President Donald Trump reluctantly signed a bipartisan bill Wednesday morning that imposes additional sanctions on Russia. The bill, which also levies sanctions on North Korea and Iran, severely limits Trump’s ability to lift Russian sanctions in the future. Between the House and Senate, 517 members of congress supported the bill, giving Trump pretty much no choice but to sign it.

The bill represents a rare showing of bipartisanship–and of congressional Republicans’ willingness to stand up to the Trump Administration. Republicans, traditionally hawkish on Russia, have until now overlooked Trump’s repeated overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin–during the campaign and his presidency–in order to pursue other legislative goals.

The new sanctions target Russia’s energy and defense sectors, but perhaps more important than the sanctions themselves, the bill gives Congress the final say if the president decides to lift sanctions. Congress would have a 30-day review period to consider any such actions by Trump or future presidents. The administration has decried this part of the bill as “unconstitutional,” as it unfairly limits the president’s flexibility on matters of foreign policy.

In a statement released Wednesday after Trump signed the legislation, the White House said the bill contained “a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions” that “purport to displace the President’s exclusive constitutional authority to recognize foreign governments, including their territorial bounds.”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) said the bill sends a “powerful message to our adversaries that they will be held accountable for their actions.” He added: “We will continue to use every instrument of American power to defend this nation and the people we serve.”

After signing the bill, Trump released a second statement calling it “seriously flawed” because it “encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate.” He went on to deride Congress for its failure to pass health care legislation: “Congress could not even negotiate a health care bill after seven years of talking,” he said.

Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and fomented a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine, Washington has been engaged in a diplomatic tit-for-tat with Moscow. Last December, after it became clear Russia meddled in the 2016 election, former President Barack Obama increased Russian sanctions. He also expelled Russian diplomats and seized two of its diplomatic compounds.

The Kremlin retaliated with measures of its own over the weekend, ordering the U.S. to slash its diplomatic staff throughout Russia by 755. It also seized two properties used by U.S. diplomats. On Wednesday, after Trump signed the bill into law, Russian officials offered ominous signs, with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev saying it amounts to a “full scale trade war.”

And Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, added his two cents: “Some U.S. officials were saying that this is a bill that might encourage Russia to cooperate with the United States; to me that’s a strange sort of encouragement,” he said. “Those who invented this bill, if they were thinking they might change our policy, they were wrong.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Russia’s Supreme Court has banned the Jehovah’s Witness organization after the Ministry of Justice labeled it an extremist group. The denomination already was on shaky ground in Russia, as the government had banned its literature and website as well as arrested members and seized their property. But now with a complete and nationwide ban, the group’s headquarters in St. Petersburg and 395 local branches will all become state property.

Last year, the Russian general prosecutor issued a warning to the group, urging it to stop all “extremist” activities. But there was no clarification of what that means or which activities would be seen as “extremist.” One of the Jehovah’s Witnesses main codes of conduct is to be peaceful and not engage in violence. But according to an attorney with the country’s Justice Ministry, Svetlana Borisova, the Jehovah’s Witnesses “pose a threat to the rights of the citizens, public order and public security.”

But the Jehovah’s Witnesses dispute this claim, and the organization published a statement on its website on Wednesday. It says that Russian officials never specified any legal basis for the ban. According to the country’s anti-extremism law, crimes that are “motivated by prejudice or, as stated in Russian law, ‘ideological, political, racial, national or religious enmity, as well as hatred or enmity towards a social group’” are extremist crimes.

#Russia: #JehovahsWitnesses ban – blow 2 #FoRB, sign of totality. Pacifism is not extremism. https://t.co/FymTwysX6x pic.twitter.com/8auTw7Yp9B

— Jan Figel (@janfigel) April 21, 2017

The group argues that if that is the law under which the Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned, that sounds like a clear misuse of the law. It describes the opposite of what the organization promotes, which is anti-violence. “In the whole world, Jehovah’s Witnesses are known as peaceful, obedient, respectful citizens. We respect government, and we are politically totally neutral,” said Yaroslav Sivulsky, an official from Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.

The anti-extremism law also makes it illegal for any group other than the Orthodox Church to claim to “offer the true path to religious salvation.” This basically means that there is no freedom of religion.

Many people see the latest court order as a crackdown on freedom of religion and expression. Some worry that other groups of people or religions will be next. Human Rights Watch issued a statement from Moscow and said the ban is “a serious breach of Russia’s obligations to respect and protect religious freedom.”

