LONDON: John Sawers, former head of UK’s MI6 spy agency, said Russia has become a danger to Britain and the country must be prepared to take steps to defend itself and its allies. Sawers, who recently retired after five years as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, told BBC that Russia poses a “state to state threat.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Saturday that isolated clashes were punctuating a shaky truce with pro-Russian rebels after international monitors warned that the conflict in the country stands at a “crossroads.”
Kiev military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said that fighting had halted along most of the frontline but rebels were attacking government positions around Donetsk airport, one of the most fiercely contested locations in the conflict.
No soldiers were reported killed over the past 24 hours, after Kiev said Friday that three servicmen had died after several days without a fatality.
The two warring sides both said that they were continuing the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front — a key next step in a stuttering European-brokered peace plan to end fighting that has cost at least 5,800 lives since April.
But while monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have reported weapons movements on most sides they say it is too early to confirm a full pull-back.
As the fragile peace deal seemed to gain traction, the OSCE’s envoy to Ukraine told the UN Security Council on Friday that while there were encouraging signs, the country still risked all-out war.
“We seem to be at the crossroads, where we are facing the risk of a further escalation of the conflict or where common sense, responsibility, and humanity shall prevail,” envoy Heidi Tagliavini said.
The Security Council’s meeting on the conflict came a year to the day after Russian and pro-Moscow forces began occupying strategic sites on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
Russia formally annexed the territory in March 2014, triggering an international furor. The uprising in Ukraine’s east began the following month.
The UN said Friday there was a crisis in rebel-held areas, where people were living in “extraordinarily difficult circumstances.”
“We really do have a humanitarian crisis in the separatist-held areas,” UN aid coordinator in Ukraine Neal Walker said in Brussels.
“We’ve been really hoping that the cease-fire will hold over time and that that will enable us to respond more rapidly to those critical humanitarian needs,” said Walker, as the UN this week launched an appeal for $316 million in humanitarian aid.
The UN estimates 4.7 million people in or near the combat zones need help while another 300,000 people have fled to other parts of the country and a million abroad.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cautioned Friday that the withdrawal of heavy weapons was “just a first, test step.”
“At any moment our soldiers are ready to return our weapons to their previous positions and rebuff the enemy,” he told a group of soldiers.
Kiev accuses Russia of continuing to pile in weapons and men to bolster the rebels and Poroshenko warned that even if the peace held, Russia would continue to threaten Ukraine.
“Even if there is a lengthy truce that leads to a political solution and long-term peace, the military threat from the east will unfortunately remain.”
Russia’s annexation of Crimea sparked the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.
The West is hoping the UN-backed truce deal negotiated by Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France in Minsk earlier this month can prevent a further escalation.
The United States and European Union have warned Russia — which has been hit by successive rounds of sanctions over Ukraine — could face fresh economic punishment if the peace process unravels.
Moscow has itself ratcheted up the pressure by warning it could cut off gas supplies to Ukraine — and, by extension, to parts of the EU.
Moscow last year cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine before turning the taps back on in December after making cash-strapped Kiev pay in advance for its supplies.
bur-del/ccr
Ex-MI6 chief warns of ‘Russian danger’
Ex-MI6 chief warns of ‘Russian danger’
US Sen. Cruz calls ‘Somali fraud scandal’ in Minnesota ‘morally repugnant’
- State, federal money allegedly used for personal reasons rather than childcare, food services for seniors
- ‘Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed and a future diminished’
CHICAGO: Republican US Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas denounced the growing “Somali fraud scandal” in Minnesota as “morally repugnant” during a meeting of the Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, which met on Feb. 9.
Allegations of fraud include claims that state and federal money have been used for personal reasons, such as the purchase of vehicles, vacations, clothes and personal expenses, rather than to provide childcare or food services for seniors.
There have also been accusations that some Somali-run childcare centers either had no children being served, or far fewer of them than what was claimed in government funding applications.
“There are few crimes more morally repugnant than stealing from vulnerable children,” Cruz said. “Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed and a future diminished. Child welfare fraud plunders our children’s potential and erodes our nation’s future.
“And disturbingly, at the start of this new year, America has learned that this kind of looting wasn’t occurring in some distant or lawless place, but in the heart of America’s Midwest.”
A 2025 report by the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General found that issues involved overpayments to recipients.
The inspector general, according to media reports, sampled 1,155 childcare centers and found that 11 percent of the payments made to those centers in 2023 had errors.
There are also accusations that COVID-19 relief funds awarded to Somali businesses allegedly harmed during the pandemic were misused or based on exaggerated data.
Cruz said the fraud was neither “accidental or unforeseeable,” although several daycare operators say the accusations are false and political.
He is among a growing number of officials nationwide who have cited Minnesota as an example of how Democrats have failed to protect taxpayers from such criminal acts.
US President Donald Trump has showcased the accusations repeatedly during the past year, and the fraud was used as the basis to direct the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter Minnesota and target “illegal aliens” — people who enter the country and establish their residencies illegally.
On Jan. 9, Secretary of the US Treasury Department Scott Bessent announced a special task force to investigate the fraud at Trump’s direction, accusing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other Democrats of failing to protect taxpayers.
Walz ran for vice president as the running mate of presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.
Bessent said the allegations involve “complex and rampant fraud” in Minnesota led by several Somali businessmen that have “stolen billions of dollars” from state-funded programs intended to provide housing for disabled seniors and to feed and shelter children.
The task force includes Bessent’s agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and the Justice Department.
“President Trump has instructed the administration to bring accountability for the hardworking people of Minnesota,” Bessent said in a statement on Jan. 9.
“Under Democratic Governor Tim Walz, welfare fraud has spiraled out of control. Billions of dollars intended for feeding hungry children, housing disabled seniors, and providing services for children in need were diverted to benefit Somali fraud rings.”
Bessent accused “complex fraud rings in Minnesota” led by Somali businessmen and women of stealing the money from state programs for their personal enrichment in the US and abroad.
“Perpetrators stole money to purchase residential and commercial real estate, luxury goods, vehicles, planes, international flights and other luxury expenses — all at the cost of the US taxpayer,” he said.
Minnesota is home to the largest concentration of Somali immigrants and their descendants in the US, with recent estimates suggesting a population of more than 100,000.
The population is the political base for Ilhan Omar, a Somali American first elected to the Minnesota State Legislature in 2017 and then elected to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in 2019.
Trump said on Jan. 21 at the World Economic Forum: “The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures, which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own.”
He added: “We’re taking people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed — it's not a nation — got no government, got no police … got no nothing.”
Trump said up to 90 percent of the Minnesota fraud is caused by people who came to the US illegally from Somalia.
The accusations have resulted in an increased presence of ICE personnel in Minnesota focusing on the Somali population.
In response to the scandal, Walz announced that he would not seek reelection to a third term as Minnesota’s governor in the November general election.
The US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issued an alert urging financial institutions to identify and report fraud associated with federal child nutrition programs in Minnesota.
The federal investigation of the nonprofit “Feeding Our Future” program has resulted in the indictment of 98 defendants, with dozens convicted and sentenced. The investigation revealed that 85 of the 98 charged are of Somali descent.
