Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

Russia-Ukraine war latest: western sanctions akin to declaration of war, says Putin; Russia and Ukraine to hold third round of talks on Monday – live

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Vladimir Putin criticises economic sanctions imposed on Russia, and warns western countries against implementing a no-fly zone over Ukraine

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said 66,224 Ukrainian men had returned from abroad to help fight against Russia’s invasion.

That’s how many men returned from abroad at this moment to defend their country from the horde. These are 12 more combat and motivated brigades! Ukrainians, we are invincible,” Reznikov said in statement posted online.

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‘We understand what war means’: Poles rush to aid Ukraine’s refugees

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Ordinary citizens are volunteering time and money – but the pleas for the government to do more are getting urgent

In a giant food depot in Poland, a few miles from the border with Belarus, thousands of people, many of them women and children wrapped in woollen blankets, are crammed together in corridors and hallways. As Polish locals and volunteers frantically work alongside soldiers to try to distribute food and water to those most in need, buses pull up outside carrying more shellshocked and exhausted people needing help.

There is no attempt to register the new arrivals. There is no time. Just over a week since Russia invaded Ukraine, those working here know that this crisis has just begun. Since the violence began, more than 650,000 people have crossed into Poland, leaving their lives behind and becoming refugees.

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Russia appears to have no way out as Putin goes ‘all in’

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Analysis: Rising stakes seem to lure the president deeper into the Ukraine war, with polls backing him and his officials compromised

The first week of Vladimir Putin’s invasion into Ukraine has not gone to plan, with the Russian military admitting the deaths of 500 soldiers (Ukrainian estimates are higher) and western sanctions dealing a body blow to the Russian economy that will only grow worse in the coming weeks.

And yet the Russian leader seems even more invested in his campaign to conquer Ukraine, lured in by the growing stakes of the most ambitious and dangerous gamble of his 22 years in power.

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A beloved New York restaurant becomes place of unity for Ukraine

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Veselka, a restaurant raved about by celebrities and food critics alike, has become a meeting place and fundraising operation

In New York’s East Village neighborhood, home to a wide array of popular restaurants and bars, is a decades-old staple in the city’s famous food scene. Veselka, located in a smaller pocket of the area once known as “Little Ukraine”, now sits at the corner of food and international politics.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has displaced millions and forced ordinary citizens to take up arms, or flee across borders to safety. Those problems aren’t just affecting the people of Ukraine, but thousands of their loved ones abroad – including some at this beloved New York restaurant.

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‘90% of houses are damaged’: Russia’s Syria-honed tactics lay Ukraine towns to waste

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Residents say shelling of Schastia and Volnovakha is revenge for standing up to ‘Russian aggression’

Happiness lies in ruins. This small town – Schastia in Ukrainian – has been out of the headlines since Moscow took its brutal war against civilians to the country’s biggest cities.

But it is here, and in nearby Volnovakha, that the illegal tactics of terrorising civilians for military aims, honed in Syria and then brought back so close to home, have reached a grim high point.

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Zelenskiy urges Russians to protest against Ukraine nuclear plant attack – video

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appealed to Russians to stage protests over Russian forces' seizure of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. A building at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was set ablaze during intense fighting, triggering fears of a potential nuclear disaster.

The Ukraine president also urged the west to consider imposing a no-fly zone for Russia in response to the attack

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‘I don’t bite’: Zelenskiy calls for meeting with Putin:– video

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has once again called on Vladimir Putin to sit down for talks as Ukraine continues to fight the Russian invasion. In reference to a long table Putin used in recent meetings with foreign leaders, Zelenskiy said: ‘Sit down with me to negotiate, just not at a 30-metre distance.’ 

He added: ‘I don't bite. What are you afraid of?’

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‘No to war!’: Russian protesters defy Putin – video report

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Thousands of people in cities across Russia have been defying police threats and staging protests against the invasion of Ukraine. Authorities have a low tolerance for demonstrations and marches, and attending them can have serious consequences including fines, arrests and even imprisonment

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Ikea closes all stores and factories in Russia amid exodus of western firms

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Top brands from M&S to Apple, Jaguar Land Rover, Expedia and Coca-Cola are suspending operations

Ikea has temporarily closed all stores and factories across Russia in a move affecting 15,000 workers, becoming the latest in a swathe of western firms to halt operations in the country since it invaded Ukraine.

The Swedish flatpack furniture company has mothballed its 17 outlets across Russia but said it would keep its Mega shopping centres open to allow access to essential retailers, such as food shops and pharmacies. The news prompted a rush of shoppers at the stores due to close.

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UK politics live: we must ensure Putin fails, UK foreign secretary says

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Latest updates: Liz Truss says Putin must lose in Ukraine as she praises courage of Baltic states

The UK health secretary Sajid Javid has said the NHS must stop using energy supplied by the Russian-owned firm Gazprom, the PA news agency reports.

A senior government source told PA that Javid has been in talks with NHS England over ending the contracts, which are reported by Politico to have been worth 16 million in 2021.

Sajid has spoken with NHSE and been clear that trusts need to stop using Gazprom as a supplier. He has also requested a wider review of any Russian role in supply chains across the health service.

