While NATO Leaders Toasted in Ankara, Turkey Put a Dissident on a Plane to Moscow
A family quarrel, an expired visa - and a 24-year-old anti-war activist delivered into Putin's hands. The summit host has some explaining to do.
You couldn’t script a darker split screen. As NATO leaders posed for family photos in Ankara - and Turkey positioned itself as the summit’s big winner, with sanctions relief and F-35s dangling within reach - a 24-year-old Russian anti-war activist named Ariadna Litvinova was sitting in a Moscow detention cell, courtesy of Turkish authorities.
Her crime? Writing “Murderers. Peace to Ukraine. Freedom to political prisoners” on pro-war propaganda banners in St. Petersburg. For that, the Moscow Times reports, she faces up to seven years in a Russian prison - in what appears to be the first known case of Ankara returning an anti-war Russian to their home country.
How she got there is where this story turns tragic. Litvinova had fled to Turkey to stay with her father. In May, a family quarrel broke out; her father and his wife called the police, he told the BBC’s Russian service in an account reported by Meduza. He never filed a complaint - but police took her anyway. Her visa-free stay had expired, she couldn’t secure a residence permit, and after more than a month in a deportation center, Turkey put her on a plane to Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, where security services were waiting. Her father learned of her deportation from media reports. According to the Telegram channel Prison Lawyer, which first broke the news, she was detained on arrival; a St. Petersburg court has since switched her to pretrial detention. Her lawyers say contact with her has been lost.
Note the mechanics, because they matter. This wasn’t an extradition - no Russian request, no court proceedings, no appeals. An expired visa gave Ankara a bureaucratic fig leaf. But deportation is a choice, not an obligation: Turkey could have removed her to a third country. Instead, it delivered a wanted Kremlin critic directly into the hands of the state persecuting her. Kovcheg, the group supporting Russian anti-war exiles, says it has already documented direct cooperation between the Russian and Turkish Interpol bureaus that bypasses the central office in France. Turkey, once a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Russians fleeing Putin’s war, is safe no longer.
And it fits a pattern on full display this week. Turkey is reported to have rejected numerous media accreditation requests submitted through NATO for this summit - independent outlets, and those critical of Ankara, conspicuously among them. It's why I'm writing this from Rome and not from the summit floor. The same Turkey that once prided itself as a safe haven - for Arab dissidents and exiles fleeing their regimes, for Russians fleeing Putin's mobilization - now decides who gets to report, and who gets deported.
So here’s the question nobody in Ankara’s summit hall seems eager to ask: what does it say about the alliance when its host - the very week it’s being welcomed back into the fold with advanced fighter jets - is doing the Kremlin’s dirty work?
Erdogan got his F-35s. Litvinova got a prison cell. Everyone’s a winner at this summit - except the people NATO claims to stand for.
Reporting from Rome, I break down day one of the NATO Leaders Summit in Ankara - where Donald Trump arrived determined to dominate, reviving his Greenland "rescue" fantasy, berating allies over burden-sharing, and soaking up the secretary general's cholesterol-raising flattery. Fresh U.S. strikes on Iran threaten to hijack the agenda - while host Turkey emerges as the summit's big winner, with sanctions relief and F-35s on the table. And Zelensky? He's in the room asking for Patriots, drones and real security guarantees from an alliance built on non-binding pledges. Skepticism is more than deserved.
**Full disclosure: I'm reporting from Rome, not Ankara - Turkey is reported to have rejected a raft of media accreditation requests submitted through NATO for this summit, particularly from independent outlets and those critical of the government. Draw your own conclusions.
