Category Archives: Vladimir Putin

Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists exchange 200 prisoners

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Five riot police suspected of killings among those handed to separatists, provoking outrage

Ukrainian authorities and Russia-backed separatists in the war-torn east of Ukraine have exchanged 200 prisoners, swapping detained fighters for civilians and service personnel held captive in some cases for years.

The exchange provoked outrage in government-held Ukraine after Kyiv handed over to separatists five riot police suspected of killing protesters during a pro-western uprising in 2014 as part of the swap.

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Anti-Putin activist Ruslan Shaveddinov ‘forcibly conscripted’ and sent to Arctic

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Opposition leader Alexei Navalny says 23-year-old is a ‘political prisoner’ after being taken to secret and remote air defence base

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said that one of his allies had been forcibly conscripted and sent to serve at a remote Arctic base, in a move his supporters said amounted to kidnapping.

Ruslan Shaveddinov, a project manager at Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, went missing Monday after police broke into his Moscow flat and his phone’s SIM card was disabled.

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Russian TV axes show starring Ukraine’s leader after Putin joke

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Zelenskiy sitcom lasted just one night after alluding to Putin in crude sub-language

A Russian television channel has abruptly cancelled a sitcom starring Ukraine’s president after an allusion to a crude joke about Vladimir Putin was aired in Russia’s far east.

The political satire Servant of the People served as a platform for the former comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy to gain popularity and eventually win the Ukrainian presidency, in a vote largely driven by anger at the country’s previous leaders.

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Chechen killed in Berlin was cruel and bloodthirsty, claims Putin

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Politicians in Germany say claims from Russian leader are designed to muddy waters around murder

Vladimir Putin has claimed the Chechen separatist shot dead in Berlin in what prosecutors believe was a state-sanctioned assassination had been responsible for carrying out killings on Russian soil, frustrating German politicians who have sought clarification over the Kremlin’s involvement in the murder.

At a joint press conference with the leaders of Germany, France and Ukraine at the end of a summit in Paris, Putin described the Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili as “a cruel and bloodthirsty person” whom Russian authorities had sought to have extradited from his exile in Germany.

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Ukraine’s new president comes face to face with Putin in Paris

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet Russian counterpart at summit on Kyiv’s five-year war with Russian separatists

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, faces a major test at a high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin in Paris as he pursues a campaign promise to negotiate an end to the war in south-east Ukraine despite vocal opposition at home.

Zelenskiy and his Russian counterpart will meet at the Élysée Palace on Monday alongside European leaders for their first face-to-face talks since the comedian-turned-president took office in May.

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UK-educated Russians are upholding Putin’s regime, says dissident

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Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov gives stark assessment of leader’s dictatorial rule

The children of Russian oligarchs learn about freedom in the UK only to return to Moscow to reinforce Vladimir Putin’s dictatorial rule, Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian dissident jailed for five years by Russia, has warned in a stark assessment of Putin’s stranglehold on power.

Sentsov, Russia’s most famous political prisoner, was released with 35 other Ukrainians in a high-profile prisoner swap in September, in which an equal number of Russians were released.

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‘I would love to go’: Trump considers Putin invite to Russia – video

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Donald Trump has said he is considering attending a Russian military parade in May, claiming he has been invited by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The US president spoke to reporters on the White House lawn, where he also talked about Michael Bloomberg entering the Democratic primary. 'He’s not going to do well, but I think he’s going to hurt Biden actually … There’s nobody I’d rather run against than little Michael,' he said

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Vladimir Putin calls for ‘reliable’ Russian version of Wikipedia

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President says user-edited site should be replaced with Big Russian Encyclopaedia

Vladimir Putin has called for the creation of a more “reliable” Russian version of Wikipedia.

The president told a Kremlin meeting on the future of the Russian language: “As for Wikipedia … it’s better to replace it with the new Big Russian Encyclopaedia in electronic form,” RIA Novosti news agency reported. “At least that will be reliable information, presented in a good, modern way.”

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Facebook removes Africa accounts linked to Russian troll factory

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Fake networks in eight nations are connected to man allegedly behind disinformation empire

Facebook has taken down accounts linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin – the businessman allegedly behind Russia’s notorious troll factory – which were actively seeking to influence the domestic politics of a range of African countries.

The company said on Wednesday it had suspended three networks of “inauthentic” Russian accounts. The Facebook pages targeted eight countries across the continent: Madagascar, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya.

