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Law enforcement agents in Russia have detained two Americans in separate incidents in recent weeks one a Russian-born English teacher who was a vocal supporter of the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, and a second man who Russian authorities said was caught trying to smuggle his young son out of the country.

Details of the two cases emerged earlier this week in Russian news media reports as well as in a statement from Russias Investigative Committee, the countrys main investigation agency. A State Department spokesman on Friday confirmed both arrests but declined to provide further details.

Ilya A. Startsev, 37, the English teacher, was among several people arrested in various cities in Russia on Wednesday and accused of donating money to Navalnys Anti-Corruption Foundation, which has been banned, according to OVD-Info, a rights group that reports on repression in Russia, as well as other Russian media outlets.

The foundation, known by its Russian initials F.B.K., has regularly embarrassed senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir V. Putin, by exposing vast holdings they have accumulated while in office, far beyond what their government paychecks would allow.

The other American was arrested after arriving in Russia on July 27 and accused of trying to kidnap his 4-year-old son, a Russian citizen, and to spirit him across the border into Poland, according to a statement released on Thursday by the Investigative Committee, which did not name the man.

Regarding the teacher, the Russian government disbanded the Anti-Corruption Foundation in Russia in 2021 by declaring it an extremist organization, sending the groups main investigators fleeing into exile, where they continue to work. Various Navalny supporters have faced criminal charges in Russia as the Kremlin has ratcheted up repressive measures, especially those trying to silence critics of its war in Ukraine.

A conviction for financing an extremist organization carries an eight-year jail sentence.

Mr. Startsev was born in Russia but moved to the United States as a child after his mother married an American, according to an interview he gave a few years ago as well as accounts in the Russian press. After moving to the Chicago area, he attended high school and Northern Illinois University, according to his online biography.

He moved back to Russia to pursue a teaching career. At the time of his arrest, he was teaching English for a Moscow company called the American Club of Education, which offers both online and in-person courses. He had also taught at a private school in Oryol, a provincial city more than 220 miles southwest of Moscow. He was jailed there on Thursday, a day after being detained in Moscow, Russian news media reports said.

There have been several recent cases of Americans being arrested on unlikely spying charges in Russia. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, is incarcerated in Moscow facing trial, and Paul Whelan, 53, a former Marine, is serving a 16-year sentence. Last December, Brittney Griner, an American basketball star imprisoned in Russia on drug charges, was released after nearly 10 months of captivity in a prisoner swap for Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death, who is now running for office.

On social media, Mr. Startsev made no secret of his staunch support for Mr. Navalny, who survived what is widely considered an attempt by government agents to kill him with poison, and has since been jailed in a Russian penal colony on various charges that have extended his sentence to at least 19 years.

In his last writing on VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, Mr. Startsev lauded Mr. Navalnys aims, and supported his vision of a free, happy and uncorrupt future for Russia, he wrote, with virtuous politicians being a key to this.

He had also posted a picture of himself on VKontakte, holding up a poster of what appears to be an opposition rally in May 2018. The dense, hand-lettered poster called for fighting corruption, poverty and inequality; restoring free elections; giving the opposition access to the media; releasing political prisoners; ending government control of the internet; and allowing the freedom of assembly.

In his 2019 interview, Mr. Startsev said he had used his time in the United States to improve his credentials in order to get a better job back in Russia. Asked about life in the United States, he said, The food there has a different taste; the air is cleaner; the roads are better.

He had learned a lot, Mr. Startsev said, but he wanted to apply it in Russia: I want to help Russia become a great and beautiful country.

In the other case, the Russian authorities are accusing the man of trying to take his son to live outside Russia without obtaining consent from the childs mother, the office of the Investigative Committee in Kaliningrad said in the statement released on its Telegram channel. A criminal investigation has been started but no charges filed yet pending the man being questioned further, the statement said.

After arriving in Russia on July 27, the American met his son, who is a Russian citizen, the committee said. The boy lived in Kaliningrad, which borders the Baltic Sea and is Russias farthest point west. Under the pretext of spending time together, the man drove the boy in a car to a town near the Polish border and was detained while trying to cross it by walking through a swampy, wooded area, the statement said.

At the time of the incident, a court in Kaliningrad had been weighing where the boy should live, the statement said.

Milana Mazaeva contributed reporting.