The United States carried out strikes against several targets in Iran on Tuesday after attacks on three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon’s Central Command said. U.S. forces “have begun launching a series of powerful strikes against Iran to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway,” the command said on social media. Central Command said the strikes were in response to attacks on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours. “Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire,” Central Command said in a statement on social media. The main global oil price was up more than 6 percent on Tuesday afternoon after U.S. authorities said they had begun striking Iranian targets and the Treasury Department revoked a sanctions waiver for Iranian oil sales. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading at around $76.50, its highest level in roughly two weeks - NYT
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever suggested President Donald Trump may be taking the U.S. World Cup defeat to Belgium “hard,” while joking that he wouldn’t be the one to bring it up when the two meet. Speaking to Flemish public broadcaster VRT News, De Wever said congratulations on Belgium’s victory have become the first thing people mention to him at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. “Everyone’s talking about one thing, and that is congratulations for the well-deserved victory of the Red Devils,” he said. “Of course, the losing party is also present. That also happens to be the biggest partner in NATO.” Asked whether he was worried Trump could be upset by the result, De Wever quipped that the president “has the reputation of sometimes reacting a bit irritably to things that he doesn’t like, and I think this defeat will hit hard.” Still, De Wever said he had no plans to needle Trump. “I’m not going to start about it myself,” he said. “But if he were to say something about it, then I’ll see what that is and how I can react to it.” - Politico
Donald Trump has flashed his bruised and makeup-slathered hand during his visit to Turkey. The president, 80, arrived in Turkey on Tuesday ahead of a NATO summit, where fellow NATO leader and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 72, took him by the arm and appeared to guide Trump to the right place during the welcome ceremony. When the two men later shook hands in front of the gathered press, Trump’s paw flashed for the world to see: dark, tender, and covered in a thick layer of concealer. Trump’s troublesome appendage has become one of the most prominent and longest-running health concerns amid an array of worrying symptoms. A neck rash has also been spotted poking out of the top of his collar, and, as was the case in Turkey, he has appeared unsteady on his feet, particularly on stairs. The president has also been spotted repeatedly with swollen cankles, which the White House has claimed is caused by the pooling of blood at the bottom of the legs. They say it is common among the elderly - The Daily Beast
The woman suspected of carrying out a parcel bombing in Monaco which injured a sanctioned Ukrainian multi-millionaire and his family has been found dead, Ukraine’s security service (SBU) has said. A cross-border manhunt had been launched for Anastasiia Berezovska, a Ukrainian woman who officials believed had fled the wealthy city-state after planting the bomb in the entrance hall of an apartment building on 29 June. The 39-year-old’s body was found buried in a forest in the Kyiv region with gunshot wounds to the head, according to the SBU and Ukraine’s prosecutor general. Two people, including a current officer within Ukraine’s military intelligence service, have been charged over her murder. Berezovska arrived in Ukraine two days after the attack on 1 July, the SBU said in its statement, citing law enforcement sources. Two suspects met Berezovska in a car on a highway in the Kyiv region two days later, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general told the BBC. “The victim traveled a certain distance with them, after which she was killed.” The SBU said she had communicated with her family and two men after entering Ukraine - a former law enforcement officer and a current officer in Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, an agency of the Ministry of Defence. The two men were investigated as possible accomplices in the Monaco attack based on information they repeatedly transferred funds to Berezovska’s “crypto and bank accounts”. The intelligence officer subsequently confessed to Berezovska’s murder and said he had done so with “another suspect”, the agency said. Both men have since been charged with “intentional murder committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons” - BBC
French far-right chief Marine Le Pen Tuesday said she was still standing for president next year, after an appeals court confirmed her embezzlement conviction but paved the way for her to run with a shorter ban from office. “This evening, I am a candidate in the presidential election,” she said, ending uncertainty over whether she would run for the top job for the fourth time in elections viewed as her party’s best ever chance to win the presidency. The Paris appeals court earlier on Tuesday upheld a guilty verdict against the three-time presidential hopeful from the anti-immigration National Rally (RN) over a fake jobs scam at the European Parliament that diverted more than €2.8 million (more than $3 million) in EU funds. It banned her from office for 15 months and sentenced her to one year under house arrest to be served with an electronic tag, throwing into doubt whether she would be able to campaign unhindered. But the 57-year-old veteran politician on the evening news said she would appeal that decision with the country’s highest court, which would automatically suspend that decision. “The appeal to the court of cassation suspends the effects of the judgement, so I will campaign without an electronic ankle bracelet,” she said on the evening news. Le Pen said she would run alongside her 30-year-old lieutenant, Jordan Bardella, who she hopes will become prime minister if she is elected. “Bardella and I will very soon be launching this presidential campaign,” she said - France 24
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