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    Meta Manager Was Hacked With Spyware and Wiretapped in Greece

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    Artemis Seaford, a dual U.S.-Greek national, was targeted with a cyberespionage tool while also under a wiretap by the Greek spy agency in a case that shows the spread of illicit snooping in Europe.A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta’s security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and officials with knowledge of the case.The disclosure is the first known case of an American citizen being targeted in a European Union country by the advanced snooping technology, the use of which has been the subject of a widening scandal in Greece. It demonstrates that the illicit use of spyware is spreading beyond use by authoritarian governments against opposition figures and journalists, and has begun to creep into European democracies, even ensnaring a foreign national working for a major global corporation.The simultaneous tapping of the target’s phone by the national intelligence service and the way she was hacked indicate that the spy service and whoever implanted the spyware, known as Predator, were working hand in hand.The latest case comes as elections approach in Greece, which has been rocked by a mounting wiretapping and illegal spyware scandal since last year, raising accusations that the government has abused the powers of its spy agency for illicit purposes.The Predator spyware that infected the device is marketed by an Athens-based company and has been exported from Greece with the government’s blessing, in possible breach of European Union laws that consider such products potential weapons, The New York Times found in December.The Greek government has denied using Predator and has legislated against the use of spyware, which it has called “illegal.”“The Greek authorities and security services have at no time acquired or used the Predator surveillance software. To suggest otherwise is wrong,” Giannis Oikonomou, the government spokesman, said in an email. “The alleged use of this software by nongovernmental parties is under ongoing judicial investigation.”“Greece was among the first countries in Europe that passed legislation banning the sale, use and possession of malware in December 2022, which has the most severe legal consequences and strict penalties for individuals and legal entities involved in such an offense,” Mr. Oikonoumou continued. “The same legislation includes provisions on restructuring of the National Intelligence Service, additional safeguards for legal surveillance and modernizing procedures on confidentiality of communications.”European Union lawmakers have launched their own investigation.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece has come under pressure to explain how and why Predator was sold from Greece and used in Greece, supposedly without the government’s knowledge, against members of his own government, opposition politicians and journalists.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece, center, during a parliamentary debate in January. He has been under pressure to explain how and why Predator spyware was sold from Greece and used in Greece.Petros Giannakouris/Associated PressHe has insisted that the Greek government had nothing to do with the cyber-surveillance tool, but that opaque actors may have used it behind the authorities’ backs.The latest case centers on Artemis Seaford, a Harvard and Stanford Law graduate, who worked from 2020 to the end of 2022 as a Trust and Security manager at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, while living in Greece.In her role at Meta, Ms. Seaford worked on policy questions relating to cybersecurity and she also maintained working relations with Greek as well as other European officials.After she saw her name on a leaked list of spyware targets in the Greek news media last November, she took her phone to The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the world’s foremost forensics experts on spyware.The lab report, which was reviewed by The New York Times, found that Ms. Seaford’s mobile phone had been hacked with the Predator spyware in September 2021 for at least two months.“This does not preclude the possibility of other infections, or of an infection period extending beyond 2021-11-16,” the forensic report by Citizen Lab said.Ms. Seaford on Friday filed a lawsuit in Athens against anyone found responsible for the hack. The suit compels prosecutors to open an investigation.Ms. Seaford also filed a request with the Greek Authority for the Protection of the Privacy of Telecommunications, an independent constitutional watchdog, asking them to determine whether the Greek national intelligence service, known as the EYP, had wiretapped her phone..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.Two people with direct knowledge of the case said that Ms. Seaford had in fact been wiretapped by the Greek spy service from August 2021, the month before the spyware hack, and for several months into 2022.They spoke on condition of anonymity because it is illegal for them to publicly comment on EYP operations.It could take a minimum of three years for Ms. Seaford to be informed of the spy agency wiretap under Greek laws that the government has twice changed since a flurry of wiretapping cases have come to light.Ms. Seaford is now is the fourth known person to file suit in Greece involving the spyware, after an investigative reporter and two opposition politicians.In the first case, an investigative reporter, Thanasis Koukakis, in 2020 similarly asked the constitutional watchdog authority to inform him whether he had also been placed under a wiretap.Thanasis Koukakis, an investigative journalist, has taken the Greek government to the European Court of Human Rights over a change in Greece’s surveillance law. Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBefore Mr. Koukakis could get a formal answer, the government quickly passed a law in 2021 that drastically curbs citizens’ rights to be informed if they had been under surveillance by the national intelligence service. Mr. Koukakis has taken the Greek government to the European Court of Human Rights over the change in the law.The Greek government has since come under pressure to restore some recourse for citizens to learn about being wiretapped and seek redress if their surveillance had been abusive.Under a law passed last year, a citizen who has been targeted by the spy agency can now be informed — but only if they ask, and subject to the approval of a committee, and no earlier than three years after the end of the wiretap.It is under those new conditions that Ms. Seaford’s surveillance by the Greek national intelligence service may one day be officially confirmed.“Targets of abusive surveillance should have the right to know what happened to them and have means of redress just like every other crime,” Ms. Seaford said in an interview.She maintains that there is no reasonable explanation for her being targeted. Wiretapping in Greece is permitted only for national security reasons or serious criminal investigations.More than a year after her surveillance by the Greek intelligence service and the illegal spyware infection of her mobile device, no charges have been brought against her, and she has not been asked to cooperate with the authorities on any investigation.“In my case, I do not know why I was targeted, but I cannot see any reasonable national security concerns behind it,” Ms. Seaford said. Meta and the U.S. embassy in Athens declined to comment.Ms. Seaford’s targeting by the Greek spy agency and some elements of her case were earlier reported by the Greek newspaper Documento.In Ms. Seaford’s case, it appears that information gleaned from the wiretap may have assisted the ruse used to implant the spyware, according to the timeline established by the forensic analysis and submitted to the Greek prosecutor.Demonstrators in Athens last year protesting revelations of the phone tapping of a political leader and journalists by the Greek National Intelligence Service. The scandal has become an issue in coming elections.Orestis Panagiotou/EPA, via ShutterstockIn September 2021, Ms. Seaford booked an appointment for a booster shot of the Covid-19 vaccine through the official Greek government vaccination platform.She got an automated SMS with her appointment details on Sept. 17, just after midnight. Five hours later, at 05:31 a.m., documents show, she received another SMS asking her to confirm the appointment by clicking on a link.This was the infected link that put Predator in her phone. The details for the vaccination appointment in the infected text message were correct, indicating that someone had reviewed the authentic earlier confirmation and drafted the infected message accordingly.The sender also appeared to be the state vaccine agency, while the infected URL mimicked that of the vaccination platform.Ms. Seaford, who has been reluctant to get dragged into Greek party politics, where the surveillance scandal has become a point of bitter debate, said the question of spyware and surveillance abuse should be a nonpartisan issue.“My hope is that my case and others like mine will not just be instrumentalized, shut down to avoid political cost for some, or, conversely, elevated for the political gain of others,” she said. More

