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Kremlin Critic Decried For Racist Rant On Minorities Fighting For Russia

Vladimir Kara-Murza has suggested ethnic minority troops find it ‘easier’ to carry out fatal attacks in Ukraine. Kyiv, Ukraine – Vladimir Kara-Murza barely survived two suspected poisonings in 2015 and 2017 that he claimed were orchestrated by the Kremlin. The bearded, balding 43-year-old may not be as outspoken as opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who nearly died of similar nerve agent poisoning in 2020. But Kara-Murza, a Cambridge-educated historian, has been instrumental in convincing Western governments to slap personal sanctions on dozens of Russian officials. In 2023, a Moscow court sentenced him to 25 years in jail for “treason” and while behind bars, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his columns for The Washington Post. Released last year as part of a prisoner swap, Kara-Murza settled in Germany and continued his advocacy work against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government and Moscow’s war in Ukraine. But last week, Kara-Murza’s remarks about the ethnic identity and alleged bloodthirst of Russian servicemen rattled many on both sides of Europe’s hottest armed conflict. “As it turns out, [ethnic] Russians find it psychologically difficult to kill Ukrainians,” Kara-Murza told the French Senate on Thursday while explaining why Russia’s Ministry of Defence enlists ethnic minorities. “Because [ethnic Russians and Ukrainians] are the same, we’re similar people, we have an almost similar language, same religion, hundreds and hundreds of years of common history,” said Kara-Murza. Russians and Ukrainians are ethnic Slavs whose statehood dates back to Kyivan Rus, medieval Eastern Europe’s largest state torn apart by Mongols, Poles and Lithuanians. “But to someone who belongs to another culture, it is allegedly easier” to kill Ukrainians, Kara-Murza added. His remarks made observers and Indigenous rights advocates flinch and fume. A former Russian diplomat said “measuring the degree of one’s cruelty by their ethnicity is a dead end.” The Kremlin does not specifically “recruit minorities, they recruit people from the poorest regions, and those are, as a rule, ethnic autonomies”, Boris Bondarev, who quit his Ministry of Foreign Affairs job in protest against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera. “Only a dull man could say that in the war’s fourth year in a multiethnic society,” said Indigenous peoples activist Dmitry Berezhkov, of the Itelmen nation on Russia’s Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka. Russian liberal opposition figures, mostly middle-class urbanites, “drown as soon as they tread on the thin ice” of ethnic minority issues, he added. Ethnic Russians constitute more than two-thirds of Russia’s population of 143 million. The rest are minorities – from millions of ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars to smaller Indigenous groups in Siberia and the Arctic that have regional autonomy, albeit mostly nominal. Even in regions rich in hydrocarbons, rare earths or diamonds, the minorities live in rural, often inhospitable areas, co-existing and mingling with ethnic Russians. They all rely on Kremlin-funded television networks more than urban dwellers, often have no internet access and see the sign-up bonuses and salaries of servicemen fighting in Ukraine as