DUBAI: Russia’s warning that Ukraine was readying to use a “dirty bomb” fits Moscow’s track record of deception, when it “accuses others for what they intend to do themselves,” NATO’s chief told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.
“Russia continues to accuse falsely Ukraine for preparing and making a dirty bomb — that is absurd, because why should Ukraine use a dirty bomb on the territories they want to liberate?” Jens Stoltenberg said during a visit to a US aircraft carrier currently in the Mediterranean, USS George H.W. Bush.
Western leaders have rejected Moscow’s claim that Ukraine is planning to set off a crude device that could spread nuclear, chemical or biological materials over a wide area.
They fear that the Kremlin, which has faced major setbacks in its invasion of Ukraine as NATO countries back Kyiv with weapons and funds, is preparing a “false flag” operation where it launches such am attack and blames it on Ukraine.
“The world would see through any attempt to use the allegation as a pretext for escalation,” the United States, France and Britain said in a joint statement.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday was to discuss the “dirty bomb” claim.
“I would be careful speculating, but we’ve seen this before, we also saw it at the start of the war,” Stoltenberg said in a video interview with AFPTV.
“A lot of false accusations against Ukraine were used in a way to ‘excuse’ the invasion that happened later.... We have seen what has happened before and that makes it necessary to follow closely what Russia now does.”
Stoltenberg added: “They need to understand that we will not accept a false pretext so that Russia further escalates the war in Ukraine.”
During his visit to the US warship, Stoltenberg addressed more than a hundred servicemen and women on board in the flight hangar, in front of a stage with a giant US flag and a line of national flags of NATO’s 30 member countries.
The hangar held a couple of F-18 multi-role fighter jets and a portrait of the aircraft carrier’s namesake, former US president George H.W. Bush.
The warship was leading a carrier strike group, a flotilla of US Navy vessels that includes a cruiser and four destroyers.
Stoltenberg told the personnel in the aircraft carrier that the strike group “sends a powerful message” that NATO allies are in a state of “increased vigilance from the Baltic to the Mediterranean — and the Black Sea” which is off southern Ukraine.
While NATO is not directly involved in Ukraine’s struggle against the Russian invasion, it has repeatedly said it will vigorously defend every centimeter of territory in NATO member states that neighbor Ukraine should they be attacked.
US President Joe Biden has warned Moscow that it using a nuclear weapon in its war in Ukraine — including a lower-yield so-called tactical nuke — would be “an incredibly serious mistake.”
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‘Dirty bomb’ warning fits Russia record of deception: NATO chief
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‘Dirty bomb’ warning fits Russia record of deception: NATO chief
- "Russia continues to accuse falsely Ukraine for preparing and making a dirty bomb -- that is absurd," Jens Stoltenberg said
- Western leaders have rejected Moscow's claim that Ukraine is planning to set off a crude device
Malawi suffers as US aid cuts cripple health care
LILONGWE: A catastrophic collapse of health care services in Malawi a year after US funding cuts is undoing a decade of progress against HIV/AIDS, providers warn, leaving some of the most vulnerable feeling like “living dead.”
In the impoverished southern Africa country, the US government’s decision to slash foreign aid in January 2025 has led to significant cuts in HIV treatments, a spike in pregnancies and a return to discrimination.
Chisomo Nkwanga, an HIV-positive man who lives in the northern town of Mzuzu, told AFP that the end of US-funded specialized care was like a death sentence.
After his normal provider of life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) vanished due to budget cuts, he turned to a public hospital.
“The health care worker shouted at me in front of others,” Nkwanga recalled. “They said, ‘You gay, you are now starting to patronize our hospitals because the whites who supported your evil behavior have stopped?’“
“I gave up,” he said, trembling. “I am a living dead.”
More than one million of aid-dependent Malawi’s roughly 22 million people live with HIV and the United States previously provided 60 percent of its HIV treatment budget.
Globally, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths have been caused by the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, which has upended humanitarian efforts to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in some of the world’s poorest regions.
- Lay offs, panic -
In Malawi, the drying up of support from USAID and the flagship US anti-HIV program, PEPFAR, has left a “system in panic,” said Gift Trapence, executive director of the Center for the Development of People (CEDEP).