It’s clearly unsustainable for a humanitarian organisation like the NHS to have any commercial links whatsoever with Putin’s murderous regime.

It is time to sanction them all - and freeze their assets, including any property they own in the UK.

These properties should then be used to house any Ukrainian refugees, on a temporary basis, while they await permanent resettlement. Rather than languishing in hotel rooms - or worse, unsuitable barracks, we should be putting Putin’s cronies’ assets to good use.

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‘There’s no other choice,’ says 35-year-old Ukrainian volunteer joining fight against Russia – video

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Thousands of Ukrainians have volunteered to defend their country and to fight Russia’s invasion. ‘History is happening right now. I don’t want to be on the sidelines,’ Vitali, the 35-year-old boss of a Lviv startup, said at an assembly point. ‘The truth, the good, everything is on our side. We have the whole world’s support.’ Vitali said he and his company’s 15 employees had begun weapons training five days before Russia’s attack. He volunteered on the day of the invasion

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Could the international criminal court bring Putin to justice over Ukraine?

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Even if Russian leader were charged, he would have to be arrested in a state that accepts the court’s jurisdiction

The prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague announced this week that he would launch an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine. How likely are Putin or other Russian political or military leaders to be brought to justice and what are the obstacles that must be overcome for that to happen?

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Russian armoured vehicles and soldiers patrol Kherson, Ukraine – video

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Heavy fighting has been reported in Kherson, a city along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, where the mayor said Russian forces had taken control of the railway station and the port by the early hours of Wednesday. Videos shared on social media show Russian military vehicles and soldiers patrolling the streets

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: UN general assembly votes overwhelmingly to deplore invasion – live

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Russia intensifies bombardment of cities as Ukraine’s president insists Moscow will not be able to take his country with bombs and air strikes

Researchers are gathering evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

My colleague, Dan Sabbagh, reports that an ‘open-source intelligence community’ is already collecting and studying video and photo evidence that Russia’s military is committing war crimes with deadly attacks on civilians and the use of cluster munitions.

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‘Our fates are united’: Syrians rally behind Ukraine after years of Russian torment

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Bombed and menaced by an unchecked Putin since 2015, Syrians hope the tide might be finally turning

When a Russian air raid in north-western Syria killed 34 Turkish troops, Ankara’s revenge quickly followed. But, instead of targeting the forces of Vladimir Putin, whose jets had caused the carnage, Turkey sent armed drones towards the Syrian army, pulverising hundreds of pieces of weaponry and killing scores of troops – all as Russia watched on blithely.

In the years since Putin intervened in Syria in 2015 to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad there had been countless examples of Russian attacks on civilian sites – schools, bakeries and hospitals – all of which had met meek responses from global leaders and drawn scant attention from war crimes prosecutors.

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Russia’s NHL hero Alex Ovechkin has a rare chance to hit Putin where it hurts

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The Washington Capitals star is popular among Russians who may not usually question their leader. And he has debated the need for war

In 2017, Alexander Ovechkin, inarguably the best Russian hockey player alive or dead and the country’s most famous male athlete, started something called PutinTeam.

“I have never hidden my attitude towards our president, always supporting him,” the Muscovite and captain of the NHL’s Washington Capitals wrote, three years after Russia annexed Crimea. “I am confident that there are many of us, supporting Vladimir Putin. So let’s unite and show everyone a united and strong Russia!”

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: 70 Ukrainian soldiers killed in Okhtyrka, huge Russian army convoy nears Kyiv – live updates

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Convoy north of Ukraine capital has more doubled in length, images suggest; ICC prosecutor to open possible war crimes inquiry; Kharkiv civilians ‘massacred’, says mayor

Satellite images taken on Monday show a Russian military convoy north of Kyiv that stretches for about 40 miles (64km) in an area north-west of Kyiv. It is substantially longer than the 17 miles (27km) reported earlier in the day, according to the US company Maxar.

Maxar, which filed a series of satellite images on the Russian military buildup on the Ukraine border, also said additional ground forces deployments and ground attack helicopter units were seen in southern Belarus, less than 20 miles (32km) north of the Ukraine border.

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More than 70 Ukrainian soldiers killed in Russian attack on base near Kharkiv

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Rescuers searching rubble of base in Okhtyrka in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces gather outside Kyiv

More than 70 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the eastern city of Okhtyrka after a Russian missile strike on a military base, in what is thought to be the biggest loss of life in a single incident in Moscow’s invasion.

The death toll – reported by Ukrainian officials in the city – follows a sharp intensification of the Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including the use of multiple-launch rocket systems against civilian areas, which has led to increasing casualties.

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Godfather of Vladimir Putin’s daughter among latest names on EU sanctions list

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Sergei Roldugin, 71, formerly a high-profile orchestra cellist, is one of 26 new additions to 680-strong list

A Russian oligarch, who is part of a financial network known as ‘Putin’s wallet’ in Moscow, according to the EU, is one of 26 businessmen, officials and military figures who have been added to the bloc’s expanding sanctions list.

Sergei Roldugin, 71, the former principal cellist of the Kirov Opera Theatre’s orchestra in the 1980s and godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, is among those who it is claimed are threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

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