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Zelensky Says Future of War in Ukraine Hinges on U.S. Presidential Election - The New York Times

Updated September 9, 2023 at 1:03 p.m. EDT|Published September 9, 2023 at 1:23 a.m. EDT

Romania found new drone fragments on its territory near the Ukrainian border, the Defense Ministry said Saturday, describing the pieces as similar to those used by the Russian army. Earlier this week, drone parts were recovered from the same area.

The discovery Saturday indicated an absolutely unacceptable violation of the sovereign airspace of Romania, a NATO ally, President Klaus Iohannis said in a statement. He said he spoke with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, who called the strikes destabilizing and said he welcomes the U.S. decision to deploy more F-16s for NATO air policing.

At a Group of 20 economic summit in New Delhi, world leaders adopted a declaration that avoided openly condemning Russia for the war in Ukraine. But the document, which included language agreed on by all members, including the United States and Russia, also urged states to refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition.

Heres the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.

In an interview with CNN, Zelensky said there is no possibility of compromising with Putin to end the war. He said that he is willing to talk to the people who are ready to compromise but that Putin was not one of them. When you want to have a compromise or a dialogue with somebody, you cannot do it with a liar, Zelensky said.

Putin vowed Russia would continue to systematically build up bilateral communications in all directions with North Korea. The Kremlin published a letter from Putin to his counterpart Kim Jong Un on Saturday to mark the founding 75 years ago of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Kim plans to visit Putin later this month, probably in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, to discuss possible weapons deals to bolster Russias fighting force in Ukraine, The Post previously reported.

Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak criticized SpaceX owner Elon Musk for cutting off Starlink satellite internet services to Ukrainian submarine drones last year. The drones were launching an attack on a Russian fleet based in Crimea. Musk has defended his decision, saying he did not want SpaceX to be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.

In Ukraine, more than 800 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed due to the war, the United Nations human rights office in the country said Saturday. During war, schools should be a sanctuary for children, the group said. Yet in Ukraine, far too often they have come under shelling and attacks by missiles, loitering munitions and airstrikes in the wake of Russias large-scale attack. It added that schools in the regions of Kherson, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv had been especially damaged.

Japans Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi arrived in Kyiv on Saturday, where he will meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said. Hayashi is expected to reaffirm Tokyos support for Kyiv in the war against Russia while several Japanese business executives will accompany him to discuss Ukraines reconstruction, it added.

The CIA has published a video aimed at recruiting disaffected Russian officials. The video, titled Why I made contact with the CIA: For myself, shows a Russian government official walking through what appears to be the snowy streets of a Russian city before entering a secured facility, and appears aimed to entice recruits.

Cuba has arrested 17 people for allegedly recruiting Cubans to fight for Russia in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported. A Cuban prosecutor told local media that the suspects could face sentences of up to 30 years or life in prison, or even the death penalty. Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine, Cubas Foreign Ministry said in a news release, according to the AP.

Ukrainian troops rely on Starlink services for virtually any task requiring digital communication, The Washington Post reported. From communicating with loved ones back home to directing drones against enemy positions, Ukrainian troops are heavily dependent on the 42,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine.

A Russian missile strike hit Zelenskys hometown of Kryvyi Rih. The Friday attack left at least one person dead and more than 70 injured, Ukrainian officials said. The strike destroyed a police administration building.

Ukraine froze the assets of Ihor Kolomoisky, a tycoon facing graft allegations who is already under indictment and sanctions in the United States over accusations of bank fraud. Ukraines anti-graft office said it had frozen shares in more than 300 companies under his control, along with real estate and vehicles, amounting to a value of more than $80 million.

War in Ukraine halted adoptions. Now some orphans are stuck in limbo: After Ukrainian officials paused international adoptions until the wars end, about 200 American families seeking to adopt children from the war-torn country find themselves stuck, David L. Stern reports. Ukraine says adoptions will resume three months after the end of martial law.

Pavlo Shulha, the Ukrainian head of Kidsave, a U.S.-based international charity helping place orphans with families, said the childrens distress is being compounded since the main trauma is abandonment. By delaying their adoptions, authorities are repeating this trauma, he added.

