Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

Grain deal U-turn offers lesson in calling Vladimir Putin’s bluff

Posted on by

Russian leader has backed down in face of defiance, and move also shows Turkey’s growing influence

In the end, Vladimir Putin backed down. Faced with blocking ships carrying grain from Ukraine or tacitly admitting that his threats to do so had been a bluff, the Kremlin leader opted not to rekindle a global food crisis.

Russia’s exit from the deal that allowed exports of grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea was weeks in the making. Russia had threatened to do so after an explosion rocked the Crimea Bridge in October, and again after the drone attack on its Black Sea fleet last week.

Continue reading...

Oligarch renounces Russian citizenship over Ukraine war

Posted on by

Oleg Tinkov, who has previously spoken out against the conflict, says he ‘won’t be associated with a fascist country’

The billionaire banker and entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov has renounced his Russian citizenship because of the conflict in Ukraine, which he has previously criticised.

“I have taken the decision to exit my Russian citizenship. I can’t and won’t be associated with a fascist country that started a war with their peaceful neighbour and killing innocent people daily,” Tinkov said.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow claims it has identified drones used in Black Sea Fleet attack

Posted on by

Russia blames Ukraine for attack on Saturday; calls grow for Moscow to rejoin grain deal as US accuses Kremlin of weaponising food

More on the reported Russia-Ukraine exchange of prisoners of war on Saturday: officials in Moscow and Kyiv said both sides had returned about 50 people each.

Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate reported the return of 52 detainees, among them soldiers, sailors, border guards, national guard members and doctors.

We remember all those who are held captive in Russia and on occupied territory and will do everything to ensure that each and every one is returned.

Continue reading...

Russia suspends participation in deal on Ukraine grain exports – as it happened

Posted on by

Moscow plans expedited Kherson withdrawal, says MoD; Guterres calls for west to help remove blocks to Russian grain exports

Speaking during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said 82,000 conscripts had already been sent to Ukraine.

Shoigu added that Russia was no longer recruiting people for its armed forces, saying that “citizen notification has been discontinued”.

Continue reading...

Russia says 82,000 conscripts from emergency draft already in Ukraine

Posted on by

Ministry of Defence says Russia relying on ‘poorly trained force’ as Kremlin seeks to consolidate gains

Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Russia’s defence minister said 82,000 conscripts had already been sent to Ukraine, reflecting what the west called a desperate effort to halt Kyiv’s counter offensive with poorly trained troops.

Sergei Shoigu told president, Vladimir Putin, that a further 218,000 were being trained in barracks, and that the controversial “partial mobilisation” had concluded, although it was not possible to verify the figures cited.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia has fired 4,500 missiles on Ukraine since invasion, says Zelenskiy; more than 300 drones ‘shot down’ – as it happened

Posted on by

Ukraine president says there were 8,000 air strikes; air force spokesman says Ukraine has shot down hundreds of Iranian-made drones

Russia has probably bolstered its troops with “mobilised reservists” west of the Dnieper River, the UK’s ministry of defence has said.

The region encompasses most of Kherson, a strategically important Russian-held city braced for a counter-offensive from Ukrainian troops.

Continue reading...

Ukraine refugees told not to return yet as energy crisis looms

Posted on by

Government tells citizens to wait until spring, amid warning damaged networks ‘will not cope’ as fighting continues

Ukraine’s government is advising refugees living abroad not to return until the spring amid mounting fears over whether the country’s damaged energy infrastructure can cope with demand this winter.

The energy crisis comes as officials in Kyiv warned that the coming winter may herald the heaviest fighting of the war, around the southern city of Kherson where Russian forces have been digging in.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: UK defence secretary dismisses Russia’s claims Ukraine plans to escalate conflict – as it happened

Posted on by

Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, makes calls with UK, US, French and Turkish counterparts on Sunday

Two civilians have been killed in Russian strikes on the eastern region of Donetsk, according to the local governor.

Posting on Telegram on Sunday, Pavlo Kyrylenko said the deaths had occurred in the villages of Klishchiivka and Torskyi.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia launches 36 rockets in ‘massive attack’; power outages in central and western Ukraine after shelling – as it happened

Posted on by

Ukrainian president says most missiles fired overnight were shot down; over 1 million people without electricity after attacks on power stations

Iran has strongly condemned a call by France, Germany and Britain for the United Nations to probe accusations that Russia has used Iranian-origin drones to attack Ukraine, its foreign ministry said.

Reuters reports that ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Friday’s call by the so-called E-3 group of countries was “false and baseless” and that it was “strongly rejected and condemned”.

The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its pursuit to protect its national interest and to secure the rights of the noble Iranian people, reserves the right to respond to any irresponsible action.

It will not hesitate to defend the interests of the Iranian people,” he said, without elaborating.

Currently, restrictions on energy supply have been forcibly applied in Kyiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kirovohrad regions.

Continue reading...

Berlusconi said he received vodka from Putin for birthday, reports say

Posted on by

La Presse agency publishes audio suggesting 20 bottles arrived for 86th birthday after pair ‘re-establish’ ties

Silvio Berlusconi has allegedly said Vladimir Putin gave him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday after he “re-established” relations with the Russian president.