Catholics for Choice condemns #Russia‘s ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses (learn more: https://t.co/KDelnhPC1W) pic.twitter.com/FrMCalcF6X

— Catholics for Choice (@Catholic4Choice) April 21, 2017

There are about 170,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia and they are all now officially in the same category as extremists like Islamic State. According to the New York Times, the group does not engage in politics or criticism against the government. But President Putin has repeatedly targeted the Jehovah’s Witnesses since his third term began in 2012, when he started promoting the Orthodox Church in order to lift Russia to greater international power.

Victor Zhenkov is a lawyer representing the organization. He called the ban “an act of political repression that is impermissible in contemporary Russia.” He said they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, and if that it fails, take it to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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He is often caricatured as an iron-fisted, shirtless, horseback-riding, murderous regime-supporting paragon of machismo. But Russians also have a sense of humor. So in 2013, during gay rights protests, an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin made up as a clown with mascara, long eyelashes, and lipstick became a popular symbol of resistance.

On Wednesday, Russia officially banned the image, calling it a form of “extremism.” It is illegal to share the image on the internet, because it implies “the supposed nonstandard sexual orientation of the president of the Russian Federation.” Naturally, Twitter had a field day:

Sharing this illegal picture of Putin as a gay clown. #ThingsIWontApologizeFor pic.twitter.com/KiaIbJW6nX

— Allensaurus Rex (@allenrw81) April 6, 2017

Oh no! It’s Putin the Gay Clown!!! Why doesn’t Putin like this image, he looks so pretty!#theresistance #russiagate pic.twitter.com/dVf75py21c

— Queen du Tout (@Gravityisback1) April 6, 2017

It is now illegal in Russia to share an image of Putin as a gay clown.

Guess what motherf*ucker America is still a free nation… for now. pic.twitter.com/xsG0Nma7KA

— Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) April 6, 2017

In the summer of 2013, Russians took to the streets to protest Russia’s homophobic laws and repression of the gay community. Wielding the Putin-as-a-pretty-clown meme, protesters opposed Russia’s new laws banning the propagandizing “nontraditional sexual relations” to children. Russian officials beat and arrested scores of protesters.

The LGBT community in Russia suffers from a variety of oppressive, draconian laws. In January 2015, a law passed that made it illegal for transgender people, or others with “disorders,” to operate a vehicle. In October of that year, the Russian government proposed a law that would deem public displays of non-heterosexual orientation–kissing or holding hands, for instance–a criminal act.

While the new Kremlin directive does not explicitly name a single image, it casts a wide net, banning pictures of a Putin-like figure “with eyes and lips made up.” One Russian news outlet suspects a meme of Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, both with make up, clutching a bouquet of flowers, is the banned image:

В РФ признали экстремистским плакат с накрашенными Путиным и Медведевым https://t.co/HhJvROd6Bl

— Gordonua.com (@Gordonuacom) April 5, 2017

To clear up any confusion, this Twitter user compiled all of the potentially banned images in one handy tweet:

Did anyone get the meme-o on which gay-clown images #Putin has banned in Russia? Was it any of these? #stophomophobia pic.twitter.com/ljrUm7Pmo8

— Jason ’Toole (@jayrotoole) April 6, 2017

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Thousands of people fanned out across cities in Russia to protest corruption on Sunday, the largest public demonstrations in five years. Hundreds were arrested, including Russian and foreign journalists and scores of young people. While the protests broadly targeted government corruption, there were few direct displays of dissent against President Vladimir Putin, who throughout his nearly 17-year rule has kept a tight grip on protests and opposition.

From Vladivostok in the east to Kaliningrad in the west to Moscow, protesters waved Russian flags and wielded banners and signs, chanting: “Russia without Putin,” and, in Moscow, “this is our city.” A spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, called the protests a “provocation and a lie” and said young people were “promised financial rewards in the event of their detention by law enforcement agencies.”

Aleksei Navalny, an increasingly influential and strident opposition politician, called for the protests weeks ago. His Foundation for Fighting Corruption organized the demonstrations. Navalny, who ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013, was arrested in Moscow on Sunday while protesting. While some see him as a viable Putin opponent in the 2018 elections, he is widely expected to lose. In February, a Kremlin-backed court found him guilty of fraud (he denied the charge), further derailing his chances.

