Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a significant European Union aid package for Ukraine, U.S. sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and revelations of a U.S. spying operation in Venezuela.
Orban Caves on Ukraine
The European Union unanimously approved $54 billion in new aid to Ukraine on Thursday following weeks of pushback from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. If the European Parliament votes to pass the fund, which it is expected to do in the near future, the first tranche of nearly $4.9 billion will be sent to Kyiv next month. The EU is “taking leadership & responsibility in support for Ukraine,” European Council President Charles Michel wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “[W]e know what is at stake.”
Until now, Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest EU ally, has kept the EU from providing Ukraine additional funds for its war against Russia. The bloc requires a unanimous vote to approve decisions. Orban vetoed a multibillion-dollar aid package to Ukraine in December 2023 and threatened to continue to do so unless the EU unfreezes billions of euros earmarked for Hungary that remain frozen due to concerns about democratic backsliding in Budapest.
Orban maintained his opposition this time around, demanding that the Ukraine aid be authorized annually by unanimous vote, effectively giving him the ability to veto it year after year. The EU rejected that demand, but Orban ultimately caved after he said he received “assurances the aid would be used sensibly and would not come from EU funds that had been earmarked for Budapest from the bloc’s joint coffers,” Reuters reported. As part of Thursday’s deal, the EU will hold yearly discussions to gauge the funding’s effectiveness, with the option to renew the package in two years “if needed.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the decision, saying it will enable long-term economic stability and growth. Kyiv spends almost all of its domestic revenue on its defense sector, leaving Western aid to largely cover non-war matters, such as social security. A single day of fighting costs around $136 million, Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said.
However, Kyiv is still hoping for an additional $8.5 billion in aid from the United States, which remains held up by congressional Republicans who are demanding that President Joe Biden impose stricter immigration restrictions at the U.S. southern border before they approve the aid.
Today’s Most Read
- The Habsburg Solution for Viktor Orban by Caroline de Gruyter
- America Is Suffering From a Resolve Gap by Stephen M. Walt
- The U.S. Is Considering Giving Russia’s Frozen Assets to Ukraine by Keith Johnson and Amy Mackinnon
What We’re Following
Israeli settler sanctions. Biden issued an executive order on Thursday that enables the U.S. State and Treasury departments to sanction Israeli settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
The order, which aims to address actions that “undermine peace, security, and stability” in the West Bank, authorizes the secretaries of state and treasury, in consultation with each other, to sanction “foreign nationals engaged in actions that include the directing or participating in acts or threats of violence against civilians, intimidating civilians to cause them to leave their homes, destroying or seizing property, and acts of terrorism.”
The State Department promptly announced that, in accordance with the order, it was imposing sanctions on four Israeli settlers for violent acts, including initiating a riot that killed one Palestinian civilian and destroyed property, directly assaulting Palestinian farmers, attacking Israeli activists in the West Bank, and using intimidation to force Palestinians to leave their homes. The sanctions block those individuals from accessing U.S. property and assets, prohibits U.S. citizens from aiding the individuals financially, and restrict their travel to the United States.
The decision comes as the State Department also reportedly examines policy options for possible U.S. and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the Israel-Hamas war concludes. However, no policy decision has yet been made. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday that the Biden administration is “actively pursuing the establishment as an independent Palestinian state, with real security guarantees for Israel” and is examining “a wide range of options” for how that might be achieved.
Official U.S. policy has long supported the eventual establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel—the so-called two-state solution—but has firmly opposed the bilateral and international recognition of a Palestinian state, maintaining that Palestinian statehood should only be determined as part of direct final-status peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, refuses to relinquish Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza, saying Israeli security is dependent on “control of all territory west of the Jordan [River].”
“Operation Money Badger.” A leaked U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency memo from 2018 detailed how Washington sent undercover operatives to Venezuela to secretly record and build on drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leaders, The Associated Press reported on Thursday. The yearslong investigation, dubbed “Operation Money Badger,” targeted top Venezuelan officials, including President Nicolás Maduro and close Maduro ally and businessman Alex Saab. “It is necessary to conduct this operation unilaterally and without notifying Venezuelan officials,” the document said, suggesting that the United States knew it was possibly violating international law.
The report strikes at the United States’ already fraught relations with Venezuela, which worsened on Tuesday when Caracas said it would stop accepting U.S. deportation flights within 14 days unless Biden reverses his decision to reimpose sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and gas sector. U.S. exemptions were set to expire on April 18. But Biden said he would not renew the relief deal after Maduro barred opposition candidate María Corina Machado from running for office, which the State Department said violates a reform plan that Maduro signed with the U.S.-backed opposition Unity Platform in Barbados last year.
Politically charged arrest. Indian opposition leader Hemant Soren petitioned the nation’s Supreme Court on Thursday over his alleged unlawful arrest—just months before India is set to hold national elections. Soren was accused on Wednesday of benefiting from land fraud in Ranchi, Jharkhand state, where he served as chief minister until his detention. Fellow opposition members said the incarceration was politically motivated. The high court is scheduled to hear his appeal on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly cracked down on dissidents to boost his Bharatiya Janata Party’s hold on power. In doing so, regional experts argue that he has weakened India’s democratic institutions. “To his critics, Modi is a walking controversy and wannabe despot; to his admirers—who are, in India, a much larger group—he is a compassionate leader unwavering in his commitment to governance,” FP’s Allison Meakem reported. This devoted following means that this year’s elections will likely see a Modi victory, she wrote.
Farmers’ protests hit Brussels. While EU leaders debated Ukraine aid in Brussels on Thursday, European farmers threw firecrackers, eggs, and beer bottles at the nearby European Parliament building to demand relief from rising prices. The weekslong protests have spread across the continent, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators criticizing poor bureaucracy, high taxes, and unfair foreign competition. “To the farmers that are outside, we see you and we hear you,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said.
Odds and Ends
For World Brief’s most avid followers, we have an update on yesterday’s nail-biting adventure: The Scottish Highlands’s escaped Japanese macaque has finally been found. After four days on the run, a local discovered the wanted monkey snacking on peanuts from a bird feeder in their backyard. The fugitive has since been returned to Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie, where a vet will check the naughty monkey before he is released. “We’re so happy that he’s back and safe,” search coordinator Keith Gilchrist said. “In the end, the bird feeder saved the day.”