DUBAI: Ukraine has granted citizenship to prominent Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov who fled Russia with his wife after denouncing the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday.
Russia has been seeking the arrest of Nevzorov, accusing him of spreading false information about what Moscow portrays as its “special military operation” in Ukraine. He and his wife fled Russia in March.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister said the authorities in Kyiv had granted citizenship to Nevzorov and his wife Lydia.
Nevzorov confirmed he had received Ukrainian citizenship in a statement on Telegram messenger in which he said Russia’s war was a crime and Ukraine its victim.
“I take the side of the victim. And I am damn grateful to those tormented, desperate, bloodied people of Ukraine who allowed me to take my place among them,” he said.
Russia launched an investigation against Nevzorov, whose YouTube channel has over 1.8 million subscribers, after he reported that Russian forces had deliberately shelled a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol.
Russia has denied the bombing accusing Ukraine of a “staged provocation.”
The investigation was launched after Russia in March passed a law that envisages jail terms of up to 15 years for intentionally spreading “fake” news about Russia’s military.
Last December, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law that simplified the acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship for Russians who are persecuted for political reasons in their own country.
The president’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Millions of people have been displaced and thousands killed in what Kyiv and the West say is a war of aggression and what Moscow describes as a campaign to disarm its southern neighbor and root out people it calls dangerous nationalists.
Ukraine grants citizenship to top Russian journalist who denounced war
https://arab.news/88vb6
Ukraine grants citizenship to top Russian journalist who denounced war
- Russia has been seeking the arrest of Nevzorov, accusing him of spreading false information
- Nevzorov confirmed he had received Ukrainian citizenship in a statement on Telegram messenger
EU warns Meta it must open up WhatsApp to rival AI chatbots
- The EU executive on Monday told Meta to give rival chatbots access to WhatsApp after an antitrust probe found the US giant to be in breach of the bloc’s competition rules
BRUSSELS: The EU executive on Monday told Meta to give rival chatbots access to WhatsApp after an antitrust probe found the US giant to be in breach of the bloc’s competition rules.
The European Commission said a change in Meta’s terms had “effectively” barred third-party artificial intelligence assistants from connecting to customers via the messaging platform since January.
Competition chief Teresa Ribera said the EU was “considering quickly imposing interim measures on Meta, to preserve access for competitors to WhatsApp while the investigation is ongoing, and avoid Meta’s new policy irreparably harming competition in Europe.”
The EU executive, which is in charge of competition policy, sent Meta a warning known as a “statement of objections,” a formal step in antitrust probes.
Meta now has a chance to reply and defend itself. Monday’s step does not prejudge the outcome of the probe, the commission said.
The tech giant rejected the commission’s preliminary findings.
“The facts are that there is no reason for the EU to intervene,” a Meta spokesperson said.
“There are many AI options and people can use them from app stores, operating systems, devices, websites, and industry partnerships. The commission’s logic incorrectly assumes the WhatsApp Business API is a key distribution channel for these chatbots,” the spokesperson said.
Opened in December, the EU probe marks the latest attempt by the 27-nation bloc to rein in Big Tech, many of whom are based in the United States, in the face of strong pushback by the government of US President Donald Trump.
- Meta in the firing line -
The investigation covers the European Economic Area (EEA), made up of the bloc’s 27 states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway — with the exception of Italy, which opened a separate investigation into Meta in July.
The commission said that Meta is “likely to be dominant” in the EEA for consumer messaging apps, notably through WhatsApp, and accused Meta of “abusing this dominant position by refusing access” to competitors.
“We cannot allow dominant tech companies to illegally leverage their dominance to give themselves an unfair advantage,” Ribera said in a statement.
There is no legal deadline for concluding an antitrust probe.
Meta is already under investigation under different laws in the European Union.
EU regulators are also investigating its platforms Facebook and Instagram over fears they are not doing enough to tackle the risk of social media addiction for children.
The company also appealed a 200-million-euro fine imposed last year by the commission under the online competition law, the Digital Markets Act.
That case focused on its policy asking users to choose between an ad-free subscription and a free, ad-supported service, and Brussels and Meta remain in discussions over finding an alternative that would address the EU’s concerns.