Unprecedented number of young Russians who’ve known no president but Putin came to protest him today. This looks like being the iconic shot pic.twitter.com/noRLeNNxDu

— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 26, 2017

Regardless of his political future, Navalny, who also helped organize the protests that followed tainted elections in 2011 and 2012, is hitting a nerve across the country. Sunday’s protests in Moscow were the most visible and received the harshest crackdown from authorities. Protesters were met with riot police and surveillance helicopters. The Moscow Police Department said “around 500” people were detained for an “unapproved public event.” A group that monitors arrests, OVD-info, said the number of arrests was closer to 1,000.

In the U.S., the White House response was muted; some lawmakers were vocal about the Kremlin’s swift response to the protests. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NB) said in a statement: “Putin’s thugocracy is on full display. The United States government cannot be silent about Russia’s crackdown on peaceful protesters. Free speech is what we’re all about and Americans expect our leaders to call out thugs who trample the basic human rights of speech, press, assembly and protest.”

And while President Donald Trump–who is currently under investigation by the House and the Senate for his communications with Russia during the election–was silent on the issue, Mark Toner, the acting spokesman for the State Department said the U.S. “strongly condemns the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters throughout Russia on Sunday.” He added: “Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The resignation of Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser and the subsequent revelations that Trump aides communicated with Russia during the campaign have raised a lot of questions in Washington. Clearly some sort of relationship exists between Russia and Trump–or at least his orbit of advisers and aides. But how deep does it go? How nefarious does it get? And, perhaps most importantly, what will happen next?

For one, the FBI is continuing to review the communications between Flynn and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was pressured to resign after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the content of his calls with Kislyak (they talked about U.S. sanctions, but Flynn told Pence they did not).

It is unclear if Trump, or any other top administration officials, directed Flynn to discuss the sanctions with Kislyak, or if Flynn acted of his own accord. But Trump, for one, is not happy about the leaks coming out of his administration:

The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by “intelligence” like candy. Very un-American!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

On Tuesday, top Senate Republicans hinted that they would be calling for an investigation into the relationship between Trump, his aides, and Russia. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said a probe is “highly likely.” Two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), also called for an investigation.

“We are aggressively going to continue the oversight responsibilities of the committee as it relates to not only the Russian involvement in the 2016 election, but again any contacts by any campaign individuals that might have happened with Russian government officials,” Burr said on Tuesday.

Republican Senators John Cornyn (TX) and Roy Blunt (MO) echoed the call for a Senate investigation, which would likely include a subpoena for Flynn to testify. Republicans in the House, however, struck a different tone Tuesday.

“I’ll leave it up to the administration to describe the circumstances surrounding what brought [Flynn] to this point,” said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Ryan did not call for a House Intelligence Committee investigation.

The decision to launch a House investigation into the Russia-Trump Administration relationship is unilaterally controlled by one man: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the House Intelligence Committee Chairman. In contrast with many of his Republican colleagues, his counterparts in the Senate, and Democrats, Nunes sees a bigger problem than Trump’s potential Russia ties.

“I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,” Nunes said on Tuesday, referring to the FBI’s recording Flynn’s call with Kislyak. “The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his phone calls recorded.”

In other words, Nunes likely won’t be launching a House probe any time soon.

The opaque, yet unmistakable, ties between Trump and Russia first came to light in the summer of 2016. In July, he flippantly implored Russia to dig deeper into Hillary Clinton’s emails. In August, his campaign manager at the time, Paul Manafort, quit amid reports about his past business dealings with Ukrainian government officials who were backed by the Kremlin. And in the waning months following Trump’s election win, U.S. intelligence officials concluded that Russia–perhaps directed by President Vladimir Putin–interfered in the election with the goal of netting Trump a victory.

Then, just over a week before Inauguration Day, reports of a salacious dossier on Trump compiled by a former British intelligence officer began to leak. The dossier claimed that Trump and his campaign colluded with Russian officials during the campaign in their hacking of Democratic operatives’ emails.

While U.S. intelligence officials have made some progress on corroborating the claims in the dossier, nothing too incriminating has been confirmed yet. They are continuing to probe the dossier, as well as Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), never one to mince words, called Russian interference in the U.S. “very disturbing” in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. He added: “Any Trump person who was working with the Russians in an unacceptable way also needs to pay a price.”

Stay tuned to find out what happens next.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Harry Reid, the Senate Minority Leader and retiring Democratic Senator of Nevada, sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey calling on him and his team to release to the public the “explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government” that Comey allegedly possesses. But does the FBI possess any “explosive information” regarding Trump’s ties to Russia? And what about those recent claims by a former spy that Trump’s allies maintain a backchannel to a Russian bank?

