Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

As Russia’s assault continues, Ukraine’s politics shift and an old alliance begins to fray

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Beneath the ​drone strikes and ​talk of ceasefires lies a battle over history that is testing ​Kyiv’s chances for an end to the conflict

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I’ve just come back from a trip to Kyiv, where after more than four years of war, it can feel like the political and diplomatic news agenda has become cyclical: a suggestion that some kind of peace deal could be around the corner, followed by the swift intervention of reality that the Kremlin has no interest in abandoning its maximalist goals, and we all go back to the drawing board.

We are now in a period where Russia has again stepped up its air attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Frequent mass drone and missile attacks keep Kyiv residents awake, and some even get through to the city centre, whereas in the past Ukrainian air defences were usually able to repel them. Nights can be noisy and scary: one attack while I was there killed 27 people. Thousands head into the metro to get some sleep.

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Elon Musk’s family foundation took Tommy Robinson to Russia, says Musk’s father

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Errol Musk says far-right activist is ‘a fine young man’ and held meetings with Russian business figures

Elon Musk’s family foundation took Tommy Robinson to Russia, according to the billionaire X owner’s father, who was with the British far-right activist in Moscow as he encouraged anti-migration protests in Britain.

Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – appeared last month in Moscow, from where he issued calls for supporters to take to the streets after a knife attack in Belfast. He shared video of himself in a luxury Moscow hotel with the older Musk, whose son has been a vocal supporter of Robinson.

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Putin admits Ukrainian strikes driving Russian fuel shortages

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Russia’s president says Ukraine’s attacks on infrastructure are causing ‘obvious’ but not critical problems

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, acknowledged that the country was suffering from “a certain shortage” of fuel in an interview published by the Kremlin on Sunday, after repeated Ukrainian strikes in their four-year war.

Kyiv calls the attacks fair retribution for Russia’s near-daily barrages on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure since its February 2022 offensive.

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Trump reportedly tells Putin he is prepared to help end war in Ukraine

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Trump also says in ‘friendly and frank’ phone call that US is nearing peace deal with Iran, according to Putin adviser

Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin that ending Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine was critical and that he was prepared to help, reported Russia’s TASS news agency.

During a phone call on Sunday, Trump also informed the Russian president that the US was nearing a peace deal with Iran as the US-Israel war against the country continues, according to Yuri Ushakov, a Putin adviser. The call between Trump and Putin, which lasted about an hour, was described as “friendly and frank” by Ushakov.

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Police stop Tommy Robinson on his way back to London from Russian trip

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Met seizes far-right activist’s phones after he disembarks flight at Heathrow under counter-terrorism provisions

British police say they stopped the far-right activist Tommy Robinson and seized his phones as he returned from a trip to Russia.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, met Elon Musk’s father in Moscow during his trip.

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Armenia’s pro-Europe party wins election and cements shift away from Russia

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Result strengthens PM Nikol Pashinyan’s drive for deeper integration with Europe despite warnings from Moscow

Armenia’s ruling pro-Europe party has won parliamentary elections, confirming the country’s pivot towards Europe and away from its traditional ally, Russia.

Final results in the small South Caucasus country showed the prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party securing a slim majority, while the Strong Armenia alliance, led by the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, won 25% of the seats in parliament.

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Women accusing Andrew Tate criticise UK extradition delay as influencer appears in Russia

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Lawyer for British women attacks ‘extraordinary spectacle’ of Tate’s arrival in Moscow

British women who have accused Andrew Tate of rape, assault and coercive control have questioned why the self-professed misogynistic influencer has appeared in Russia as UK authorities continue to hold off on seeking his extradition.

Tate admires Vladimir Putin and amplifies Kremlin propaganda online. He arrived in the same week that Russian authorities welcomed US rightwing figures at an annual conference described as Russia’s answer to Davos.

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Armenia heads to polls amid Russian pressure and threat of ‘Ukrainian scenario’

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Relationship between Vladimir Putin and traditional ally has slowly unravelled under current PM Nikol Pashinyan

The bottling line at the Abovyan cognac factory in Armenia is running at full tilt.

Women in white coats and hairnets work the conveyor with practised speed – labelling, stacking, loading pallets – racing to fill a truck.

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Putin rejects Zelenskyy’s offer to meet and reaffirms Ukraine war aims

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Russian president describes Ukrainian counterpart’s letter as rude and says he sees no point in face-to-face talks

Vladimir Putin has rejected an offer from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to hold a face-to-face meeting, insisting instead that Russia will achieve its war goals in Ukraine, including seizing all of the eastern Donbas region.

Speaking at the St Petersburg economic forum, the Russian president described the open letter from his Ukrainian counterpart containing the offer as rude. He refused to use Zelenskyy’s name, referring to him only as its author. Asked if they could meet to discuss an end to the conflict, Putin replied: “So far I see no point.”

