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Tag: Russian President Vladmir Putin

  • Vicky Hammah joins Putin and Kim Jong Un in the league of world’s ‘most bizarre’ politicians

    Vicky Hammah joins Putin and Kim Jong Un in the league of world’s ‘most bizarre’ politicians

    Ghanaian politician Vicky Hammah has been listed alongside heavyweights like Russian President, Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the controversial compendium “The Fat Boy with the Bomb and 299 of the World’s Craziest Politicians”.

    Authored by Brian O’Connell and Norman H. Chung and released in 2015, the book throws the spotlight on a variety of global political figures famed for their outlandish behaviour and statements.

    The National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Vicky Hammah, did not shy away from acknowledging her unexpected feature.

    According to a series of screenshots from a post she made on social media, Vicky, in a seeming response to this revelation wrote, “My name made it into this book among some of the most powerful leader[s] yeeey 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾 😂😂😂. Number 10 in Africa 💃🏾💃🏾💃🏾. I’m a great ☺️”.

    Characterised on Amazon as an “illustrated international dossier of lunatic statesmen and insane leaders,” the book profiles 300 politicians in a range of political and mental hues. It’s an anthology of the peculiar, ranging from benign eccentrics to those with more severe delusions. With caricatures and brief accounts from across the political spectrum, it delves into the lives of those who have made absurd claims and taken extreme actions.

    The write-up on Hammah dubs her a “Goddess of beauty”, highlighting her tenure as Deputy Minister of Communications and her notorious dismissal following the emergence of a tape wherein she claimed she would not exit politics until amassing at least a million dollars.

    Additionally, the book recounts an incident with her alleged former boyfriend, Richard Frimpong Dardo, who was arrested for purportedly assaulting her in a dispute over sexual matters.

    Vicky Hammah, unfazed by the uncomplimentary aspects of her depiction, optimistically wrote, “In darkness light shines brightest😁😃,” accompanied by smiling emojis.

    Notable figures such as Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria, also find mention in this controversial ‘register’.

  • US declares new $2bn long term military aid for Ukraine

    US declares new $2bn long term military aid for Ukraine

    On the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion, the United States announced a new $2 billion package of long-term security assistance for Ukraine.

    More ammunition and a variety of small, sophisticated drones will be part of the assistance, according to a statement from the Pentagon.

    The F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine has repeatedly asked for will not be part of the package.

    Additionally, Washington unveiled new export restrictions, tariffs, and sanctions against Russia and its allies in an effort to limit Moscow’s capacity to wage war.

    The sanctions are aimed at targets in Russia and “third-country actors” across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East that are supporting Russia’s war effort, the White House said in a fact sheet.

  • Putin’s state of the nation address which took almost two hours. What exactly did he say?

    Putin’s state of the nation address which took almost two hours. What exactly did he say?

    President Putin attributes the war he started a year ago to the West and Ukraine.

    Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, gave a speech on the state of the nation in the nation’s capital, Moscow, in which he discussed the invasion of Ukraine that he had authorised a year earlier.

    The following are key points from his speech to members of both houses of parliament, military leaders, and soldiers on Tuesday:

    ‘Russia is suspending its participation’ in the New START treaty

    “I am forced to announce today that Russia is suspending its participation in the strategic offensive arms treaty.”

    The New START treaty was signed in Prague in 2010. It came into force the following year and was extended in 2021 for five more years after United States President Joe Biden took office.

    It caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

    Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world, with close to 6,000 warheads, according to experts. Together, Russia and the United States hold about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads – enough to destroy the planet many times over.

    ‘A watershed moment for our country’

    “I am making this address at a time which we all know is a difficult, watershed moment for our country, a time of cardinal, irreversible changes around the world, the most important historic events that will shape the future of our country and our people, when each of us bears a colossal responsibility.”

    Western nations trying to ‘distract people’s attention’

    “They just tried to use these principles of democracy and freedom to defend their totalitarian values and they tried to distract people’s attention from corruption scandals … from economic-social problems.”

    ‘Responsibility is on West and Ukrainian elite’

    “The responsibility is on the West and the Ukrainian elite and government, which does not serve the national interest, but [rather serves the interest] of third countries [which] use Ukraine as a military base to fight Russia.

    “The more they send weapons to Ukraine, the more we will have the responsibility of the security situation at the Russian border. This is a natural response.”

    ‘We don’t fight the Ukrainian people’

    “We don’t fight with the Ukrainian people. They became hostages of the Kyiv regime that occupied Ukraine both economically and politically. Over years, they were doing everything to bring this degradation … They are using their people, it’s sad but true.”

    Donbas subjected to ‘undisguised hatred’

    “Step by step, carefully and consistently, we will resolve the tasks facing us. Since 2014, the (people of the) Donbas had been fighting, defending their right to live on their own land, to speak their native language.

    “They fought and did not give up in the conditions of blockade and constant shelling, undisguised hatred on the part of the Kyiv regime. They believed and expected that Russia would come to their rescue.

    “Meanwhile, we did our best to solve this problem by peaceful means. We patiently tried to negotiate a peaceful way out of this most difficult conflict, but a completely different scenario was being prepared behind our backs.”

    ‘Reviving enterprises and jobs’ in occupied Ukrainian lands

    “We have already begun and will continue to build up a large-scale programme for the socioeconomic recovery and development of these new subjects of the federation (territory annexed from Ukraine). We are talking about reviving enterprises and jobs in the ports of the Sea of Azov, which has again become an inland sea of Russia, and building new modern roads, as we did in Crimea.”

