vaccination as a condition of their employment, citing Biden’s directive. That stance isn’t feasible in other markets where the lender operates, including London, where staffers are subject to thrice-weekly testing if they come into its offices, but no mandate.
Data protection and employment discrimination rules in Europe mean employers must figure out if they have the legal grounds to collect workers’ vaccination records to safeguard staff, clients and suppliers. While that’s straightforward for nursing homes, it’s harder to establish in areas beyond healthcare.
“They have to be quite careful about asking about vaccine status,” said Rachel Suff, senior policy adviser for employment relations at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development. Companies should only do so if they can argue it’s an important health and safety issue, she said.
Some European businesses have taken a tougher line. Air France-KLM, following guidance from the French government, requires valid Covid passports for all public-facing personnel — meaning employees must either be fully vaccinated or have an up-to-date PCR test.
Private equity firm Blackstone and publishing group Bloomsbury announced in October that they’ll allow only inoculated workers to return to their London offices. Blackstone goes further, requiring regular testing even for those who are immunized. Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc cut sick pay for unvaccinated employees who need to self-isolate, a move to lower the “biblical costs of managing Covid,” Chief Executive Officer David Potts said, according to the Guardian.
Now, with infections spiraling upward and the emergence of the new, potentially faster-spreading omicron variant, companies may get some help from governments. Countries like Austria, Germany and Greece are considering sweeping measures to increase pressure on the unvaccinated.
Austria became the first European country to announce a vaccine mandate for its population. Set to start in February, the policy would mean fines of as much as 3,600 euros ($4,073) for those who refuse to get a shot.
Germany also took a step closer toward making vaccinations compulsory. The incoming chancellor, Olaf Scholz, threw his support behind the move on Tuesday, calling for a parliamentary vote on the matter before the end of the year.
Greece, meantime, announced a rule requiring those over age 60 who are unwilling to be immunized to pay 100 euros a month starting in January.
“It is not a punishment,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Tuesday. “I would say it is a health fee.”
There are signs that tougher tactics, though vehemently opposed by some, often work. Earlier this year, immunizations surged in France when the government began requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test for admission to restaurants, bars and other venues. Workers at those businesses must meet those same requirements.
In the corporate world, United Airlines, the first major carrier to require staff to get immunized, now says nearly all its of U.S. workforce is fully vaccinated.
Still, the measures often meet resistance in Europe because of concerns over individual privacy and potential discrimination. In the U.K., even perks like giving employees a paid day off to get a shot may be problematic, said Suff.
“You have to tread a little bit carefully when you’re offering incentives,” she said. “If some people can’t have a vaccination medically, then you could be discriminating against them.”
Around 37% of the worlds population, or 2.9 billion people, have still never used the internet – and most of them live in developing countries, according to an estimate from a U.N. agency for information and communication technologies.
This is despite the pandemic leading to a “covid connectivity boost” in which the number of people who accessed the internet rose to around 4.9 billion this year, up 17% from 2019, in part because school closures and searches for health updates pushed more people online, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said.
The “unusually sharp rise” from 2019 is “good news for global development,” it said, but the data still shows that the “world’s poorest (are) being left far behind.”
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a deep digital divide, for schoolchildren and employees in particular, as lockdowns pushed lessons and some jobs on to the web.
In the United States, millions of students and some of their teachers struggled without internet at home, more so in rural and poorer parts of the country, prompting efforts to unlock funding to help families, schools and libraries provide virtual education.
Around the world, a generation of poor children also found themselves shut out of learning and at risk of falling behind because they could not afford an internet connection, let alone a laptop.
The latest connectivity numbers show progress during the pandemic, said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the director of the agency’s telecommunication development bureau. However, she added, across the U.N.’s 46 least-developed countries, which include Afghanistan, Yemen, Niger and Mozambique, “almost three quarters of people have never connected,” facing obstacles such as poverty, illiteracy or limited electricity.
The divide is prominent in rural parts of these countries, where residents are four times less likely to go online than in urban regions, but it also runs along gender lines, leaving four out of every five women in the least-developed countries offline.
New Zealand, an influential leader in disarmament, announced Tuesday that it would push for an international ban on autonomous weapons systems, amid increasing fears that arms outside human control could violate legal and ethical boundaries and further destabilize conflicts.
Phil Twyford, the minister in charge of arms control, said in a statement that the “prospect of a future where the decision to take a human life is delegated to machines is abhorrent and inconsistent” with the Pacific nation’s interests and values. While fully autonomous weapons do not appear to have been deployed in large-scale combat, drones that could operate without human control were used in 2020 to “hunt down” soldiers loyal to a Libyan strongman, according to the United Nations.
Lethal autonomous weapons systems, also called “killer robots,” can identify, target and kill without human input, according to the Future of Life Institute. They are usually regarded as distinct from drones, which are generally used under human control and have been deployed extensively in battle.
At least 30 countries have called for a total global ban on killer robots, which arms control and human rights activists have long advocated. But some of the world’s leading military powers, including the United States and Russia, have downplayed the risks of such weapons. China, whose military expenditure has been growing for decades, said it supports a ban on using autonomous weapons but not on developing and producing them.
