Category Archives: Russia

Ukraine allies promise €21bn in military support for Kyiv

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Ukraine defence contact group accuses Putin of dragging his feet over deal and Trump urges Russia to ‘get moving’

Ukraine’s allies have announced a record €21bn (£18.2bn) in additional military support for Kyiv and accused Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet and delaying US-led negotiations over a ceasefire deal.

Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group in Brussels, the British defence secretary, John Healey, said the Russian president had rejected a 30-day pause in fighting proposed a month ago by Donald Trump.

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China and North Korea aid to Russia poses security risk in Indo-Pacific region, says top US commander

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Beijing and Pyongyang are aiding Russia in its war against Ukraine, and Moscow in turn is assisting their militaries

The top US commander in the Pacific has warned senators that the military support that China and North Korea are giving Russia in its war on Ukraine is a security risk in his region as Moscow provides critical military assistance to both in return.

Adm Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate armed services committee that China has provided 70% of the machine tools and 90% of the legacy chips to Russia to help Moscow “rebuild its war machine”.

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They fled Putin’s Russia for the US. After Ice detention, they’re choosing to leave again

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Sergei and Marina were building a new life in California after protesting the Ukraine war. But Sergei was arrested during a routine check-in – and everything has changed

Sergei and Marina escaped Russia three years ago under threat of arrest after protesting against the Ukraine war, seeking asylum in the US. Now their best chance of remaining together, as a family, is to flee again.

In a whirlwind three weeks, the couple’s plans to rebuild their lives in the US were abruptly upended.

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Two Chinese nationals caught fighting for Russia in Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

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Ukrainian president says men’s capture shows Moscow is trying to involve Beijing in the war ‘directly or indirectly’

Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals fighting with the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian president said they were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”.

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Unsafe for Russia to restart Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, says Ukraine energy chief

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Energoatom CEO, Petro Kotin, says ‘major problems’ need to be overcome before it can safely generate power

It would be unsafe for Russia to restart the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and would take Ukraine up to two years in peacetime if it regained control, the chief executive of the company that runs the vast six-reactor site has said.

Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said in an interview there were “major problems” to overcome – including insufficient cooling water, personnel and incoming electricity supply – before it could start generating power again safely.

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‘There is no ceasefire. Attacks are ongoing’: how Putin’s envoy played US over Ukraine

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White House welcome for key member of Russian president’s inner circle raises fears over America’s commitment to peace

Kirill Dmitriev’s meetings with US officials in the White House last week went largely below the radar. And deliberately so.

The dapper investment envoy to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who also serves as a key negotiator for Moscow on Ukraine, posted an image of his flight plan on social media to make the point that a senior sanctioned Russian official was being welcomed by the Trump administration. Otherwise, details of what was discussed remain opaque.

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Eighteen people killed in Russian missile strike on Zelenskyy’s home city

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Missile attack on Kryvyi Rih left 61 injured including three-month-old baby and elderly residents

Eighteen people, including nine children, have been killed in a Russian missile strike on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city, a Ukrainian official has said.

A further 61 people were injured in the attack on Kryvyi Rih on Friday, including a three-month-old baby and elderly residents, the regional governor, Serhii Lysak, said. Forty remain in hospital, including two children in critical condition and 17 in a serious condition.

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US neo-Nazi group with Russia-based leader calls for targeted Ukraine attacks

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The Base, terrorist group founded in 2018, free to export violence abroad as Trump pulls FBI from pursuing far right

A US neo-Nazi terrorist group with a Russia-based leader is calling for targeted assassinations and attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine in an effort to destabilize the country as it carries out ceasefire negotiations with the Kremlin.

The Base, which has a web of cells all over the world, was founded in 2018 and became the subject of a relentless FBI counter-terrorism investigation that led to several arrests and world governments officially designating it as a terrorist organization.

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‘So resonant’: the 19th-century Russian opera being revived across Europe

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Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina – set in the troubled 1680s – can almost describe current events, say directors

A Russian political leader sings about war with Ukrainians and the need for a “durable peace”. The fractured political elite argues over whether they should pursue closer ties with Europe or embrace Russian traditions.

The plot of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina was written in the 1870s and is set in the 1680s. But, as the characters lament the fact that their homeland is mired in an endless cycle of violence and unhappiness, the dark and brooding work can feel alarmingly contemporary.

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US ‘testing’ if Russia is serious about peace in Ukraine, says Marco Rubio

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Secretary of state says Putin ‘will have to make a decision’ as US officials appear to be growing impatient

The US will know within weeks whether Russia is serious about pursuing peace with Ukraine, the secretary of state has said, warning that Donald Trump was not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Moscow.