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      Leo Varadkar meets Biden after apparent Clinton-Lewinsky joke

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      Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has apologised for making an apparent joke about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, during an event in Washington on the eve of St Patrick’s Day celebrations.Varadkar’s comment on Thursday risked overshadowing his meeting with Joe Biden at the White House on Friday for the traditional handing over of a bowl of shamrock to the US president, the most important day in the Irish-American political calendar.The taoiseach departed from a prepared script on Thursday when speaking to people involved in the Washington Ireland programme, which teaches career skills to young people. Reminiscing about his stint as a US House of Representatives intern in 2000, the last year of Clinton’s presidency, Varadkar said it was a time “when some parents would have had cause for concern about what would happen to interns in Washington”.The comment was widely viewed as a reference to Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky while she was a White House intern in the mid-1990s. Hours earlier, Varadkar had shared a stage with Hillary Clinton at a separate event.A spokesperson for Varadkar apologised on his behalf.“He made an ill-judged, off-the-cuff remark which he regrets. He apologises for any offence caused to anyone concerned,” they said.The taoiseach is to meet and share platforms with the Clintons when the couple visit Ireland next month to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Biden also plans to visit.Senior Democrats this week urged Democratic Unionist party (DUP) figures visiting Washington to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland in the wake of the Windsor framework, saying it had addressed the party’s concerns over post-Brexit trading arrangements.Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, expressed hope that the Stormont institutions would be swiftly revived. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the DUP should “get to the people’s business, the business of power-sharing and self-governing”.The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, rebuked Schumer, telling Sky: “I would urge the senator to read some history books. Maybe he’d learn a little bit more about what really happens and the reality of the situation.”Hillary Clinton increased the pressure on the DUP when she urged assembly members who opposed the Windsor framework to resign and allow others to revive Stormont.On Friday, Varadkar met Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, at her residence in Washington. Varadkar’s apparent gaffe over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was not mentioned but the Windsor framework was.The agreement, the taoiseach said, “has the potential to restore very good relations between Ireland and the UK and to restore the relations and institutions of the Good Friday agreement” while opening a new chapter in EU-UK relations.“We’re not quite there yet,” Varadkar said. “But I think with good faith on all sides, we’ll have that and the help of our … friends here in America.”Varadkar also thanked Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, for hosting him and his partner, Matthew Barrett. They had been “inspired”, he said, both as doctors and members of the LGBTQ+ community, by Harris’s advocacy for marriage equality as a California prosecutor and senator, and now as vice-president.Varadkar said: “From Stonewall [the riots in New York in 1969 that sparked the modern gay rights movement] to Sacramento to San Francisco, America has led the way when it comes to LGBTQ+ equality. I don’t think I would be here today were it not for what America did.”From there, the taoiseach went to the White House to meet Biden.Before the Oval Office meeting, the president sent out a St Patrick’s Day tweet in which he proudly introduced himself as “the great-great-grandson of the Blewitts of County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth who boarded a coffin ship to cross the Atlantic more than 165 years ago” and as “the proud son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden”.Coffin ships were vessels that took Irish immigrants to America during the Great Famine of the 1840s, so called, in the words of the writer Philip Hoare, “because so many of their human cargo died of disease or malnutrition en route, or shortly after arrival”.In front of the press on Friday, Biden referred to a recent meeting in San Diego with Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, saying: “I very much, very strongly supported the Windsor framework, which I know you do too.”Varadkar thanked Biden “for your help and support and understanding for our position on Brexit in recent years”, which he said “really made a difference.“And we’ve got to a good place now, I think, with the Windsor framework where we can have an agreement that lasts, which is important for Northern Ireland, and also important for British-Irish and European relations.” More

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      in Elections

      The Woman Shaking Up Italian Politics (No, Not the New Prime Minister)

