Russian Mercenaries Are Raping and Murdering Civilians They’ve Been Hired to Protect

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5dmn/russian-mercenaries-are-raping-and-murdering-civilians-theyve-been-hired-to-protect
 
May 19, 2021
 
VICE World News uncovers evidence of Kremlin-backed gunmen gang-raping civilians in the Central African Republic and hiring hit squads to take out torture victims so their crimes are not exposed.
 
BANGUI, Central African Republic – “There was a camp of Russian soldiers and others, they started to question me. ‘You are a girlfriend of the rebels, you came to spy on our positions and report to your lovers,’ they said. I said no, but they insisted.”
 
Zara, whose name has been changed for her protection, was walking along the main road into the Central African Republic’s capital Bangui, when she was arrested by this joint unit of Russian and Central African troops. 
 
It was days after a rebel movement known as the CPC came close to overthrowing the government in January. Intent on taking over the government, the rebels still surrounded Bangui. The national military and a paramilitary group known colloquially as les requins or “the sharks” were on high alert for suspected rebels and rebel sympathisers.
 
Zara was on her way to reassure her family that despite the situation, she was safe. But then the Russian soldiers arrested her.
 
“Some soldiers were behind trees, I was surprised,” she told VICE World News. “They came out and took me into a dilapidated house. They bound me and said I’ll be killed if I don’t tell them the truth.” 
 
Zara remembers that four foreign men handcuffed her foot to the chair and came back hours later.
 
“One said, ‘We’re back, tell us the truth now.’ And he opened his pants, while talking to the others in a language I don’t know.”
 
“He wanted to force me,” she continued, looking down and speaking quietly.
 
“I refused and cried. He opened his zipper [and] pushed my head violently on it. With guns and all that. I got scared. I did it for both of them.”
 
Zara says she remained in the house for several more hours after the two men forced her to have oral sex and later, they walked with her back to her family home.
 
“I thought they were going to shoot me down on the way,” she said.
 
The Russian soldiers are part of a deployment of several hundred private military contractors hired by the Central African government to wrest the country back from rebel control.
 
Abidah, a shop-owner in Bangui whose name has also been changed, tells a similar story of being caught up in the sweep against suspected rebels in January and gang raped.
 
After losing her ID card when she fled a rebel attack, she was arrested by a joint unit of the “sharks” and Russian soldiers.
 
She said that the mixed unit took her to a hillside outside of Bangui and berated her with accusations of sleeping with the rebel leader.
 
Then, “the white men” took her SIM card from her phone and checked “with a computer, to see if I contacted the rebels...Most of my calls come from my family.”
 
Despite no evidence that Abidah was connected to the rebels, the abuse continued.
 
“There were three white men among the rapists. When they finished, the others, sharks, dragged me away and raped me again for six hours.”
 
That evening, “they threw me behind the stadium [in Bangui]” and Abidah made her way home. “I couldn’t walk.”
 
Abidah told VICE World News that she saw “piles” of bodies on the hillside.
 
“They killed many people behind the hill,” she said. “I’m not at peace. My mind isn’t working well.”
 
The Russian soldiers in the CAR are military contractors, members of the shadowy, Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, deployed to train the Force armee centrafricaine (FACA), the national military. 
 
Since a rebel movement overthrew the government in 2013, the FACA has been unable to extinguish the rebel groups that grew out of the brutal sectarian conflict that followed.
 
Today, rebels still control nearly three-quarters of the country, as the conflict has morphed from a sectarian war between Muslims and Christians into an opportunistic scramble for resource-rich areas and control of the government.
 
Despite the presence of French and other European troops, and an approximately 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission known as MINUSCA, efforts to train and reinforce the national military have amounted to little in terms of taking back territory and protecting civilians.
 
Dimitri Chop, a Russian soldier working as a public information office for MINUSCA, put it plainly.
 
“We were the first ones to organise shooting weapons with real weapons. Before us they were trained with sticks. I’m not joking,” he said, referring to EU and French training exercises.
 
“Russian instructors were the first ones to organise training with real weapons.”
 
Russia signed a deal to provide military support and training to the Central African Republic in 2017.  After Russian lobbying, Moscow was granted a relaxation of a UN Security Council arms embargo on the CAR, in order to provide light weapons in 2017 and again to provide military mounted vehicles in 2020. The exception has been a source of controversy and tension between France and Russia. 
 
On the ground, Chop said, “This is a really fruitful step. These armed groups are equipped much better than the army. They have rockets, good ammunition.”
 