Mary Wareham, an arms control expert at Human Rights Watch, praised the “thorough” nature of New Zealand’s proposal.
“Alone, [New Zealand] cannot lead,” Wareham said of the nation of some 5 million people. “But it can make a big impact when it works together with other like-minded states, especially when they can come together and form a core group, strategize and come up with a plan to commit fully to create new international law.”
Leading figures and companies in the technology sector, including billionaire Elon Musk, signed on to a 2018 pledge promising not to develop or use autonomous weapons. The pledge – organized by the Boston-based Future of Life Institute, which seeks to reduce the risk of artificial intelligence – called killer robots “powerful instruments of violence and oppression.”
The United States does not prohibit the development and use of killer robots. The nation does not have such weapons, according to a December 2020 Congressional Research Service report, which also noted that military leaders have said the United States could be forced to develop them in response to rivals.
New Zealand’s history as a global disarmament leader goes back to the 1980s, when it declared itself a nuclear and biological weapon-free zone. The stance, which led New Zealand to ban nuclear powered or armed U.S. warships from its waters, prompted Washington to suspend Wellington from a military alliance. The two nations remained close but defense relations were only fully repaired decades later.
Facebook on Wednesday said it took down disinformation networks tied to a broad swath of political actors and events around the world, including militant group Hamas, Chinese state groups and the immigration crisis along the Belarus-Poland border. The company also removed accounts run by anti-vaccine groups that were using evolving tactics to attack doctors in Europe.
Together, the cat-and-mouse game described in the company’s latest threat report continues to demonstrate how social media is an active battlefield where governments and motivated parties attempt to manipulate public opinion. It also shows the might of the global platform, which has recently come under renewed fire for its role in spreading societal harms.
Facebook, which recently changed its corporate name to Meta, began to develop strategies to fight disinformation campaigns after Russian actors exploited its service during the 2016 election to influence the outcome. Since then, the company has engaged in hundreds of takedowns involving shadowy political organizations, marketing firms, governments and profit-motivated groups. Russia, the company said in a report last year, was still the biggest player in foreign disinformation.
Meanwhile, the threat landscape has evolved significantly. Governments now outsource their disinformation efforts to a growing number of private disinformation-for-hire firms, who sometimes pay unwitting legitimate journalists and influencers to write about topics of interest. Fake profiles can now be generated by artificial intelligence. And a Facebook whistleblower and other critics have accused the company of turning a blind eye to domestic actors that seek to exploit public opinion in their own countries – particularly if those countries are strategic for Facebook’s business interests.
Facebook does not disclose the reach of the disinformation campaigns, making it difficult for outsiders to gauge their actual influence. It discloses accounts removed and the followers of those accounts, but not the views that the posts received.
The China operation was discovered, the company said, after a mysterious account claiming to be a Swiss biologist posted that the United States was pressuring and intimidating World Health Organization scientists studying the origins of the coronavirus in an attempt to blame China for the virus. The false persona was named Wilson Edwards and made the posts on Twitter and Facebook in July.
Almost immediately after the fake biologist’s account, which was created only the day before, began posting its messages, Chinese state-controlled media organizations Global Times and People’s Daily began covering the fake scientist’s story. Facebook initially received reports about the fake account, and began to tie it and a network of hundreds of other fake personas amplifying it to actors in China, including a state-owned infrastructure company.
While Facebook fell short of saying that the operation – which it said was quickly rooted out – was tied directly to the Chinese government, experts say such unusual timing often suggests a coordinated effort.
Facebook also removed dozens of Facebook and Instagram accounts and groups that posed as Middle Eastern migrants to Belarus and Poland, as well as journalists discussing the migrant crisis. The accounts, which were created between September and November and hosted content in English and Arabic, appeared to be attempting to generate criticism of Poland for causing a humanitarian crisis at the border and being hostile to migrants. For example, some of the fake accounts talked about anti-migrant neo-Nazi activity in Poland and the difficulty of border crossings.
Some of these accounts, Facebook said, were tied to the Belarusian KGB, which is the country’s national intelligence agency. European leaders have blamed Belarus for provoking the humanitarian conflict because the country’s strongman leader has openly encouraged Iraqis to use its borders to cross into Europe. European leaders say this is retaliation for sanctions imposed against the country by the European Union.
In Israel’s occupied Gaza Strip, Hamas – the militant organization that is also the political leader of the territory – ran a disinformation operation intended to generate support for Hamas and criticism of Israel and of Hamas’s political rivals. Accounts pretending to be local news organizations and young women living in the West Bank were disabled by Facebook this fall, the company said. The company has previously taken down disinformation operations associated with other political groups in Israel’s occupied territories, showing how social media is a highly active battleground for political viewpoints there.
In addition, the company said it was trying to get ahead of evolving tactics by adversarial groups, and pointed to examples of recent enforcement actions in Europe and in Vietnam as examples of those tactics.
