Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

‘Enemy of democracy’: Oligarch says Putin wants to harm UK

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Alexander Temerko admits being a Tory activist but not a Kremlin ally as Russia report published

In the wake of the long-awaited publication of the Russia report into interference in UK democracy, one of the most prominent Soviet-born donors to the Conservative party has said he is no “friend of Putin” and called for greater scrutiny of British ex-politicians working for Russian state firms.

In an interview with the Guardian Alexander Temerko said he welcomed the publication of the intelligence and security committee’s (ISC) Russia report, which accused the government of turning a blind eye to Kremlin interference. “Better late than never. They finally published it,” he said.

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UK government ‘did not want to know’ about Russian interference in EU referendum – video

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Long-delayed findings on Russia’s influence over UK politics reveals that the British government and intelligence agencies failed to conduct any proper assessment of Kremlin attempts to interfere with the 2016 EU referendum.

Parliament’s intelligence and security committee revealed the findings in a long overdue report that said ministers, in effect, ignored allegations of Russian disruption

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Russia: plan to replace arrested governor ignites unrest in the far east

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Tens of thousands take to the streets to protest removal of Sergei Furgal who faces murder charges

The Kremlin is poised to replace a governor from Russia’s far east charged with multiple murders, potentially kindling a new round of public anger that has already ignited the largest protests in the region’s history.

As many as 50,000 people took to the streets on Saturday in Khabarovsk, a city located 6,100 miles east of Moscow, to demand the return of Sergei Furgal, a former scrap metals trader charged with the murder of two business rivals and the attempted killing of a third in 2004-05.

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UK’s Magnitsky law does little to stem flow of dirty money from Russia

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Sanctions target mid- or low-level officials and will have little impact on the wealthiest

He is known as Vladimir Putin’s enforcer. Almost every criminal case in Russia – from Pussy Riot to anti-government street protests – passes his desk. But as of last week Moscow’s top law officer, Alexander Bastrykin, is no longer welcome in Britain. He is banned from owning property, opening a bank account or popping over from Moscow for a weekend jaunt.

Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s powerful investigative committee, was one of 25 Russians sanctioned by the UK. All were allegedly involved in human rights abuses – specifically in the mistreatment of Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to death in 2009 in a Moscow jail. Bastrykin covered up the case, No 10 says. Others named and shamed include judges, interior ministry officials and prison staff.

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Russia says it will reciprocate after UK ‘Magnitsky’ sanctions

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Vladimir Putin’s spokesman says Moscow will respond to Britain’s human rights move

The Kremlin has said it will take countermeasures against the UK after the British government imposed sanctions on Monday against senior Russian officials including a close ally of Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s press spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow would respond to the decision by the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, to put 25 Russians on a new sanctions list. One of them is Alexander Bastrykin, Russia’s top prosecutor and the head of the investigative committee.

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The only region to say ‘nyet’ to Putin in landslide victory

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Nenets Autonomous District protest vote signalled anger over merger with Arkhangelsk region

Only one of Russia’s 85 regions, a sparsely-populated patch of the Arctic known for reindeer herders, defied the Kremlin and voted against changes granting President Vladimir Putin the right to stay in power until 2036.

The former KGB officer, who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister, handily won the controversial plebiscite granting him the right to run for two more six-year terms after the current one ends in 2024. Critics have challenged the result, saying that the voting was rigged to produce a landslide.

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Trump claims ‘Russian bounty’ story is hoax as pressure for answers grows – live updates

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Donald Trump is criticizing New York City’s plan to paint “Black Lives Matter” on 5th Avenue outside Trump Tower — calling it a “symbol of hate.”

NYC is cutting Police $’s by ONE BILLION DOLLARS, and yet the @NYCMayor is going to paint a big, expensive, yellow Black Lives Matter sign on Fifth Avenue, denigrating this luxury Avenue. This will further antagonize New York’s Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the....

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien has said that both the CIA and Pentagon did pursue intelligence assessments that suggested Russia had offered bounties for killing US troops in Afghanistan, and that US intelligence briefed international allies, as the administration steps up its defense of the handling of the military bounty scandal.

“We had options ready to go,” O’Brien said on a Fox news show. But added: “It may be impossible to get to the bottom of it.”

American servicemembers are being targeted with Russian bounties. As a Marine, I'm disgusted that nothing's been done about it. Mitch, you get regular security briefings. What did you know and when did you know it?

Man up and tell the truth. #MoscowMitch

Analysis: The only people dismissing the Russia bounties intel: The Taliban, Russia and Trump https://t.co/hbWx8PitRX

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Trump views US troops as disposable – the Russian bounty scandal makes that clear | Simon Tisdall

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Time and again, the president has failed to protect military personnel. For Trump, he always comes first, no matter who dies

Donald Trump likes to suggest he has got the back of US soldiers battling America’s foes around the world. It was a big theme of his 2016 campaign and his West Point speech earlier this month. So great was his boundless care for America’s fighting men and women, he said, that he would halt the endless, costly foreign wars prosecuted by his predecessors – and bring them home.

Related: Trump's ties to Putin under fresh scrutiny in wake of Russia bounty reports

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Joe Biden: Donald Trump presidency has been ‘a gift to Putin’ – video

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The Democrats' presidential nominee criticises Trump after reports the US president failed to act on intelligence briefings that Russia was offering bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing US troops. The story was first reported in the New York Times. 'If the Times report is true ... Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin,' Biden said.