Outside of the weapons sales, the details of the deal between Russia and the CAR are opaque and the active role of Wagner “trainers” on the frontlines has not been officially acknowledged by either government.
 
A VICE World News team observed Russian so-called trainers manning mounted weapons throughout the capital and in the city of Bouar, and was told several times by Russian sources in-country that the troops were on the way to and returning from the frontline fight with the rebels.
 
Beyond potential violations about the use of private military contractors in active conflict, VICE World News spoke to victims and rights activists in Bangui and uncovered a disturbing pattern of claims that Russian contractors are involved in torture, extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual abuse.
 
The UN Working Group on the use of Mercenaries wrote to the CAR government and Russia in April, highlighting allegations of “grave human rights abuses” and involvement on the ground that goes far beyond military training and potentially violates international laws of war.
 
“There is a level of transparency: The Russian contractors have been brought in to provide training. But we’re seeing something far beyond that,” Dr Sorcha Macleod, an academic and a member of the Working Group, told VICE World News.
 
“When they become directly involved in the hostilities, that’s the allegation that we have here. It’s not clear who they’re accountable to.”
 
As well as having to contend with Russian mercenaries and Central African paramilitaries, Central Africans like Zara and Abidah, are also falling victim to abuses at the hands of CPC rebels attempting to take strategic cities and highways.
 
“So for civilians, it's really difficult. If they're on the receiving end of violence and humanitarian law violations, they don't know who to turn to because they don't know who actually committed these abuses against them,” Macleod said.
 
This was the case for Abdullahi, who was tortured and later killed in his hometown of Bambari, where there is a Russian base.
 
Abdullahi was a street vendor, arrested on the roadside and taken to a Russian base.
 
His brother Bashir, told VICE World News that after Abdullahi reported torture at the hands of the Russians to local government officials, he was killed by local assassins, in an alleged hit ordered by Russian leaders in Bangui.
 
At the base, “they tortured him,” Bashir said, “they cut off his middle finger during the torture.”
 
When he was released three days later, he was transferred to a hospital in Bangui and his case became widely known. In search of justice, he reported the torture to a local political leader.
 
When he returned to Bambari, “he restarted his life,” Bashir said. “One day...he is coming back home from prayer, some [rebel] elements followed him, shot him down and ran away.”
 
His death was blamed on the rebels but his father went to local rebel leaders for an explanation.
 
“The Russians paid for him to be killed to silence him,” Bashir insisted. Both Bashir and Abdullahi’s names have been changed for their own protection.
 
Diplomatic sources in Bangui told VICE World News that the claims of Bashir’s family are credible. 
 
Assassinations are in line with the allegations in the UN letter and with a still unsolved case of the murder of three Russians journalists who were killed in an ambush in the CAR in 2018, while investigating the role of Wagner in the conflict. 
 
VICE World News received no response from repeated requests for comment from Russian diplomats in the CAR, however on Facebook, the Russian embassy dismissed abuse allegations with “indignation,” calling them “baseless accusations against those who are trying to restore peace and order.”
 
And Central African defence minister Marie Noelle Koyara, one of the chief architects of the deal with the Russians, said the government had yet to receive any direct reports of abuses at the hands of Russians or FACA soldiers. 
 
“This saddens me…NGOs make a report, say[ing] that human rights are not respected,” she said. “If you don’t turn to the concerned government, how can we investigate?”
 
When presented with specific examples of alleged abuses by VICE World News, Koyara said, “There's too much manipulation, and the politicians too, they write things that influence the population, and that's not good,” before abruptly ending the interview.
 
As the authorities continue to blame atrocities on rebel groups alone and dismiss emerging abuse allegations about the Russian contractors in the media and by the UN Working Group, Abidah, the shop-owner in Bangui, remains terrified she will encounter Russian soldiers in the capital.
 
“I’m not at peace. I don’t sleep at night. I’m scared and hardly go out,” she said. 
 
“I ask the government: ‘Why me?’ I can’t believe what happened. I don’t understand.”

Russia is attacking Americans. Time to attack back

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/russia-is-attacking-americans-time-to-attack-back
 
May 12, 2021
 
Suspicion is growing within the intelligence community and on Capitol Hill that Russia is conducting vicious attacks against Americans. Namely, as the Washington Examiner reported, intelligence is looking at focused radio frequency attacks ("microwave attacks") against the nervous systems of U.S. government personnel serving in foreign policy or national security roles.
 