    ‘I understand how unbearably hard it is’ for families of killed soldiers

    Putin said he understood how difficult it was for relatives of Russian soldiers who had died fighting in Ukraine, and promised “targeted support” with a new special fund.

    “We all understand, I understand how unbearably hard it is now for the wives, sons, daughters of fallen soldiers, their parents, who raised worthy defenders of the Fatherland.”

    ‘Child abuse all the way up to paedophilia … advertised as the norm’ in the West

    “They distort historical facts and constantly attack our culture, the Russian Orthodox Church, and other traditional religions of our country,” Putin said of Western nations supporting Ukraine.

    “Look at what they do with their own peoples: the destruction of the family, cultural and national identity, perversion and the abuse of children are declared the norm. And priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages.

    “As it became known, the Anglican Church plans to consider the idea of a gender-neutral God … Millions of people in the West understand they are being led to a real spiritual catastrophe.”

    “Look at what they do to their own people: the destruction of families, of cultural and national identities and the perversion that is child abuse all the way up to paedophilia, are advertised as the norm … and priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages.”

  • UK court jails Berlin embassy guard for spying for Russia

    UK court jails Berlin embassy guard for spying for Russia

    Due to his violation of the UK’s Official Secrets Act, David Ballantyne Smith received a 13-year prison sentence. He was apprehended during a British-German sting operation and extradited to London.


    A British man who was a security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin when he passed information to Russia was sentenced to 13 years and two months in prison on Friday.

    David Ballantyne Smith, 58, of Paisley, west-central Scotland, was apprehended in a sting operation in August 2021 and previously entered a guilty plea to eight offences under the UK’s Official Secrets Act.

    Smith, a five-year employee at the embassy, acknowledged informing General Major Sergey Chukhrov, the Russian military attache in Berlin, of information.

    During sentencing at the Old Bailey Court in London, Judge Mark Wall said that Smith had “developed anti-British and anti-Western feelings” during his employment and that his co-workers had “formed the impression you were more sympathetic to Russia” and to President Vladimir Putin.

    Wall described how Smith would go into offices in the embassy while it was empty at night and take pictures of files marked “secret.”

    “You were paid by the Russians for your treachery,” the judge told him, rejecting Smith’s evidence that he felt remorse as “no more than self-pity.”

    The charges for which Smith was sentenced involved conduct between 2020 and 2021, but Wall noted that his “subversive activities had begun two years before.”

    Smith wanted to damage UK’s interests

    During his trial, it was revealed that Smith collected highly sensitive information, including “secret” government communications with Prime Minister Boris Johnson from two cabinet ministers.

    The court heard he made several videos of sensitive areas inside the Berlin embassy building.

    Wall had previously dismissed Smith’s claims that he had passed intelligence only twice in order to cause “embarrassment” to the UK.

    The military veteran “was motivated by his antipathy towards Britain and intended to damage this country’s interests by acting as he did,” the judge said during the trial.

    Smith apologized for ‘grievance’

    Earlier this week, Smith told the court that he started collecting confidential information during a dispute with colleagues and while suffering from depression “to give the embassy a bit of a slap.

    “I can only apologize for any distress I’ve caused to anyone,” he said. “I didn’t set out to harm anyone in any way. I just had a bit of a grievance and I just wanted to embarrass the embassy.”

    Smith denied that he was anti-UK or pro-Russian Putin, adding: “My thoughts on Mr. Putin are neither here nor there.”

    He also said he had served in Britain’s Royal Air Force for 12 years.

    After British and German authorities found out about his spying, they formed a plot to try to catch Smith in the act.

    Smith was arrested after communicating with two MI5 officers posing as Russian nationals “Dmitry” and “Irina.”

    He was later extradited to the UK.

  • How Putin made himself Maidan-proof by waging war on Ukraine

    How Putin made himself Maidan-proof by waging war on Ukraine

    Since its start, the conflict in Ukraine has been tightly linked to Putin’s fear of an opposition-led challenge to his rule.

    It has been two years since a major wave of street protests provoked by the arrest of opposition leader Alexey Navalny hit Russia. To many, the events of January and February 2021 may seem unrelated to the war in Ukraine, but they are, in fact, closely linked.

    Let us remember how this story unfolded. In August 2020, Navalny suffered a near-lethal poisoning, which landed him in a German hospital. An investigation by Bellingcat and Der Spiegel established with a high level of certainty that he was poisoned by Russian secret service operatives.

    Having barely recovered from the poisoning, Navalny surprised many by returning to Russia five months later. He was apprehended at the airport and has been in jail ever since.

    In the following weeks, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in 185 cities across the country, calling for the opposition leader’s release. According to OVD-Info, a group monitoring political repression in Russia, more than 11,000 people were arrested, dozens were injured and about 90 people faced criminal charges.

    President Vladimir Putin’s main dark art, which has helped him stay in power for so long, is that of shifting public attention away from domestic troubles. Less than two months after the Navalny protests were suppressed, he ordered the deployment of a massive force at the Russian border with Ukraine in what became a prelude to the full-scale invasion of this country a year later.

    These two themes – Russia’s internal instability and the war in Ukraine – are fundamentally interlinked. By waging a war in Ukraine, Putin is avoiding confrontation with his own population and keeping the opposition at bay. He has essentially outsourced his domestic conflict to Russia’s neighbour Ukraine.

    Domestic unrest was certainly not the only reason why Putin started preparing for the invasion. That same fateful month, which saw Joe Biden enter the White House, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a drastic change of tack in his Russia policy.

