Foreign ministers condemn ‘elections’ held in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia oblasts and Crimea, where electoral competition was limited
Russia has “recalibrated” its missile defences around Moscow as it faces near daily drone attacks, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update.
As well as being aimed at improving its defences, the changes are likely also meant as a “high-profile reassurance” to the public, the MoD said.
Continue reading...North Korea’s Kim Jong-un set to meet Vladimir Putin; Ukraine recaptures gas and oil rigs in Black Sea
Vladimir Putin has declared that Ukraine’s counter-offensive has delivered no results. The Russian president gave a lengthy speech and participated in a Q&A session at an economic forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
Putin appeared to rule out any further conscritpion or mobilisation to help the war effort, claiming that 1,000-1,500 Russians were signing voluntary contracts to join the military every day. He also said that over the past six or seven months, 270,000 people have signed voluntary contracts. That is a figure slightly lower than the 280,000 that former president Dmitry Medvedev stated earlier this month.
The Russian leader accused Ukraine and the west of a crime in deploying cluster munitions and utilising depleted uranium in armaments as it seeks to repel the invasion of Ukraine which Putin ordered in February of last year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived to Russia by armoured train to meet President Vladimir Putin, Pyongyang said, with face-to-face talks potentially focused on weapon sales. Experts suggest Putin is seeking artillery shells and anti-tank missiles from North Korea, while Kim is reportedly in search of advanced technology for satellites and nuclear-powered submarines, as well as food aid for his impoverished nation.
A US spokesman said the meeting indicated Putin was desperate over the Ukraine conflict and renewed warnings that any arms deal could trigger US sanctions. “Having to travel across the length of his own country to meet with an international pariah to ask for assistance in a war that he expected to win in the opening month, I would characterise it as him begging for assistance,” state department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Tuesday he had vetoed a parliamentary bill that sought to retain closed asset declarations for officials. Parliament voted last Tuesday to restore a declaration rule that was suspended after Russia’s 2022 invasion as a security precaution but, in an important loophole, to keep the disclosures closed to the public for another year.
The Ukrainian military said it had recaptured strategic Black Sea gas and oil drilling platforms, the so-called Boyko Towers, that were seized by Russia in 2015. “Russia has been deprived of the ability to fully control the waters of the Black Sea, and this makes Ukraine many steps closer to regaining Crimea,” the Main Intelligence Directorate said.
Ukraine said its troops had regained more territory on the eastern and southern fronts in the past week of its counteroffensive. Deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said in televised comments that Ukraine had retaken nearly 2 square km (0.77 square mile) of land around the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia in May. She later added on the Telegram messaging app that the Ukrainian army had in the past week also recaptured 4.8 square km in the southern Tavria sector.
The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment of longer-range missiles packed with cluster bombs to Ukraine, giving Kyiv the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, Reuters reported citing four US officials.
The “decision-making process in Germany is moving forward” regarding the supply of Taurus missiles to Kyiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said after a meeting with the country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. Earlier on Monday, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, had urged Berlin to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine as soon as possible.
Continue reading...Tribute to ‘Iron Felix’ Dzerzhinsky sited at HQ of Russia’s foreign spy service, following earlier monument that was toppled in 1991
A bronze statue of “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless founder of the Soviet secret police and architect of the Red Terror that followed the 1917 revolution, has been unveiled at the headquarters of Russia’s foreign spy service.
Dzerzhinsky, a Polish noble turned revolutionary who helped lay the foundations of the repressive system over which Joseph Stalin was to preside, is reviled by dissidents but is a hero to the spies who rule in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Continue reading...West fears North Korea plans to supply Moscow with weapons to use in war against Ukraine
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, will visit Russia in the coming days at the invitation of Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has confirmed, amid concerns in the west that Pyongyang plans to provide weapons to Moscow to use in the war against Ukraine.
An armoured train carrying Kim was reported by South Korean media to have departed Pyongyang for Russia via North Korea’s north-eastern border, with a meeting expected to be held in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, where Putin has already arrived, as early as Tuesday.
Continue reading...Comments were at odds with Brazil foreign minister’s statement that Putin could face ‘issues’ if he traveled to any ICC member state
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has rowed back on comments suggesting Vladimir Putin would be able to attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest.
The international criminal court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the Russian leader’s arrest for alleged war crimes in Ukraine and, as a signatory of the Rome statute, Brazil is duty-bound to cooperate with the court. But on Saturday Lula raised eyebrows by telling an Indian interviewer there was “no reason” Putin would be detained if he travelled to the November 2024 summit in Brazil.
Continue reading...Brazil’s president, now the group’s leader, says his Russian counterpart is welcome at 2024 event
Vladimir Putin can attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said as he took leadership of the forum.
Speaking at this year’s meeting in Delhi, Lula – who has controversially tried to position himself as a peacemaker between Moscow and Kyiv – said the Russian president would be welcome to attend the November 2024 event.
Continue reading...Oleksii Reznikov urges unity against Russia ‘to save this world from catastrophe of world war three’
Ukraine’s former defence minister has warned his western counterparts that negotiations with Moscow will not bring peace, and that Vladimir Putin remains determined to destroy Ukraine entirely and to “assimilate” its citizens into the Russian Federation.
In an article for the Guardian, Oleksii Reznikov says any “deal” with the Kremlin would not end the conflict. “Russia demands the recognition of the occupied territories of Ukraine as its territory in exchange for the end of the war,” he writes.
Continue reading...North Korean and Russian leaders expected to discuss military cooperation in Vladivostok
Kim Jong-un will reportedly travel to Russia this month to meet Vladimir Putin and discuss the possibility of supplying weapons to the Kremlin for the war in Ukraine.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said details of the expected meeting were still unclear, but added that it was likely to take place in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, given its proximity to North Korea.
