German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Ronald Wittek) 
President Joe Biden’s administration was close to completing talks on a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, according to a US official, a move intended to cement longer-term support for Kyiv in its war against Russia’s invasion.
OpenAI said it had cut off five covert influence operations in the past three months, including networks in Russia, China, Iran and Israel that accessed the ChatGPT-maker’s artificial intelligence products to try to manipulate public opinion or shape political outcomes while obscuring their true identity.
Germany announces new €500m weapons package for Ukraine
Germany was providing as much as €500-million in additional military aid to Ukraine, including air defence missiles, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said.
“We will continue to support you in this defensive struggle,” Pistorius said on Thursday during a visit to Odesa, Ukraine, to meet Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, German broadcaster ARD reported.
The package includes missiles for medium-range Iris-T SLM air defence systems and a smaller number of shorter-range SLS missiles, drones for reconnaissance and combat in the Black Sea and spare parts such as replacement tubes for artillery systems supplied by Germany and engines for Leopard battle tanks.
Some of the weapons were about to be delivered to Ukraine, Pistorius said.
While Ukraine’s allies are stepping up efforts to send more air defence assets, the US and Germany have been cautious about delivering weaponry that can hit targets inside Russia. Pistorius said this month he wanted Germany to deliver another €3.8-billion in military aid to Ukraine this year.
US nears bilateral security pact with Ukraine in show of support
President Joe Biden’s administration was close to completing talks on a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, according to a US official, a move intended to cement longer-term support for Kyiv in its war against Russia’s invasion.
The agreement would see the US support Ukraine’s defence and security along a wide range of capabilities, including air defences and drones, and ramp up efforts to build up the country’s defence industrial base to allow for more production of artillery and ammunition.
The US official detailed the state of the talks on condition of anonymity. The Financial Times earlier reported the development.
The move comes at a critical time in the war with Russia building up troop formations near Ukraine’s border and stepping up air attacks on the country. Ties between Washington and Kyiv have also been strained by Biden’s decision to skip a summit next month to discuss Ukraine’s blueprint for peace that is being organised by Switzerland.
Read more: Biden set to skip summit on Ukraine for Hollywood fundraiser
While several G7 leaders plan to attend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the leaders of China and the US to join. The White House has said the US will be represented in some capacity. Beijing has instead called for an international conference that would bring both Russia and Ukraine to the table.
Biden announced last year that the US and other Group of Seven nations would pursue bilateral security pacts with Ukraine and encouraged other allies to do the same. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month during a visit to Ukraine said he believed the countries would be able to sign a 10-year accord in a “matter of weeks”.
“These agreements send a clear message that Ukraine can count on its partners for sustainable, long-term support. That’s not a matter to be debated from one year to the next — nor is it a commitment by any one country,” Blinken said.
OpenAI shuts down influence networks using its tools in Russia, China
OpenAI said it had cut off five covert influence operations in the past three months, including networks in Russia, China, Iran and Israel that accessed the ChatGPT-maker’s artificial intelligence products to try to manipulate public opinion or shape political outcomes while obscuring their true identity.
The new report from the ChatGPT-maker comes at a time of widespread concern about the role of AI in global elections slated for this year. In its findings, OpenAI listed the ways in which influence networks used its tools to more efficiently deceive people, including using AI to generate text and images in larger volume and with fewer language errors than would have been possible by humans alone. However, the company said that ultimately, in its assessment, these campaigns failed to significantly increase their reach as a result of using OpenAI’s services.
“Over the last year and a half there have been a lot of questions around what might happen if influence operations use generative AI,” said Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s Intelligence and Investigations team, in a press briefing on Wednesday. “With this report, we really want to start filling in some of the blanks.”
The company said it defined its targets as covert “influence operations” that were “deceptive attempts to manipulate public opinion or influence political outcomes without revealing the true identity or intentions of the actors behind them”. The groups were different from disinformation networks, Nimmo said, as they could often promote factually correct information, but in a deceptive manner.
While propaganda networks have long used social media platforms, their use of generative AI tools is relatively new. OpenAI said that in all of the operations it identified, AI-generated material was used alongside more traditional formats, such as manually written texts or memes on major social media sites. In addition to using AI for generating images, text and social media bios, some influence networks also used OpenAI’s products to increase their productivity by summarising articles or debugging code for bots.
The five networks identified by OpenAI included groups such as the pro-Russian “Doppelganger,” the pro-Chinese network “Spamouflage” and an Iranian operation known as the International Union of Virtual Media, or IUVM. OpenAI also flagged previously unknown networks that the startup says it identified for the first time coming from Russia and Israel.
Biden to visit France for meeting with Macron ahead of summits
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to host his US counterpart Joe Biden next week as the two leaders seek to step up cooperation on Ukraine.
Biden’s first state visit to France will take place on 8 June and reciprocates Macron’s trip to the US in 2022, the French presidency said. The two presidents will discuss the need for continued and unwavering support for Ukraine.
Days before the state visit, Biden is also due to attend the ceremony for the 80th anniversary of the battle of Normandy that led to the liberation of France and Europe in World War 2.
The meeting comes as European allies have grown increasingly concerned about what would happen if the US scales back its support for Ukraine, and how they could cover Ukraine’s financial and military needs.
