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Germany has reportedly declared 40 Russian diplomats "undesirable persons." They have five days to leave the country.

Berlin has decided to "declare a significant number of members of the Russian embassy unwanted persons who have worked here in Germany every day against our freedom, against the cohesion of our society," Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday. "We will not tolerate this any further."

If diplomats are pronounced unwanted persons, it means expulsion.

The decision was communicated to the Russian ambassador Sergey Netschayev in the afternoon, Baerbock announced.

The personnel have five days to leave Germany. According to local media reports, the Russian foreign-service employees are suspected of working for Moscow's intelligence services. German media outlets said that as many as 40 Russian diplomats are to leave the country.

"It is hard to imagine and realize, but the British presidency of the Security Council, which has just begun, is trying to deny us our right to request a separate Security Council meeting on the terrible Ukrainian provocation in Bucha. We requested the April 4 meeting at 3 P.M. (10 P.M. Moscow time - TASS), 24 hours before the scheduled meeting [on Tuesday] in full compliance with the Security Council's rules of procedure," Polyansky said in his Telegram channel.

"We will insist that the meeting be held on Monday, as requested," the diplomat said.

"We are shocked at the scale and brutality of the staging organized in Bucha in the best traditions of 'white helmet cinema,'" Polyansky pointed out, "Today's Ukrainian neo-Nazis are completely faithful to Goebbels' old Nazi school of provocations and are trying to shift the blame to Russia." He noted that "there are striking inconsistencies and mistakes in the production." "It has already been refuted on the Internet," he noted.

Polyansky added that the British are trying to use procedural excuses to reject the Russian initiative because another UN Security Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday on a broader issue. "They obviously want us not to bring this up separately because it would cause reputational damage to Western countries that have already accused Russia of killing civilians in Bucha. But it won't work, and the world will know the truth," he said.

Polyansky reminded the British that such actions are not worthy of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and Russia, as chairman of the Council in February, "despite all the Ukrainian provocations and the tense situation on the ground, has not opposed a single meeting on Ukraine, no matter how much time has passed since its request." "London, on the other hand, has now compromised the presidency of the Council from its inception. We hope that the obvious commitment to respect Council traditions will prevail over dishonest tactical calculations," he concluded.

Two Security Council meetings

Ukraine on Sunday requested that the UN Security Council meet on Tuesday to consider, among other things, the situation in Bucha. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to speak at it. Later on Sunday, Russia asked the Security Council president to hold a meeting on Bucha.

According to Council procedure, the president is required to convene a meeting no later than 24 hours after receiving the request. However, the president can state that, for various reasons, he received the formal request much later than it was sent. As a result, the president has a formal right to convene a meeting later than the requesting country would like.

In addition, there is a practice where the president can decide to discuss related topics in the framework of one meeting of the Security Council without scheduling a second one within the required procedural time. The last time agendas were merged was in 2018, when Ukraine and Russia also proposed to discuss related topics.

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Germany has reportedly declared 40 Russian diplomats "undesirable persons." They have five days to leave the country.

Berlin has decided to "declare a significant number of members of the Russian embassy unwanted persons who have worked here in Germany every day against our freedom, against the cohesion of our society," Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday. "We will not tolerate this any further."

If diplomats are pronounced unwanted persons, it means expulsion.

The decision was communicated to the Russian ambassador Sergey Netschayev in the afternoon, Baerbock announced.

The personnel have five days to leave Germany. According to local media reports, the Russian foreign-service employees are suspected of working for Moscow's intelligence services. German media outlets said that as many as 40 Russian diplomats are to leave the country.

"The pictures from Bucha testify to the incredible brutality of the Russian leadership, and those who follow its propaganda," Baerbock said as she explained the decision. She offered no evidence to support her assertion.

After the withdrawal of Russian troops from Bucha, hundreds of murdered civilians were discovered in that suburb of Kiev. Ukraine blames the massacre on Russian troops, who had occupied the small town until recently, but Moscow denies that. While Western politicians sided with Ukraine on the matter, the Pentagon said that it doesn't yet have independent evidence to back these claims.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reiterated the call today after a request for an emergency session was refused on Sunday as reports of mass graves emerged following the withdrawal of Russian troops.

"Russia today will again demand the convening of the UN security council in connection with the criminal provocations of the Ukrainian military and radicals in this city," she said.

The Russian Defence Ministry claimed that the massacre in Bucha "has been staged by the Kiev regime for Western media, as was the case with the [fake news from the] Mariupol maternity clinic."

Germany, France, Latvia, and Lithuania have announced the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats as part of a joint European reaction to the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, allegedly by Russian forces before they retreated.

The German government declared 40 Russian diplomats "undesirable," and France said it would expel 35 Russian diplomats, saying their activities were "against our security interests."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the move a response to the "unbelievable brutality" the Kremlin had unleashed in Ukraine.

That's quite a strong comment from someone in a top position who has no proof to back up her allegations.

The diplomats expelled from Germany have worked "against our freedom, against the cohesion of our society," Baerbock said. "We will not tolerate this any longer."

Berlin's decision was communicated to Russian Ambassador Sergei Nethayev after he was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, Baerbock said. The affected envoys have five days to leave Germany.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the expulsions from France were part of a European approach to the killings in Bucha, where dozens of bodies were found in mass graves or littering the streets over the weekend.

The Kremlin has rejected Western accusations that Russian forces were responsible.

Lithuania said earlier it had expelled Russia's ambassador to Vilnius and was recalling its top diplomat in Moscow in response to reports that Russian forces killed dozens of civilians in Bucha.