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Zelenskyy calls for face-to-face Ukraine war negotiations in letter to Putin

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Ukrainian president proposes meeting in neutral third country as Trump says both sides have to ‘make compromises’

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The letter, the first Zelenskyy has publicly written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping criticism of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.

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‘You can stop your war’: Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin – in full

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Russians are increasingly tired of the conflict and the time to end it is now, Ukraine’s president tells his Russian counterpart in an open letter

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an open letter to the Vladimir Putin, has called for a face-to-face meeting with the Russian president to end his war against Ukraine.

The letter sets out Zelenskyy’s view of the four-year-old conflict and says that while Ukrainians’ resilience remains intact, most Russians have grown weary of its effects and are ready for peace.

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‘Put an end to this war’: Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev makes new plea to Putin

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After winning the Grand Prix at Cannes film festival, the exiled auteur sent a direct message to the Russian president urging him to stop the war

Accoladed director Andrey Zvyagintsev has sent a direct message to Vladimir Putin urging him to start listening to the Russian people and end the “senseless” war in Ukraine, continuing a war of words between Russia’s most revered living film-maker and the Kremlin that started at the Cannes film festival awards ceremony over the weekend.

“Except for the limbs torn off from your fellow citizens in the name of an illusory goal, except for the massacre of young people that the country needs to build life and the future – nothing good is on the horizon if we don’t stop,” the exiled auteur said in a message sent to the Russian president’s press secretary through official channels on Tuesday.

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Xi prepares to welcome Putin to China four days after hosting Trump

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Chinese state media say Beijing emerging as ‘focal point of global diplomacy’ with Russian leader arriving on Tuesday

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin exchanged “congratulatory letters” on Sunday ahead of the Russian president’s visit to Beijing this week, four days after Donald Trump left China after a high-stakes summit.

Xi said bilateral cooperation between Russia and China had “continuously deepened and solidified”, Chinese state media reported, with this year marking the 30th anniversary of the two countries’ strategic partnership.

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Royal Opera House calls for release of Georgian bass singer jailed over democracy protests

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Casting director urges Keir Starmer to intervene in case of Paata Burchuladze, 71, jailed for seven years after singing at anti-regime demonstrations

The Royal Opera House in London has urged Keir Starmer to intervene in the case of Paata Burchuladze, a world-renowned bass singer who has been imprisoned in Georgia since October on a charge of leading a coup against the country’s authoritarian leader.

The 71-year-old has performed at the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and collaborated with the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras. He was arrested after joining a protest outside the presidential palace in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Last week he was given a seven-year jail sentence which Burchuladze suggested to the court was equivalent to a life sentence given his age.

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‘This is not another Covid,’ WHO chief tells Tenerife as hantavirus cruise ship heads to island – as it happened

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The interior minister of Spain told Reuters on Saturday that Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands have confirmed they will send planes to repatriate nationals from their respective countries aboard the cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak.

The European Union is sending two more planes for the remaining European citizens, and the US and UK have also confirmed planes and contingency plans for non-EU citizens.

A total of 8 cases, including 3 deaths, have been reported as of Friday. Six of these cases cases are confirmed as Andes virus and four patients are currently hospitalised.

One case previously reported as suspected hantavirus has now been reclassified as a non-case after testing negative for Andes (ANDV) virus.

A man who disembarked in Tristan da Cunha on 14 April is currently stable and in isolation. He is currently a probable case until laboratory confirmation.

Passengers who travelled on the same flight from St Helena to South Africa along with one of the confirmed cases have been contacted – 75 of those contacts have been identified in South Africa, of whom 42 have been traced by national authorities and are currently under monitoring.

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Russia will always be victorious, says Putin at scaled-back Victory Day parade

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Moscow blanketed in heavy security despite last-minute announcement of three-day ceasefire with Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has declared Russia will always be victorious as he oversaw a scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square held under heavy security amid mounting fears of Ukrainian attacks and growing public fatigue with the war.

Speaking to the crowd, the Russian leader invoked the sacrifices of the second world war to rally support for his soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine. “The great feat of the generation of victors inspires the warriors carrying out the tasks of the special military operation today,” he said, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for his invasion of Ukraine.

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Zelenskyy condemns Russian ‘cynicism’ over parade truce as 23 killed in attacks

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Kyiv berates Moscow’s request for ceasefire while launching ‘missile and drone strikes every single day leading up to it’

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Kremlin of “utter cynicism” for seeking a truce so it can stage a military parade in Moscow as 23 people were killed in attacks on Ukraine.

At least 12 people were killed on Tuesday in a strike on southern city of Zaporizhzhia, the regional governor said. “Russia ended the life of 12 people,” Ivan Fedorov posted on Telegram.

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Mali’s militant attacks expose limits of Putin’s power in Africa

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Russian backing for the ruling junta has not stopped rebel fighters striking significant blows in recent days

When Assimi Goïta, the leader of Mali’s military junta, sat down with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the Kremlin last summer, it symbolised Moscow’s commanding sway over Mali at the expense of the west.