    He launched an attack on Putin’s chief ally in Ukraine, Viktor Medvedchuk, whose party climbed to the top of opinion polls in December 2020. Simultaneously, he initiated much-publicised campaigns for joining NATO and doing away with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

    With Medvedchuk still in the game, Putin could have safely counted on the political environment in Ukraine gradually changing in the way that was conducive to his political goals of ending the conflict in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on his terms. But the forceful removal of his ally from the political scene and the destruction of his increasingly influential media empire made this impossible, prompting the Russian president to resort to a more drastic line of action.

    Yet it is on the domestic front where Putin has achieved the most by triggering an escalation in Ukraine. Rising tensions served as a smokescreen for the ultimate destruction of Navalny’s movement and the Russian opposition.

    There is a perverse logic to the Kremlin’s actions if you look at the events from its vantage point. Putin and his entourage genuinely believe that Navalny and his supporters are paid agents of the West intent on staging a Russian version of the Maidan protests.

    Russia’s initial attack on Ukraine in 2014 was a way of punishing it for its Maidan revolution but, even more importantly, of showing the Russian public what they would face if they followed the Ukrainian example.

    The 2014 invasion allowed Putin to quash what remained of the Bolotnaya protest movement, which rocked Moscow in 2011 and 2012. But the relatively calm years following the hot phase of the war in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 saw public attention in Russia shift again to domestic grievances.

    In 2017 and 2018, opinion pollsters started picking up a dramatic shift in public sentiment: The demand for stability was diminishing in favour of political change. In 2018, a Levada Centre poll showed 57 percent of respondents believed “full-scale changes” were needed in the country. This figure rose to 59 percent the following year.

    That was also the time when Navalny launched his presidential campaign and set up the largest opposition network in recent history, opening offices in most regions of the country. Fearful of his movement and its Maidan potential, the Kremlin first knocked Navalny out of the presidential race on a made-up pretext and then tried to poison him.

    The escalation and eventual full-scale invasion of Ukraine, allowed Putin to do away with the Russian opposition and remove the threat to his regime. This was reflected in opinion polls as well. The share of Russians hoping for change fell to 47 percent in 2022 in Levada’s poll.

    Today, Navalny is lingering in jail where he is being treated in a way that borders on outright torture. Every other major opposition politician is either jailed, under house arrest or in exile. Hundreds of thousands of anti-Putin Russians have fled the country, including pretty much all independent journalists and most civil society activists.

    As a result, Putin’s political regime appears to be more stable than ever – even if it loses the war in Ukraine. At the end of the day, there is nothing more stable than an isolated authoritarian regime under Western sanctions. Iran, Cuba and North Korea are a testament to that.

    A hostile, isolated Russia is also good for the war hawks in the West and in Eastern Europe promoting hardline policies and militarisation. Meanwhile, pro-Ukrainian infowar groups and hawkish commentators in the West are bashing the Russian opposition with even greater fervour than Putin’s regime while also calling for the breakup of Russia.

    There is a steep learning curve ahead for Russian leaders and activists before they formulate their (as well as Russia’s) genuine interests and learn to tell friends from foes in the political terrarium of the visionless and disoriented West of the Trump and Brexit epoch. Western ambiguity on Russia’s future does not help when it comes to promoting anti-Putin sentiments in Russia.

    That explains why the main figures in Navalny’s movement are keeping a fairly low profile in Western media while focusing on developing a propaganda machine to reach out to audiences in Russia, mostly via YouTube. They are also attempting to relaunch the movement’s regional network, but we won’t hear much about the progress for some time, given that these days activist can only operate in clandestine mode.

    In the meantime, with the war raging, Putin can consider himself fairly Maidan-proof.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

  • Putinism doesn’t work in the battlefield

    Putinism doesn’t work in the battlefield

    The latest reshuffle in the Russian army shows Russian generals struggling to meet Putin’s unrealistic expectations.

    On January 11, the Russian defence ministry announced that Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov is now heading the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. General Sergei Surovikin who had been appointed to the same position just three months earlier was demoted to Gerasimov’s deputy. The reshuffle sparked speculations about frustration in the Kremlin with the lack of progress on the battlefield.

    Ironically enough, Surovikin had been recognised by Russian and Ukrainian combatants alike as one of the more competent of Moscow’s commanders. He considered holding on to the isolated city of Kherson as a lost cause and managed to persuade President Vladimir Putin to allow him to abandon it. This is despite the fact that the president wanted the city to remain under Russian control. Even though a withdrawal under fire is a difficult operation to conduct, Surovikin managed it neatly and with limited casualties.

    At another flashpoint – the city of Bakhmut, where severe fighting was going on – Surovikin concentrated on consolidation. He established the so-called “Surovikin lines” of defence to the south and prepared the ground for the influx of mobilised reservists expected before an offensive this year. He also oversaw the ruthless bombardments of Ukraine’s energy and water infrastructure, as much a political as economic campaign, intended to demoralise the population, force a diversion of resources and perhaps drive more refugees into Europe.

    Indeed, he appeared relatively competent. It was not enough for Putin, though. Surovikin’s cautious approach was not bringing victory on the battlefield, nor were the Ukrainians losing their will to resist.

    The last straw seems to have been the Ukrainian missile attack on a barracks outside Makiivka on New Year’s Day, in which hundreds of Russian reservists may have been killed. It was hardly Surovikin’s direct responsibility, rather it was more a symptom of incompetence on the part of a Russian officer corps that cannot come to terms with the range and precision of Ukrainian artillery.

    Nonetheless, Putin wanted a scapegoat, and Surovikin was it. In many ways,  this episode illustrates the degree to which Russian warfighting is being defined and distorted by politics.