Continue reading...Turkish and Russian leaders hold talks as Moscow continues to attack Ukrainian grain-exporting ports
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has concluded face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin by claiming a deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea could be revived.
But there was no evidence of a breakthrough as the Russian leader again accused the west of reneging on promises.
Continue reading...In an exclusive interview, a leading Ukrainian general says his forces have made a vital breakthrough near Zaporizhzhia
Ukrainian forces have decisively breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia after weeks of painstaking mine clearance, and expect faster gains as they press the weaker second line, the general leading the southern counteroffensive has said.
Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskiy estimated Russia had devoted 60% of its time and resources into building the first defensive line and only 20% each into the second and third lines because Moscow had not expected Ukrainian forces to get through.
Continue reading...Russian president ordered urgent removal of Graceful from Hamburg shipyard, investigation claims
Vladimir Putin moved his $100m (£75m) superyacht from a German shipyard to Russia just weeks before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, according to secret documents released in a new investigation.
A Russian anti-corruption organisation set up by the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims emails show that the Russian president ordered the urgent moving of the 82-metre superyacht, called Graceful, from a shipyard in Hamburg, where it was undergoing a $32m refit, by 1 February 2022.
Continue reading...Kremlin earlier said president’s presence ‘not envisaged’ at funeral of Wagner chief who was killed in plane crash last week
The funeral of Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin was held at a private cemetery on the outskirts of his home town of St Petersburg, his press service said on Tuesday hours after the Kremlin announced that Vladimir Putin would not be attending.
“The farewell to Yevgeny Viktorovich took place in a closed format. Those who wish to say goodbye may visit Porokhovskoye cemetery,” the press service said in its first post on Telegram in two months, ending days of speculation over how the warlord would be laid to rest.
Continue reading...The mercenary leader’s reputation as patriot, martyr or traitor will be dictated by two linked factors – Putin and the result of the war
In a 2018 documentary, Vladimir Putin answers instantly when asked if there is anything he cannot forgive. “Betrayal,” he says with no hesitation.
Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a probable assassination last week on board his Embraer private jet, held a similar belief. One of his fighters’ tactics to punish deserters was to tape their heads to a block of concrete and then bludgeon them to death with a sledgehammer. The hammer became their symbol.
Continue reading...Spokesperson says western claims that Vladimir Putin was behind assassination are ‘an absolute lie’
The Kremlin has denied that it assassinated the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, calling western intelligence assessments of Vladimir Putin’s potential involvement “an absolute lie”.
Prigozhin is believed to have been killed when his Embraer jet crashed north-west of Moscow on Wednesday, according to Russian officials. Western intelligence officials have briefed media that Prigozhin was most likely to have been killed by an explosion onboard the plane on President Putin’s orders.
Continue reading...Speculation grows that Wagner chief’s plane was downed by bomb after it took off from Moscow
Vladimir Putin has confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, saying the Wagner chief had made some made “some serious mistakes” and met with a “difficult fate”, as speculation grew his plane was brought down by a bomb after it took off from Moscow.
US and western officials said it was likely that an intentional explosion had brought down the plane, which crashed into a field 185 miles (300km) north of of the Russian capital.
Continue reading...The Wagner leader appeared down but not out in the months after his mutiny, but his fate may already have been sealed
The Kremlin meeting was like a scene from The Godfather. Shortly after their mutiny was quelled in June, 35 Wagner commanders were summoned for a sit-down with Vladimir Putin. Putin said he offered them the chance to continue fighting in Ukraine. But Yevgeny Prigozhin, their leader and financier, was defiant.
“A lot of them nodded their heads” at the offer, Putin claimed. “But Prigozhin … didn’t see [their reaction] and said: ‘No, the guys won’t agree with that decision.’”
Continue reading...Putin may have shored up unity, but watching his back for pro-Wagner traitors may be a distraction
Yevgeny Prigozhin apparently being killed on the same day that it emerged Gen Sergei Surovikin had been relieved of his command of Russia’s air force means the two most effective leaders in the first phase of the Ukraine war are now gone; their removal a victory of sorts for the old guard at the Kremlin.
The Wagner group, headed by Prigozhin, led the capture of Bakhmut, Russia’s only battlefield gain so far this year, and it was his ally Surovikin, in his short period of overall command in Ukraine, who began building the defensive fortifications that are seen as so important to the invader’s position today.
Continue reading...Smooth transition of mercenary group’s network and holdings in Africa may not be straightforward for Moscow
The reported death of the founder and leader of the Wagner group in a plane crash in Russia could have huge consequences for a motley crew of regimes and warlords across Africa, but also for hundreds of millions of ordinary people, the west and all the powers battling for influence on the continent.
Some analysts now suggest that the demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin may strengthen the Kremlin’s hand in Africa among powerful actors who have relied on Wagner’s loose network of shadowy companies and paramilitaries to bolster their own power – and impress others who may be thinking of doing the same.
Continue reading...Officials say Wagner chief behind June mutiny was on jet that crashed in Tver region, killing all 10 onboard
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner paramilitary chief who launched an armed mutiny in June, has been reported dead. Russia said he was onboard a private jet that crashed in the Tver region near Moscow, killing all 10 onboard.
Rosaviatsia, the Russian aviation authority, said Prigozhin and senior Wagner commander Dmitry Utkin were among 10 people travelling on the Embraer business jet that crashed on Wednesday evening.
Continue reading...Since the Wagner group’s abortive coup, many have felt its leader could be living on borrowed time
Ever since the abortive coup, speculation had been that Yevgeny Prigozhin could be living on borrowed time.
When the head of the notorious Wagner group launched his historic uprising, inflicting the biggest crisis of Vladimir Putin’s 23-year reign, many were left wondering how the Russian leader would respond.
Continue reading...