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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Russia has asked the United States via Interpol to provide information on the whereabouts of a former member of Vladimir Putin’s administration who is believed to have been a CIA informant.
The alleged CIA mole, named this week by Russian media as Oleg Smolenkov, was whisked to safety by US intelligence agents during a family holiday in Montenegro in June 2017, CNN reported earlier this week.
Continue reading...Moscow says proposal could increase regional tensions, as Israeli PM meets Putin
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, flies into Sochi on Thursday for talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, that come after Moscow added its voice to criticism of his pre-election pledge to annex occupied Palestinian territories.
Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he would annex up to a third of the West Bank if he is re-elected in next week’s parliamentary polls. His announcement was condemned by the Palestinians, Arab countries, the UN and the EU.
Continue reading...Opposition figure Alexei Navalny hails success of tactical voting campaign
Pro-Kremlin candidates have suffered losses in local elections in Moscow as Vladimir Putin’s biggest critic hailed the success of his campaign to encourage strategic voting.
The election was closely watched by both sides following a summer of protests in the Russian capital against the Kremlin’s refusal to allow candidates allied with opposition leader Alexei Navalny on to the ballot.
Continue reading...Attention is on Moscow vote after arrests of would-be opposition candidates
Russians have gone to the polls in local elections after weeks of opposition protests that led to the biggest police crackdown on dissent in nearly a decade.
Although municipal and regional polls were held across the vast country, most attention has been focused on the vote in Moscow, where independent would-be candidates and their supporters have been arrested and jailed and large protests were held over the summer.
Continue reading...Vladimir Tsemakh, who was arrested in June, may be part of prisoner swap deal with Russia
A Ukrainian court has released a potential suspect and key witness in the shooting down of MH17, as Russia’s president said the two countries were working on a deal to swap prisoners.
Vladimir Tsemakh had bragged on video of commanding an anti-air brigade in separatist-held east Ukraine and indicated he hid evidence of a Buk missile system, the kind Dutch investigators say shot down the Malaysia Airlines jet with 298 people on board.
Continue reading...The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Vladimir Putin have underscored their close links with ice cream as they opened a major Russian air show. Erdoğan was the Russian president's guest of honour at the opening of the MAKS aviation show outside Moscow. The two leaders stopped at an ice cream stand for refreshments and Erdoğan was heard asking Putin, 'Will you pay for me?', to which Putin responded: 'Of course, you're my guest.'
Continue reading...US president argues Putin should be included in discussions on Iran, Syria and North Korea
Donald Trump has rowed with his fellow G7 leaders over his demand that Russia be readmitted to the group, rejecting arguments that it should remain an association of liberal democracies, according to diplomats at the summit in Biarritz.
The disagreement led to heated exchanges at a dinner on Saturday night inside the seaside resort’s 19th-century lighthouse. According to diplomatic sources, Trump argued strenuously that Vladimir Putin should be invited back, five years after Russia was ejected from the then G8) for its annexation of Crimea.
Continue reading...New wave of protest leaders were children when Russian president first came to power in 1999
The young face of Moscow’s protests, a 21-year-old libertarian with 123,000 followers on YouTube, appeared in court on a television screen this week.
Yegor Zhukov, a political science student at Russia’s prestigious Higher School of Economics, faces eight years in prison over controversial “mass unrest” charges. The Kremlin’s critics think the charges are a scare tactic to crush Russia’s largest protests in years, set to continue for their fourth weekend on Saturday.
Continue reading...Twenty years ago the Russian president Boris Yeltsin appointed his fourth prime minister in less than 18 months: Vladimir Putin, then a relatively unknown security services chief with scant experience of politics. Few could have predicted that two decades later Putin would still be ruling Russia, having taken on a dominant role in world affairs. But the anniversary comes at a time of uncertainty in the leader’s reign. Putin’s approval ratings remain at a level most western leaders would envy, but they have taken a hit from a stalling economy and declining living standards
Continue reading...Murdered children are no longer news. International media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, where child deaths reached an all-time high last year, is sporadic at best. In Yemen it is estimated that at least 85,000 under-fives have died of starvation since 2015, a figure that numbs the mind. In Syria, especially, it is hard to keep count because children are being killed almost every day – and who is really counting?
Harrowing images briefly capture public attention. One of the more recent showed five-year-old Riham struggling amid the rubble of her bombed home in Ariha, in Syria’s north-western Idlib province, to save her baby sister, Tuqa. Riham died later in hospital along with her mother and another sister. Thanks to her efforts, and White Helmet rescuers, Tuqa survived.
Continue reading...Move follows police violence during last week’s protests over forthcoming Moscow elections
Russian authorities have threatened protesters in Moscow with lengthy jail sentences in an attempt to dampen an unexpected surge in protest mood before a planned rally on Saturday.
Last weekend police detained a record number of people, some of them violently, for taking part in a peaceful protest in central Moscow over access for opposition candidates to local elections in September.
Continue reading...Politician was taken to hospital from jail where he was detained over call for protests
The Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny remains in hospital after being rushed there on Sunday morning with symptoms that one of his doctors said could indicate poisoning.
Navalny was taken to hospital from jail, where he was serving a 30-day sentence after being arrested last week for calling people to attend an anti-government protest.
Continue reading...Further action planned to press authorities to let candidates stand in Moscow city elections
Russian opposition politicians have called on their supporters to keep up with street rallies, the day after the most forceful police response to protests in the country for years.
More than 1,300 people were detained by police on Saturday, at a protest called in response to the refusal of electoral authorities to register independent candidates for the Moscow city council elections in September.
Continue reading...Russian police arrested more than 600 people, including prominent activists, around a political protest in Moscow to demand that members of the opposition be allowed to run in a local election later this year. The protest, which authorities declared illegal beforehand, did not represent a significant challenge to Vladimir Putin and his allies, who have the resources to break up such demonstrations and jail people. Chants of 'Russia without Putin' and 'Putin resign' echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people. Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called for the protest
Continue reading...An archive of artefacts from Stalin’s brutal reign should stand as evidence against Putin’s vision of a ‘heroic’ Soviet past
• Irina Sherbakova was a founding member of the human rights organisation Memorial
Great expectations characterised 1989. In Russia, the rock band Kino sang “We are waiting for changes!” In huge public rallies on the streets of Moscow, millions demanded freedom and democracy. The Gorbachev era brought about a frenzy of change, and people witnessed incredible events on a weekly basis: they snatched up newspapers, hung on every word broadcast on TV, and with every passing day they felt more alive and free.
Related: 'Homage to evil': Russian activists detained over Stalin protest
Continue reading...Russia refuses to release details about vessel or its mission ‘to protect national security’
The Kremlin has said it will not reveal the vessel type or mission of the 14 sailors who died onboard a top-secret submersible on Monday because the information is a closely guarded state secret.
The remarks came as information has trickled out about the vessel, reported to be an advanced “spy submersible”, and its highly decorated crew, which served in a secretive unit under Russia’s main directorate of deep-sea research and represented some of the navy’s best and brightest.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin says deal due to expire on Sunday will be extended by six to nine months
Russia has agreed with Saudi Arabia to extend by six to nine months a deal with Opec on reducing oil output, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said, as oil prices come under renewed pressure from rising US supplies and a slowing global economy.
The Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, said on Sunday that the deal would most likely be extended by nine months and no deeper reductions were needed.
Continue reading...Jimmy Carter has called Donald Trump an “illegitimate president” who was helped into office by Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Related: Jimmy Carter calls Donald Trump an 'illegitimate president' – live
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