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      Daughter of Italian and Jewish American parents, Elly Schlein wants to remake the center-left opposition to Giorgia Meloni, if only her party can survive it.ROME — Growing up in Switzerland, Elly Schlein felt a little lost.“I was the black sheep. Because my brother and sister seemed to be more sure of what they would do,” the politician recalled. She watched Italian neorealist cinema and American comedies, played Philip Glass on the piano, pet her dwarf bunny named after Freddie Mercury, listened to the Cranberries and ultimately got involved in her school’s politics. “It took a lot more time for me to find my way,” she said.Last weekend, Ms. Schlein, 37, found her way into the center of the debate about the future of the European left when she stunned the liberal establishment and reordered Italy’s political landscape by winning a primary election to become the first woman to lead the country’s center-left Democratic Party. She is promising, she said in her new office headquarters on Wednesday, to “change deeply” a party in the midst of an identity crisis.It is hard to embody change in Italy more than Ms. Schlein.A woman in a relationship with a woman, she is the daughter of a Jewish American father; granddaughter of an Italian antifascist partisan; proud native of Lugano, Switzerland; former volunteer for Barack Obama; collaborator on an award-winning documentary about Albanian refugees; fan of “Naked Gun” movies; shredder of Green Day chords on her electric guitar; and fervent progressive eager to make common international cause with “A.O.C.,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.With her election, Ms. Schlein has catapulted Italy, which long seemed a Country for Old Men, into markedly different territory. A female opposition leader now is pitted against the first female prime minister, the right-wing nationalist Giorgia Meloni.Ms. Schlein grew up in Lugano, Switzerland, and described herself as the “black sheep” of her family. Andrea Wyner for The New York Times“It’s a different scenario now,” said Ms. Schlein, who had the professorial air of her professor parents as she leafed through newspapers. “And an interesting one, because I’ve always said that we don’t need just a female leadership. We need a feminist leadership.”The two women could hardly be more different. Ms. Meloni, who called Ms. Schlein to congratulate her, was raised by a single mother in a working-class neighborhood of Rome, was a youth activist in post-Fascist parties and came to prominence on an anti-migrant, Italy-first platform. Her battle cry: “I’m Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother, I’m a Christian!”Explore The Times’s Saturday ProfilesThey are shaping the world around them. These are their stories.Going Gray: The prominent news anchor Lisa LaFlamme was unceremoniously dismissed not long after she stopped dyeing her hair — setting off debates across Canada.Reclaiming His Voice: While on a rescue mission in Ukraine, an aspiring opera singer was shot in the lungs. His recovery is a marvel of medicine, chance and his own spirit.A Marxist Mayor: A Communist politician in Graz, Austria, wants to redistribute wealth. A focus on housing, her own modest lifestyle and a hard childhood have helped her popularity.Cleaning Up Senegal: Dressed head to toe in plastic, Modou Fall is a familiar sight in Dakar. His goal? Ridding the capital of the scourge of plastic bags.Princess Rita: A Texas rancher’s daughter landed a dream role as a Roman princess. A battle over the estate of her late husband has soured the reality.Ms. Schlein — who has Italian, Swiss and American passports — said she didn’t understand how being “a woman, a mother and a Christian helps Italians to pay their bills.” She added: “I am a woman. I love another woman. I am not a mother, but I am not less of a woman for this.”She argued that Ms. Meloni represented an ideology that viewed women merely for their reproductive and child-rearing roles. Ms. Meloni has “never described herself as an antifascist,” Ms. Schlein said, arguing that she instead threw red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies making it harder to save migrants at sea.Such liberal red meat is likely to sate the base of progressives and young voters that Ms. Schlein brought into the Democratic Party fold in last Sunday’s primary. But it did little for the left in the election Ms. Meloni won easily in September. Ms. Schlein’s party now has about half the support of Ms. Meloni’s.Moderate critics within Ms. Schlein’s own deeply divided party fear that she will fold its big tent by forfeiting the political center, driving the party to the far left, gutting it of its reputation for sober competence, and blending it with — or feeding it to — the reinvigorated, populist Five Star Movement.Supporters of Giorgia Meloni at a rally in September, in Rome. Ms. Schlein has criticized the prime minister for hurling red meat to her base with “inhuman” and “illegal” policies on migrants.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesBut Ms. Schlein is not convinced that denizens of an Italian middle even exist. “Where are they today?” she asked in her perfect English, noting that “when somebody had tried to represent them with new political options, it never went really well.” Instead, she saw the way forward as making “clear who we want to represent” — struggling Italians.She said she would spread “environmentalist and feminist” solutions to endemic Italian problems such as female unemployment and inequality in “clearly a patriarchal country.” She would make amends for “the mistakes made in the past,” especially during the leadership of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, which led her to quit the Democratic Party nearly a decade ago.She would reintroduce labor protections, tax the rich, reconnect with trade unions, invest in a greener economy and push for gay and immigrant rights. This week, she visited the site of a deadly shipwreck of migrants in Calabria and effectively interrogated Ms. Meloni’s interior minister for appearing to blame the victims.“Rights, civil rights and social rights, for us are strictly interconnected,” she said in the interview, adding, “The left lost in the moment it became shy on these issues.”One major change on her agenda is to put her party in a position to win elections by making alliances with partners who agreed on critical progressive issues, such as the support of a universal income.“Five Star, of course,” she said. “They have a lot of support.”But Giuseppe Conte, the leader of Five Star, which has demonstrated a strong illiberal streak over recent years, was the prime minister who signed off on the crackdown of migrant rescue ships at sea. He has emerged as Italy’s main opponent to Ms. Meloni’s vow to keep sending weapons to Ukraine.Ms. Schlein with her assistant in her temporary office at the party headquarters in Rome.Massimo Berruti for The New York TimesFive Star’s position on Ukraine, Ms. Schlein said, “I don’t agree on.” She described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia and noted it had voted to send arms over the next year, because “it’s necessary now.”Supporters of Ukraine, however, worry about Ms. Schlein’s ongoing commitment because of her talk of being a “pacifist” and what some consider her naïve argument that Europe somehow needed to convince China to force Russia to end the war.But she said she feels a personal connection to Ukraine. Her grandfather was from Ukraine, she said, and after he emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in Elizabeth, N.J., his family back home was almost certainly wiped out in the Holocaust. Her Italian grandfather, who eventually became a Socialist lawmaker, refused to wear the “black shirts of the Fascists” during his graduation and “was an antifascist lawyer” who, she said, would “defend Jews in trials.”That family history has made her keenly sensitive to “what nationalism has brought to the European continent,” she said, adding, with a reference to the Russian president, “This war is a nationalist war from Putin.”Ms. Schlein was herself not raised Jewish, though she called herself “particularly proud” of her Jewish ancestry. In a friendly interview during the campaign, she told an Italian website that her last name and pronounced nose, what she considers her defining physical feature, attracted odious anti-Semitic attacks. But, she noted, the nose was not Jewish, but “typically Etruscan.”The Colosseum lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, in Rome, in February. Ms. Schlein described her party as wholly supportive of Ukraine against the “criminal invasion” by Russia.Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse, via Associated PressAsked about that comment, Ms. Schlein’s verbosity stalled. “I wouldn’t go back to that,” she said. “No, thanks.” When pressed on what an Etruscan nose looked like, she threw her hands up and acknowledged, “They don’t even exist!”The point, she said, was that she learned that being a “woman,” and “an L.G.B.T.Q.I.+ person” and “very proudly the daughter of a Jewish father” made her a prime target “from the extreme right or also from my extreme left sometimes.” Ms. Schlein declined in the interview to discuss her family or her partner in further detail.Ms. Schlein said addressing such injustices drew her into politics. A star pupil in her Lugano high school, she said, she wanted to take her talents to Italy, “because I’ve always felt that this country, the country of my mother, has strong potential that only needs to be freed.”She went to art school in Bologna. Then she dropped film for law and went from campus politics to the real thing — making powerful friends, gaining fluency in social media and doing stints in the European and Italian Parliaments along the way. When she quit the Democratic Party to protest the loss of its liberal way, she supported a movement to “occupy” the party.Now she occupies the leadership headquarters near the Spanish Steps, and after a short walk toward Ms. Meloni’s palace, Ms. Schlein, the progressive no one saw coming, entertained taking that place over, too.“Well,” she said. “We’ll see.” More