a ticket out of the dire poverty their families live in. Recruits receive up to $50,000 when they sign up, and earn several thousand dollars a month – a fortune for anyone from those regions irrespective of their ethnic background. “This is colossal money for them, they will never earn it in their lives, no matter whether they are Buryat or Russian,” Bondarev said. In response to a squall of criticism, Kara-Murza wrote on Facebook on Monday that the accusations were mere “lies, manipulations and slander”. To Berezhkov, the comment further tainted Kara-Murza’s image. “In the past, [Kara-Murza’s words] could be seen as a mistake – but now, they are his position,” he said. To another minority rights advocate, Kara-Murza’s diatribe sounded like a “signal for future voters” in the post-war, liberal Russia that exiled Kremlin critics hope to return to. Oyumaa Dongak, who fled Tyva, a Turkic-speaking province that borders China, thinks Kara-Murza and other exiled Russian opposition leaders are “competing” with Putin. “It’s not him, it’s us who defend [ethnic] Russians,” she told Al Jazeera. In 2024, Kara-Murza said Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after the 2022 invasion are “unfair and counterproductive” and hurt Russians at large. He wanted the West to lift wider sanctions and instead target individual officials. A Ukrainian observer said Kara-Murza does not want ethnic Russians who can potentially vote for now-exiled opposition leaders to feel collective guilt for the atrocities committed in Ukraine. “People don’t feel guilty. If you club them in the head with moral condemnation every day, people will not admit their guilt but will hate anyone who clubs them,” Kyiv-based analyst Vyacheslav Likhachyov told Al Jazeera. “That’s why the tales about the atrocities of Chechen executioners and Buryat rapists are and will be popular,” he said. Fighters deployed by Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov were dubbed a “TikTok army” for staged videos of them “storming” Ukrainian strongholds. Their actual role in the war is mostly reduced to guarding occupied areas, terrifying and torturing ethnic Russian servicemen who refuse to fight. But Buryats, Buddhist natives of a scarcely populated and impoverished region near Mongolia, have become notorious in Ukraine in 2022. Human rights groups and Ukrainian officials identified personal details of some Buryat soldiers that tortured, raped and killed civilians in Bucha and other towns north of Kyiv. But as ethnic Buryats are hard to distinguish from other minority servicemen with distinctly Asian features, Ukrainians often label them all “Buryats”, a community activist said. “All Caucasus natives are seen as Chechens, and all Asians are considered Buryats,” Aleksandra Garmazhapova, who helps Buryat men escape mobilisation and flee abroad, told Al Jazeera. However, the overwhelming majority of servicemen who committed alleged war crimes in Bucha were reportedly ethnic Russians. Garmazhapova survived because Ukrainian forces started shelling Russian positions, and his captors fled to a basement. “Slavs, Slavs, they were all Slavs,” Viktor, a Bucha resident who was doused with fuel by Russian servicemen who placed bets on how far he would run once they set him on fire, told Al Jazeera in 2022, just days after his ordeal. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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News_Naija

