Category Archives: Russia

Zelenskyy presses EU for ‘immediate invitation’ to join Nato

Posted on by

Ukrainian membership would be part of five-point ‘victory plan’ to end war, president tells Brussels summit

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged European leaders to issue an “immediate invitation” to Ukraine to join Nato as he pitched his “victory plan”, which he said would end the war in 2025 at the latest.

Addressing the EU’s 27 leaders at a Brussels summit, Ukraine’s president outlined his five-point plan, which urges allies to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons on military targets inside Ukraine’s occupied territories and Russia, as well as to help increase air defences.

Continue reading...

Police insisted second Salisbury novichok attack was drug overdose, inquiry told

Posted on by

Inspector dismissed emergency services’ concerns that incident was similar to Skripal poisonings, KC says

Police officers urged paramedics and firefighters to treat the second novichok incident in 2018 as a drug overdose despite warnings from the ambulance and fire services that it had similarities to the first poisoning four months earlier in Salisbury, a public inquiry has heard.

The UK government believes the novichok was brought into Britain by agents tasked by Vladimir Putin to target the former spy Sergei Skripal, who had been settled in Salisbury after a spy exchange, the inquiry heard earlier this week. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned on 4 March 2018 and both survived.

Continue reading...

Zelenskyy lays out Ukraine ‘victory plan’ which Moscow calls an escalation

Posted on by

Ukrainian president wants ‘unconditional invite’ to join Nato and rules out conceding territory to Russia

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has laid out details of his “victory plan” in a speech to parliament that acknowledged increasing pressure from allies to negotiate an end to the conflict.

An “unconditional invite” to join Nato is at the heart of the plan he had pitched in private meetings in Washington DC and on a tour of European capitals before unveiling it publicly in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

West’s spy chiefs alarmed at recklessness of Russian counterparts

Posted on by

After expulsion of hundreds of embassy-based spies, Kremlin is using riskier and less conventional methods

A developing Russian campaign of arson, sabotage and even murder plots has left western intelligence agencies alarmed over the past year.

The ramping up of activity has come as the Kremlin’s spy apparatus recovered from the initial shock of seeing 450 agents posing as diplomats expelled from Europe in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Continue reading...

Six Russian soldiers granted French temporary entry permits after fleeing Ukraine

Posted on by

Organisations assisting deserters hope France’s decision will lead to more soldiers fleeing war

Six Russian soldiers who fled the war in Ukraine have been granted temporary entry permits as they apply for political asylum in France, in what human rights activists describe as the first major case of a group of deserters being admitted to a EU country.

The men arrived in Paris on separate flights over the last few months after initially fleeing Russia to Kazakhstan in 2022 and 2023, according to an organisation that assists soldiers in fleeing, and to accounts from the deserters.

Continue reading...

‘It’s a kind of miracle’: Russian man survives 66 days adrift on inflatable boat

Posted on by

Mikhail Pichugin survived but the ordeal claimed the lives of his brother and teenage nephew

A Russian man survived more than two months drifting in icy seas on an inflatable boat in an ordeal that claimed the lives of his brother and teenage nephew, officials and reports said.

Mikhail Pichugin may have survived because of his 100kg (220lb) build, according to his wife. Media reports said he weighed just 50kg when found on Monday.

Continue reading...

Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers grows despite western sanctions

Posted on by

Poorly maintained and uninsured vessels transporting up to 70% of country’s seaborne oil, says report

Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers is expanding, according to research, transporting up to 70% of the country’s seaborne oil despite western efforts to curb Moscow’s wartime energy revenues.

The volume of Russian oil being transported by poorly maintained and underinsured tankers has almost doubled in a year to 4.1m barrels a day by June, according to a report published on Monday by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).

Continue reading...

Russia and China accused of blocking Asean statement due to dispute over South China Sea

Posted on by

Russian foreign minister says final declaration not adopted because of attempts by US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and NZ ‘to turn it into a purely political statement’

Russia and China blocked a proposed consensus statement for the East Asia Summit drafted by south-east Asian countries, mainly over objections to language on the contested South China Sea, a US official said on Saturday.

A draft statement arrived at by consensus by the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations was put to the 18-nation East Asia Summit meeting in Laos on Thursday evening, the official said.

Continue reading...

Alexei Navalny believed he would die in prison, memoir reveals

Posted on by

In secret journal, Putin’s fiercest critic writes: ‘If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them’

The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny believed he would die in prison, excerpts from his memoir reveal.

Navalny was the most prominent foe of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and relentlessly campaigned against official corruption in Russia. He died in a remote Arctic prison in February while serving a 19-year sentence on several charges, including running an extremist group, which he said were politically motivated.

Continue reading...

Ukrainian reporter died in Russian detention, Kyiv says

Posted on by

Victoria Roshchyna disappeared in August last year after travelling to Russian-held east Ukraine for a report

A Ukrainian journalist who was captured by Moscow while reporting from occupied east Ukraine has died in Russian detention, according to Ukrainian officials.

Victoria Roshchyna, who would have turned 28 this month, disappeared in August last year after travelling to Russian-held east Ukraine for a report.

Continue reading...

