Alexei Navalny death: protesters gather across Europe to express outrage and denounce Putin

Demonstrators from Berlin to Vilnius, London to Rome chant slogans against Russian president and demand accountability over death

Hundreds of protesters, many of them Russian émigrés, gathered in cities across Europe and beyond on Friday to express their outrage over the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Often gathering outside Russian embassies, they chanted slogans critical of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, whom many blame for the activist’s death, holding up signs calling him a “killer” and demanding accountability.

Continue reading...

Western leaders point finger at Putin after Alexei Navalny’s death in jail

Russian opposition leader’s death described as political assassination attributable to president

Western leaders have held Vladimir Putin directly responsible for the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as the US president, Joe Biden, called it “yet more proof of Putin’s brutality”.

Navalny, 47, died while being held in a jail about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a “special regime”.

Continue reading...

Yulia Navalnaya takes stage at Munich meeting after news of husband’s death

Wife of Alexei Navalny addresses hushed crowd of politicians and vows Putin will be brought to justice

A geopolitical conference turned deeply personal on Friday as senior officials from around the globe heard first-hand from Alexei Navalny’s wife hours after news broke of his reported death.

Yulia Navalnaya was in Germany for the Munich security conference, which brings together national leaders, foreign ministers and experts, when Russia’s prison service announced that Navalny had died in jail.

Continue reading...

Long opposed to exile, Alexei Navalny dies a prisoner in a dark and dangerous Russia

Perhaps he might have been able to coordinate from abroad a powerful anti-war movement. Instead he is silenced for ever

For years, Alexei Navalny remained clear on a key message: he was a Russian opposition politician and he was determined to stay in Russia. Exile, he believed, would lead to political irrelevance, and calling on Russians to oppose Vladimir Putin from the safety of the west would mark him as a hypocrite.

Navalny stuck to this belief as the political climate in Russia deteriorated and the space for dissent narrowed ever further, and even after he was poisoned with novichok in 2020, leading to his ill-fated decision to return early the next year.

Continue reading...

‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners

Moscow has massively ramped up its industry, giving it advantages in Ukraine and leading to a redistribution of wealth

As Ukraine has scrambled to source ammunition, arms and equipment for its defence, Russia has presided over a massive ramping up of industrial production over the last two years that has outstripped what many western defence planners expected when Vladimir Putin launched his invasion.

Total defence spending has risen to an estimated 7.5% of Russia’s GDP, supply chains have been redesigned to secure many key inputs and evade sanctions, and factories producing ammunition, vehicles and equipment are running around the clock, often on mandatory 12-hour shifts with double overtime, in order to sustain the Russian war machine for the foreseeable future.

Continue reading...

Putin says he prefers Biden to Trump and mocks Tucker Carlson’s questions

Russian president says Biden is ‘more predictable’, in remarks likely to be attempt to make mischief in US election

Vladimir Putin has said he would prefer a Joe Biden presidency to a Donald Trump one and mocked the former Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson for a “lack of sharp questions” during their interview at the Kremlin last week.

Asked by a Russian state journalist on Wednesday to choose between Biden and Trump, Putin said without hesitation that the current US president was “more experienced, predictable, an old-school politician”, but added: “We will work with any US president who the American people have confidence in.”

Continue reading...

‘Talkshow or a serious conversation?’ Tucker Carlson’s interview of Putin offered neither

Wide-eyed former Fox host tagged along as Russian president steered the conversation through Russian history and justifications for war

“Are we having a talkshow or a serious conversation?” Vladimir Putin asked Tucker Carlson at the start of their interview on Thursday.

By the end of the two-hour conversation, the answer was clear: neither.

Continue reading...

Putin says release of US journalist Evan Gershkovich may be possible

Russian president suggests detained Wall Street reporter could be freed in prisoner exchange

Vladimir Putin has said he believes “an agreement can be reached” to free the imprisoned US journalist Evan Gershkovich, hinting he would trade him for a Russian killer serving a life sentence in Germany.

Speaking on Thursday to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Putin said he did not rule out the possibility of Gershkovich returning “to his motherland”.

Continue reading...

Location of jailed Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza unknown, say backers

Those who tried to visit or write to the journalist, who is serving a 25-year sentence, were unsuccessful

The prominent Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is serving a 25-year sentence for treason, has disappeared from the Siberian prison where he was behind bars, according to his supporters.

Kara-Murza, 42, was being held in a prison in the Omsk region, but a letter sent to him by the activist and journalist Alexander Podrabinek was returned with the notation that the inmate was no longer there, Podrabinek said on Facebook.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: attacks on Russian enlistment offices signal dissatisfaction with war, says UK – as it happened

There have been 220 attacks on Russian military enlistment offices since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022

Three civilians, including a teenage boy, were wounded in an overnight Russian strike in the Donetsk oblast, according to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general.

Russian troops launched a rocket attack on a residential area in the city of Myrnograd at about 1.30am, injuring a 15-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man in their own homes. A 30-year-old resident of a neighbouring house sustained a brain injury.

Continue reading...