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      in US Politics

      Biden pledges more Moscow sanctions: ‘Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia’ – as it happened

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      Speaking before a crowd of thousands in the gardens of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, Joe Biden hailed the resilience of Ukraine’s people and the benevolence of Poland and other western allies in helping fend off the Russian invasion.“Autocrats only understand one word: no.” Biden said. “No, you will not take my country. No, you will not take my freedom. No, you will not take my future. I’ll repeat tonight what I said last year at the same place. A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never be able to ease the people’s love of liberties. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, never.”He then condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin for the invasion, which began on 24 February of last year.“This war is never a necessity. It’s a tragedy. President Putin chose this war. Every day the war continues is his choice. He could end the war with a word. It’s simple. Russia stops invading Ukraine, it would end the war. If Ukraine stopped defending itself against Russia, it would be the end of Ukraine. That’s why together, we’re making sure Ukraine can defend itself,” Biden said.That’s it for our US politics live blog. Here’s what happened today:
      A special grand jury investigating election interference led by Donald Trump in Georgia has recommended several indictments for a number of people, reported the New York Times. Most of the information on the charges and the people indicted are sealed.
      Joe Biden gave a speech this afternoon in Warsaw, Poland, where he vowed the United States and its allies “will not tire” in supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
      Barbara Lee joined the race for California’s Senate seat, the third progressive Democratic House vying to replace Dianne Feinstein.
      The supreme court heard a case that could have a major impact on online speech.
      Thank you for reading! Join us back tomorrow for more politics updates.Follow our international coverage of Biden’s speech and other developments in Ukraine here.Putin thought enemies would ‘roll over’ but he was wrong, says Joe Biden in major speech in Poland – as it happenedRead moreHere’s more on Biden’s recent speech in Poland about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the Guardian’s Julian Borger:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Joe Biden has claimed Vladimir Putin’s year of war against Ukraine has left behind “burned-out tanks and Russian forces in disarray” but he also warned of “very bitter days” ahead in the defence of democracy in eastern Europe.
      Biden issued a rallying cry in a speech to mark the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion, addressing a crowd of 30,000, mostly Poles and Ukrainians, in front of the arches below Warsaw’s royal castleon Tuesday evening.
      He was speaking after Putin had delivered a speech of his own, in which he blamed the west for the war and announced the withdrawal of Russian participation in the 2010 New Start treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia.
      Joe Biden has claimed Vladimir Putin’s year of war against Ukraine has left behind “burned-out tanks and Russian forces in disarray” but he also warned of “very bitter days” ahead in the defence of democracy in eastern Europe.
      Biden issued a rallying cry in a speech to mark the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion, addressing a crowd of 30,000, mostly Poles and Ukrainians, in front of the arches below Warsaw’s royal castleon Tuesday evening.
      He was speaking after Putin had delivered a speech of his own, in which he blamed the west for the war and announced the withdrawal of Russian participation in the 2010 New Start treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia.
      Biden did not respond to the announcement or mention Putin’s speech in his own address. The White House was adamant the Russian leader had changed the date of his speech to coincide with Biden’s trip to eastern Europe. However, the US president did ridicule Putin for the failure of his ambitions to conquer Ukraine in a few days last February.Read the full article here.Joe Biden says Russian forces in disarray after year of war in UkraineRead moreTrump has labeled Fox News a “RINO” (Republican Only in Name) network, criticizing the news station over its coverage of Florida governor Ron DeSantis.On Tuesday, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to rip into Fox over their coverage of a DeSantis rally, writing: “So interesting to watch FoxNews cover the small and unenthusiastic 139 person crowd in Staten Island for DeSantis, but stay as far away as possible from coverage of the thousands of people, many unable to get in, at the Club 47 event in West Palm Beach, Florida.”Trump continued, writing: “I call FoxNews the RINO Network, and their DOWN BIG Ratings accurately reflect the name. If FAKE NEWS CNN was smart, which they’re not, they’d go Conservative & “All Trump, All the Time,” like in 2016, and become a Ratings Juggernaut…”The recent attacks on Fox from Trump follow as Fox continue to spotlight DeSantis, who is expected to run for president in 2024.A special grand jury investigating election interference led by Donald Trump in Georgia has recommended several indictments for a number of people, reported the New York Times.The jury’s foreman Emily Kohrs announced the indictments during an interview today, but noted that most of them remain sealed.When asked if the list of indictments included Trump, Kohrs replied: “You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” adding, “you won’t be too surprised.”New York representative George Santos admitted he was a “terrible liar” about his education and job history while giving an interview to UK television personality Piers Morgan.During the 40-minute TalkTV interview, Santos admitted that he lied about his educational and professional background, but that other aspects of his background were truthful, including that his parents survived the Holocaust.Santos said: “I’ve been a terrible liar on those subjects…It wasn’t about tricking the people. This was about getting accepted by the party here locally.”Santos contributed his lies to expectations he faced within society and in the party.Read the full Politico article here.International reactions to Biden’s speech in Warsaw, Poland are pouring in, as the president pledges to continue supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.Follow our international coverage of the speech and other developments in Ukraine here.Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin thought enemies would ‘roll over’ but he was wrong, says Joe Biden in major speech in PolandRead moreRhode Island representative David Cicilline will retire from office at the end of June, his office announced on Tuesday.Cicilline’s statement read:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Serving the people of Rhode Island’s First Congressional District has been the honor of my lifetime…As President and CEO of one of the largest and oldest community foundations in the nation, I look forward to expanding on the work I have led for nearly thirty years in helping to improve the lives of all Rhode Islanders.Read the full article from the Hill here.Joe Biden just concluded a speech before a crowd of thousands in Warsaw, Poland, where he vowed the United States and its allies “will not tire” in supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. The day before, the president had personally pledged more American assistance to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a quick and secretive visit to Kyiv. But it wasn’t good enough for several Republicans, who said Biden would be better off visiting the border with Mexico, or perhaps the site of a recent train derailment and toxic material spill in Ohio.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Barbara Lee joined the race for California’s Senate seat, becoming the third progressive Democratic House representative seeking to replace Dianne Feinstein.
      The supreme court heard a case that could have a major impact on online speech.
      Beer magnates are playing a surprising role in the high-stakes race for an open Wisconsin supreme court seat.
      Follow the Guardian’s live politics blog for the rest of the day’s news, which is now being helmed by Gloria Oladipo.Joe Biden’s address on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was about one thing: solidarity.Solidarity with both Ukraine and with Poland, the Western ally who shares a border with a country Moscow desperately wants complete control over. Beyond that, it was about solidarity among Nato members, who have banded together to stop that from happening – even if their cooperation can occasionally grow fraught.Her is the core of Biden’s just-concluded speech, where the focus on solidarity becomes clear:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}One year into this war, Putin no longer doubts the strength of our coalition, but he still doubts our conviction. He doubts our staying power, he doubts our continued support for Ukraine, he doubts whether Nato can remain unified. But there should be no doubt. Our support for Ukraine will not waver. Nato will not be divided, and we will not tire. President Putin’s craven lust for land and power will fail. And the Ukrainian people’s love for their country will prevail. Democracies in the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever.The United States plans to further tighten sanctions against Russia as punishment for its ongoing war in Ukraine, Joe Biden said.“We continue to maintain the largest sanction regime ever imposed in any country in history, and we’re going to announce more sanctions this week together with our partners,” Biden said. “We’ll hold accountable those who are responsible for this war and will seek justice for the war crimes and crimes against humanity continuing to be committed by the Russians.”Last week at the annual Munich Security Conference, Kamala Harris said the Biden administration has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine. More