National security insiders believe these attacks were first tested in 1996, when two National Security Agency officers visited Russia on business. After returning home, both men suffered early onset Parkinson’s disease, with one dying in 2013. The microwave weapon issue took on added weight in late 2016, when State Department and CIA officials assigned to the newly reopened Embassy in Havana, Cuba, reported strange symptoms. These included ringing in ears, nausea, balance issues, and even nose bleeds. Similar incidents have been reported by U.S. personnel across the world since 2016, including in Eastern Europe, China, and even Washington, D.C.
 
President Joe Biden and his newly appointed national security team have pledged to make the issue a top priority. This represents a welcome shift from the Trump administration, which seemed only to focus on a desire for the concern to go away. A notable exception was the record of former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, who pushed for much greater action in support and defense of affected U.S. personnel.
 
Congressional Republicans have an important role to play going forward. Following the lead of Marco Rubio, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republicans should demand regular updates from the intelligence community and Biden’s senior officials. They should focus on three key concerns.
 
First, ensure that Americans who have suffered from these suspected attacks receive the support they need.
 
Second, Republicans must keep up the pressure on the intelligence community to figure out who is carrying out these attacks, how, and to what end. There is a risk that Democratic political appointees might attempt to underplay or sideline these attacks in an effort to avoid forcing the Biden administration into difficult choices.
 
Third, and as an extension of the second point, if and when Russia is attributed as being responsible, Republicans must demand a decisive response.
 
In these circumstances, it would be utterly insufficient for the Biden administration simply to expel a few Russian intelligence officers or sanction a few more officials in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Yet, considering Biden’s recent push for a summit with the Russian leader, it is possible that his preelection get-tough-on-Putin rhetoric might be paper-thin.
 
Republicans ought to demand a more commensurate response, including the sanctioning of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and the expulsion of the Russian ambassador. Covert action to confront and disrupt those carrying out these attacks is a must. This may seem like an overreaction, but if Russia is indeed carrying out these assaults, their seriousness and scale might reasonably see them described as acts of war.
 
Republicans might now be in the minority, but with Americans seemingly under sustained attack, their oversight duty is clear.

Brazil health regulator rejects Russia's Sputnik vaccine

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/brazil-health-regulator-rejects-russia-s-sputnik-vaccine-1.5403539
 
April 26, 2021
 
BRASILIA -- The Brazilian health regulator Anvisa on Monday rejected importing the Russian-made Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine requested by state governors battling a deadly second wave of the virus that is battering Latin America's largest nation.
 
Anvisa's five-strong board voted unanimously not to approve the Russian vaccine after technical staff had highlighted "inherent risks" and "serious" defects, citing a lack of information guaranteeing its safety, quality and effectiveness.
 
Ana Carolina Moreira Marino Araujo, general manager for health monitoring, said that taking into account all the documentation presented, data acquired at in-person inspections and information from other regulators, "inherent risks" were too great.
 
A crucial issue was the presence in the vaccine of the adenovirus that could reproduce, a "serious" defect, according to Anvisa's medicines and biological products manager Gustavo Mendes.
 
The Sputnik V shot has been approved in several countries around the world. Russian scientists say it is 97.6% effective against COVID-19 in a "real-world" assessment based on data from 3.8 million people, Moscow's Gamaleya Institute and the Russian Direct Investment Fund said last week.
 
But, like Anvisa, the European Union has not yet approved the vaccine, saying it needs more information on the tests and manufacturing process.
 
Brazil's vaccination program has been blighted by delays and procurement failures, turning the country into one of the world's deadliest COVID-19 hotspots this year and pushing the national health system to the brink of collapse.
 
So far 27.3 million people in Brazil, equivalent to 13% of the population, have received a first dose, according to health ministry data.
 
Brazil has registered 14.4 million confirmed cases of the virus and almost 400,000 deaths since the onset of the pandemic over a year ago, much of that in the last few months.

Wurden Daten manipuliert? Wissenschaftler zweifeln Impfstoff „Sputnik V“ an

https://www.fr.de/panorama/sputnik-v-corona-impfstoff-wirksamkeit-zweifel-wissenschaftler-vakzin-ema-deutschland-putin-russland-zr-90459400.html
 
16. April 2021
 
Die Europäische Arzneimittelagentur prüft in einem rollenden Zulassungsverfahren den russischen Corona-Impfstoff „Sputnik V“. Wissenschaftler haben verdächtige Auffälligkeiten entdeckt.
 
Bislang ist der russische Impfstoff „Sputnik V“ in der EU noch nicht durch die Europäische Arzneimittelagentur (EMA) zugelassen. Die EMA hat für den Corona-Impfstoff „Sputnik V“ bereits Anfang März ein rollendes Zulassungsverfahren gestartet*. Inzwischen gibt es von Wissenschaftlern aufgrund Unstimmigkeiten bei den Daten zu „Sputnik V“ immer mehr Zweifel an dem russischen Corona-Impfstoff, wie echo24.de* berichtet.
 
