Category Archives: Russia

UK to lend Ukraine an additional £2.26bn for weapons to fight Russia

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Loans will be repaid using interest generated by $300bn of frozen Russian assets held in the west

Britain is to lend Ukraine an additional £2.26bn and allow Kyiv to spend the money on weapons to fight off the Russian invasion as part of a wider $50bn (£38.5bn) loan programme expected to be confirmed by G7 members later this week.

The loans will be repaid using interest generated by the $300bn of frozen Russian assets held in the west, with the extra funds promised as the US heads towards a presidential election where support for Ukraine is a divisive issue.

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North Korean arms more significant than troops in Russia’s war against Ukraine

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Intelligence builds that members of Pyongyang’s special forces are in Russia preparing for combat as munitions are also shipped

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, got to the point in his presidential address last night: “Another state,” he said, was “joining the war against Ukraine”. He was referring to the growing intelligence that shows elite soldiers from North Korea are in Russia preparing to join what has become a fight that, in effect, extends all the way across Asia.

The effect will be greater than the numbers believed to be involved. On Friday, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) reported that 1,500 members of Pyongyang’s special forces had crossed the border to Vladivostok in Russia’s far east to begin training and some degree of participation in the war in Ukraine.

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Moldovans back joining the EU by razor-thin majority

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Final result sees ‘yes’ vote scrape ahead by 13,000 votes, narrowly avoiding shock setback for pro-western president

Moldovans have voted by a razor-thin majority in favour of joining the EU after a pivotal referendum clouded by allegations of Russian interference.

On Sunday, Moldova held key votes in a presidential election and a referendum on EU membership, marking a critical moment in the continuing struggle between Russia and the west for control over the small, landlocked nation in eastern Europe, home to 2.5 million people.

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Network of Israeli citizens arrested after spying for Iran, police say

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Suspects are accused of photographing and collecting information about Israeli bases and facilities

Israeli police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency say they have arrested a network of Israeli citizens spying for Iran who allegedly provided information on military bases and conducted surveillance of individuals.

The investigators claimed the network had been active for about two years. According to reports in the Israeli press, the suspects are accused of photographing and collecting information about Israeli bases and facilities, including the defence headquarters in Tel Aviv, known as the Kirya, and the Nevatim and Ramat David airbases.

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South Korea summons Russian envoy over North Korean troop deployment

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Seoul demands immediate withdrawal of elite soldiers reportedly helping Russia in its war against Ukraine

South Korea has summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul to protest “in the strongest terms” about the reported dispatch of thousands of North Korean troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

The first vice-foreign minister, Kim Hong-kyun, told the Russian envoy, Georgy Zinoviev, that the participation of North Korean troops in the war violated UN resolutions and demanded their immediate withdrawal, South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday.

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Moldova’s president speaks out as EU referendum hangs in balance

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Pro-western leader Maia Sandu condemns ‘assault’ on country’s freedom and democracy by ‘foreign forces’

Moldova’s pro-western president, Maia Sandu, blamed an “unprecedented assault on our country’s freedom and democracy” by “foreign forces” on Sunday night, as a pivotal referendum on EU membership remained too close to call with most votes counted.

Moldovans went to the polls earlier in the day to cast their vote in a presidential election and an EU referendum that marked a key moment in the tug-of-war between Russia and the west over the future of the small, landlocked south-east European country with a population of about 2.5 million people.

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Russian ambassador accuses UK of waging proxy war in Ukraine

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Andrei Kelin says by providing weapons Britain is ‘killing Russian soldiers and civilians’

Moscow’s ambassador to London has said the UK is waging a proxy war against Russia, while predicting the “end of Ukraine” as Russian invading forces make deeper advances into the country.

In an interview with the BBC, Andrei Kelin said Ukraine continued to fight but claimed “the resistance is more feeble and feeble”.

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France’s foreign minister pledges support for Ukraine ‘victory plan’

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Jean-Noël Barrot says Russian victory would ‘push the international order toward chaos’ as he backs negotiations

France’s foreign minister pledged his support for Ukraine’s plan for ending the war with Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Saturday that he would work with Ukrainian officials to secure other nations’ backing for the proposal.

Presented by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this week, Kyiv’s “victory plan” hopes to compel Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine through negotiations.

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Moldovans go to polls to decide whether future lies with Russia or the west

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Presidential election and EU referendum take place amid concerns over interference from Moscow

Moldovans are voting in a presidential election and an EU referendum that will mark a pivotal moment in the tug-of-war between Russia and the west over the future of the small, landlocked south-east European country of fewer than 3 million people.

The pro-western president, Maia Sandu, hopes to advance her agenda by winning a second term and securing a “yes” in a referendum to affirm EU accession as a “irreversible” goal in the constitution.

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North Korean troops have arrived in Russia to fight Ukraine, says Seoul

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Russian navy ships reportedly transferred 1,500 forces to Vladivostok, where they are being trained

South Korea’s intelligence agency said on Friday that North Korea had dispatched troops to assist Russia in its war against Ukraine, a development that could intensify the standoff between North Korea and the west.

In a statement on its website, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Russian navy ships transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port city of Vladivostok between 8 and 13 October who were now undergoing training.

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Russia seeks to ban ‘propaganda’ promoting childfree lifestyles

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People could face fines of up to 400,000 rubles, as data suggests birthrate has slid to lowest level in quarter of a century

A law that would ban “propaganda” seeking to champion a childfree lifestyle has cleared its first hurdle in Russia’s lower house of parliament, gaining unanimous approval among lawmakers for a bill promoted as a means to increase the country’s birthrate.

The new legislation sets out fines for those deemed to be discouraging people from having children, as official data released last month suggested Russia’s birthrate had slid to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, a slump exacerbated by the country’s ageing population and Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

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Small and lethal: adapted drones carrying explosives ‘hunt’ civilians in Kherson

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Ukrainians face new airborne threat that has killed 24 civilians and injured hundreds more since July

Sasha Ustenko has survived three attacks by the Russian drones that stalk the streets of Kherson carrying fragmentation grenades to drop on anything that moves. The first, in late July, targeted a parked police car in central Kherson just as Ustenko walked past, throwing him to the ground. The second, in mid-August, hit a drinking water tanker as he queued for supplies, killing the driver. Ustenko was concussed, and came round to see a man lying in a pool of blood.

The third time, in late September, he heard the drone buzzing above and sprinted for shelter under the branches of a cherry tree. He hoped its leaves would hide him but the grenade tumbled through the canopy and landed barely a metre away.

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Russia’s aim is to ‘create havoc’ if it is behind DHL fires, says air freight expert

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Goal seems to be for people ‘to lose confidence in the system’, says head of industry body after devices found in Birmingham and Leipzig

If Russia is proved to be behind an incendiary device plot that caused fires at two parcels warehouses in July, it will be evidence that Moscow is aiming to disrupt western confidence, an expert has said.

The dangerous packages, which caught light at DHL sites in Birmingham and Leipzig, are not thought to have been sophisticated but in both cases appear to have evaded security checks. German authorities warned this week that a plane could have been downed if the devices, which were both sent by air, had ignited in flight.

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Zelenskyy presses EU for ‘immediate invitation’ to join Nato

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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West’s spy chiefs alarmed at recklessness of Russian counterparts

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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.

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Six Russian soldiers granted French temporary entry permits after fleeing Ukraine

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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).

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