"Lithuania stands in full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, who are victims of Russia's unprecedented aggression. We are therefore lowering the level of Russia's diplomatic representation," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in a statement on April 4.

With citizens? Or with the neo-Nazi aligned military? Both? Does Lithuania consider them the same? Zelensky is Not in Charge of Ukraine, Nazis Are - And They Believe They Are on a Mission From God to 'Derussify Ukraine in Holy War'

"Unfortunately, what the world saw in Bucha can be only the beginning. We will be able to discover even more evidences of cruel war crimes in other towns upon their liberation. The war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine will not be forgotten," he added.

Rather tellingly, there's still no comment about the video evidence proving Ukraine's torture of Russian POWs that happened 6 days ago: West's institutions silent over Ukraine's torture of Russian POWs - Zakharova

Photographs showing the bodies of some of the dead civilians in Bucha, which lies on the northwest edge of Kyiv, with their hands bound have shocked many and prompted calls for stepped-up sanctions against Russia and the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators.

After Lithuania announced its move, Baltic neighbor Latvia said it was "reducing its diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation" in connection with Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the German government declared 40 Russian diplomats "undesirable persons."

The details of Latvia's move will be announced "once internal procedures are complete," Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said.

Denmark said Tuesday it is expelling 15 Russian "intelligence officers" registered as diplomats in the country following similar moves by a number of EU countries, including Germany and France.

The Russian citizens concerned will have 14 days to leave the country, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"We have established that the 15 expelled intelligence officers have conducted spying on Danish soil," Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod told reporters after a meeting in parliament.

Denmark wished to send a "clear signal" that spying in the Nordic country was "unacceptable," he said.

Denmark all of sudden realised they were spying? Interesting timing...

Russia's ambassador to Denmark was informed of the decision early Tuesday, where the government also expressed a "strong condemnation of Russia's brutality against Ukrainian civilians in Bucha".

"Deliberate attacks against civilians are a war crime," it said.

Ukraine committed genocide against ethnic Russian's in Donbass since 2014, with well over 10,000 civilians killed, and yet Denmark was silent.

At the same time, Copenhagen insisted on maintaining diplomatic relations with Moscow.

"Denmark does not wish to break diplomatic relations to Moscow. The Russian ambassador and the rest of the embassy in Copenhagen are therefore not included in the expulsion," Kofod said.

But newly released satellite photographs taken by Maxar Technologies in mid-March, before the Russian withdrawal, showed what appeared to be bodies in some of the same places they were later found by Ukrainian troops and seen by journalists.

On Monday, France expelled 35 Russian diplomats, and Germany announced it had expelled a "significant number" of Russian envoys.

While Republicans have previously highlighted Jackson's practice of giving the lightest possible punishments in child pornography cases, the Weekes case throws into question her treatment of rapists, as well.

"This case is yet another example of information coming to light after the nomination hearing concluded because of the Democrats' rushed vetting process," a Republican Judiciary Committee aide told The Post Saturday.
...

In 2010, Weekes was convicted in DC Superior Court of raping his 13-year-old niece four years earlier. He was sentenced to 16 months in jail and four years of supervised probation and was required to register as a sex offender for the next decade, according to records obtained by The Post.

But instead, Weekes failed to register — lying about his whereabouts by claiming he lived in DC in February 2013 when prosecutors said he was really living with his wife in Temple Hills, Maryland since 2012.

He was hauled before Jackson, then a federal judge in DC, on Feb. 19, 2014 for sentencing after pleading guilty to a charge of failing to register.

Prosecutors asked that Weekes receive a two-year sentence — the low end of the federal guidelines, which ranged up to 30 months — with another five years of supervised release. Weekes' attorney asked for a maximum sentence of 10 months, plus three years of supervised release.

...

"This is not a butt grab, a misdemeanor kind of case ... this is not consensual sex between a 20-year-old and a 16-year-old," the prosecutor told Jackson. "This is an individual who, at trial, was convicted of essentially violently raping a 13-year-old child."

Jackson, however, appeared unmoved, saying there was "no evidence" Weekes had been intentionally ducking probation officers, though she conceded he had "gotten a number of breaks, perhaps undeservedly so" in the earlier assault case.

"I do believe that criminal history is having a disproportionate impact on the sentence that the guidelines prescribe in this particular case in light of what you actually did here," said Jackson before sentencing Weekes to 12 months, with credit for time served, according to the transcript.

He was released five months later, the court documents show.
...

Weekes landed on law enforcement's radar again in June 2015 — when he would have been in prison had prosecutors gotten their way.

According to a DC police report cited by federal prosecutors, Weekes allegedly plied his sister-in-law with liquor while she was babysitting for his wife. He then allegedly started touching her, trying three separate times to pull her leggings down, the report says.

On the third occasion, the report alleges, Weekes "was able to digitally penetrate her vagina with his fingers and then tried to perform oral sex on her." In response, the sister-in-law punched Weekes in the head, stopping the alleged attack.

"She noticed that the defendant had his penis exposed and was trying to insert it," the report continues, "but was unable to get close."

...

"Had the judge imposed the sentence recommended by the government, this child rapist would have been behind bars when he sexually assaulted another family member. Judge Jackson's personal policy preferences steered her judgement." [the Republican Judiciary Committee aide said.]

...

During her confirmation hearing, Jackson responded to criticism of her sentencing record by insisting that federal guidelines needed to be reformed by Congress, which did not sit well with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

"It was not reassuring to hear Judge Jackson say that if senators want her to be tough on crime, we need to change the law, take away her discretion and force her to do it," he said March 24 in announcing his opposition to her nomination.

"That response seems to confirm deeply held personal policy views seep into her jurisprudence, and that is exactly what the record suggests."