    Putin’s whole political system is deliberately competitive and even cannibalistic. Individuals and institutions are encouraged to clash, because this allows Putin to exercise the role of the “great decider”. Everyone has to seek his favour and he can pick and choose whom to reward, and whom to punish, to maintain his power.

    What may work in politics, though, is proving much more dysfunctional when translated to the battlefield. Surovikin was given the title of joint forces commander, but Putin never gave him the necessary political backing to allow him to wield all the disparate elements under his command as one unified force. In particular, he had no control over the personal troops of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and, above all, the Wagner mercenary army under businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.

    This undermined any chances of Surovikin being able to make gains on the battlefield. For this, he had to pay the price, because a second aspect of Putinism which has proven so problematic is an emphasis on the “heroic leader” able instantly to turn a problem into a triumph. Encouraged by his entourage of cronies and yes-men, Putin seems to have convinced himself that he is such an instantly transformative leader. That is deeply questionable, as whatever goes right is presented as his achievement, but whatever goes wrong is blamed on the failures of his underlings.

    The more stress Putin is under, the more unrealistic his expectations are. Last week, for example, loyal industry minister Denis Manturov was publicly upbraided for delays in the domestic production of aircraft. As Manturov tried to explain the formidable practical challenges, especially now that Russia is sanctioned and denied Western technology and investment and cannot buy some parts from Ukraine, Putin cut him off: “Don’t you understand the circumstances we live in? It needs to be done in a month, no later.”

    Likewise, Putin – who has no meaningful military experience and little sense of the complexities of modern warfare – appears to have had unrealistic expectations of Surovikin. His answer, as usual, is not to recognise the scale of the challenge, but to blame the man on the spot. While Surovikin remains in place, he is now just one of three field commanders under their new joint commander: General Gerasimov.

    Although the official line is that this was not a demotion of Surovikin, simply a recognition that the growing scale of the role required a more senior commander, the irony is that this is in effect a demotion not just for him but also for Gerasimov. It is very unusual for a chief of the General Staff to step into a field role and this also places him in an unenviable position.

    It has long been clear that the Russians plan to launch new offensives early this year, using 150,000 mobilised reservists who have been preparing behind the lines. This is a substantial force, but given that the Ukrainians have also been regrouping, armed with new supplies of Western weapons, the odds of the Russians being able to make lasting and substantial gains are low.

    Gerasimov’s career now presumably depends on not failing to meet Putin’s high hopes, so his temptation may be to escalate. Although there are periodic fears that Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons, this is still extremely unlikely. It is more credible that Moscow will try to pressure Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko to join the war or that Russia’s forces will be expanded further through a new wave of mobilisations or else with conscripts.

    These are essentially political decisions above Gerasimov’s pay grade, though. Lukashenko is clearly very reluctant to be directly involved. As for a new mobilisation or deploying conscripts – who have, up to now, largely not fought, these measures would be extremely unpopular at home. Although Putin is overseeing a creeping militarisation of Russian society and economy, he is also clearly aware of the potential risks to a regime whose legitimacy is on the decline. Indeed, part of the reason behind demoting Surovikin was to try and use him as a scapegoat for recent reversals.

    Likewise, although Gerasimov’s appointment was also heralded as a way of improving coordination, unless Putin is willing to lay down the law with Kadyrov or Prigozhin, nothing will change in the field. Prigozhin has already made his contempt for Gerasimov clear, with no pushback from the Kremlin.

    Thus, Gerasimov is the latest and highest-profile officer to be given a task he cannot achieve unless Putin is willing to take a political risk and provide him with the necessary support. So long as the ageing Russian leader is unwilling to back his generals, it is hard to see how Gerasimov can succeed. Yet he is the senior officer in the Russian military – and Surovikin was his most likely successor. If and when he also fails, it will be all the harder for people not to pin the ultimate responsibility on the commander-in-chief, Vladimir Putin.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

  • Russian-Ukraine war: Kyiv rejects Putin’s proposed Orthodox Christmas truce

    Russia’s President Putin has instructed his defense minister to impose a 36-hour ceasefire on the front lines in Ukraine.

    The cease-fire, which begins at noon Moscow time (or 9:00 a.m. GMT), falls on the Russian Orthodox Christmas.

    Mr. Putin requested that Ukraine do the same, but Kiev quickly rejected the demand.

    President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that the cease-fire was an effort to halt military advances made by his nation in the country’s east.

    According to the Kremlin statement, President Putin ordered his troops to cease fire not because he was de-escalating the situation (Putin never does), but rather because he had heeded a plea from the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Patriarch Kirill had, earlier in the day, called for a Christmas truce to allow believers to attend services for Orthodox Christmas.

    Mr Putin’s order called on Ukraine to reciprocate so that the “large numbers of Orthodox believers [who] reside in areas where hostilities are taking place” could celebrate Christmas Eve on Friday and Christmas Day on Saturday.

    But in his nightly video address, President Zelensky said that Russia wanted to use the truce as a cover to stop Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbas region and bring in more men and equipment.

    The Russian Orthodox Church – the largest of the Eastern Orthodox Churches – celebrates Christmas Day on 7 January, according to the Julian calendar.

    Some people in Ukraine celebrate Christmas on 25 December, others on 7 January. Both days are public holidays in the country.

    This year, for the first time, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said it would allow its congregations to celebrate Christmas on 25 December, as do some other denominations in western Ukraine.

    The Church split with the similarly named Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in 2018.

    The UOC itself was tied to Moscow’s religious leadership until Russia’s invasion, and some of its top clergy have been accused of still covertly supporting Moscow.

    Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Moscow had repeatedly ignored President Zelensky’s propositions for peace. He pointed to Russia’s shelling of Kherson on 24 December and strikes on New Year’s Eve as evidence of Moscow’s inability to cease hostilities during religious holidays.