I Didnt Lie Against The Supreme Court

In a recent media outburst, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike, taunted me for losing a case, which he had won at the Supreme Court. Even though I appear regularly in domestic and regional courts in Africa,  Mr Wike dubbed me “a television lawyer”. I did not join issues with him on that occasion because Wike is the only life bencher in Nigeria who has never handled a case in any trial court or appellate court. Another reason for ignoring Wike’s vituperations is that it is no crime if a lawyer loses a case in any court. In other words, only a corrupt lawyer wins all cases in all courts. A couple of days ago, Wike subjected me to another scurrilous attack in a press conference held in Abuja to showcase the Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory. In the course of the press conference, he veered off and was alleged to have accused me of lying about the defection status of certain legislators during an appearance on Channels TV. While referring to a recent Supreme Court ruling that addressed the issue of defection, stating, “A few days ago, the Supreme Court settled this matter of defection.” He then said, “If someone of Femi Falana’s calibre can go on national television and lie, it is very serious. Lies can cause a lot of crises.” He expressed concern that such misinformation, especially from a respected legal figure, could escalate tensions if not addressed. Specifically, Wike accused me of lying against the Supreme Court over its decision on the defection of 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly. Contrary to Wike’s assertion, I did not lie against the Supreme Court in respect of the judgment in question. All I said was that the matter of the defection of the 27 legislators was raised suo motu and determined by the eminent justices of the apex court. My comment was based on the undeniable fact that the vexed issue of the defection of the 27 legislators was pending in the Port Harcourt judicial division of the Federal High Court at the material time. In addition, there are video tapes and a sworn affidavit where the 27 legislators had confirmed their defection from the People’s Democratic Party  to the All Progressive Congress. It is public knowledge that Wike had praised the Supreme Court to high heavens and held a thanksgiving service to celebrate the decision on the defection of the 27 legislators. However, he decided to attack me for commenting on the same judgment without any legal justification. I wish to state, without any fear of contradictions, that my fundamental right to criticise the decisions of courts is guaranteed by Section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended and article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. I would have ignored the minister’s latest gratuitous attack but for the fact that he had recently called on the Body of Benchers to discipline lawyers who had the temerity to criticise the judgments of Nigerian courts. However, unlike Wike, who calls judges names whenever they disagree with his politics of opportunism, I have always criticised the judgments of domestic and regional courts with the utmost decorum and in good faith. While Wike believes that it is a professional anomaly to criticise the decisions of Judges, the Supreme Court of Nigeria has always welcomed the criticism and review of its judgments because the justices believe that they are prone to make mistakes like all mortals. It is undoubtedly clear that Wike is not familiar with the case of Adegoke Motors Limited v Dr Babatunde Adesanya 2 1989 3 NWLR (Pt 109) 250 at 274, where Oputa JSC of blessed memory said,  “We are final not because we are infallible; rather we are infallible because we are final.” About five years ago, the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, said to lawyers, “As critical stakeholders in the task of justice delivery, you have the responsibility of drawing our attention to where things are going wrong or on the verge of going wrong.”  Justice Muhammad further stated that it would not be out of place for lawyers to subject justices in the country to criticism where necessary as a step to ensuring improvement in the justice delivery system. From time to time, many respected justices commend my criticism of the judgments of courts and the defence of the judiciary. It is on record that at a recent valedictory service held in Abuja, a retiring justice of the Supreme Court referred to one of my critical comments pertaining to the Nigerian Judiciary. In the light of the foregoing, Wike deliberately set out to incite the Supreme Court against me as the allegation levelled against me by him is spurious and tendentious in every material particular. Since he has become the unsolicited defender of the judiciary, I challenge him to report me to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee for professional misconduct. No doubt, the decision of the Supreme Court is final on defection of legislators from the political party that sponsored them to another political party. In their wisdom, their lordships said that defection can only be proved with the production of the register of members of political parties. My fear is that this decision will be waived by unpatriotic politicians to justify political prostitution in Nigeria. In the interest of political stability and national morality, I have respectively called on the Supreme Court to continue to rely on the cases of the Attorney-General of the Federation 𝐯. Abubakar (2007) 10 NWLR (PT.1041) 1 at 178, Dapialong v Dariye (2007) 8 NWLR (Pt 1036) 332 and Abegunde 𝐯. Ondo State House of Assembly & Ors (2015) LPELR-24588(SC), where it had been held that the consequence of a defection by a legislator is the automatic loss of his or her seat in the legislative house.

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What Adebayo Ogunlesi Taught Me About Africas Future