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      Joe Biden’s train ride to Kyiv makes history but will it win him a second term?

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      02:09AnalysisJoe Biden’s train ride to Kyiv makes history but will it win him a second term?Julian Borger in WarsawVisit to Ukraine is a defining moment for the US president but foreign policy does not necessarily win elections

      Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates
      John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan had their speeches in Berlin. Joe Biden now has Kyiv, a moment to define his presidency and its era.There was no one phrase in Biden’s remarks in Kyiv to match Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” in 1963 or Reagan’s “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall” in 1987, but the trip itself was the statement. As the White House underlined repeatedly on Monday, there was no precedent in modern times. Visits to the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were different, as the US military ran security in those countries.In going to Kyiv, Biden was entering a war zone and putting his safety in the hands of the Ukrainian armed forces, and also those of the Russians. Moscow was given a heads-up a few hours before he crossed the border. The calculation was that Vladimir Putin would not risk the precedent of presidential assassination or all-out war for that matter. A reasonable calculation but a risk nonetheless.It was a coup heightened by complete surprise. The secret did not leak, signalling that the bravery was underpinned by competence. The visit cemented Biden’s claim of leadership of the free world, but among Washington’s allies that has not really been challenged since the full invasion of Ukraine began a year ago this week.A tougher question to answer – and it may take a week or two before the result is clear – is whether this will help Biden’s standing at home, where his popularity has not recovered from the hit it suffered from the shambolic Afghanistan withdrawal, inflation and the energy price shock of the invasion.The popularity slump, which began in August 2021, has not so far been reversed by recent strong economic figures, a solid legislative record, and a lively, combative performance in his State of the Union address earlier this month.In an average of recent polls, Americans who disapprove of his performance outnumber those who approve by 52% to 42%.Much of the problem is an overall impression that Biden at 80 is too old, too doddery and gaffe prone to lead the country with vigour, especially into a second term. The bold appearance in Kyiv, strolling through the city in aviator sunglasses, alongside a grateful and admiring Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on the US Presidents Day holiday no less, is intended to address that perception head on and reframe the conversation on age and fitness for office.Donald Trump was notably risk averse as president. On his single visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, he stayed inside heavily fortified US bases. The Kyiv visit, with its very real jeopardy, makes it less likely that Biden’s Republican challenger in 2024, whether it is Trump or the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, or another, will challenge him directly on courage. But the Republicans are already pivoting to portraying the president’s starring role abroad as an abandonment of suffering Americans at home.“I and many Americans are thinking to ourselves: OK, he’s very concerned about those borders halfway around the world. He’s not done anything to secure our own borders here … we have a lot of problems accumulating here,” DeSantis told Fox TV.The very success of the Biden visit in underlining the US’s commitment to Ukrainian resistance could end up accelerating the drift of the Republicans towards anti-Ukrainian positions, now the preserve of a pro-Trump minority on the far right of the party, as the leadership looks for attack lines against Biden.In his Fox interview, DeSantis downplayed the Russian threat. “I think it’s important to point out, the fear of Russia going into Nato countries and all that, and steamrolling, that has not even come close to happening,” he said, sketching out what may become the Republican line in 2024.The conventional wisdom, reinforced by decades of polling, is that foreign policy does not tend to sway presidential elections. What Kennedy and Reagan’s famous Berlin speeches would have done for them electorally is unknown. Kennedy was killed before he could stand for a second term, and Reagan had already been re-elected and was in his penultimate year in office.For Biden, the jury is out. The train ride to Kyiv will go down in history, but making history does not necessarily win elections.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsUkraineBiden administrationEuropeUS foreign policyanalysisReuse this content More

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      How big a threat does the hard right pose to US support for Ukraine?