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Russia offered bounty to kill UK soldiers

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Moscow accused of trying to give money to the Taliban as part of its campaign to destabilise America and its allies

The Russian intelligence unit behind the attempted murder in Salisbury of the former double agent Sergei Skripal secretly offered to pay Taliban-linked fighters to kill British and American soldiers in Afghanistan, according to US reports.

The revelation piles pressure on the UK to take robust action against the Kremlin amid continuing anger over the government’s delay in publishing a key report on Russian attempts to destabilise the UK.

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Putin is up to no good. But Johnson needs little help in creating chaos | Nick Cohen

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The ‘gobocracy’ that surrounds the PM is capable of doing Russia’s work for it

As Boris Johnson is leading Britain’s first government of pundits, “a gobocracy”, if you like, it is worth repeating Humbert Wolfe’s scathing poem on the press: “You cannot hope to bribe or twist,/ thank God! the British journalist./ But, seeing what the man will do/ unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”

In a gobocracy, there’s no need to become too conspiratorial about why a prime minister betrays his country. Put a Telegraph columnist in charge, throw in Michael Gove from the Times and Dominic Cummings from Vote Leave’s propaganda arm, and their bottomless cynicism and instinctive charlatanism will bring ruin with or without foreign assistance.

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Outrage mounts over report Russia offered bounties to Afghanistan militants for killing US soldiers

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Fierce response from top Democrats after US intelligence finding was reportedly briefed to Trump in March, but the White House has yet to act

Outrage has greeted media reports that say American intelligence officials believe a Russian military intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, including targeting Americans.

The story first appeared in the New York Times, citing its sources as unnamed officials briefed on the matter, and followed up by the Washington Post. The reports said that the US had come to the conclusion about the operation several months ago and offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

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‘It looks like a gameshow’: Russia’s pseudo-vote on Putin’s term limits

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Get-out-the-vote effort includes prize giveaways while campaign avoids focus on president

The people of Moscow received text messages this week telling them they had been registered to win “millions of prizes”.

The catch? They have to vote on constitutional amendments that include allowing Vladimir Putin to remain in the Kremlin potentially until 2036.

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Johnson and May ignored claims Russia had ‘likely hold’ over Trump, ex-spy alleges

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Exclusive: Christopher Steele claims May government turned blind eye to Trump allegations

Boris Johnson and Theresa May ignored claims the Kremlin had a “likely hold” over Donald Trump and may have covertly funded Brexit, the former spy Christopher Steele alleges in secret evidence given to MPs who drew up the Russia report.

In testimony to MPs, the MI6 veteran accused the government led by May and in which Johnson was foreign secretary for two years of turning a blind eye to allegations about Trump because they were afraid of offending the US president.

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Secret services thwarted plot to kill TV host who attacked Putin, Georgia says

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Chechen leader and Moscow deny sending hitman after journalist’s expletive-laden TV tirade

Georgia has thwarted a plot to assassinate a journalist who made an expletive-laden attack on Vladimir Putin on live television last year, the Georgian prime minister said.

“Georgian secret services have foiled a very serious crime,” Giorgi Gakharia told journalists on Tuesday.

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‘Disinfection tunnel’ set up to protect Vladimir Putin from coronavirus

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Anyone visiting the Russian president at his official residence must pass through a special disinfection chamber, state TV says

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been protected from the coronavirus by a special disinfection tunnel that anyone visiting his residence outside Moscow must pass through, according to state television.

The special tunnel, manufactured by a Russian company based in the town of Penza, has been installed at his official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow where he receives visitors, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.

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‘Trump thought I was a secretary’: Fiona Hill on the president, Putin and populism

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She was the White House’s top Russia expert catapulted to fame by Trump’s impeachment. She reflects on her journey from County Durham to Washington

In the last days before Washington was locked down, Fiona Hill was standing on the street on her phone dealing with a domestic crisis.

Hill’s daughter had become ill, it was unclear whether it was coronavirus (it later turned out to be regular flu) and the family had relatives flying in that weekend for a visit. As she paced up and down making contingency plans, passersby on Connecticut Avenue looked and looked again on recognising her. The British-born White House adviser had temporarily become one of the most famous faces in America after testifying in Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings in November.

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Putin orders state of emergency after huge fuel spill inside Arctic Circle

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President lambasts power plant owner ‘for not reporting earlier’ incident bigger than Kerch spill

Vladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency after 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle.

The spill occurred when a fuel reservoir at a power plant near the city of Norilsk collapsed on Friday.

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Donald Trump offers to invite Vladimir Putin to expanded G7 summit

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US president initiated call with Russian leader, according to Kremlin account, where they discussed pandemic, oil and space

Donald Trump has offered to invite Vladimir Putin to an expanded G7 meeting in September, but the invitation has already been adamantly opposed by the UK and Canada.

According to a Kremlin account on Monday, the US president initiated the call, in which the two leaders talked about the coronavirus pandemic, oil prices and cooperation in space, as well as Trump’s postponement of a planned G7 summit at Camp David this month and the inclusion of other countries.

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Russia to hold Victory Day parade on 24 June, says Vladimir Putin

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President announces new date for military showpiece as rate of Covid-19 infections slows

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will hold its postponed Victory Day military parade on 24 June and declared that the country’s coronavirus outbreak has stabilised, on the same day as it posted a record death toll from the virus.

The decision to hold the parade in a month’s time is likely to mean thousands of soldiers being scrambled to begin rehearsals for the complex event, while millions of Russians remain under strict orders to shelter at home.

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