UK has not agreed to long-range missile use after Zelenskyy meeting, No 10 says

Posted on by

Downing Street indicates no change in position on Ukraine’s request to fire Storm Shadow weapons into Russia

The UK has not lifted restrictions on Ukraine using long-range missiles after Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit, Downing Street has said.

The Ukrainian president met Keir Starmer in No 10 on Thursday and reiterated his request to fire Storm Shadow missiles and other western-supplied weapons deep inside Russian territory.

Continue reading...

Russia shares AI images of Hurricane Milton as disinformation abounds in US

Posted on by

Far-right trolls spout baseless theory that storm is a ‘simulation’ as Republicans jump on conspiracy train

As Hurricane Milton ripped across Florida, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, trolls and politicians alike spawned misinformation about the storm, questioning government preparations and calling it a “simulation” designed to hurt the Republican state.

But after it made landfall and exited into the Atlantic Ocean, there’s a new propaganda target among conspiracists: Walt Disney World in Orlando.

Continue reading...

Unilever sells Russian business after pressure from campaigners

Posted on by

Dove maker’s deal with local manufacturer Arnest Group includes four factories

Unilever has sold off its Russian operations to a local manufacturing group after pressure from campaigners who claimed that the presence of the Dove and Ben & Jerry’s owner in the country was supporting the war in Ukraine.

Arnest Group, a Russian manufacturer of perfume, cosmetics and household products will take control of Unilever Rus, which includes four factories, as well as the group’s interests in Belarus. Arnest is owned by the businessman Alexey Sagal and bought the brewer Heineken’s business in the country last summer.

Continue reading...

North Koreans deployed alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, sources say

Posted on by

Engineers said to be supporting missile launches and reports of North Koreans killed near Donetsk

North Korean military engineers have been deployed to help Russia target Ukraine with ballistic missiles, and fighters operating in occupied areas of the country have already been killed, senior officials in Kyiv and Seoul said.

There are dozens of North Koreans behind Russian lines, in teams that “support launcher systems for KN-23 missiles”, a source in Ukraine told the Guardian.

Continue reading...

European summit to discuss Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ‘victory plan’ is postponed

Posted on by

World leaders pull out from talks in Germany after Joe Biden withdraws due to Hurricane Milton

An international summit on Ukraine where Volodymyr Zelenskyy was going to present a “victory plan” to western leaders has been formally postponed – though the Ukrainian president will try to organise a tour of European capitals instead.

Organisers said that the Saturday meeting of about 20 world leaders at the US Ramstein airbase in Germany would be rescheduled, a day after Biden had said he had to stay at home to respond to Hurricane Milton’s landfall in Florida.

Continue reading...

Trump took ‘British naval secrets’ to Mar-a-Lago, says Christopher Steele

Posted on by

Former UK spy says in new book Trump ‘apparently unauthorizedly’ took secrets with him

Donald Trump took “British naval secrets” to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House, the former UK spy Christopher Steele says in a new book.

“I was reliably informed by impeccable sources that among the classified documents which Trump, apparently unauthorizedly, took with him to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency were British naval secrets, some of the most sensitive ones in our governmental system,” Steele writes.

Continue reading...

Ireland is a ‘playground’ for Russian intelligence, says former army chief

Posted on by

Comment follows claim Kremlin recruited member of parliament to damage UK-Irish relations during Brexit talks

Ireland is a “playground” for Russian intelligence, a former deputy chief of an Irish army unit has said following claims that a member of parliament was recruited by the Kremlin to undermine Anglo-Irish relations during Brexit talks.

Cathal Berry, now a Teachta Dála (TD, member of the Irish parliament), said he had not been surprised by a report at the weekend that the unnamed politician had been recruited “as an agent of influence” in a honeytrap operation.

Continue reading...

Biden to visit Angola as global powers vie for African influence

Posted on by

US and EU are supporting infrastructure projects in Angola, which has historically been closer to Russia and China

When Joe Biden travels to Angola on Sunday, it will be the first trip to an African country of his presidency and the first to the continent by a sitting US president since Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia in 2015.

It is a marker of how Africa’s 54 countries are increasingly courted by global powers, drawn to the continent by geopolitical shifts and an abundance of minerals needed for electric cars and other battery-powered technologies.

Continue reading...

Russian court sentences 72-year-old American for fighting for Ukraine

Posted on by

Steven James Hubbard given six years and 10 months in prison, but family cast doubt on his reported confession

A Russian court has sentenced a 72-year-old American citizen, Stephen James Hubbard, to six years and 10 months in prison after convicting him in a closed-door trial of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine.

Investigators said Hubbard, a native of Michigan, was paid $1,000 (£760) a month to serve in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izyum, where he had been living since 2014.

Continue reading...

Russia’s exiled opposition rocked by claims over hammer attack on Navalny ally

Posted on by

Accusations that another Kremlin critic ordered attack on Leonid Volkov throws scattered opposition into further disarray

When Leonid Volkov, a longtime associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was brutally attacked with a hammer outside his home in Lithuania in March, it initially seemed yet another case of the Kremlin hunting down its enemies abroad.

The assailant smashed open Volkov’s car window and struck him repeatedly with a hammer, breaking his left arm and damaging his left leg. Western officials and opposition figures assumed the attack, which took place a few weeks after Navalny’s mysterious death in prison, had been orchestrated by the Kremlin.

Continue reading...