Ukraine levels up the fight with drone strikes deep into Russia

Unable to match Putin’s military might, Ukraine is engaging in ‘smart warfare’ to attack the enemy’s oil and gas supply lines

Last week, a motorist driving in Russia’s Leningrad region came across something unusual. Men had blocked off the road. In front, a large olive-green military vehicle with cigar-shaped missiles on the back was reversing and then parked up on a snowy verge. “Fuck! It’s an S-300,” the driver exclaimed, before adding: “So guys, let’s prepare for the worst.”

This surreal roadside encounter took place outside St Petersburg, more than 620 miles (about 1,000km) from the border with Ukraine and Russia’s near two-year all-out war. The Kremlin’s security services were apparently taking no chances. They were deploying the S-300 air defence missile system in order to protect Peter the Great’s imperial capital from small but devastating drones.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: At least 25 killed in shelling at a market in Donetsk; fire at Russian liquefied natural gas producer – as it happened

Local officials are now saying that at least 25 were killed in the strike; cause of fire at gas plant unknown but drones were reported in area

Further information has come in on claims by Russia that it had captured the small village of Krakhmalnoye in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine.

“The village of Krakhmalnoye in the Kharkiv region was liberated,” the Russian defence ministry said in its daily bulletin on operations in Ukraine, citing “successful active operations”, reports AFP.

Continue reading...

Zelenskiy slams Trump’s rhetoric on stopping the war as ‘very dangerous’

Ukrainian leader invited Trump to Ukraine but says if he returns to White House he could make unilateral concessions to Russia

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, fears that if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year he could make unilateral concessions to Russia that override Ukraine’s interests and branded the former US president’s claims he could stop the war in 24 hours as “very dangerous”.

In an interview with the UK’s Channel 4 News, Zelenskiy said he was “stressed” that the former president “is going to make decisions on his own, without … I’m not even talking about Russia, but without both sides, without us.”

Continue reading...

Zelenskiy tells Davos chiefs: ‘Strengthen our economy, we will strengthen your security’

Standing ovation greets Ukrainian president’s speech amid strong support from EU and business leaders

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made an impassioned plea for international support for his country’s war against Russia, insisting that Vladimir Putin must live to regret starting the conflict almost two years ago.

In a speech that received a standing ovation from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Ukrainian president said the Putin had stolen 13 years of peace and would only respond to military defeat.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy makes surprise trip to Lithuania

The surprise visit to the Baltic Nato member country will see Zelenakiy travel to Tallinn and Riga after Vilnius

Zelenskiy has posted an update via his X account. In the statement, he calls Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania “reliable friends and principled partners” to Ukraine.

He has confirmed that while in Vilnius he will hold talks with the president, prime minister, speaker of the Seimas, as well as meet with politicians, the media, and the Ukrainian community. Security, EU and Nato integration, co-operation on electronic warfare and drones, and further coordination of European support are all on the agenda, he says.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: Russia on course to have lost 500,000 troops by end of 2024, says UK – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

Russia has started using ballistic missiles supplied by North Korea to attack Ukraine, Washington and Kyiv have claimed, in an indication that Moscow plans to further expand its arms deals with regimes under sanctions in order to sustain its war effort.

Washington also alleged Russia was in talks with Iran to buy short-range ballistic missiles. The US intelligence assessment is that Iranian missiles have not yet arrived in Russia, but that the deal will eventually be done.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian drones shot down over occupied Crimea, Russia says; Moscow using North Korean missiles, US says – as it happened

Air raid sirens sounds in Sevastopol and traffic halted on key bridge; breach of UN sanctions on Kim regime will be taken to security council. This live blog is now closed

Ukraine says it caused “serious damage” to Russia’s defence systems on the Crimean peninsula during an attack on a military command post there on Thursday.

“Not only was one command post hit, really powerful combat work took place over the past 24 hours, including causing serious damage to the defence system on the Crimean peninsula,” said Natalya Gumenyuk, a spokesperson for the defence forces of southern Ukraine.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian hackers inside Ukraine’s biggest telecoms company ‘since at least May’

Ukraine’s cyber spy chief says attack on Kyivstar should serve as a ‘big warning’ to the west

One civilian was killed and eight wounded on Thursday in a Russian missile strike on Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine, damaging energy company buildings and causing power and water supply cuts, the regional governor said.

Russia likely used an X-59 missile, governor Andriy Raikovych said at a briefing, according to Reuters. Raikovych said:

Ordinary working people were injured … One worker, unfortunately, died. A simple car mechanic.

We have to state that the regime of Zelenskiy is not inclined to make peace.

Its representatives think in terms of war and resort to highly aggressive rhetoric.

Continue reading...

Vladimir Putin will use election to show war-weary Russia he’s still calling the shots

Russia’s presidential is a foregone conclusion, but the appearance of democracy still matters greatly to its leader

In news that likely shocked no one, Vladimir Putin last month announced that he will seek a fifth presidential term in the upcoming March elections.

In a country where Putin, 71, has come to dominate Russia’s political system and the media over the past two decades, the outcome will probably leave little room for imagination.

Continue reading...