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Russia-Ukraine war news: G-20 begins with Ukraine on agenda ... - The Washington Post

The Russian Federation is in the process of conducting sham elections in occupied areas of Ukraine. These so-called elections are taking place nearly one year after the Kremlin staged sham referenda and purported to annex Ukraines Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts, and over nine years after Russia purported to annex Ukraines Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. The Kremlin hopes these pre-determined, fabricated results will strengthen Russias illegitimate claims to the parts of Ukraine it occupies, but this is nothing more than a propaganda exercise.

Russias actions demonstrate its blatant disregard for UN Charter principles like respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity, which underpin global security and stability. The United States will never recognize the Russian Federations claims to any of Ukraines sovereign territory, and we remind any individuals who may support Russias sham elections in Ukraine, including by acting as so-called international observers, that they may be subject to sanctions and visa restrictions.

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Russia's Sham Elections in Ukraine's Sovereign Territory - United ... - Department of State

Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced a new security assistance package to support Ukraine's battlefield needs and demonstrate unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine. This package provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) includes equipment to augment Ukraine's air defenses, artillery munitions, and other capabilities.

This USAI package highlights the continued U.S. commitment to meeting Ukraine's pressing requirements by committing critical near-term capabilities, while also building the enduring capacity of Ukraine's Armed Forces to defend its territory and deter Russian aggression over the mid and long term.

Unlike Presidential Drawdown authority, which DoD has continued to leverage to deliver equipment to Ukraine from DoD stocks at a historic pace, USAI is an authority under which the United States procures capabilities from industry or partners. This announcement represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine.

The capabilities in this announcement, which totals up to $600 million, include:

The United States will continue to work with its Allies and partners to provide Ukraine with capabilities to meet its immediate battlefield needs and longer-term security assistance requirements.

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Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for ... - Department of Defense

Russia is coordinating the recruitment of over a hundred Cuban mercenaries for its war effort in Ukraine, according to hacked documents obtained by The Intercept.

Activist hackers known as the Cyber Resistance and allied to the Ukrainian government recently infiltrated the personal email account of a Russian officer in the Western Military District who was involved in the recruitment of Cubans. The stolen data offers rare and previously unseen insight into how Russia operates its pipeline of foreign mercenaries into the Ukraine conflict.

Within the cache of hacked documents are approximately 122 passport scans and images of Cuban nationals, all fighting-aged males, along with a series of Spanish-language enlistment contracts in with a section of the Russian Armed Forces headquartered in the city of Tula, where a military school and airborne soldiers are known to be located.The contracts are templates, not fully executed agreements, but they sketch the incentives Russia appears to be offering foreign fighters.

The contracts promise a one-time cash payment in the amount of 195,000 rubles, about $2,000, for the Cubans signing on to serve in the zone of the special military operation (the Kremlin euphemism for the war in Ukraine) and monthly payments starting at 204,000 rubles per month, or just over $2,000, depending on rank, along with several spousal and family benefits. So far, these types of official Russian military contracts geared toward foreign nationals have mostly been discussed in regional media reports (such as those targeting ethnic Russian men in former Soviet republics, according to the British Ministry of Defence).

One set of images in the hacked documents shows single passports with a hand holding up entry cards into Russia above them, revealing that a group of at least five Cuban men entered the country through Belarus, a key Kremlin ally, on July 1. A little over a month before that arrival date, a senior Belarussian military official made a public show of pledging to train Cuban troops on its territory.

While the hacked documents do not include signed enlistment contracts for the Cubans, some of the Cubans in the array of passport scans were easily found through Facebook profile searches, and some of them openly posted about relocating to Russia and posed in locations around the Tula region. One of them not only updated his Facebook profile with details that he traveled from Santiago de Cuba to Russia in early July, but also posted a flurry of videos with a new Russian passport and in front of tank columns with the trademark Russian Z spray-painted on the sides.

Only weeks ago, that same Cuban man put out a video from the center of Tula in a popular square that was easily geolocated by The Intercept. Similarly, another apparent recruit from Havana posed at an outdoor shopping center in Tula and, in a separate image, with a fresh buzzcut in front of a Pyaterochka market a popular grocery chain in Russia just last week.

Three of the Cubans from the hacked cache also appeared in a Facebook story from early September smiling together, with one of them sporting the famous striped telnyashka undershirt worn by Russian airborne soldiers and paratroopers, the types of soldiers stationed in Tula where the Cubans are suspected of being trained. The aunt of another one of the Cuban nationals posted a birthday photo of her nephew (that matched his passport date of birth) and said that he had been in Russia and alluded to fighting in Ukraine.