As the two men spoke, roughly 3,500 miles to the south, about 2,000 Russian troops were propping up the regime in the landlocked desert country, as part of Moscow’s broader push for influence across the Sahel region.

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Ukraine war briefing: Hungary’s new leader says he would ask Putin to end the killing in Ukraine

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Péter Magyar would ‘talk to Russian president, but won’t initiate contact’; Ukraine welcomes defeat of Orbán. What we know on day 1,511

Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new leader, said he would ask Vladimir Putin to end the killing in Ukraine if they speak, and plans to review Hungary’s Russian energy contracts and renegotiate them if needed. Magyar said he would talk to the Russian president, but won’t initiate contact. “If Vladimir Putin calls, I’ll pick up the phone,” he said in his first news conference after his landslide win against Viktor Orbán, a Putin ally. “If we did talk, I could tell him that it would be nice to end the killing after four years and end the war. It would probably be a short phone conversation and I don’t think he would end the war on my advice,” he said.

Ukraine welcomed with relief on Monday the defeat of Orbán, its harshest critic in the EU, an outcome that paves the way for a €90bn ($105bn) loan that Kyiv urgently needs to fund the war with Russia.

Higher oil prices caused by the war in the Middle East could raise inflation rates in Ukraine by 1.5 to 2.8 percentage points, Ukraine’s top central banker said on Monday. The National Bank of Ukraine governor, Andriy Pyshnyi, said the central bank would stick to its target of lowering inflation to 5% in three years, using all available tools to ensure that goal was met. “We’re trying to walk on a razorblade,” Pyshnyi said through an interpreter, noting prices have already started to rise.

The Ukrainian military struck a Russian chemicals plant in Cherepovets in the Vologda region, Kyiv’s drone forces commander said on Monday. The plant produces chemicals that serve as raw materials for TNT, hexogen and components for munitions, Robert Brovdi said on Telegram.

Russian and Belarusian athletes will be permitted to compete in World Aquatics events with their respective uniforms, flags and anthems, the sport’s governing body said on Monday. Competitors from both countries were banned from international sports events after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was launched in part from Belarusian territory.

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Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy reiterates truce offer ahead of Orthodox Easter

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Ukrainian president says Russia unlikely to accept – ‘for them, nothing is sacred’; Australian police arrest army reservist for joining war. What we know on day 1,504

Ukraine’s president has renewed his offer to Russia of a mutual ceasefire on strikes against energy infrastructure. “If Russia is ready to stop strikes on our energy infrastructure, we will respond in kind,” he said. “This proposal has been conveyed to the Russian side through the Americans.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered last week to observe a ceasefire for Easter, which Orthodox adherents mark on Sunday (13 April) in Russia and Ukraine.

In his remarks on Monday, after an overnight attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa killed three people and injured at least 16, Zelenskyy said Russia appeared unwilling to agree to the ceasefire. “We have repeatedly proposed to Russia a ceasefire at least for Easter,” he said. “But for them, all times are the same. Nothing is sacred.”

Ukrainian drones attacked the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s oil shipping terminal in southern Russia early on Monday, damaging a mooring point and setting four oil tanks on fire, the Russian defence ministry claimed. The Ukrainian army said it had attacked a different terminal in the port of Novorossiysk – without mentioning the CPC, which did not immediately comment. The CPC pipeline handles about 1% of the world’s oil supplies, as well as about 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports.

A reservist in the Australian army has been charged after allegedly working as a drone operator for Ukraine. The 25-year-old man from Felixstow, in the South Australian city of Adelaide, was charged by the Australian Federal Police with working for a foreign military without authorisation, the AAP news agency reported. It is the first time someone has been charged with the offence, with the man facing up to two decades in jail if found guilty. Australian laws limit the work defence personnel can perform with a foreign military, government or company without authorisation. The man allegedly travelled to Ukraine in May 2025 and returned to Australia in January 2026.

A Russian ship carrying wheat believed to have sunk in the Sea of Azov after a drone attack has been found and towed to shore, Russia’s state news agency Tass said on Monday. The death toll has risen to three, it added. Crew abandoned the ship last Friday and made it to shore on Monday, according to Russian reports.

Russia jailed on Monday a former governor of the Kursk border region, where Ukraine’s army broke through in 2024, for 14 years over alleged kickbacks for government contracts related to the construction of fortifications. Since August 2024, the Kremlin has gone after top regional and military officials for failing to stop the incursion – a massive embarrassment for Vladimir Putin. Alexei Smirnov, the former Kursk governor, was “sentenced to 14 years in prison and a fine of 400 million rubles [£3.8m/US$5m]”, a court statement said. Another former Kursk governor, Roman Starovoyt, who led the region until just before the Ukrainian breakthrough, died last year by alleged suicide – a fate that regularly befalls officials who run foul of the Russian president.

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