Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy calls for urgent peace talks and warns of catastrophe in Mariupol

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Russia has a chance to limit the damage by engaging in ‘meaningful’ talks, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy, amid fierce shelling in the south

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called urgently for “meaningful and fair” peace talks over Russia’s invasion amid further attacks, including a claim by Moscow that it had used a hypersonic missile for the first time, hitting a depot in the west of the country.

In a video address early on Saturday, Zelenskiy said: “It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise Russia’s losses will be so huge that several generations will not be enough to rebound.”

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Fighting reaches central Mariupol as shelling hinders rescue attempts

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Russia claims to be ‘tightening noose’ around south-eastern port city as thousands still stranded

Fighting has reached the centre of the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, as attempts to rescue people trapped under the rubble of a bombed-out theatre were again hampered by Russian shelling.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces were “tightening the noose” around the city, and that “fighting against nationalists” was taking place in the city centre. Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, appeared to confirm the claims, telling the BBC that fighting was “really active”. “Tanks and machine-gun battles continue,” he said. “Everybody is hiding in bunkers.”

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Russian oligarch’s yacht stuck in Norway as suppliers refuse to refuel

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Fuel sellers in Narvik say they will not sell to crew of Ragnar, which is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky

A 223-foot (68-metre) luxury yacht owned by a former KGB agent and longtime acquaintance of Vladimir Putin is currently stranded at a Norwegian port after locals’ persistent refusal to sell it fuel.

The vessel, called Ragnar, an old norse word meaning “warrior”, is owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, and its crew has been told by Norwegian fuel suppliers in the northern port of Narvik to “row home” or “raise the sails”. They say they will not refuel it because of the owner’s links to the Russian president.

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Syrians join Russian ranks in Ukraine as Putin calls in Assad’s debt

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Analysis: Safe in his palace, Syrian leader appears to have given Moscow carte blanche to airlift his army

After 11 years of war, the destruction of towns, cities and much of the Syrian military, Bashar al-Assad’s army has launched a recruitment drive. But the recruits are not fresh from bootcamps and will not fight on the home front. They are the vanguard of what could be the biggest state-backed mercenary force in the world. Within days, Syrian troops could be deployed to reinforce the stalled Russian frontlines in Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin is about to extract a lethal price for Moscow’s rescue of the Syrian leader.

The first Syrian troops to join Putin’s ranks – an advance force of 150 – arrived in Russia on Thursday, European intelligence officials claim. Ukrainian military intelligence, echoing a claim by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, believes 40,000 Syrians have signed up to fight – a figure that would represent a sizeable chunk of the battle-ready capacity of the country’s entire military.

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China’s decisive turning point: will it side with Russia and divide the world?

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Analysis: the world faces the possibility of a dramatic shift in the geopolitical balance of power as Beijing mulls support for Russia over the Ukraine war

Joe Biden is due to make a phone call to Xi Jinping on Friday at a potential tipping point in China’s role in the world as it decides how far to go in backing Russia’s war on Ukraine.

While China has abstained on United Nations security council resolutions on the invasion, it has sided with Moscow rhetorically, echoing Russian talking points blaming Nato, and recycling conspiracy theories, and the Biden administration believes it has already decided to bail Russia out economically.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russian casualties estimated at 7,000; western officials say Kyiv assault now in doubt – live

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Western officials say Russia is struggling to make progress around the capital and question ‘whether Moscow now intends to try to assault Kyiv’

Hungary says it expects a “bigger wave” of refugees to arrive from Ukraine next week, prime minister Viktor Orban said in a video message posted to his official Facebook page.

Visiting a border crossing point near Hungary’s border with Romania and Ukraine, Orban said more border guards would be posted there next week to handle an increased number of refugees.

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Six countries including UK and US accuse Russia of war crimes in Ukraine

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British foreign secretary says there is ‘very strong evidence’, and France says Putin is only pretending to negotiate

Russia has been accused by the UK, the US, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway of war crimes in Ukraine, as Paris claimed Vladimir Putin was only pretending to be interested in negotiating a peace deal.

The six countries challenged Russia before a UN security council meeting as the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said there was now “very, very strong evidence” of war crimes being committed by Russian forces.

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Joe Biden calls Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal’ – as it happened

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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressed the US Congress seated in a high-backed office chair with a plain white wall behind him and a prominently-displayed Ukrainian flag to his right.

He was neatly turned out with a trimmed beard and wearing what has become his characteristic combat-green tee shirt, since Russia invaded Ukraine last month and he was forced to shelter in a hidden bunker somewhere in Kyiv with his top team.

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Hopes rise for Ukraine talks, but experts doubt Russia will pull out

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Analysis: Putin’s rhetoric remains uncompromising and analysts are sceptical negotiations will yield a lasting solution

As Russia has pursued its war with Ukraine, it has held parallel negotiations with Kyiv ostensibly seeking a peace deal from its own invasion of a neighbouring country.

Those talks, which appeared to be a sideshow to the continuing war, received an unexpected boost on Wednesday as both sides indicated that discussions had yielded some progress.

