Pleased to welcome Andreas Holzer, Director of the Austrian Criminal Intelligence Service, to the General Secretariat headquarters. Increasing our operational support, particularly in combating #cybercrime was a key area of discussion. Delegates shared experiences and latest cyber threat assessments, covering financial aspects of cybercrime, current and emerging challenges and policing innovations that are shaping the future. Coordinated approaches against child sexual abuse and the importance of hash databases in child victim identification were also high on the agenda. Discussions provided insight on operational highlights in tackling key cyber threats such as the astronomical growth of ransomware threats, and how new developments in technology being exploited by criminals can also be used to benefit police. “Cybercrime is an urgent global security risk, costing trillions of dollars each year. To address what is a parallel crime pandemic, law enforcement and the private sector need to take strong, collective action,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock. “By leveraging innovation, INTERPOL addresses the gaps our members face in combatting cybercrime across the globe. INTERPOL cyber capabilities will always be readily available to support national law enforcement agencies and our regional partners like Europol - this is at the heart of INTERPOL’s mission,” added Mr Stock. Cyber and innovation-enabled future Delegates heard how, to keep pace with technological developments, law enforcement must have the right skillsets to tackle digital crime at the national, regional and international levels, as well as targeted and tailored capacity building focusing on policing innovation. Discussions illustrated how societal and technological advances can enable police to tackle cybercrime with innovative solutions, such as the decryption of evidence lawfully obtained through criminal investigations and the role of laboratories in law enforcement innovation. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5NPbu1N8c

As Pentagon Chief Talks of “Weakening” Russia, Is U.S. Treating the Ukraine Conflict as a Proxy War? The Biden administration has pledged billions in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week that the U.S. goal was “to see Russia weakened.” Author and analyst Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warns that unless there is a commitment to finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it could become a U.S. proxy war with “very, very dangerous potential consequences.” Ukraine says Russia is intensifying its attacks in eastern Ukraine. This comes as the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is visiting Kyiv today to meet with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Earlier today, the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg revealed NATO nations have pledged and provided more than $8 billion in arms and military aid to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Russian Vladimir Putin warned Western nations about intervening in the war in Ukraine. PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] If someone decides to intervene in the current events in Ukraine from the outside and create unacceptable strategic threats for Russia, then they must know that our response, our retaliatory strikes, will be lightning fast, quick. We have all the tools for this, such that no one else can boast of right now. And we won’t brag. We will use them if needed. And everyone should know about it. We have made all the decisions on this matter. AMY GOODMAN: Putin’s comments come just after his foreign minister accused the United States and its allies of waging a proxy war in Ukraine. Putin also met with the U.N. secretary-general on Tuesday. We’re joined now by Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of numerous books on Russia and the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Russia. His latest piece is headlined “The horrible dangers of pushing a US proxy war in Ukraine.” Explain, Anatol, what you mean by a proxy war. And what is happening right now? ANATOL LIEVEN: Well, the reason I wrote the piece was in response to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s statement that U.S. strategy is now to weaken Russia through the war in Ukraine. And, you know, basically, that is what a proxy war is, you know, the U.S. trying to use the war in Ukraine not just to defend Ukraine, but for a wider strategic objective. The worrying thing about this is that this has been accompanied by more and more statements in the U.S. and NATO about helping Ukraine to win. Now, if that means helping Ukraine to fight Russia to a standstill and prevent Russia conquering Ukraine, then that is, of course, completely legitimate. But there have been suggestions that winning means actually helping Ukraine to reconquer all the territory it has lost to Russia since 2014, including territory that Russia now regards as part of its national territory. That, of course, would represent a really drastic escalation of U.S. aims, with very, very dangerous potential consequences. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Anatol, the question is whether the Americans think that a government apart from Putin’s might be willing to relinquish areas, including Crimea. ANATOL LIEVEN: Well, if they think that, they are totally wrong. If you look at Russian public opinion, if you look at the statements of basically the whole of the Russian political establishment, including, by the way, Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, they all now regard Crimea as part of Russian national territory. And this, by the way, does seem to be supported by a very large majority of the population of Crimea, which is heavily ethnic Russian. So, no, I mean, to bring about a Russian surrender of Crimea, you would have to basically destroy the Russian state. Now, at that point, the Russian threats of using nuclear missiles begin to look a little less like bluster and a little more like something that could actually happen. AMY GOODMAN: And how can that be avoided, Anatol Lieven? ANATOL LIEVEN: Well, my sense is that it’s quite likely that if Russia can conquer the whole of the Donbas, which it hasn’t done so far — you know, the Russian military performance has been pretty pathetic, frankly. But if it can do that, precisely because Russia has suffered such heavy casualties, Russia might stop and offer a ceasefire and negotiations. And the Ukrainian government has put forward some very sensible proposals for a peace settlement, based on a treaty of neutrality and compartmentalizing the territorial issues for future discussion, and essentially moving the Ukraine war to the diplomatic field as was done with the Turkish invasion of Cyprus 45 years ago. So, that, in my view, would be a much more sensible approach for the West to support — in other words, support the defense of Ukraine and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty, but not use Ukraine for maximal eith