    US President Joe Biden believes Mr Putin was simply “trying to find some oxygen”.

    The Kremlin’s ceasefire fits in nicely with a common narrative in Moscow, one that is aimed primarily at the domestic audience. That is – that the Russians are the good guys, and it is Ukraine and the West that are threatening Russia.

    The truce is also a handy tool that can be used to demonise Ukraine – as the Ukrainians have dismissed the proposal, Moscow will claim that Kyiv does not respect religious believers and has no desire for peace.

    But it should not be forgotten that it was Russia who started this war by launching an unprovoked invasion of its neighbour.

    The move also comes just a few days after a large number of Russian troops were killed in a Ukrainian strike on a temporary barracks in the occupied Ukrainian city of Makiivka.

    The Russian defence ministry put the death toll at 89, making it the highest single loss of life admitted by Moscow since the war began.

    Relatives of the dead, as well as some politicians and commentators, expressed anger over what happened in Makiivka and blamed incompetent military officials. The incident happened on New Year’s Eve – the most important holiday in the Russian calendar.

    https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.47.2/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

    Watch: Ros Atkins on… How Ukraine’s deadly New Year attack unfolded

    Political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya says that it is possible the Kremlin wants to ensure no more major loss of life occurs on another important Russian holiday.

    “Putin really does not want a repetition of that on Orthodox Christmas Day,” she wrote.

    A few hours after Russia’s ceasefire announcement, Germany said it would follow the US in providing a Patriot air defence missile system to Ukraine. Germany also announced, in a joint statement with the US, that both countries would send armoured vehicles.

    France said on Wednesday that it would send armoured fighting vehicles.

    Kyiv has repeatedly called for more aid from its international allies in the face of continuing Russian aggression.

    Source: BBC.com

  • Moscow to work with Qatar on stabilising gas market: Putin

    Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is interested in working closely with Qatar to ensure stability in the global gas market during a call with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Kremlin said.

    Putin congratulated Qatar on hosting the upcoming FIFA World Cup, which kicks off this weekend.

    FIFA banned Russia, which hosted the previous tournament in 2018, from participating in its competitions earlier this year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Source: Aljazeera.com

  • Russia must ‘get out of Ukraine and end barbaric war’ – Rishi Sunak confronts Putin’s officials at G20

    The prime minister intends to use the summit to press the world’s most powerful economies to do more to reduce their reliance on Russian exports, while also encouraging others to do the same.

    As he confronted Vladimir Putin’s officials at the G20 summit, Rishi Sunak said Russia must “get out of Ukraine and end this barbaric war.”

    The prime minister made the remarks during the first session on Tuesday, criticising the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin from the talks on the Indonesian island of Bali.

    “It is notable that Putin didn’t feel able to join us here,” he said. “Maybe if he had, we could get on with sorting things out.

    “Because the single biggest difference that anyone could make is for Russia to get out of Ukraine and end this barbaric war.

    “The UK rejects this aggression. We will back Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

    Mr Sunak also rebuked Russia by saying “countries should not invade their neighbours”.

    “It is very simple – countries should not invade their neighbours, they should not attack civilian infrastructure and civilian populations and they should not threaten nuclear escalation,” he said.

    “Surely these are things on which we can all agree.”

    The prime minister sat down with leaders of the world’s 19 biggest economies in Bali – the first meeting in the group’s 15-year history to be held in the shadow of a major European war instigated by one of its members.

    Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meet at the Art Cafe Bumbu Bali in Nusa Dua as they attend the G20 in Bali, Indonesia
    Image:Justin Trudeau, the Canadian leader, and Mr Sunak met at a Bali cafe on Monday

    ‘Chorus of opposition to Putin’

    Mr Sunak will use the summit to push the world’s most powerful economies to do more to reduce their dependence on Russian exports, while supporting others to do the same.

    He will also reiterate the UK’s financial support for Ukraine, saying he committed £4.1bn in aid when he was chancellor.

    This included £2.3bn in military aid, while Mr Sunak will promise to match this level of spending next year.

    Before the meeting, he said: “Putin and his proxies will never have a legitimate seat at the table until they end their illegal war in Ukraine.”

    He continued: “At the G20, the Putin regime – which has stifled domestic dissent and fabricated a veneer of validity only through violence – will hear the chorus of global opposition to its actions.”

    Russia invaded Ukraine almost nine months ago, leaving the rest of the world struggling to deal with the fallout, which has included rising food and energy prices.

    Many countries have stood firm, supporting Ukraine with weapons and aid, while imposing various sanctions on Russia.

    Mr Putin sent Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, to the talks in his place.

    He was taken to hospital on his arrival at the talks with a heart condition, the Indonesian authorities said – though the Russian foreign ministry dismissed the claims as “fake news”.

    Last week, the UK introduced legislation to stop countries using its maritime services to transport Russian oil unless it is purchased below a price cap – which Number 10 described as a “hugely influential measure, given the UK provides around 60% of global maritime insurance”.

  • Ukraine war: Russian activist writes letters from jail

    When Vladimir Kara-Murza announced he was returning to Moscow earlier this year, his wife Evgenia knew the risk but did not try to stop him.

    Russia had invaded Ukraine and made it a crime to call it a war. Thousands of protesters had been arrested. Vladimir himself was a sworn opponent of President Vladimir Putin and an outspoken critic of atrocities committed by his military.

    Still, the opposition activist insisted on being in Russia.

    Now he has been locked up and charged with treason and Evgenia has not been allowed to speak to him since April.