First, a bit of background:

Comey and the FBI find themselves at the center of an extraordinarily divisive presidential campaign that cannot end soon enough for all parties (and voters). It started with an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which concluded without an indictment. Last week, however, Comey’s team stumbled upon some emails that were pertinent to the Clinton case while reviewing Anthony Weiner’s sexting case. Comey sent a letter to Congress alerting them of the new development, which in turn sparked claims of Comey’s anti-Clinton bias by Democrats and a new round of Clinton attacks by Republicans.

A story published Monday by the website Mother Jones featured a “former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence” as a source. He said that “in recent months he provided the [FBI] with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump.”

The FBI has in fact investigated Trump’s ties to any Kremlin entities, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, a leader who Trump has profusely praised. They also investigated, and continue to investigate, the hacks involving Democratic emails released by Wikileaks in recent weeks. FBI officials, speaking under the condition of anonymity, told The New York Times on Monday that “no clear link” has been discovered between Trump and Russia, and that the hacks are intent on undermining American democracy rather than electing Trump, as many Democrats have implied.

“It isn’t about the election,” a senior official told the Times. “It’s about a threat to democracy.” And then there are the accusations by the former spy who spoke with Mother Jones that Trump and his team maintains a back channel to Russia’s Alfa Bank, which the Clinton campaign–which seesawed between attacking Comey for his renewed probe into her emails and remaining silent on the matter–called “the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.”

The FBI investigated the Trump-Alfa Bank connection, and found “there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.” Trump’s Press Secretary Hope Hicks responded to the allegations regarding the server: “First of all, it’s not a secret server. The email server, set up for marketing purposes and operated by a third-party, has not been used since 2010,” she said. “The Trump Organization has no communication or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.”

Alfa Bank, the largest private commercial bank in Russia, responded to the claims as well. A spokesman for the bank said rumors that the bank is involved in a shadowy connection with Trump or his campaign is  “patently false.” He said the activity between the two servers were “caused by a spam attack.” He added: “Alfa Bank does not have and has never had any special or exclusive internet connection with Mr Trump or his entities.” 

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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With 1 million confirmed cases, Russia is experiencing an HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it seems like no one knows how to handle it. The response from the Russian government is conservative and prejudiced, and puts blame on the affected people for lacking morals.

Rising Epidemic

According to a UNAIDS report from July 2016, Eastern Europe and central Asia make up the only region in the world where AIDS continues to rise rapidly. More than 80 percent of new cases in that region were in Russia. Even though the majority of cases affect key populations, such as drug users and gay men, it also spreads quickly through the rest of the population, especially heterosexual women, because condoms are somewhat difficult to come by.

“Condoms have practically been banned because they lead to people having sex, and sex is risky,” said Dr. Orlova-Morozova, head of Moscow Regional Hospital’s AIDS department, to ABC. The hospital currently has 38,000 patients with HIV or AIDS. He said that there is not enough money for medicine, so they have to choose who to treat and turn away many.

Rejected by Society

This view on HIV/AIDS is so conservative and biased it is hard to believe. A poster on the hospital wall where Dr. Orlova-Morozova works says: “The majority of cases of HIV/AIDS are due to the weaknesses and improper behavior on behalf of the infected person.” People who are HIV positive often lose their jobs, their friends, and are pushed out from society.

Under President Putin’s rule, life in Russia has shifted back toward a moral standard that was commonplace during the Soviet Union era, and religious leaders have a lot of influence. The approach commonly adopted is ‘Family, fidelity and faith.’ According to LaSky, an outreach organization for gay men in Moscow, there was a “scientific” paper at a recent AIDS convention that was called “How prayer can cure HIV.”

The government has banned sex education in schools and it is punishable by law to even mention sex or AIDS to children under 15 years of age if you’re a teacher. It is estimated that over half of the HIV cases in Russia are spread via intravenous drug use. But despite the fact that methadone treatment is the most successful way of treating drug addiction according to WHO, methadone therapy has been illegal since Putin came to power. There is also no way to hand out sterile needles.

Distrust of the Government

The hospitals can’t even help everyone they would want to–people with foreign citizenships living in Russia are not entitled to free medical help. A man that ABC talked to, called Sasha, was born in Uzbekistan but lived in Moscow when he discovered he was HIV positive. To get free care he would have to go back home, where homosexuality is illegal. He can’t even work to make his own money for treatment, since he would have to prove he’s HIV-free to get a job in Russia.