In Italy and France, an anti-vaccination group known as V_V developed coordinated harassment campaigns against doctors and journalists on Facebook. In some examples, they would call doctors and journalists Nazis for promoting coronavirus vaccines and claim that the vaccines would lead to a “health-care dictatorship.” The groups would coordinate on other channels, such as Telegram, to organize the harassment.
Facebook said that such coordinated campaigns, known as brigading, are a new area that the company is starting to police. In addition, it said it had begun policing other types of harassment campaigns, including campaigns to report people’s posts as breaking the rules to get them taken down.
RIGA, Latvia – Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet this week with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, the State Department said Wednesday, as a showdown intensifies between Russia and the West over Ukraine.
The top American diplomat will speak with Lavrov on the sidelines of an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit in Stockholm on Thursday, a State Department official said, a day after Blinken and other NATO officials at a ministerial meeting in the Latvian capital discussed a potential alliance response to Moscow’s military buildup along its border with Ukraine. The official, like other officials, spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the department.
NATO officials’ warnings during two days of talks in Riga of serious consequences should Moscow launch an invasion of Ukraine, together with new demands from Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday for guarantees against NATO’s eastward expansion, offered fresh evidence of the growing hostility between Moscow and the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Blinken said he was concerned by what he called evidence of Russian plans for “significant aggressive moves” against Ukraine, including a buildup of combat forces and attempts to portray Ukraine as an aggressor. He compared the situation to that before Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“Those plans include efforts to destabilize Ukraine from within as well as large-scale military operations,” he told reporters after the conclusion of the NATO talks. “We don’t know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so desire. So despite uncertainty about intentions and timing, we must prepare for all contingencies while working to see to it that Russia reverses course.”
Blinken declined to give specifics about what sort of repercussions Moscow would face in the event of an invasion but said the Biden administration was prepared to impose “high-impact economic measures” that it has withheld in the past.
“We are prepared to impose severe costs for further Russian aggression in Ukraine. NATO is prepared to reinforce its defenses on the eastern flank,” he said.
Blinken said the possibility of a diplomatic solution remained. He also urged Russia to pull weapons and troops back from Ukraine’s border and to cease what he called efforts to destabilize the country internally.
“That’s how we can turn back from the crisis that would have far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for our bilateral relations with Moscow, for Russia’s relations with Europe, for international peace and security,” he said.
Blinken is also scheduled to meet with Ukraine’s foreign minister in Stockholm.
Speaking at a credentialing ceremony for foreign ambassadors in Moscow, Putin said the Kremlin wants “concrete agreements” with NATO that the alliance will not expand to the east. That would include not adding any new members or weapons systems, he said.
“We express concern not only about the fact that the international community is acting in disarray and cannot unite to solve truly important problems, but also about the way our partners behave towards our country, towards Russia, trying in every way to restrain our development, exert sanctions pressure and escalate tensions at our borders,” Putin said.
“This is more than serious for us,” Putin added. “In this situation, Russia is taking adequate military-technical measures.”
Also on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed the Ukrainian government has deployed 125,000 troops, about half its army, to the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the site of a protracted conflict between Kyiv’s forces and Moscow-backed separatists.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials in turn have voiced concerns about what they say is a buildup of nearly 100,000 Russian troops along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Moscow has called its activities purely defensive and said it is Kyiv that is attempting to provoke a confrontation.
Lavrov described the situation in Donbas as “disquieting.”
“It turns out that they are deploying additional forces, while those that are supposed to be replaced aren’t going anywhere, either,” Lavrov told reporters Wednesday. “I believe that Western colleagues are perfectly aware of the situation because Ukraine does nothing without notifying them or receiving support.”
This week, Putin warned the West against stationing missile-defense systems in Ukraine similar to those in Romania and Poland, claiming that they could be secret offensive weapons capable of reaching Moscow within 10 minutes.
“Then we’ll have to create something similar to those who threaten us,” Putin said, referencing his country’s development of hypersonic weapons.
The Biden administration is attempting to establish a unified NATO position, which could include new military aid or sanctions, that would deter any new military action by Russia but also avoid supplying Putin with a rationale to invade in response.
A senior State Department official said the Riga talks had yielded a strong consensus in support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “We are not looking for any military engagement, but we will stand up for Ukraine’s sovereignty,” the official said.
Andrew Weiss, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Putin appeared to be concerned that NATO support for Ukraine’s military and cyber-capabilities would threaten Russian security.
“They’d like to nip that threat in the bud and put constraints on what Western countries can and can’t do,” he said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Moscow had no right to dictate events in neighboring countries, even smaller ones, and would not be able to veto a potential NATO decision to admit Ukraine as a member.
He said NATO should not be seen as a threat to Russia. “This idea that NATO support to a sovereign nation is a provocation is just wrong,” he told reporters after the ministerial talks.
But Stoltenberg also noted that because Ukraine is not a NATO member, the alliance did not have a mutual defense responsibility.
“Of course there’s a difference between a close and highly valued partner, Ukraine, where we provide support, and NATO allies where we actually have our collective defense force, where we provide security guarantees,” he said.
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