Aktuell sind Experten der EMA im Zuge des „Rolling Review“-Zulassungsverfahrens in Rußland unterwegs, denn sie haben viele Fragen zu den bisher vorgelegten russischen Daten. Sie besuchen Kliniken, in denen geimpft wird, Produktionsstätten und Lagerräume, wie die Deutsche Presse-Agentur berichtet. Eine Entscheidung erwartet der Gesundheitsexperte Jérôme Lepeintre bei der EU-Vertretung in Moskau frühestens im Juni oder Juli. Wenn „Sputnik V“ zugelassen wird, soll der Impfstoff auch in Deutschland eingesetzt werden.
 
Wissenschaftler zweifeln Daten zu „Sputnik V“-Impfstoff an: Transparenz fehlt
 
Rußlands Impf-Funktionäre stehen schon länger in der Kritik, sie würden nicht transparent mit den Forschungszahlen umgehen. Unabhängige Experten gehen zudem davon aus, daß Rußland nur einen kleinen Bruchteil seiner bisher international zugesagten Dosen überhaupt liefern kann. Gut eine Million „Sputnik“-Dosen hat allein Ungarn erhalten nach offiziellen Angaben. Das Land hat als einziges EU-Mitglied das Vakzin national zugelassen, ohne die EMA-Entscheidung abzuwarten.
 
Wer im russischen Staatsfernsehen Reportagen von groß inszenierten „Sputnik V“-Transporten etwa nach Lateinamerika sieht, bekommt rasch den Eindruck, daß der Impfstoff die Welt erobert. Westliche Präparate spielen in Rußland keine Rolle. Dabei klagen sogar viele Regionen in Rußland über Lieferengpässe, wie selbst Kremlchef Wladimir Putin einräumen mußte. Nach Putins Angaben haben erst 4,3 Millionen Menschen eine Impfung erhalten. Das sind knapp drei Prozent der 146 Millionen Einwohner.
 
Zweifel an „Sputnik V“: Wissenschaftler entdecken Auffälligkeiten in Impfstoff-Daten
 
In einem von der britischen medizinischen Fachzeitschrift The BMJ veröffentlichten Brief stellen die Wissenschaftler Florian Naudet, Enrico Bucci und weitere Forscher Auffälligkeiten bezüglich der Wirksamkeit von „Sputnik V“ fest, wie ntv berichtet. Bei den kritischen Wissenschaftlern handelt es sich nicht um Impfstoffforscher, sondern um Mediziner, die sich kritisch mit den vorgelegten Datensätzen zu den verschiedenen Testphasen auseinandergesetzt haben. Im Zentrum stehen statistische Auffälligkeiten.
 
Laut des veröffentlichen Briefes gibt es zahlreiche Auffälligkeiten in den russischen Daten der Impfstoff-Studie von „Sputnik V“. Die vollständigen Datensätze zu den verschiedenen Testphasen des am staatlichen Gamaleja-Forschungszentrum für Epidemiologie und Mikrobiologie in Moskau entwickelten Impfstoffs sind bisher noch nicht veröffentlicht worden – nur deren Auswertung.
 
Wissenschaftler entdecken Auffälligkeiten: Impfstoffdaten zu „Sputnik V“ manipuliert?
 
Erste Zweifel hatten die Mediziner bereits vergangenen September geäußert. Damals wiesen neun Probanden nach 21 und 28 Tagen jeweils den exakt selben Antikörper-Wert auf. Das Gleiche geschah angeblich bei sieben von neun Probanden einer anderen Wirkstoff-Version. In weiteren voneinander getrennten Beobachtungen wiederholen sich die Werte.
 
Mit Blick auf die Probanden gibt es noch weitere Auffälligkeiten: Das Muster der im September vorgelegten Daten bei unterschiedlichen Probanden, Werkstoffvarianten und Zeitpunkten, paßt laut den Wissenschaftlern nicht zur natürlichen Zellvermehrung. Auch die Werte zur Antikörperbildung bei unterschiedlichen Probanden mit unterschiedlichen Wirkstoff-Varianten wiesen unnatürliche Muster auf.
 