Social worker Maksim Malyshev thinks it is the government’s attitude that is the problem.

In my view, the problem of HIV infection in Russia exists because the people whose job it is to find ways of preventing HIV in Russia are doing a crap job. They are living in some kind of fantasy world of their own, and they have no desire to listen about science-based methods and to the specialists who are working on this problem.

Evgeny Sorokoumov, project manager for LaSky, agrees, saying, “Putin wants to show the world that our country is strong. No one needs us. We can just die.”

The UNAIDS report concludes by stating that changes in behavior, comprehensive sex education, and distribution of condoms are important measures to prevent any further spread of HIV. But in Russia’s case, it seems to be the will that is lacking, not just the way.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In a move that frustrated the U.S. and has some questioning its adherence to international law, Russia began using a base in Iran to launch airstrikes against targets in Syria on Tuesday. Russia confirmed Wednesday that it launched additional strikes from Iran’s Shahid Nojeh Air Base in Hamedan Province for the second straight day. The U.S. State Department condemned Russia’s actions as “unfortunate, but not surprising,” and added it could be violating a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution by utilizing an Iranian air base.

For roughly the past year, Russia has been supporting the Syrian government with airstrikes against the Islamic State, which continues to maintain a presence in the heavily fractured country. Critics say Russia is bolstering Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, in his quest to exterminate any rebel groups who oppose his rule by deliberately destroying hospitals in rebel-held regions. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in Syria’s five-year civil war, and millions more have fled the country, seeking asylum in Europe and elsewhere.

Russia said it’s using Iran’s air base strictly to refuel its jets. “In the case we’re discussing there has been no supply, sale or transfer of warplanes to Iran,” said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister. Lavrov was responding to Mark Toner, the State Department spokesman who insinuated that Russia is breaching UNSC Resolution 2231, which prohibits the supply, sale, or transfer of combat aircraft to Iran without Security Council approval. “The Russian Air Force uses these warplanes with Iran’s approval in order to take part in the counter-terrorism operation,” Lavrov added.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said that Russia did alert U.S. forces of the move to launch jets from Iran, but that didn’t stop the U.S. from questioning the Kremlin’s use of an Iranian airbase as unlawful. On Wednesday, a spokesman for Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, expressed Russia’s exasperation at suggestions that it’s breaching international law. “It’s hard to resist a recommendation for some State Department representatives to check their logic and knowledge of fundamental documents of international law,” he said, referencing Resolution 2231.

The clash underscores the knotted nature of alliances and adversaries that is crippling any semblance of peace in Syria. Russia is providing military support to the Syrian government, which is also backed by Iran. Those three nations, as well as the U.S. and its primary allies, have a common enemy: ISIS. Assad, the Syrian strongman who has exterminated large swaths of his citizenry, is also pitted against a collection of rebel groups who threaten his hold on power.

Emblematic of the violence that is tearing apart the country at the moment, Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities, saw seven civilians killed by rebel-launched airstrikes on Wednesday, according to Syria’s state-run news agency. Nine more were injured. Aleppo is split between the rebel-held east and the government-held west. It’s hospitals are being targeted by the Assad regime. Civilians are effectively trapped. On Wednesday, the United Nations warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Aleppo should conditions remain the same or worsen.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Friday, Poland’s capital city, Warsaw, will host 28 heads of state from Europe and North America at the 2016 North Atlantic Treaty Organization Summit. Ironically, the two-day conference will address some modern realities that parallel the obstacles the trans-Atlantic coalition hoped to eradicate with its founding premise over a half century ago: Soviet (now Russian) deterrence, European nationalism, and political integration.

In a few ways, the world today mirrors that of 1949. Then, the Soviet Union was absorbing states into its Communist sphere and nationalist fervor engulfed a post-World War II Europe. Today, Russia, while recently pledging to cut its military spending, is putting its military might behind Western foes like Syria and continues to foment rebellion in Ukraine. And in the face of terrorist attacks and the disrupting effects of globalization, nationalist, tribal attitudes are gripping all corners of the Western world, as Britain’s exit from the European Union and the rise of Donald Trump in America and far-right movements in Europe demonstrate.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg outlined the bloc’s current threats to The Associated Press: “We live in a more dangerous world, with terrorism, with turmoil, especially to the south of the alliance, in Iraq, Syria, North Africa,” he said. “But also with a Russia which is more assertive, a Russia which has tripled its defense spending since 2000, and which has used force against an independent nation in Europe, Ukraine.” He added that NATO must adapt to a changing world.