Biden’s visit also comes a day before European elections, with Macron’s centrist political alliance lagging far behind Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party in polls of voting intentions.
Sweden may block Russian LNG if Orbán scuppers EU sanctions
Sweden is looking at ways to unilaterally block imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) if Hungary stops or succeeds in watering down the European Union’s proposed latest sanctions on Moscow.
EU member states are discussing sanctions targeting key Russian LNG projects, as well as a ban on using the bloc’s ports to re-export supplies destined for third countries, as part of an effort to limit the Kremlin’s ability to generate revenues from the fossil fuel. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has opposed the package and sanctions require the unanimity of the EU’s 27 member states.
“If the sanctions package doesn’t fit its purpose we are prepared to navigate on our own,” Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch said in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of ministers in Brussels. “That’s not optimal, but we are looking into the possibility of finding a way to further stop and put sanctions on Russian imports, specifically LNG.”
Busch didn’t elaborate on how exactly the government would target energy imports from Russia, but said new measures that allow individual member states to effectively ban Russian LNG shipments without new sanctions were insufficient. The rules require countries to take into account the bloc’s energy security, while nations like Spain have said that imports could simply be shifted to other EU countries.
Germany and the Czech Republic have called for the EU to set up a high-level working group on how to cut the remaining energy imports still coming from Russia after the dramatic reductions seen since the invasion of Ukraine.
While Sweden’s imports of Russian gas are small, any measures would further signal member states’ growing impatience over Hungary’s continued obstacles on aid for Ukraine and sanctions, but also highlight disunity within the bloc.
“The aim of this whole war on Russia’s side is to divide and conquer,” Busch said. “But Sweden will not wait if we don’t succeed with the 14th sanctions package.”
Separately, Sweden is proposing to introduce broad EU import tariffs on Russian goods as soon as possible, with the proceeds going toward supporting Ukraine, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. Other countries like the US, UK and Canada have already introduced similar measures.
Czechs warn funding is lagging on ammunition plan for Ukraine
A senior Czech official urged allies to step up financing for an initiative aimed at delivering ammunition to Ukraine, saying only a quarter of those who made commitments had come through on financing.
More than three months after Czech President Petr Pavel publicised the effort to procure some 800,000 shells from sources outside the European Union, Tomas Kopecny, the Czech envoy overseeing the initiative, said only five countries had finalised payments so far.
“It’s taking longer than we expected,” Kopecny told reporters in Prague, where Nato foreign ministers were gathering to discuss aid in preparation for the alliance’s summit in July in Washington. “The main reason is the speed of the processes in different countries — and the political will.”
The official warned that the pace needed to pick up, because the procurement process to arm Ukraine was competing with Russian efforts to tap a global supply of ammunition that Kopecny estimated at a “single-digit million” level. The 800,000 figure is a benchmark set by Pavel, but if resources are focused, Ukraine’s allies could source as many as two million shells, he said.
Only one of the EU’s big countries, Germany, had come through with funding of almost €600-million, Kopecny said. Ten other countries are going through domestic procedures to approve payments, whether through parliamentary passage or budget processes, he said.
Kopecny said Kyiv has been receiving stocks of ammunition for months — and that the influx would “multiply” as of next month. He cited “trustworthy commitments” for some 500,000 shells, worth about €1.7-billion.
Moldova, Ukraine to keep Russia gas flows to breakaway region
Moldova and Ukraine reached an informal agreement to keep natural gas flowing to the pro-Russian enclave of Transnistria after a transit contract with Gazprom expires at the end of the year.
Under the preliminary deal, a new route via Turkey is a viable option for getting Russian gas to Transnistria, the separatist region in eastern Moldova on the border of Ukraine, Moldovan Energy Minister Victor Parlicov said in an interview. Ukraine is closing its territory to Russian gas transit on 1 January 2025.
The arrangement comes as energy traders are watching how the end of Russian gas flows through Ukraine will affect Europe next winter. Allowing supplies to Transnistria may provide some encouragement that Ukraine transit deals with other countries might still be possible.
Ukraine’s gas network operator in April rejected the renewal of interconnector agreements that would allow Russian gas to transit through the main cross-border point, Sudzha, next year. In the Moldova-Ukraine agreement, Gazprom could deliver the gas to Turkey and then via Bulgaria and Romania, but it would still have to go through Ukraine because of the design of the pipeline.
After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Moldova gave up Russian gas, buying exclusively on the European market. But Gazprom continues to supply fuel to Transnistria, which provides Moldova with most of its electricity.
EU agrees to hike tariffs on Russian grain imports from July
The European Union agreed to hike tariffs on imports of Russian grain to curb the Kremlin’s revenues and prevent those shipments from destabilising the region’s farm sector.
The tariffs, which also apply to Belarusian grain, will be in place from 1 July, EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis said on X. EU ministers also made the decision to tackle illegal Russian exports of stolen Ukraine grain into EU markets, he said.
“The regulation increases duties on cereals, oilseeds and derived products from Russia and Belarus to a point that will in practice halt imports of these products,” the EU said on Thursday.
Russia exported 4.2 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds to the bloc last year, but that amount is a small portion of the EU’s overall imports. DM