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      AnalysisHow big a threat does the hard right pose to US support for Ukraine?Julian Borger in WashingtonA year after the conflict began, the consensus against Russian aggression has held but alarm bells are ringing in Congress Vladimir Putin has proven adept at exploiting the US political divide, so the solid bipartisan consensus behind arming Ukraine over the past year may well have come as a surprise to him. The question one year into the war is: how long can that consensus last?Two weeks before the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion on 24 February, a group of Trump-supporting Republicans led by Matt Gaetz introduced a “Ukraine fatigue” resolution that, if passed, would “express through the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine, and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement”.The resolution is sponsored by 11 Republican members of Congress on the far right Freedom Caucus faction, and is highly unlikely to pass. But it marks a shot across the bows of the leadership, which has mostly vowed to stay the course in supporting Ukraine.Justifying the resolution, Gaetz pointed to the risks of escalation of the Ukraine war into a wider global conflict and to the economic cost to the US.“President Joe Biden must have forgotten his prediction from March 2022, suggesting that arming Ukraine with military equipment will escalate the conflict to ‘World War III’,” the Florida Republican said. “America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to haemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war.”The influence of this faction is heightened by the fact that the Republicans have a slim nine-seat majority in the House, and the new speaker, Kevin McCarthy, only scraped into the job after 15 rounds of voting among Republican members, during which he gave promises to listen to the concerns of hard-right holdouts like Gaetz.“I’ve been sounding the alarms on Republican opposition to Ukraine aid for the last 12 months,” the Democratic senator Chris Murphy said. “Right now, there are enough Republicans in the Senate who support Ukraine aid along with all of the Democrats, so we can continue to deliver support, but I don’t know what’s going to happen in the House.”“I think there’s going to be tremendous pressure on Speaker McCarthy to abandon Ukraine … and it’s possible he could wilt under the pressure,” Murphy said. “We know the Russians see this as a real opportunity.”European diplomats have been lobbying Republicans, underlining the importance of maintaining western solidarity in the face of Russian aggression and arguing that support for Ukraine is an extremely inexpensive way to degrade the military of a hostile power seen by the Pentagon as an “acute threat”.The diplomats report reassuring noises from the party leadership, but unwavering resistance from the rightwingers, many of whom follow the lead of the Trump camp, particularly the former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, who has railed against western backing for Ukraine, and ridiculed its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.“The divide in the US is now more tangible than in Europe. The Republican leadership is absolutely adamant that there will be no lessening of support for Ukraine, but it’s just words,” one European diplomat said. “With such a narrow Republican majority in the House, the Freedom Caucus has a lot of influence. And you don’t need to cut off help overnight. You just need to slow it down with procedure. That’s the danger.”Some of Washington’s European allies are less concerned. One noted how upbeat McCarthy was on the issue, and the commitment to Ukraine of the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell.Frank Luntz, a Republican political consultant, also argued the pro-Russian lobby in the party had been permanently diminished.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Trump used to call Putin a genius. You don’t hear him saying that anymore,” Luntz said. “Most of these people have backed down because they realise they were completely wrong. Donald Trump blew it in Ukraine and there are people who hold it against him to this day.”“You have a few dozen members who are hostile now and that will increase, and could even double. But I don’t expect our support for Ukraine to ebb,” he added.However, a recent opinion poll has shown support softening for the continued arming of Ukraine as the war approached its one-year milestone. In the survey by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center, 48% of those questioned said they were in favour of providing weapons, with 29% opposed. Last May, 60% of Americans surveyed supported arming Ukraine.It is against that backdrop that Biden will fly to Poland on Monday to mark the approach of the anniversary and to restate the case for western solidarity with Ukraine.Murphy predicted that the House speaker, who has himself warned that there would no longer be a “blank cheque” for Ukraine with a Republican majority, might seek a compromise with the right of the party that could eventually prove devastating.“I worry that McCarthy will try to split the baby and support funding for hard military infrastructure but not support economic and humanitarian aid,” the Democratic senator said. “If that’s the direction that US funding goes, it’s a recipe for the slow death of Ukraine.”TopicsUS politicsA year of war in UkraineUkraineEuropeUS foreign policyRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Italy’s Hard-Right Leader Vexes Europe by Playing Nice, Mostly