Berlusconi turned 86 on 29 September, four days after a coalition including his Forza Italia party won the general election.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war, as it happened: nearly 9,000 Russian troops to be stationed in Belarus; Putin’s forces continuing ‘forced deportations’

Posted on by

Russian servicemen begin to arrive in Belarus; US thinktank says Putin engaging in ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Ukraine

Norway has arrested a Russian national carrying a drone and camera equipment after he was seen taking photos of an airport in the far north, the second such arrest in a week.

Agence France-Presse reports that Norway is on high alert following accounts of mysterious drone sightings close to offshore oil and gas drilling platforms run by the country’s major energy producer.

Police have confiscated a large amount of photography equipment, including a drone and a cache of memory cards.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war live: ‘endemic corruption and poor logistics’ harming Russian military, says UK – as it happened

Posted on by

UK Ministry of Defence says situation so bad reservists are having to buy their own body armour. This live blog is now closed

In case you missed it, Jon Henley reports that nearly eight months into Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, citizens in core western alliance countries show little appetite for the kind of concessions to Russia that might form part of an eventual agreement to end the fighting, according to a major survey.

The YouGov-Cambridge globalism project, which gauged public opinion in 25 of the world’s largest countries, also found strong support for maintaining, and often toughening and expanding, military and economic measures against Moscow.

Beside an abandoned Russian military camp in eastern Ukraine, the body of a man lay decomposing in the grass – a civilian who had fallen victim to a tripwire land mine set by retreating Russian forces.

Nearby, a group of Ukrainian minesweepers with the country’s territorial defense forces worked to clear the area of dozens of other deadly mines and unexploded ordnance – a push to restore a semblance of safety to the cities, towns and countryside in a region that spent months under Russian occupation.

Continue reading...

Russian strikes fail to disable Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

Posted on by

Drones and missiles hit Kyiv region and Zaporizhzhia as Ukrainian forces make gains around Kherson

Russia has continued to try to hit Ukrainian’s energy infrastructure but Vladimir Putin’s forces did not appear to have enjoyed any significant success.

One missile seriously damaged a key energy facility in the region around Ukraine’s capital and 10 missiles and four drones hit locations in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Continue reading...

‘My son has died’: Russia mourns loss of first drafted soldiers in Ukraine

Posted on by

As newly mobilised men return from the front in coffins, critics complain of aggressive recruiting, low morale and poor training

• Russia-Ukraine war latest – live blog

Andrei Nikiforov, a lawyer from St Petersburg, was one of the hundreds of thousands of Russians mobilised since last month to hold the frontlines in his country’s faltering war in Ukraine.

On 25 September he received his call-up papers. By 7 October, just two weeks later, he was dead.

Continue reading...

Germany still a ‘teenager’ on leading foreign security policy, says Scholz’s top aide

Posted on by

Wolfgang Schmidt asks for patience from allies urging his country to head efforts to support Ukraine

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Germany is still a “teenager” when it comes to foreign security policy, its chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief of staff has said, asking for patience from western allies urging Europe’s largest economy to take a more proactive leadership in its support of Ukraine.

“We are getting into a situation that Americans have known for decades: people want us to lead,” said Wolfgang Schmidt, a longstanding ally of Scholz who also serves as the political point of contact for the country’s intelligence agencies.

Continue reading...

Biden hails UN general assembly vote condemning Russia annexations in Ukraine

Posted on by

US president says vote sends clear message that ‘Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map’

The United Nations general assembly has overwhelmingly condemned Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions, demanding that Moscow reverse course.

US president Joe Biden said the vote sent a “clear message” to Moscow. “The stakes of this conflict are clear to all, and the world has sent a clear message in response – Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map,” he said in a statement.

Continue reading...

Saudi Arabia is choosing friends on its own terms and Biden is not one of them

Posted on by

Reactions in Washington to slashing oil supply have not concerned Mohammed bin Salman; nor have the optics of indirectly boosting Putin’s war

Mohammed bin Salman had seen it coming. The groundswell of anger in Washington was clear and building since he helped lead an Opec+ decision to cut the world’s oil supply last week.

But for the first time in the modern era of ties between the US and Saudi Arabia, there was no rush to placate hard feelings, or gloss over a rift. This was the birth of a new realpolitik, where nascent Saudi nationalism paid no heed to a historical ally and instead aligned itself to what Riyadh literally sees as a new world order.

Continue reading...

Putin ‘totally miscalculated’ Russia’s ability to occupy Ukraine, Biden says

Posted on by

US president tells CNN he believes Putin’s objectives in Ukraine invasion were irrational but that he would not use a nuclear weapon

Joe Biden has said he believes Vladimir Putin is a “rational actor” who badly misjudged his prospects of occupying Ukraine, but does not believe he would resort to using a tactical nuclear weapon.

The US president told CNN on Tuesday that he believed his Russian counterpart had underestimated the ferocity of Ukrainian defiance in the face of invasion.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk denies report he spoke to Putin about use of nuclear weapons

Posted on by

Tesla boss, who recently floated his own peace plan, rejects claim he talked to Russian president about the war in Ukraine

Elon Musk has denied a report that he spoke to Vladimir Putin, including about the potential for using nuclear weapons, before floating a peace plan that suggested that Ukraine cede territory to Russia.

The head of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy, who made the original claim, had insisted that his source was Musk himself. “Elon Musk told me he had spoken with Putin and the Kremlin directly about Ukraine,” Ian Bremmer said in a tweet after Musk’s tweeted denial. “He also told me what the kremlin’s red lines were.

Continue reading...