Weitere Auffälligkeiten betreffen die Wirksamkeit des russischen Impfstoffs. Der Hersteller hatte im November und Dezember drei Pressemitteilungen zu Zwischenauswertungen der dritten Testphase veröffentlicht – in allen drei Pressemitteilungen liegt die Wirksamkeit des Vakzins „Sputnik V“ bei 91 und 92 Prozent. Der Anteil an Erkrankten in den Gruppen der Geimpften und der Kontrollgruppe fällt dabei immer gleich aus – was laut der Wissenschaftlicher bei einer fünfstelligen Zahl an Studienteilnehmern sehr unwahrscheinlich ist.
 
Wie ntv berichtet, kommen die Wissenschaftler zu dem Ergebnis: „Die ungewöhnliche und unwahrscheinliche hohe Homogenität der Impfstoffwirksamkeit über Altersschichten und verschiedene Zwischenanalysen hinweg gibt Anlaß zu Bedenken hinsichtlich der berichteten Daten.“ Am 12. März haben Naudet und seine Kollegen ihre Bedenken der Europäischen Arzneimittel-Agentur mitgeteilt.
 
„Sputnik V“ in Deutschland: Bayern und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern sichern sich erste Impfdosen
 
Wann und ob der russische Corona-Impfstoff in Deutschland verimpft wird, ist weiterhin unklar. Bundesgesundheitsminister Jens Spahn (CDU) betonte, daß es zunächst eine Zulassung durch die Europäische Arzneimittelagentur EMA geben müsse. Dennoch starteten einige Bundesländer schon vor einer möglichen EU-Zulassung Alleingänge.
 
Bayern unterzeichnete am Mittwoch einen Vorvertrag über 2,5 Millionen „Sputnik“-Dosen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern zog am Donnerstag mit einer Option auf eine Million Dosen nach. Der Vorstoß der Länder stieß jedoch auch auf Kritik. Thüringens Ministerpräsident Bodo Ramelow (Linke) etwa sieht die Bundesregierung für eine Beschaffung in der Pflicht, wie ein Regierungssprecher erklärte.
 
Baden-Württemberg* möchte sich nicht wie Bayern und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern selbst Dosen des russischen Impfstoffes „Sputnik V“ sichern. Es gebe ein bewährtes Verfahren, teilte Gesundheitsminister Manne Lucha (Grüne) laut eines Sprechers am Donnerstag in Stuttgart mit. Der Bund und die EU kümmerten sich um Beschaffung und Zulassung der Impfstoffe, die Länder seien zuständig für die Verimpfung. „Ich sehe keinen Anlaß, daran etwas zu ändern“, so Lucha. Der Minister bezeichnete es mit Blick auf die Impfstoffbeschaffung aber als richtig, „daß der Bund und Minister Spahn jetzt bilaterale Gespräche mit Rußland angekündigt haben.“
 
Corona-Impfstoff aus Rußland: Slowakei und Ukraine bemängelt und kritisieren „Sputnik V“
 
Die EU-Staaten Ungarn und Slowakei haben „Sputnik V“ bereits auf eigene Faust angeschafft, Ungarn erteilte eine Notfallzulassung. In der Slowakei veröffentlichte die staatliche Arzneimittelkontrolle SUKL einen kritischen Bericht über den russischen Impfstoff, der die Qualität bemängelte. Bisher wird der Impfstoff in dem Land noch nicht verwendet. Nach Angaben aus Rußland war die Slowakei gebeten worden, den Impfstoff wegen „mehrfacher Vertragsverletzungen“ zurückzuschicken, wie der staatliche Direktinvestmentfonds RDIF bei Twitter schrieb. „Impfstoffe sollten Leben retten und nicht für geopolitische und interne politische Kämpfen eingesetzt werden.“
 
Der Vorsitzende der Ständigen Impfkommission (Stiko), Thomas Mertens, sagte im ZDF-Morgenmagazin, die publizierten Daten zu „Sputnik V“ sehen „sehr gut aus“, er wisse aber nicht, was der EMA an zusätzlichen Daten vorliege. „Wenn der Impfstoff geprüft und zugelassen wird, hätte ich persönlich dagegen nichts einzuwenden.“ Zuvor bezeichnete Mertens „Sputnik V“ bereits als „clever gebaut“.
 
Auch der ukrainische Außenminister Dmitri Kuleba warnte in der Bild vor dem russischen Impfstoff. „Leider geht es bei ,Sputnik V‘ nicht um humanitäre Ziele. Rußland benutzt es als ein Werkzeug, um seinen politischen Einfluß zu vergrößern.“ Die Ukraine sieht sich nach der russischen Einverleibung ihrer Halbinsel Krim am Schwarzen Meer in einem Krieg mit dem Nachbarland.
 
*echo24.de ist ein Angebot von IPPEN.MEDIA.