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      Some still fear an authoritarian turn, but Giorgia Meloni has surprised many by showing a pragmatic streak since coming to power. Now Europe is not sure what to do.ROME — In the weeks before Italy elected the hard-right leader Giorgia Meloni, the left sounded “the alarm for Italian democracy.” The European Union braced for Italy to join ranks with members like Hungary and Poland who have challenged the bloc’s core values. International investors worried about spooked markets.But more than 100 days into her tenure, Ms. Meloni has proved to be less predictable. She has shown flashes of nationalist anger, prompting fears at home and abroad that an authoritarian turn remains just around the corner. But until now, she has also governed in a far less vitriolic and ideological and more practical way.The unexpected ordinariness of her early days has vexed the European establishment and her Italian critics, prompting relief but also raising a quandary as to what extent the toned-down firebrand should be embraced or still cautiously held at arm’s length.Ms. Meloni has made a case for herself. She has calmed international concerns over Italy’s ability to service its debts by passing a measured budget. She has had cordial meetings with European Union leaders and has muted her famously rapid-fire invective against the bloc, migrants and elites. She has followed in the footsteps of her predecessor, Mario Draghi, Mr. Europe himself, seeking to carry through on his blueprint to modernize the country with billions of euros in E.U. pandemic recovery funds.While her coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi went full Putin apologist this weekend — blaming President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine for the Russian invasion of his own country — her popularity has effectively minimized the damage from the loose cannons in her right-wing coalition.In the first electoral test for Ms. Meloni since she her coalition’s victory last September, the center-right crushed the left in regional elections on Monday.“Now we have to deal with reality,” she said on social media in a recent weekly video chat called “Giorgia’s Notes,” explaining why she had to delay a populist electoral promise to give tax breaks on fuel at the pump.Ms. Meloni has been “better than we expected” on economic and financial issues, said Enrico Letta, the center-left leader who had warned she would threaten Italian democracy. He said she had abandoned her clearly stated aggression toward the European Union by deciding “to follow the rules” and by avoiding “making any mistakes.”A gas station in January in Rome. Ms. Meloni has delayed a populist electoral promise to give tax breaks on fuel at the pump.Tiziana Fabi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“The reality is she is strong,” said Mr. Letta, who is stepping down from the party leadership after failing to stop Ms. Meloni. “She’s in that full honeymoon, without an alternative within the majority and the opposition divided.”After Ms. Meloni was elected in September, she became the leader of Italy’s most right-wing government since Mussolini. Her party, the Brothers of Italy, was born from the wreckage of Italy’s failed experiment with Fascism. In the opposition, she made common cause with Europe’s other hard-right leaders who have challenged Europe’s democratic values, like Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.More on ItalyA Fast-Shrinking Nation: Italy’s population of elder Italians is soaring as its birthrate plummets, putting the country at the forefront of a global demographic trend that experts call the “silver tsunami.”Looted Art: Five dozen ancient artifacts that had been illegally looted from archaeological sites have been returned to Italy thanks to a collaboration with authorities in the United States.End of the Road: After 30 years on the lam as one of Italy’s most wanted fugitives, the mobster Matteo Messina Denaro was quietly arrested in Palermo.Truffle Wars: Truffles are big business in Italy. Some are trying to take out the competition by poisoning the dogs that accompany truffle hunters.But since coming to power, if Ms. Meloni has proved to be something less than an Orban in charge of the eurozone’s third largest economy, the difference, analysts say, may be that Italy’s deep dependency on Europe for billions of euros in relief funds and flexibility on its enormous debt has induced moderation.Her seeming willingness to play nice has put Europe’s leaders in the bind of having to decide whether to treat her like the migrant-baiting, verbal bomb thrower of the far right that she had been for decades or the more or less responsible prime minister that she has acted like for months.If she is embraced too closely, it risks legitimizing the hard right and illiberal currents in Europe. If she is rejected, it might seem like she is being punished for doing what was asked of her, creating a dangerous disincentive for the leader of a country large enough to destabilize the entire bloc and global economy.Ms. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party emerged from the wreckage of Italy’s failed experiment with Fascism. Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesLast week, for example, President Emmanuel Macron of France excluded Ms. Meloni from a dinner in Paris with Mr. Zelensky of Ukraine and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, a clear sign that Italy had been knocked down a notch from when Mr. Draghi was in office. But analysts said Mr. Macron also wanted to avoid indirectly legitimizing France’s own right-wing firebrand, Marine Le Pen.Ms. Meloni fumed, saying Italy sought more than “pats on the back,” and some interpreted her huddling in Brussels last week with leaders of the Czech Republic and Poland as a veiled warning. But on Friday, Ms. Meloni, a skillful politician well versed in the politics of victimization, spent a significant amount of time explaining that she did not care about not being invited to Paris.She seemed to try to speak for much of Europe, arguing that she would have counseled against the meeting even if she had been invited because having two, instead of all 27, European leaders in the room risked eroding the bloc’s unity and public support for Ukraine.“It is not easy for any of us to handle the Ukraine issue with public opinion,” she said, adding that the meeting did not help leaders do the “right thing.” European officials have warned that a combative approach only risks diminishing Italy’s influence. And at home, liberals fear that Ms. Meloni is beginning to show her true, authoritarian face.In recent days, her allies have called for the head of a top official at the country’s public television broadcaster after a pop star appeared on Italy’s widely popular Sanremo song contest and ripped up a photograph of a government official in Ms. Meloni’s party. In the photo he was dressed as a Nazi.Critics like Mr. Letta still say there is also plenty to worry about on issues like migration, justice and gay and abortion rights, though he acknowledged that in those areas, “until now, nothing spectacular, nothing dramatic has been done.”“Nothing of what she is doing makes us think that she is taking a fascist turn,” said Giovanni Orsina, the director of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.Joking that the European establishment reacted to her election as if “someone had died,” Andrea De Bertoldi, a member of Parliament with Ms. Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, said that her government was “only surprising” to those who did not know her, or who had not followed the normalization of the Italian right in the past 30 years.Ms. Meloni has received only limited one-on-one face time with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.Pool photo by Johanna Geron“The fear,” he said, was provoked by political enemies, though he acknowledged that she perhaps sounded a little different during her years venting from the political margins. “To be heard in the opposition,” he said, “you always need to raise the tone.”For now, it seems, she has extinguished fears of burning down Italian democracy with the post-Fascist flame of her party emblem. But the left, searching for traction, has come up with a new critique: that Ms. Meloni might clumsily break the country.“The great problem of the center right in power is different, absolute incompetence,” Stefano Feltri, the editor of the leftist newspaper Domani, wrote in an editorial.One of the first things Ms. Meloni did upon coming to power was crack down on illegal rave parties. The initial draft of the measure targeted “gatherings” of 50 people or more, a law written so broadly as to potentially be used against political or union rallies, and even sporting events. She was forced to redo it. She also had to backtrack on a plan to put a 60 euro basement on credit card purchases, which raised fears of tax evasion.More ideologically, Ms. Meloni has sought to force ships run by nongovernmental organizations to rescue migrants to return to an Italian port after each mission, limiting time at sea. In November, her government tried to block a ship from disembarking migrants in Italy, and instead sought to send it to France, causing tensions with Mr. Macron.The Geo Barents migrant rescue ship docked in January at the port of La Spezia, Italy. Ms. Meloni has sought to force ships run by nongovernmental organizations to return to an Italian port after each rescue mission, limiting time at sea.Luca Zennaro/EPA, via ShutterstockLast week’s exclusion from the Paris dinner inflamed those tensions. Whereas last year, Mr. Draghi, an architect of Europe’s policy on Ukraine, accompanied the French and German leaders on a train to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, Ms. Meloni received one-on-one face time with Mr. Zelensky only on the margins of a large meeting in Brussels.“It is so clear that we had two pictures,” Mr. Letta said. “One last year on the train to Kyiv. And yesterday at the Élysée and the picture without Italy.”But Mr. Letta, already bested by Ms. Meloni, was wary of what else she had in store for Europe, including a more ambitious plan to move the continent to the right. He said that she had sought to build new alliances with right-wing forces at the European level to become a power center, with Mr. Orban, ahead of European elections next year.“This is not, of course, a Democratic alarm that I’m launching,” Mr. Letta said. “This is a political alarm.”Gaia Pianigiani More