    But in a series of letters to me from Detention Centre No. 5, Vladimir – who has twice been the victim of a mysterious poisoning – says he has no regrets, because the “price of silence is unacceptable”.

    Opposing President Putin was dangerous even before the invasion, but since then the repression of dissent has intensified. Almost all prominent critics have either been arrested or left the country. Even so, the treatment of Vladimir is especially harsh.

    All the charges against him are for speaking out against the war and against President Putin and yet his lawyer calculates he could spend 24 years behind bars.

    “We all understand the risk of opposition activity in Russia. But I couldn’t stay silent in the face of what’s happening, because silence is a form of complicity,” Vladimir explains in a letter from his cell.

    He felt he could not stay abroad either. “I didn’t think I had the right to continue my political activity, to call other people to action, if I was sitting safely somewhere else.”

    ‘I could kill him’

    The first Evgenia heard of her husband’s arrest was a call from his lawyer, who had been tracking the activist’s phone as he always did when his client and friend was in town. On 11 April, the phone had come to a stop at a Moscow police station.

    Vladimir was eventually allowed to call his wife, who lives in the US with their children for safety. There was just time to say: “Don’t worry!”

    Evgenia smiles at the absurdity of that instruction.

    The couple were children of perestroika, growing up during Russia’s democratic awakening after the Soviet collapse. Vladimir then studied history at Cambridge, and simultaneously began a career in Russian politics as an adviser to the young reformer Boris Nemtsov.

    This is the longest the pair have been apart since their marriage on Valentine’s Day in 2004 and the activist says not seeing his family is the hardest thing. “I think about them every minute of every day and cannot imagine what they’re going through,” he says.

    “I love and hate this man for his incredible integrity,” Evgenia told me on a recent trip to London.

    “He had to be there with those people who went out on the streets and were arrested,” she said, referring to the many Russians detained for opposing the war. “He wanted to show that you shouldn’t be afraid in the face of that evil and I deeply respect and admire him for that. And I could kill him!”

    Evgenia Kara-Murza
    Image caption, Evgenia has not been allowed to speak to her husband since he was jailed

    Vladimir was initially detained for disobeying a police officer, but once in custody the serious charges began raining down.

    The activist was first accused of “spreading false information” about Russia’s military and “higher leadership”.

    The rights group OVD-Info has recorded more than 100 prosecutions under that so-called “fake news” law since the war began: a local councillor, Alexei Gorinov, was sentenced to seven years in July and activist Ilya Yashin will go on trial soon after referring to the murder of civilians in Bucha.

    Vladimir’s case is based on a speech in Arizona where he said Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine with cluster bombs in residential areas and “the bombing of maternity hospitals and schools”.

    That has all been independently documented, but according to the charge sheet I have seen, Russian investigators deem his statements to be false because the defence ministry “does not permit the use of banned means… of conducting war” and insists that Ukraine’s civilian population “is not a target”.

    The facts on the ground are ignored.

    Another charge stems from an event for political prisoners at which the activist referred to what investigators term Russia’s “supposedly repressive policies”.

    Then last month he was charged with state treason.

    The activist responded to that in his latest letter: “The Kremlin wants to portray Putin’s opponents as traitors… the real traitors are those who are destroying the well-being, the reputation, and the future of our country for the sake of their personal power, not those who are speaking out against it.”

    Political persecution

    The treason charge is based on three speeches abroad, including one in which Vladimir said that in Russia political opponents were persecuted.

    Investigators maintain that he was speaking on behalf of the US-based Free Russia Foundation, which is banned in Russia, where any “consultancy” or “assistance” to a foreign organisation considered a security threat can now be classed as treason.

    No secrets have to be divulged.

    “State treason for public speeches? That’s just absurd. It’s quite simply persecution for free speech. For opinion. Not for any real crime,” Vladimir’s lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, argues by phone from Moscow.

    He says the activist had no link to the foundation at the time.

    “This is a political case. They’re trying to stigmatise the absolutely normal, civilised Russian opposition.”

    Letter from VKM
    IMAGE SOURCE,EVGENIA Image caption, Vladimir has written to the BBC from his jail cell

    Vladimir himself points out that the last person accused of treason for political opposition was the Nobel Prize-winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn in 1974. “All I can say is that I am honoured to be in such company.”

    Evgenia finds it harder to sound so calm.

    This is not the first time she has been scared for her husband. He nearly died, twice, in Moscow, and the cause of his poisoning has never been identified.

    When he first collapsed in 2015 and slipped into a coma, Evgenia was told he had a 5% chance of survival, but he defied the odds.

    She nursed him back to health, helping him learn to function again, even to hold a spoon. He would then insist on working on his laptop on their couch, despite being sick every half hour.

    “The moment he could walk, he packed his bags and went to Russia. That fight is bigger than his fears.”

    For Evgenia, that has meant seven years sleeping with her phone, ”afraid I will get that call from him, or from someone else because he can’t talk anymore”.

    She gave up persuading her husband not to go to Moscow long ago: her only protest was to refuse to help pack his bags. But before his last visit, after the war started, Evgenia accompanied him first to France.

    “I wanted to make the trip beautiful,” she remembers, forcing back tears as she recalls long strolls through the streets of Paris, talking endlessly. “Deep inside, I knew what was coming.”

    Nemtsov’s Place

    Since Vladimir’s arrest, Evgenia has taken on his advocacy work: speaking out about the war in Ukraine and political repression in Russia, as well as her husband’s case.

    On Monday she will unveil the Boris Nemtsov Place in London, the result of a long campaign by Vladimir to honour his mentor and friend. The prominent opposition politician was shot beside the Kremlin in 2015 in a contract killing for which the contractor has never been caught.