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Central African Republic considers hosting Russian military base

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Kremlin denies discussion at Russia-Africa summit but CAR president says countries’ defence ministries were reviewing idea

The president of Central African Republic has said his country would consider hosting a Russian military base, as Vladimir Putin woos dozens of African leaders in an effort to spread Moscow’s influence at an investment summit in southern Russia.

In an interview with Russian state media, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra said he had also asked Russia for new weapons shipments for CAR’s soldiers, who have fought a civil war against rebel forces in the country since 2012. Asked about a potential military base, Russia’s first in Africa, he said that his government was “considering the possibilities”.

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Turkey and Russia agree deal over buffer zone in northern Syria

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Erdoğan hails agreement with Putin in which Kurdish fighters will be moved from border area

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have agreed on the parameters of a proposed Turkish “safe zone” in Syria, a development that could bring an end to Ankara’s offensive against Kurdish forces over the border by severely curtailing their control of the area.

The two leaders were locked in marathon talks for more than six hours in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi, emerging just two hours before a five-day ceasefire brokered by the US expired at 10pm local time.

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Erdoğan threatens to ‘crush the heads’ of Kurdish fighters refusing to withdraw

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Turkey-US deal asks Kurdish forces to vacate designated ‘safe zone’ in northern Syria during five-day ceasefire

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, has said his country would “crush the heads” of Kurdish militants if they did not withdraw from a planned “safe zone” in northern Syria.

On Thursday following an intervention from the US, Turkey agreed to pause its military offensive in north-eastern Syria for five days while Kurdish fighters withdrew from the safe zone.

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Russian shadow falls over Syria as Kurds open door for Assad

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With the US gone, the implications of their departure is beginning to sink in across the Middle East

The moment that changed the Middle East arrived with a sudden silence. Just before 7pm on Sunday, the internet was cut across north-eastern Syria where, for half an hour, the Kurds of the region had been digesting a news flash. The Syrian government was returning to two towns, Manbij and Kobane. The implication quickly sunk in.

The regional capital, Qamishli, soon emptied; streets that had bustled with minibuses and shoppers became eerie and still. With the internet down phones were no help and nor were officials who had vanished along with the traffic. Air seemed to be suddenly vacuumed from the city, and the few people still around knew exactly what it meant: this was the moment power changed hands. It was a time to be scared.

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Erdoğan has managed the unthinkable: uniting all the other Middle East rivals

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Turkey’s Syria invasion following US withdrawal of its troops means that all bets are now off in the Middle East

By invading northern Syria last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan achieved what many thought impossible – uniting all the regional countries and rival powers with a stake in the country in furious opposition to what they see as a reckless, destabilising move.

A truculent nationalist-populist with dictatorial tendencies, Erdoğan has often cast himself as one man against the world during 16 consecutive years as Turkey’s prime minister and president. Now he really is on his own.

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Syria: Erdoğan’s eyes more likely to be on Putin than Trump

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Russia and Iran have troops in Syria and will see opportunities amid chaos of US impulsiveness

Donald Trump’s decision to give the green light – now seemingly turning amber – for Turkey to enter northern Syria has produced a torrent of criticism from European capitals to Washington Republicans, all pointing out that Ankara’s move will revive Islamic State, cause untold civilian deaths and land the US with an indelible reputation across the Middle East as an unreliable ally.

But the west has been losing traction in Syria over the past two years, and it may be the reaction of Russia and Iran, who have forces on the ground in Syria, that will most concern the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Their reaction may also reveal more about the long-term future of Syria’s eight-year civil war.

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Russia is helping China build a missile defence system, Putin says

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Days after Beijing unveils state-of-the-art missiles, Moscow reveals plan that would ‘radically enhance China’s defence capability’

Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is helping China build a system to warn of ballistic missile launches.

Since the cold war, only the United States and Russia have had such systems, which involve an array of ground-based radars and space satellites. The systems allow for early spotting of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

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Russian alcohol consumption down 40% since 2003 – WHO

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Reputation for heavy drinking on the slide since Putin measures including curbs on alcohol sales

Russia may still have a reputation as a nation of heavy drinkers, but a report by the World Health Organization shows alcohol consumption has dropped by 43% since 2003.

The WHO put the decrease down to a series of measures brought in under the sport-loving president, Vladimir Putin, including restrictions on alcohol sales and the promotion of healthy lifestyles.

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