NATO was born in 1949 out of a document called the Washington Treaty. Signed by 12 founding nations, the pact promised collective security for all of its members, present and future: “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” reads Article 5 of the treaty. The group was founded in the hope of “deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.”

Of utmost importance to Stoltenberg, President Obama, and especially NATO’s Baltic members, is deterring a resurgent Kremlin. At Friday’s conference, member-nations will hammer out the details and give the official go-ahead to four multinational military brigades to be stationed in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, the Baltic states who face the most pressing threat from Moscow. The nearly 4,000 troop-strong brigades will be led by the U.S., Britain, Canada, and Germany. At a pre-summit media briefing in Brussels, Polish NATO Ambassador Jacek Najder called the multinational effort “the most significant accomplishment of alliance deterrence and defense in decades.”

In a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Stoltenberg ticked off the issues that will be addressed at the upcoming summit meeting. NATO will “step up our response to threats from the south. Boost our support for partners. Increase our resilience against hybrid and cyber threats. And take our cooperation with the European Union to an ambitious new level,” he said. 

America’s stance on NATO is far from unanimous. For decades, it has been the alliance’s deepest well of funding, since the amount a member pays is based on its GDP. But if Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, gets elected in November, that could change. In April, he called NATO “obsolete,” claiming that European members were ripping America off, saying, “we are protecting them and they are getting all sorts of military protection and other things.” But Obama–who traveled to Warsaw on Thursday for his final summit–and Hillary Clinton, Trump’s counterpart on the Democratic side, are in sync on NATO.

In response to Trump’s comments, Obama called the alliance “the lynchpin, the cornerstone, of our collective defense and U.S. security policy.” The former secretary of state gave her two cents as well: “If Mr. Trump gets his way, it will be like Christmas in the Kremlin,” she said. “It will make America less safe and the world more dangerous.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Tens of thousands of Russians marched in Moscow today mourning the death of Boris Nemtsov. The human rights activist and critic of President Vladimir Putin’s government was shot to death on the night of Friday, February 27 while walking in the capital city. It is widely believed by Putin’s opposition that the Kremlin is responsible for the act.

Boris #Nemtsov killing spurs thousands to march in Moscow, as motives debated – http://t.co/Lc7cAFUl7S pic.twitter.com/ab9t03LBib

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 1, 2015

Reports from the ground spoke to the solemn and quiet mood of the march. Participants broke into anti-Putin chants from time to time, but for the most part the “only sound was the steady thwack of police helicopters overhead or the hum of police boats patrolling the shores of the Moscow River.” Widescale marches for a variety of causes from climate change to social justice are a hallmark of American culture; many of us have likely experienced at least one in our lifetimes and can easily recall the vibrations of the crowd, the yelling and clapping, and general energy. The near-silence reported today in Moscow is difficult to imagine. Nemtsov was an outspoken critic of the Putin government, calling out its actions in Ukraine in a radio interview only hours before his death. Fellow opposition leader Ilya Yashin weighed in on Nemtsov’s killing and lent weight to the belief that it was ordered by the government:

Essentially it is an act of terror. It is a political murder aimed at frightening the population, or the part of the population that supported Nemtsov or did not agree with the government. I hope we won’t get scared, that we will continue what Boris was doing.

Secretary of State John Kerry took to the Sunday morning shows to lend the official American perspective on the killing. He asserted that the U.S. does not have any information what happened or who shot Netsov, but that he is pushing for a “thorough, transparent, real investigation, not just of who fired the shots, but who, if anyone, may have ordered or instructed [the shooting].” Members of Congress expressed their condolences and outrage over Nemtsov’s death, including Senator John McCain (R-A) via Twitter:

I am heartbroken by murder of my friend #BorisNemtsov – a voice for human rights in #Russia. My stmt: http://t.co/f1yHqEtWpj — John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) February 28, 2015

McCain also released a statement that directly addressed Nemtsov’s fight against the Kremlin and the need for continued pressure to decrease human rights abuses in Russia.

That Boris’ murder occurred in a secure part of the Russian capital raises legitimate questions about the circumstances of his killing and who was responsible. But regardless of who actually pulled the trigger, Boris is dead because of the environment of impunity that Vladimir Putin has created in Russia, where individuals are routinely persecuted and attacked for their beliefs.

Whether or not a fair investigation will be conducted into Boris Nemtsov’s death, the fact remains that tensions in Russia are nearing a boiling point, and the international community can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to what is happening in the region.

Chelsey D. Goff

Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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