The government is facing calls to cease trading with DP World because of its partnership with Putin’s northern sea route
Ministers are facing calls to review the UK’s financial ties to the multinational logistics company DP World over its business deals in Russia.
The business announced a £1bn expansion of the London Gateway port earlier this month, despite a row over the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, calling its ferry subsidiary, P&O Ferries, a “rogue operator”.
Continue reading...President’s comments at Brics summit are ambiguous, however, US says it has evidence of movement of troops who could fight in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin has sidestepped claims that North Korea has sent soldiers to Russia, insisting that it was up to Moscow how to run its mutual defence clause with Pyongyang.
Speaking at the close of the Brics summit in Kazan on Thursday, he accused the west of escalating the Ukraine war and said it was “living an illusion” if it thought it could inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.
Continue reading...Russian president’s goal to de-dollarize world economy alarms members that do not want bloc to turn against west
Vladimir Putin has opened the expanded Brics summit by issuing a call for an alternative international payments system that could prevent the US using the dollar as a political weapon.
But the summit communique indicated that little progress had been made on an alternative payment system.
Continue reading...Russian president ‘willing to gamble on food security’ by stepping up strikes on grain ships, says UK prime minister
Keir Starmer has accused Vladimir Putin of disrupting food supplies to Gaza after British intelligence suggested Russia had stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian ports.
Starmer said it was clear the Russian president was “willing to gamble on global food security” after several grain ships en route to developing countries were damaged by Russian strikes.
Continue reading...West infuriated as UN secretary general accepts invitation to meeting of countries including China, India and Iran
Vladimir Putin, ostracised by the west and labelled a possible war criminal by the international criminal court, has played host to 36 world leaders from nations including China, India and Iran as part of a summit of the Brics group designed to display Moscow as anything but isolated.
One of the main aims of the summit will be to speed up ways to reduce the number of dollar transactions, and so mitigate the US ability to use the threat of sanctions to seek to impose its political will.
Continue reading...People could face fines of up to 400,000 rubles, as data suggests birthrate has slid to lowest level in quarter of a century
A law that would ban “propaganda” seeking to champion a childfree lifestyle has cleared its first hurdle in Russia’s lower house of parliament, gaining unanimous approval among lawmakers for a bill promoted as a means to increase the country’s birthrate.
The new legislation sets out fines for those deemed to be discouraging people from having children, as official data released last month suggested Russia’s birthrate had slid to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, a slump exacerbated by the country’s ageing population and Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...In secret journal, Putin’s fiercest critic writes: ‘If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them’
The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny believed he would die in prison, excerpts from his memoir reveal.
Navalny was the most prominent foe of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and relentlessly campaigned against official corruption in Russia. He died in a remote Arctic prison in February while serving a 19-year sentence on several charges, including running an extremist group, which he said were politically motivated.
Continue reading...Engineers said to be supporting missile launches and reports of North Koreans killed near Donetsk
North Korean military engineers have been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles, and fighters operating in occupied areas of the country have already been killed, senior officials in Kyiv and Seoul said.
There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that “support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles”, a source in Ukraine told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Accusations that another Kremlin critic ordered attack on Leonid Volkov throws scattered opposition into further disarray
When Leonid Volkov, a longtime associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was brutally attacked with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania in March, it initially seemed yet another case of the Kremlin hunting down its enemies abroad.
The assailant smashed open Volkov’s car window and struck him repeatedly with a hammer, breaking his left arm and damaging his left leg. Western officials and opposition figures assumed the attack, which took place a few weeks after Navalny’s mysterious death in prison, had been orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Continue reading...Draft documents say defence and security will make up 40% of government spending as Putin continues war against Ukraine
Russia is to increase its spending on defence by 25% to its highest on record, as Vladimir Putin vows to continue his war efforts in Ukraine and further escalate his standoff with the west.
The latest planned increase in spending will take Russia’s defence budget to a record 13.5tn rubles (£109bn) in 2025, according to draft budget documents published on Monday on the parliament’s website. That is about 3tn rubles more than was set aside for defence this year, which was the previous record.
Continue reading...Sergei Lavrov accuses west of using Ukraine ‘to defeat’ Russia days after Putin shifts Moscow’s nuclear posture
Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.
Three days after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
Russia has filed “pre-trial claims” against Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland over the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, accusing the West of trying to “sweep the matter under the carpet”, Reuters is reporting.
The multi-billion dollar pipeline that carried natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea was ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Continue reading...Ex-president hails ‘very good relationship’ as Ukrainian leader says pair share ‘common view’ that Putin cannot win
Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in a high-stakes meeting at which the Ukrainian leader hoped to repair ties with the former US president.
The two men met at Trump Tower on Friday amid a growing feud between Zelenskyy and Republicans that Ukraine fears could sabotage further US military aid if Trump wins in November.
Continue reading...Democratic nominee calls Republican plan to end war between Ukraine and Russia ‘dangerous and unacceptable’
Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has indirectly denounced the Trump campaign’s policy on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.
Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Ukraine’s foreign minister has discussed ways to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine with his Chinese counterpart at the UN general assembly, Kyiv said on Thursday.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who had earlier met Russia’s top diplomat, told a security council session this week that diplomacy was the only solution to the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Comments are strongest yet against allowing Ukraine to launch long-range missiles into Russian territory
Vladimir Putin has escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.
His remarks on Wednesday came during a meeting with Russia’s powerful security council where he also announced changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president urges world leaders to back peace plan in general assembly speech ahead of Biden meeting
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the United Nations that Russia is planning to attack Ukrainian nuclear power plants as he repeated his calls for unity from world leaders in order to force Russia to the negotiating table to conclude a “just peace”.
His comments came as Vladimir Putin on Wednesday escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.
Continue reading...Vladimir Kara-Murza and his wife, Evgenia, speak of his time in a Siberian jail and why the truth about Russia will come out
The last time I met Evgenia Kara-Murza, it was a grim day in early March. The timing couldn’t have been worse. As we spoke, Alexei Navalny’s coffin was being lowered into the frozen ground in a Moscow cemetery. Meanwhile Evgenia’s husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was still incarcerated in a Siberian prison cell almost identical to the one in the Arctic Circle in which Navalny had been found dead, presumed murdered.
The parallels were eerie. Because Vladimir, a journalist turned political activist, was not just also loathed and feared by the Kremlin and imprisoned on spurious charges, he’d also been poisoned – twice – targeted by the same FSB (Federal Security Service) unit that had poisoned Navalny.
Continue reading...In Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, residents have clung on to hope until the bitter end. Now many are saying goodbye to their homes
Valeria Tanashchuk packed up a few last belongings from her home. Going in the evacuation van waiting outside: her daughter Nicole’s favourite bear, clothes, items of furniture and a microwave oven. Staying behind: her mother Marina’s collection of detective novels, a wall poster with the Ukrainian alphabet written on it, and a pair of furry slippers.
“We don’t want to leave. But would choice do we have?” Tanashchuk asked, as a thunderous boom echoed nearby. “The explosions get worse every day. They are louder and more frequent.” What would she do next? “I don’t have a concrete plan,” she said. “I will try and find work somewhere. We had hoped until the end that everything would be OK.”
Continue reading...Ukrainian president tells press conference with Ursula von der Leyen that Ukraine plans to use EU loan for air defence, energy and weapons purchases
Ukraine’s “victory plan” in the war against Russia depends on quick decisions being taken by allies this year, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday during a visit by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Zelenskyy told a joint press conference with von der Leyen that Ukraine planned to use a proposed multi-billion dollar European Union loan for air defence, energy and domestic weapons purchases.
Continue reading...