Among the many details in the hack of the Russian officers inbox are email exchanges with military accounts and the translators who processed the Cuban passports; images of internal meetings with high-ranking uniformed officers; and an Excel spreadsheet with nearly a hundred recruitment contacts across four of the five official military districts of Russia.

For his part, the hacked Russian officer, Maj. Anton Valentinovich Perevozchikov, did not deny his role in recruiting the Cubans. He instead sent an expletive-laced reply to The Intercept denouncing NATO and declaring, Russia will win.

According to a senior officer in the Ukrainian Armed Forces with direct knowledge of the hacked materials, We can see that a group of Cuban citizens are going to participate in some activities related to the Russian military. He added, Their efforts remain focused on enticing new recruits voluntarily to prevent a fresh wave of mandatory mobilization.

According to the same officer, at the outset of the full-scale war in 2022,amid the massive failures in Russias initial offensives on Kyiv, the Ukrainian military observed that limited numbers of volunteers willing to risk their lives under the leadership of ineffective Russian officers came from abroad. The latest push with Cubans, he added, could be aimed at bolstering the perception that there is international support for Russia, though economics are a factor too.

Its possible that Cuban citizens are being enlisted due to cost considerations as they are simply cheaper, he said. Apart from salaries, the Russian government is obligated to provide additional compensation in cases of injury or death for its citizens. However, this responsibility doesnt extend to Cuban citizens. When you come here for financial gain, your death is your headache.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz at the Kremlin in Moscow on June 14, 2023.

Since the beginning of the total invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there has been persistent talk that the Kremlin was soliciting the help of global volunteers. While Kyiv has made no secret of having its own International Legion, made up of NATO veterans and volunteers from around the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin has remained mostly tight-lipped on his use of foreign fighters.

That didnt stop early reports swirling of Syrian mercenaries, adept in urban combat from years of sectarian warfare, being enlisted into the Russian war effort, or Pentagon claims of Iranian operatives in Ukraine, and other rumors that soldiers from the Central African Republic (an ally of the Kremlin) were fighting on behalf of Moscow.

But the hacked material, dating from this summer, suggests that Putin and his military apparatus have made real efforts to recruit foreign fighters for a bloody war that is causing mass casualties on both sides. While the Kremlin has often accused the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of hiring foreign mercenaries for its International Legion, the cache illustrates that Russia is also enlisting foreigners from its own allied countries.

On Monday, the Cuban government said it had uncovered a criminal human trafficking network that was ferrying some of its citizens to the Russian war effort and denied Cubas involvement.The Ministry of the Interior detected and is working on the neutralization and dismantling of a human trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens based there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces that participate in military operations in Ukraine, according to the statement. Cuba has a firm and clear historical position against mercenarism and plays an active role in the United Nations in repudiating that practice.

The Cuban government did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

It is unclear whether Havanas statement on Monday was prompted by the recruitment effort revealed by the hacked documents, or by a report in a Miami newspaper on how Russia had allegedly forced a pair of teenaged Cuban migrants into its military in the Ryazan region, which neighbors Tula.

Emails to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the apparent channeling of Cuban mercenaries into the war in Ukraine went unanswered.

In September, Russian media reported Cuban immigrants already living in Russia had signed up for the war effort after Putin decreed an easy path to citizenship for foreign nationals who enlisted in the military. But the records from Perevozchikovs inbox show that this group of men was recruited into Russia this year.

While the war in Ukraine has invigorated NATO and spurred on the addition of two new member states, Finland and Sweden, it has also reawakened other geopolitical alliances. Russia and Cuba were strategic allies during the Cold War, when Cuban leader Fidel Castro sent his troops to fight in the Soviet-backed war in Angola.

The two sides have strengthened their bonds since the broader invasion of Ukraine started a year and a half ago.Cuban leaders have time and again sided with Russia and have not publicly denounced the Kremlins actions in Ukraine. Putin, for his part, has refused to rule out deploying troops to the island nation just over 100 miles from the Florida coast.

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Hacked Documents Show Russia Recruits Cuban Mercenaries for ... - The Intercept