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      Czech Republic Elects Petr Pavel President Over Andrej Babis

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      Petr Pavel, a political novice, defeated Andrej Babis, a populist business tycoon and former prime minister, in the first of several important European elections this year.The Czech Republic on Saturday elected Petr Pavel, a retired senior NATO general and political novice, as president, according to nearly complete results, with voters decisively rejecting the rival candidacy of a populist billionaire and cementing the country’s position as a robust supporter of Ukraine.Mr. Pavel, a former chief of the general staff of the Czech Army and chairman of the NATO Military Committee, defeated the tycoon Andrej Babis, a pugnacious former prime minister who had sought to cast his opponent in Saturday’s runoff vote as a warmonger intent on dragging Czech soldiers into the conflict in Ukraine.Mr. Babis’s tactics copied those of a close former ally, Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orban, who won a landside victory last April after falsely claiming that his main rival wanted to send Hungarian troops to fight Russia in Ukraine.But that argument flopped for Mr. Babis in the Czech Republic, which has far more diverse media outlets than Hungary, where Mr. Orban’s governing Fidesz party and its business allies have a tight grip on television and most other sources of information.With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, the tally gave Mr. Pavel a decisive victory: 58 percent to 42 percent. Two weeks ago, in the first round of voting, Mr. Pavel and Mr. Babis finished neck and neck.The Czech presidency is largely ceremonial, but the incumbent, Milos Zeman, who was barred from running by term limits, stretched its limited powers to try to tilt Czech foreign policy toward Russia and China and loosen the Central European country’s moorings in the West.Mr. Zeman, who last year dropped his previously pro-Kremlin views, did not upset the Czech government’s strong support for Ukraine, which has included sending tanks and other military hardware, but his reputation for heavy drinking and disruptive eccentricity has often raised questions abroad over the Czech Republic’s direction.Taking a swipe at Mr. Zeman’s decade-long tenure, Mr. Pavel on Saturday declared the election’s outcome a “victory for the values that we share — truth, respect, humility.”“I will make sure these values return to Prague Castle,” he added, referring to the seat of the Czech presidency.Neither Mr. Pavel nor Mr. Babis shares Mr. Zeman’s eastward leanings, but their race represented a stark clash in political styles — between low-key pragmatism and rambunctious populism.Andrej Babis arriving on Monday at a campaign event in Brno, Czech Republic. Mr. Babis was defeated by Mr. Pavel. Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockOtto Eibl, the head of the political science department at Masaryk University in the Czech city of Brno, said Mr. Pavel’s victory “could be a moment of calming and perhaps a step toward improving the political culture in the country.”“But,” Mr. Eibl continued, “it will depend on how Babis handles his defeat — whether he continues to add fuel to the fire, or acknowledges the victory” of his rival.Speaking on Saturday at his party’s headquarters in Prague, Mr. Babis conceded defeat, but he showed no sign of bowing out of politics. He said the result showed that he had strong support and could win the next parliamentary election in 2025.Mr. Pavel, a former paratrooper widely known as “the general,” campaigned on the slogan, “Leading with experience and calm in difficult times.” Mr. Babis, who was recently acquitted of fraud charges relating to European Union funding, fanned fears of war spreading to the Czech Republic, claiming that “the general does not believe in peace.”The clash between the two men made the vote — the first in a series of important elections this year in Eastern and Central Europe — a significant test of whether Europe’s once rising populist tide has crested.Despite the Czech president’s limited formal powers, the post carries great symbolic weight. This year’s election, with a first round of voting featuring eight candidates, stirred even more interest than usual, with more than 70 percent of voters casting ballots in Saturday’s runoff, the highest turnout in a Czech election.That populism continues to be a force was shown last year by Mr. Orban’s landslide victory in Hungary, but its fortunes elsewhere have been mixed. It suffered a big setback in the Czech Republic in October 2021 when Mr. Babis lost his post as prime minister after a broad alliance of centrist and leftist parties won a parliamentary election. Elections last year in Slovenia delivered another blow, with voters ousting Janez Jansa, a far-right admirer of Donald J. Trump and a close ally of Mr. Orban.But anti-establishment populism could gain ground in elections this year in Slovakia, whose centrist government collapsed in December, opening the way for a possible return to power by Robert Fico, a belligerent former prime minister tainted by corruption and other scandals.The key test, however, will be an election this fall in Poland, the region’s most populous country, which has been governed since 2015 by the deeply conservative and nationalist Law and Justice party.Barbora Petrova More