Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

Trump, Putin and Bolsonaro have been complacent. Now the pandemic has made them all vulnerable

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The world’s strongmen may well end up paying a political price for their cynicism and incompetence

If Boris Johnson is mishandling the pandemic, he is not alone. Falsely claiming everything is under control, dodging responsibility, hiding from public view, exploiting the crisis for political gain, mounting artificial distractions and blaming the media: these are common behaviour patterns exhibited by some of the world’s most powerful – and shifty – leaders.

Will they pay a price for their lethal incompetence and cynicism? It’s possible some will, though it may take a while. The pandemic is changing political calculations around the globe. Leaders who looked invulnerable suddenly appear less so. That in turn could shift the strategic calculus and alter the balance of power between countries in ways both unexpected and permanent.

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Putin, Johnson, Bolsonaro and Trump: men too macho for masks

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Why leaders who want to be seen as strongmen are afraid to take Covid-19 safety precautions

With the news this week that Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, is in hospital with Covid-19, the virus has now penetrated the Kremlin, 10 Downing Street, the Palácio do Planalto and the White House.

Putin, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump are all very different politicians. But all have had one thing in common in their responses to coronavirus: a belief or suggestion, at least in the early stages, that taking personal protective measures against the virus is somehow unseemly and at odds with their macho political brands.

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‘He is failing’: Putin’s approval rating slides as Covid-19 grips Russia

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Backseat president announces easing of lockdown on day of record high infection numbers

A day of record high coronavirus infection numbers is an odd time to announce a route out of lockdown, but that is what Vladimir Putin did on Monday as he announced that the “non-working days” imposed by the Kremlin at the end of March would come to an end from Tuesday.

“We have a long and difficult process ahead of us with no room for mistakes,” said Putin by video link from his residence outside Moscow on a day when the country registered more than 11,000 new infections. Russia now has the second fastest rate of infections in the world after the US. The prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, is among those in hospital with the virus.

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Victory Day: Belarus swaggers on parade as Russians leave Red Square deserted

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In a tale of two cities, Moscow keeps its distance while in Minsk, thousands turn out for the traditional military spectacular

In any other year, hundreds of thousands of Russians would have marched with portraits of relatives who fought in the second world war in a memorial called the Immortal Regiment.

But on Saturday, the images of Soviet veterans and their families floated past on Russian television, a public vigil adapted for the era of social isolation.

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Russian newspaper staff rebel against editor accused of censorship

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Journalists at Vedomosti warn paper is in danger of becoming ‘another controlled media outlet’

Journalists at the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti have rebelled against their new management after the paper’s editor was accused of banning criticism of constitutional amendments backed by Vladimir Putin and the use of data from an independent pollster.

In a blistering opinion article published on the newspaper’s website on Thursday, the editorial staff said the new editor had undermined trust by massaging headlines about the Russian state energy company Rosneft and blocking a recent column critical of the same company and its boss, Igor Sechin.

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Russia avoids ‘Boris Nemtsov Square’ address for its Prague embassy

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Embassy denies Czech claims it changed address because it bore murdered politician’s name

The Russian embassy in Prague has said it will not take an address on Boris Nemtsov Square after the plaza in front of the building was renamed to honour the Russian opposition politician who was murdered in 2015.

Czech media reported last week that the embassy had changed its official address in order to avoid the reference to Nemtsov, a critic of Vladimir Putin who was gunned down in sight of the Kremlin.

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US and Russia blocking UN plans for a global ceasefire amid crisis

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Resolution strongly supported by dozens of countries, human rights groups and charities

The Trump administration and Russia are blocking efforts to win binding UN security council backing for a global ceasefire to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 150,000 lives worldwide.

Related: Coronavirus world map: which countries have the most cases and deaths?

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Putin’s People by Catherine Belton review – relentless and convincing

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This is the most remarkable account so far of Putin’s rise from a KGB operative to deadly agent provocateur in the hated west

In 1985, a young KGB officer arrived in provincial East Germany. His name was Vladimir Putin. What exactly Putin got up to in Dresden is a mystery. The official version says not much: he drank beer, put on weight, lived in an ordinary apartment with his wife, Lyudmila, and their two daughters. While other Soviet spies were having adventures, Putin – so the story goes – sat out the late cold war in a paper-shuffling backwater.