“The funding cut came on such short notice that we couldn’t prepare or engage existing service providers,” Trapence told AFP.
“We had to lay off staff... we closed two drop-in centers and maintained two on skeleton staff,” he said.
“We did this because we knew that if we closed completely, we would be closing everything for the LGBTI community.”
The Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) non-government organization, a cornerstone of rural health care, has been forced to ground the mobile clinics that served as the only medical link for remote villages.
“We had two big grants that were supporting our work, particularly in areas where there were no other service providers,” said executive director Donald Makwakwa.
“We are likely to lose out on all the successes that we have registered over the years,” he said.
A resident of a village once served by FPAM told AFP there had been an explosion in unplanned pregnancies when the family planning provider stopped work.
“I know of nearly 25 girls in my village who got pregnant when FPAM suspended its services here last year,” said Maureen Maseko at a clinic on the brink of collapse.
- Progress undone -
For over a decade, Malawi’s fight against AIDS relied on “peer navigators” and drop-in centers that supported people with HIV and ensured they followed treatment.
With the funding for these services gone, the default rate for people taking the HIV preventative drug PrEP hit 80 percent in districts like Blantyre, according to a report by the CEDEP.
“This is a crisis waiting to happen,” the report quoted former district health care coordinator Fyness Jere as saying.
“When people stop taking PrEP, we increase the chances of new HIV infections... we are undoing a decade of progress in months,” she said.
Trapence noted that without specialized support, thousands of patients had simply disappeared from the medical grid.
“We lost everything, including the structures that were supporting access... treatment and care,” he said.
In the impoverished southern Africa country, the US government’s decision to slash foreign aid in January 2025 has led to significant cuts in HIV treatments, a spike in pregnancies and a return to discrimination.
Chisomo Nkwanga, an HIV-positive man who lives in the northern town of Mzuzu, told AFP that the end of US-funded specialized care was like a death sentence.
After his normal provider of life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) vanished due to budget cuts, he turned to a public hospital.
“The health care worker shouted at me in front of others,” Nkwanga recalled. “They said, ‘You gay, you are now starting to patronize our hospitals because the whites who supported your evil behavior have stopped?’“
“I gave up,” he said, trembling. “I am a living dead.”
More than one million of aid-dependent Malawi’s roughly 22 million people live with HIV and the United States previously provided 60 percent of its HIV treatment budget.
Globally, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths have been caused by the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, which has upended humanitarian efforts to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in some of the world’s poorest regions.
- Lay offs, panic -
In Malawi, the drying up of support from USAID and the flagship US anti-HIV program, PEPFAR, has left a “system in panic,” said Gift Trapence, executive director of the Center for the Development of People (CEDEP).
“The funding cut came on such short notice that we couldn’t prepare or engage existing service providers,” Trapence told AFP.
“We had to lay off staff... we closed two drop-in centers and maintained two on skeleton staff,” he said.
“We did this because we knew that if we closed completely, we would be closing everything for the LGBTI community.”
The Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) non-government organization, a cornerstone of rural health care, has been forced to ground the mobile clinics that served as the only medical link for remote villages.
“We had two big grants that were supporting our work, particularly in areas where there were no other service providers,” said executive director Donald Makwakwa.
“We are likely to lose out on all the successes that we have registered over the years,” he said.
A resident of a village once served by FPAM told AFP there had been an explosion in unplanned pregnancies when the family planning provider stopped work.
“I know of nearly 25 girls in my village who got pregnant when FPAM suspended its services here last year,” said Maureen Maseko at a clinic on the brink of collapse.
- Progress undone -
For over a decade, Malawi’s fight against AIDS relied on “peer navigators” and drop-in centers that supported people with HIV and ensured they followed treatment.
With the funding for these services gone, the default rate for people taking the HIV preventative drug PrEP hit 80 percent in districts like Blantyre, according to a report by the CEDEP.
“This is a crisis waiting to happen,” the report quoted former district health care coordinator Fyness Jere as saying.
“When people stop taking PrEP, we increase the chances of new HIV infections... we are undoing a decade of progress in months,” she said.
Trapence noted that without specialized support, thousands of patients had simply disappeared from the medical grid.
“We lost everything, including the structures that were supporting access... treatment and care,” he said.
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