At a recent Africa Business meeting organised at the Harvard Business School and hosted by erudite Prof. Hakeem Belo-Osagie, I had the rare opportunity to sit across the table from the founder of Global Infrastructure Partners, Adebayo Ogunlesi, now a board member at OpenAI and a key player in one of the largest infrastructure investment deals globally, with BlackRock’s recent $12.5bn acquisition of GIP. Ogunlesi’s words were both sobering and catalytic. As a lawyer and someone who has worked on digital policy at the intersection of innovation and governance, his insights stuck with me because they were grounded in real-world wisdom, with deep implications for innovators, startups, and governments across the Global South. For Africa’s emerging entrepreneurs and tech disruptors, Ogunlesi offered a surprising perspective: you do not need to start from scratch. In fact, he pointed to India as a model for adaptive innovation. “Look at what India has done, replicating scalable, digital solutions with local relevance,” he said. “You can copy and localise models. Innovation is not always about creating something entirely new; it is about solving real problems in new ways.” This feels especially relevant in an age where the myth of Silicon Valley as the global epicenter of innovation is losing its grip. Ogunlesi reminded us that the U.S. is not necessarily the beacon of digital innovation alone. Countries such as India, Estonia, Singapore, and even Rwanda are pioneering models of digital governance and platform innovation worth studying and emulating. Yet, the most urgent takeaway came when Ogunlesi turned his focus on Africa’s future and its looming crisis. With a rapidly growing population and over 60 per cent under the age of 25, Africa faces an unprecedented demographic shift. “More people mean more jobs,” Ogunlesi noted. “But AI and robotics are already rendering some traditional jobs obsolete. Governments need to ask, What kind of future are we building for our youth?” Sadly, as he pointed out, many African governments are not giving this issue the attention it desperately needs. In his words, “This could become one of the greatest global crises, second only to climate change.” If we continue to ignore the intersection of automation, employment, and education reform, the future will be unequal by default. And he is right. While policy discussions often focus on macroeconomics or climate targets, they rarely confront the silent emergency of youth economic displacement. If we do not respond with urgency through skilling programmes, entrepreneurship investment, and digital infrastructure, we may be sowing the seeds of instability. Ogunlesi also offered a refreshing counter-narrative to the U.S. job-loss rhetoric. “America is not primarily a manufacturing economy,” he explained. “It is a services economy.” While around 500,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared over the decades, more than triple that number have been created in the services sector, including in logistics, tech, finance, and insurance. Rather than romanticising the industrial past, Ogunlesi’s analysis points us toward the need for economies, African or American, to build resilience by skilling for the future, not the past. We closed on infrastructure, Ogunlesi’s core domain. He posed a rhetorical but powerful question: If there were $6bn available for infrastructure investment in Africa, where should it go to yield the greatest return? The answer was not roads, rails, or ports. It was leadership. “If you get leadership right,” he said, “everything else falls into place.” As someone focused on tech policy and governance, that hit home. It is not a lack of capital that is holding us back. It is a lack of visionary, accountable leadership that can build trust, attract private investment, and align infrastructure with human development goals. Africa’s story is still being written. And in Ogunlesi’s message sends both a warning and a path forward: we do not have to be original to be impactful, but we must be intentional. Especially when the costs of inaction on youth, innovation, and infrastructure are no longer theoretical. If we want to shape the future, we must lead now. • Timi Olagunju, a lawyer and AI governance and policy expert, is a Mason Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Partner at Timeless Practice. Twittter: @timithelaw

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Worldnews

Chinas Xi Says Tariffs Undermine Legitimate Rights Of All Countries

Chinese leader’s remarks come amid renewed hopes of a trade deal between Washington and Beijing. Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned that tariffs threaten the interests of all countries amid an ongoing de facto trade embargo between China and the United States. During a meeting with Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday, Xi said trade wars “undermine the legitimate rights and interests of all countries, hurt the multilateral trading system and impact the world economic order”, the state-run news agency Xinhua said. “Xi said that China is willing to work with Azerbaijan to safeguard the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law, firmly protect respective legitimate rights and interests, and defend international fairness and justice,” Xinhua said. Xi’s remarks come as trade between the world’s two largest economies is at an effective standstill following the imposition of punishing tariffs on each other’s exports. US President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed a 145 percent tariff on most Chinese goods, with China slapping a 125 percent duty on US exports in response. The trade war has raised fears of a global economic slowdown, with the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday revising its 2025 growth estimate from 3.3 percent to 2.8 percent. Global stocks surged on Wednesday after comments by Trump and top administration officials raised hopes of a trade deal between Washington and Beijing. In a speech to investors on Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott  Bessent said a trade war with China was “unsustainable” and he expected the sides to reach a deal on trade at some point. Following Bessent’s remarks, Trump acknowledged that the tariff on Chinese goods was “very high” and said the rate would “come down substantially” in time. “It will not be anywhere near that number,” Trump said. On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the door for talks was “wide open” but the Trump administration should stop making threats if it wanted to reach a deal. “We do not wish to fight, nor are we afraid of fighting,” spokesman Guo Jiakun said during a a regular news conference, adding that “continuing to exert extreme pressure is not the correct way to have dealings with China”. Follow Al Jazeera English:...