The investigative journalist and former Financial Times reporter Catherine Belton has dug deeper. Her groundbreaking book, Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took on the West, offers a far more terrifying version. Putin was a senior liaison officer with the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, she suggests. And Dresden was a key base for KGB operations, including murderous ones, in which Putin allegedly played a direct part.

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‘Stop waiting for Putin’: Russian president takes backseat in crisis

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Putin is working remotely and mainly focusing on cushioning blow to Russian economy

Vladimir Putin has taken a backseat in tackling Russia’s coronavirus outbreak, working remotely from his residence in the Moscow suburbs and delegating powers that he has spent a generation mostly accumulating in the Kremlin.

Strict quarantine measures and border closures have been imposed by trusted lieutenants including the Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, and the new prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, with officials leading parallel efforts to contain the virus and its economic fallout.

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Russia defies calls to halt Victory Day parade rehearsals

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Defence ministry presses on with plans for 9 May event with 15,000 troops, despite coronavirus pandemic

Russia is holding rehearsals for its Victory Day parade, scheduled for 9 May despite the coronavirus crisis, as the Kremlin resists cancelling a patriotic holiday with major political significance.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is supposed to host France’s Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders at a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the second world war. The event is a significant historical landmark for Russia and a coveted photo opportunity to claim Putin’s re-emergence from political isolation in the west.

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Russia may delay Putin vote as coronavirus threatens political agenda

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Vote allowing president to run for fifth or even sixth term likely to be rescheduled

Russia may be forced to put off a public vote on amendments allowing Vladimir Putin to hold office potentially until 2036 as the coronavirus threatens to upend a busy political season in Russia.

The Kremlin so far has not rescheduled the 22 April vote that was intended as a public endorsement for Putin’s surprise plan to “reset” his term limits, allowing him to run for a fifth or even sixth term as president under a revised constitution.

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Erdoğan in talks with European leaders over refugee cash for Turkey

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Border issue and other matters discussed in conference call with Germany, France and UK

Turkey has pressed European leaders to make fresh cash pledges to prevent tens of thousands of refugees from leaving the country and trying to reach Europe amid a Russian-Syrian offensive in north-west Syria.

After intense bombardment in Idlib province last month, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, encouraged thousands of refugees in the country to move on towards the Greek islands and the Baltics, in a repeat of the surge to Europe in 2015.

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Putin takes next step to staying in power till 2036

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Constitutional changes, if approved, would give the leader a further two consecutive six-year terms

President Vladimir Putin has formally asked Russia’s constitutional court if it is legal for him to change the constitution, the Kremlin said on Saturday, a move that could permit him remain in power until 2036.

In January, Putin unveiled a major shake-up of Russian politics and a constitutional overhaul, which the Kremlin billed as a redistribution of power from the presidency to parliament. But Putin, 67, who has dominated Russia’s political landscape for two decades as either president or prime minister, made a dramatic appearance in parliament on 10 March to back a new amendment that would allow him to ignore a current constitutional ban on him running again in 2024.

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What does the prospect of perpetual Putin mean for Russia’s future?

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President’s plan to remain in power beyond 2024 does not bode well either for Russia or the world

The idea that Vladimir Putin would quietly retire always seemed fanciful, given the grisly fate that often befalls ageing autocrats, ex-dictators and even supposedly elected presidents once they let go of absolute power.

In January, Russia’s president-in-perpetuity floated a range of possible constitutional “reforms” to help decide what happens in 2024 when his term in office expires.

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How the killing of an abusive father fuelled Russia’s war over family values

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The notorious case of three teenage sisters inspired a campaign for change – and a backlash from the patriarchy. By Matthew Luxmoore

At about 3pm on 27 July 2018, the day of his death, Mikhail Khachaturyan scolded his three teenage daughters, Krestina, Angelina and Maria. The apartment they shared – in a Soviet-era housing block near the huge ring road that encircles Moscow – was a mess, he told them, and they would pay for having left it that way. A large, irascible man in his late 50s with a firm Orthodox faith, Khachaturyan had run his household despotically since he allegedly forced his wife to leave in 2015.