“We’re testing to see if the Russians are interested in peace,” Marco Rubio told journalists in Brussels after talks with Nato allies. “Their actions – not their words, their actions – will determine whether they’re serious or not, and we intend to find that out sooner rather than later.”

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Russia says it cannot accept US peace plan for Ukraine ‘in its current form’

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Moscow’s refusal highlights the limited progress Donald Trump has made on his promise to end the war

Moscow has described the latest US peace proposals as unacceptable to the Kremlin, highlighting the limited progress Donald Trump has made on his promise to end the war in Ukraine since taking office in January.

Sergei Ryabkov, a foreign policy adviser to Vladimir Putin, said some of Russia’s key demands were not being addressed by the US proposals to end the war, in comments that marked a rare acknowledgment from the Russian side that talks with the US over Ukraine had stalled in recent weeks.

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Trump ‘running out of patience’ with Putin over Ukraine ceasefire, says Finnish president

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Alexander Stubb – who played golf with Trump this weekend – suggested deadline and US sanctions package

Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin’s stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said after spending several hours with the US president – including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.

Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.

Stubb pointed out that a third golf partner on Saturday, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, already has a bill in the US Senate proposing what he has described as “bone-breaking” US sanctions on Russia if it did not accept an unconditional ceasefire.

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Donald Trump says he is ‘very angry’ with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine

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US president says his Russian counterpart’s questioning of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility could delay ceasefire

Donald Trump has said he is “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.

The US president indicated he would levy a 25% or 50% tariff that would affect countries buying Russian oil in a telephone interview with NBC News, during which he also threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland.

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‘Expressing your pain in artistic form is not easy’: exiled Russian theatre director builds bridges in London

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Dmitry Krymov, who fled Moscow after the Ukraine invasion, plans Dickens hybrid with UK and Russian actors

The acclaimed Russian stage director Dmitry Krymov the winner of many of Moscow’s top theatre prizes before his exile due to public criticism of the invasion of Ukraine, has spoken angrily of the impact of the war ahead of his first work with British actors. The Moscow-born director, 70, plans to use Dickens’s two stories Great Expectations and Hard Times to create a new performance.

Arriving in London this weekend for a short stay, Krymov, who is regarded by many western theatre pundits as among the best directors in the world, told the Observer he wants to link British and Russian performers and audiences, despite the divisions caused by President Vladimir Putin.

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Putin’s endorsement of Trump’s Greenland takeover reflects their vision of a new world order

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As US pivots toward territorial ambitions in the west, the Kremlin’s support signals a deeper alignment in their challenge to global norms

As JD Vance touched down in Greenland, the Trump administration received an unlikely endorsement for the US’s first potential territorial expansion since 1947: Vladimir Putin.

Speaking at an Arctic policy forum in the northern Russian city of Murmansk on Thursday, Putin presented a more comprehensive case than any US official yet for Donald Trump’s plan to annex Greenland, crafting a historical argument that sounded suspiciously convenient in terms of Russia’s own territorial designs on Ukraine.

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Putin suggests Ukraine could have UN-led government to organise elections

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US rejects suggestion and Kremlin later clarifies idea is just ‘one of the options’ and has not been raised with Trump

Vladimir Putin has suggested Ukraine could be placed under a temporary UN-led government to organise fresh elections as both Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of breaching an energy ceasefire agreed this week.

The idea was quickly rejected by a US spokesperson, and it was not clear how far it was meant to be taken seriously, given that the Kremlin clarified that Putin had not raised this idea in recent phone calls with Donald Trump.

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Six Russian tourists die after submarine sinks off Egypt coast

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Another 39 people rescued and brought to shore after incident on vessel at Red Sea resort

Six Russian tourists have died and 39 people have been rescued after a submarine sank near the resort of Hurghada, the latest in a series of fatal accidents involving tourists on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.

Four survivors, including at least one child, were admitted to intensive care, according to an official statement.

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Russian strikes show Moscow does not want ‘real peace’, says Zelenskyy

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Ukraine’s president says drone attacks just hours after ceasefire talks were ‘a clear signal to the whole world’

Ukraine’s president has accused Russia of being insincere about making peace as he reported an attack by 117 drones, before he headed to Paris for a discussion with EU and Nato leaders about establishing a post-conflict security force.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that launching nationwide strikes after negotiations over maritime and energy ceasefires was proof of Russia’s true intentions, though the Kremlin insisted the US-brokered talks were proceeding constructively.

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Ukraine ceasefire deal looks like a Russian wishlist tied with a US bow

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A moratorium on attacks on ships in the Black Sea seems to be contingent on sanctions relief – a key Kremlin demand

The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.

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