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White House warns of ‘significant consequences’ if China aids Russia – as it happened

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The process to approve Joe Biden’s nominees for Federal Reserve board - including the Federal Reserve chair - have all been stalled over one particular nominee: Sarah Bloom Raskin, wife of Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of Congress.

Last month, Republicans refused to attend the meeting to move the nomination process forward. They wanted senator Sherrod Brown, chair of the banking committee reviewing the nominations, to separate Raskin from the other four nominees, but Brown refused - a move the White House supported. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said if Republicans disagreed with the nomination, they should vote that way, but that it was irresponsible to not show up and do their jobs.

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Russia missile strike on Ukraine base close to Polish border reportedly kills 20

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Bombing close to Lviv follows Kremlin warning that supply lines were ‘legitimate targets’; town of Volnovakha ‘ceases to exist’ after bombardment

Russia has escalated its war in Ukraine with a strike on a major military base in western Ukraine, reportedly killing 20 people, only hours after the Kremlin warned that western supply lines into the embattled country were “legitimate targets”.

Two large explosions were seen on Sunday at the base in Yavoriv, a garrison city 12km (7.5 miles) from the Polish border. The rocket attack took place at 5.45am.

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MPs’ pension fund drops Russian-linked investments in protest

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Cross-party group expresses unease about the fund’s stake in HSBC, which has held shares in Moscow’s oil and gas giants

Trustees of the pension fund for members of parliament have agreed to sell all investments linked to Russia after a cross-party group of more than 60 MPs raised concerns about connections to Russian oil and gas companies.

The trustees met last Thursday, having received the MPs’ letter, and agreed to act immediately to ensure the fund was cleansed of both direct and indirect Russian interests.

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Putin did not show willingness to end Ukraine war during call, French official says

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German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron called for an immediate ceasefire on call

Vladimir Putin did not show a willingness to end the war with Ukraine during a call on Saturday with French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz, a French presidency official said.

Scholz and Macron called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine during the 75-minute phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin, a German government spokesman added.

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How Ukraine has become the crucible of the new world order

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From Russia’s threat of nuclear weapons to the patriotic courage of Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an A to Z of how the world has changed

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been described by politicians and commentators as a watershed moment in modern history, a turning point comparable in importance to the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and even the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963.

Whether this portentous view of the war turns out to be justified, only time – and future historians – will tell. But there’s no doubt that in the violent, tumultuous days after 24 February, the established international order has been shaken and, in some respects, upended in extraordinary, unexpected and often unwelcome ways.

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Russia makes claims of US-backed biological weapon plot at UN

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Fears claims of plot to use birds to spread disease could be pretext for biological attack by Russia itself

Russia has accused Ukraine and the US at the UN security council of a plot to use migratory birds and bats to spread pathogens, raising alarm among other council members that the accusations could be intended to provide cover for future Russian use of biological weapons.

The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, delivered a lengthy account of the alleged biological weapons plot, and said the birds, bats and insects supposedly intended to spread disease would cross Ukraine’s western border.

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EU leaders announce intention to collectively rearm in face of Putin threat

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Versailles declaration says Russia’s war in Ukraine has heralded ‘tectonic shift in European history’

EU leaders have announced their intention to collectively rearm and become autonomous in food, energy and military hardware in a Versailles declaration that described Russia’s war as “a tectonic shift in European history”.

At a summit in the former royal palace, the 27 heads of state and government said on Friday that the invasion of Ukraine had shown the urgent need for the EU to take responsibility for its own security and to rid itself of dependencies on others.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Russia may be planning to use biological weapons, US says, as Russia warns of ‘uncontrolled spread of bio agents’

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The US tells the UN that Russia has a well-documented history of using chemical and biological weapons, after Russia warned about the potential for the ‘uncontrolled spread of bio agents’

Guardian reporter Peter Beaumont brings us this morning run-down from Lviv.

Russian jets bombed cities in the west of Ukraine in the early hours of Friday morning hitting Lviv, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, as the Kremlin’s war continued to creep further into Ukraine.

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Russia may pressure Serbia to undermine western Balkans, leaders warn

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Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina urge western leaders to ‘engage more actively and strongly’ in the region

Russia is likely to expand its confrontation with the west by pressuring Serbia into undermining the independence of Kosovo and other western Balkan states, regional leaders have warned in interviews with the Guardian.

They also called for the EU and Nato to speed up their approach to applications for membership from Balkans countries, and bolster defences against Russian interference.

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US conducting ‘legal review’ of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine – as it happened

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Maya Yang reports:

North Carolina Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn has been charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time.

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Putin will lead Russia to strategic defeat in Ukraine, says Blinken

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US secretary of state says Russian leader’s ‘clear plan to brutalise Ukraine’ will end in failure

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said Vladimir Putin will fail in his effort to subjugate Ukraine, and will instead lead Russia into a “strategic defeat” that is already unfolding.

Blinken was talking at a press conference with the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, at which both pledged to keep up security and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

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