That afternoon, his daughters would later tell investigators, he punished them in his customary sadistic way. Calling them one by one into his bedroom, he cursed and yelled at them, then pepper sprayed each one in the face. The oldest sister, Krestina, 19, began to choke from the effects of the spray. Retreating to the bedroom she shared with her sisters, Krestina collapsed on the bed and lost consciousness. Her sister Maria, then 17, the youngest of the three, would later describe this moment as “the final straw”.

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Russia ‘hired network of Britons to go after enemies of Putin’

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Exclusive: MPs who drew up Russia report suppressed by PM were told of ‘infiltration’

Russia has been accused of hiring a network of British politicians and consultants to help advance its criminal interests and to “go after” Vladimir Putin’s enemies in London, MPs who drew up the Russia report suppressed by Boris Johnson were told.

In secret evidence submitted to parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC), the campaigner and financier Bill Browder claimed Moscow had been able to “infiltrate” UK society by using well-paid British intermediaries.

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy: ‘My White House invitation? I was told it’s being prepared’

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The TV comic turned maverick Ukrainian leader on Putin, power and Trump’s impeachment

What’s the difference between playing a president on screen and being one in real life? Not much, according to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the man who’s done both.

“It’s very similar,” he says, his compact frame engulfed by a green leather armchair in his opulent presidential office. Then he changes his mind: in fact, the real job lasts a whole five years, and comes with far greater challenges than can fit into one season of a television show. “It’s true there are more problems. They are catastrophic. They appear, I’m sorry to say, like pimples on an 18-year-old kid. You don’t know where they will pop up, or when.” The 42-year-old speaks in his native Russian, his expressive face switching from boyish amusement to tortured concern in a flash.

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Ukraine president gives Putin one year to strike deal to end war

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In an exclusive interview, Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he is ready to walk away from Russia talks unless there is progress

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, believes he can negotiate a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, but has threatened to walk away from talks after a year if there is no progress with his Russian counterpart.

“Time is ticking,” he told the Guardian in a rare interview, to be published in full on Saturday. “The government can spend one year on the entire agreement. Then it should be implemented. Any longer is prohibited.”

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Putin and Erdoğan in last-ditch talks to secure Syria ceasefire

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Russian and Turkish leaders will try to hammer out yet another deal to stabilise Idlib

A summit between the leaders of Turkey and Russia on Thursday may be the last chance to work out a deal that avoids further calamity in north-west Syria.

Faced with increasing military losses in Idlib province and a potential wave of people fleeing the fighting, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is eager for a ceasefire – and Vladimir Putin is ready to bargain.

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The Guardian view on Idlib: nowhere left to run | Editorial

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Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing a renewed assault by the Syrian regime, in desperate circumstances. Is anyone paying attention?

After the torture and massacre of civilians, after the targeted attacks upon rescuers, doctors and schools, after the barrel bombs and chemical weapons, it should be hard to believe that there could be a new wave of misery for Syria unleashed by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Yet here it is. The assault on Idlib, the last rebel-held enclave, is the largest-scale humanitarian catastrophe of a war now in its ninth year. The United Nations has warned that 832,000 people, most of them children, have been displaced in less than three months; 100,000 people have fled in the past week. Many had already fled the Syrian regime’s murderous assaults before, in some cases three or four times; the province’s population has swelled from 1 million to 3 million since the war broke out. They face sub-zero temperatures, and many don’t even have tents in which to shelter. Doctors report children dying of exposure.

Conditions are likely to worsen. The frontlines are approaching Idlib city, probably sending further waves of families towards the closed Turkish border. Fighting has claimed the lives of both Turkish and Syrian troops, prompting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to move in reinforcements and threaten: “In the event of the tiniest harm to our soldiers … we will hit regime forces in Idlib and anywhere else.”

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