    The renamed London street, actually a roundabout, is close to the Russian trade delegation in Highgate.

    Boris Nemtsov (left) and Vladimir Kara-Murza (right)
    IMAGE SOURCE,EVGENIA KARA-MURZA Image caption, Boris Nemtsov (left) was a friend and mentor to Vladimir (right)

    “The idea was that every car that comes to the big gate will see the Boris Nemtsov plaque,” Evgenia explains. Her husband hopes a different Russia will one day be proud of that name.

    For several years, the politician worked closely with Vladimir to lobby Western governments to sanction senior Russian officials for human rights violations. Their success infuriated a political elite that had enjoyed travelling abroad and channelling funds there.

    In Moscow once, Vladimir told me he had concluded that those “Magnitsky” sanctions are why both he and Mr Nemtsov were targeted.

    Standing-in for her husband is taking a heavy toll on Evgenia, but it is also kept her going.

    “I am doing what I need to do so that he can be brought back to the kids and this hideous war stops and this murderous regime can be brought to justice.”

    Vladimir is not staying silent, either.

    His long, handwritten prison letters set out his convictions that Russia is not doomed to autocracy and its people are not all brainwashed Putin devotees.

    He points to the large number of letters he gets from supporters who openly criticise the Ukraine invasion and the Kremlin, and to those who still protest publicly, despite the risk. He urges the West not to isolate that part of Russian society that “wants a different future for our country”.

    He also warns that the Ukraine war will not stop whilst Vladimir Putin remains in power.

    “For Putin, compromise is a sign of weakness and an invitation to further aggression,” he says. “If he’s allowed a face-saving exit from the war, then in a year or two we will have another one.”

    Vladimir tells me he is coping with imprisonment with a mixture of exercise and prayer, books and letters. As a historian, he has a particular interest in Soviet-era dissidents and has been reading more about them as he awaits trial.

    “Their favourite toast back then was ‘To the success of our hopeless cause!’” he writes. “But as we know, it wasn’t so hopeless after all.”

    Source: BBC.com 

  • Rishi Sunak promises to condemn Putin’s regime at the G20

    Rishi Sunak has promised to “call out Putin’s regime” at an international summit in Indonesia.

    On Sunday afternoon, the prime minister will travel to Bali for a G20 summit of the world’s largest economies.

    British officials had planned for this meeting assuming Russia‘s president would attend.

    The prime minister was expected to join other world leaders in publicly condemning Vladimir Putin.

    But Moscow said last week he wouldn’t be attending and the Kremlin would be sending Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, instead.

    So the words of anger will be directed at him.

    Speaking before setting off for Indonesia, the prime minister said: “Putin’s war has caused devastation around the world – destroying lives and plunging the international economy into turmoil.

    “This G20 summit will not be business as usual. We will call out Putin’s regime, and lay bare their utter contempt for the kind of international cooperation and respect for sovereignty forums like the G20 represent.”

    The G20 is a hotchpotch of countries with little in common beyond big economies.

    A block of flats in Mykolaiv after being hit by a Russian missile
    IMAGE SOURCE, SHUTTERSTOCK Image caption, None of the other G20 leaders want to pose for a smiling photo with Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine

    An economic forum whose members have been hammered, economically, by one of their own, Russia.

    So the backdrop is awkward, to say the least.

    There won’t even be one of the basic diplomatic niceties of these gatherings this time, what is known as the family photo, where the leaders pose for a group picture.

    The other leaders refuse to be seen smiling in the presence of Russia.

    Recent precedent suggests another usual staple of these affairs, what is known as a communique, a set of agreed conclusions published at the close of the summit, probably won’t happen either.

    Almost three weeks into the job, this is Mr Sunak’s second overseas trip as prime minister, after last week’s dash to the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

    He managed to see a good number of fellow European leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh.

    The trip to Bali will mean he can meet plenty from the Indo-Pacific region, a part of the world the government has been increasingly focused on since Brexit.

    And, perhaps, a first chance to meet US President Joe Biden.

    Meanwhile, back home, as Laura Kuenssberg writes, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will continue preparing what is called the Autumn Statement, a budget in all but name, to be delivered on Thursday, just hours after the prime minister gets back home.

    Downing Street is seeking to frame both the summit and the Autumn Statement as responses to the same shock: the consequences of the war in Ukraine.

    A desperate global economic situation, as they describe it, with big domestic implications, that they seek to be trusted to grapple with, after the chaos of the Liz Truss administration.

    But a fractious summit followed by what many will see as a bad news Budget won’t make for an easy week for Mr Sunak.

     

  • Ukraine war: ‘Massive’ wave of strikes hits major cities, including Kyiv

    Ukrainian officials have reported that Russia has launched massive missile strikes across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, causing power and water outages.

    At least two explosions have been reported in Kyiv. One resident told the BBC that his neighbourhood was now without power.

    According to local authorities, critical infrastructure facilities in the northeastern city of Kharkiv were hit.

    The strikes follow Russia’s accusation that Ukraine was responsible for a drone attack on its Black Sea Fleet in annexed Crimea.

    On Monday morning, missile strikes were also reported in the central Vinnytsia region, as well as Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, and Lviv in western Ukraine.

    A facility at the Dnipro hydroelectric power plant in the Zaporizhzhia region was also reportedly hit.

    In Kyiv, a facility that powers 350,000 apartments was damaged, with engineers urgently deployed to restore the supply.

    Residents in the regions under attack were urged to remain in shelters, amid fears more strikes could follow.

    Ukraine’s Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian TV that Russia had used its strategic bombers to carry out its “massive” strikes.

    Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said that “Russian losers are continuing to fight against peaceful objects”.

    All of Ukraine's regions - except for the annexed Crimea in the south - were marked in red as being under air attack on Monday morning
    IMAGE SOURCE, UKRAINE’S DIGITALISATION MINISTRY Image caption, All of Ukraine’s regions – except for the annexed Crimea in the south – were marked in red as being under air attack on Monday morning

    Russia has so far made no public comments on the reported latest strikes.

    On Saturday, one Russian warship was damaged in the port city of Sevastopol in a drone attack, the Russian defence ministry said. It also accused British specialists of having trained the Ukrainian soldiers who then carried out the strikes in Crimea – Ukraine’s southern peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.

    Moscow provided no evidence to back its claims.

    Ukraine has not commented on the issue, while the UK defence ministry said Russia was “peddling false claims on an epic scale“.

     

  • Putin observes exercises by Russia’s strategic nuclear forces

    RIA news agency reports that Putin observed exercises by Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.

    “Under the leadership of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Vladimir Putin, a training session was held with the ground, sea, and air strategic deterrence forces, during which practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

    State television showed Putin overseeing the drills from a control room.

    Source: Aljazeera.com

  • Macron-Scholz: Challenging Paris summit awaits German chancellor

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron will no doubt be beaming when they meet in Paris to discuss future European cooperation.

    But, behind the smiles, both sides are aware that the EU’s central relationship is under strain like never before.

    On a variety of issues, including defence, energy, business assistance, and EU expansion, the two countries are currently pulling in opposite directions.

    And underlying everything is a fear fast becoming an obsession in Paris.

    The French concern is that the war in Ukraine has ripped up Europe’s geostrategic rule book, leaving Germany enhanced and pushing France to the Western side-lines.

    Symbolic of the rift was the cancellation of what had been until now a routine set-piece of Franco-German friendship – the regular joint meeting of the two countries cabinets.

    After a pause for Covid, these encounters were meant to resume at Fontainebleau on Wednesday. But faced with a glaring lack of common ground – as well, according to France, as the studied uninterest of several German ministers – it was agreed to call the session off.

    Mr Scholz’s arrival for a bilateral summit with the French president is an attempt to minimise the differences, but no one is deceived.

    Lamenting what it called the “glacial” state of cross-Rhine relations, Le Figaro newspaper said in an editorial that it was “the result of a profound geostrategic change – a continental shift that started a long time ago and which is destined to transform the face of Europe”.

    The essence of this shift – according to French analysts – is the awakening of the slumbering giant that is Germany and its dawning realisation that it must shift for itself in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood.

    For France, this is bad news because it casts doubt on a central assumption of the last half century: that by walking lockstep with Germany, France can not just restrain its richer and stronger neighbour, but also project its own vision of European unity.

    With almost masochistic relish, French commentators have taken to listing the ways in which Berlin has lately chosen to go its own way rather than find an accord with Paris.

    The German chancellor alongside a US F35 fighter jet earlier this year
    IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES Image caption, Earlier this year the German chancellor decided to buy F35 fighter jets

    On re-arming, Germany has shown a clear preference for US kit – like F-35 fighter jets and Patriot air-defence systems – and seems content to leave once-vaunted European defence initiatives on hold.

    Stung by criticism that it was suckered by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Germany appears anxious to reassure its eastern neighbours by promoting itself as the European arm of Nato, rather than – as France would like it – a partner in EU defence.

    On energy, Germany is against a cap on gas prices, which France wants. It also wants France to authorise a new pipeline to carry gas – and eventually green hydrogen – from Spain. But France refuses.

    And then there is Germany’s decision to offer €200bn (£170bn) in state aid to businesses and households to get them through the energy crisis.

    For France, this will create severe economic distortions because other European countries will be unable to compete with that level of subsidy. Germans reply that France is hardly in a position to give lessons about the iniquity of state aid.

    In an article titled “The late Franco-German couple”, veteran French commentator Nicolas Baverez said France had only itself to blame for letting itself be eclipsed by Germany over the years.

    What has happened now with the Ukraine war, he said, merely revealed the imbalance that was already there. “While France is content to talk about sovereignty, Germany exercises it,” he wrote.

  • Ukraine: Putin says Germany committed a “mistake” by siding with NATO

    The Russian leader also chided Germany for canceling the Nord Stream 2 gas project following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, about which he said he had “no” regrets.

    Putin’s comments on Friday focused on Germany were thinly veiled admonishments of disapproval

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a press conference in the Kazakh capital of Astana Friday that Germany had made a “mistake” in siding with NATO in the war in Ukraine.

    He claimed that the decision to cancel the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was a German one and that it was an error to prioritize NATO and European security over what Moscow believes to be Germany’s national interest.

    “German citizens, businesses, and its economy are paying for this mistake because it has negative economic consequences for the eurozone as a whole, and in Germany,” he said, in reference to Nord Stream 2.

    By contrast, Putin believes Russia “is doing everything right” in its stalled effort to conquer Ukraine, which has led Russia to be accused of frequent rights abuses, war crimes and violations of international law.

    What else did Putin say about NATO?

    Any direct confrontation between NATO forces and Russian troops would be a “global catastrophe,” he said.

    Putin relayed that he had no regrets about his decision to invade Ukraine despite the hugely unpopular mobilization and Russia’s minimal battlefield gains in the months since the war began.

    He added he would want the humanitarian corridors for Ukrainian grain closed should it emerge they are being used for what he termed “acts of terror.” Turkey, a NATO member state, and the UN brokered a deal to bring Ukrainian grain to world markets in July.

    Earlier this month, the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, was targeted by a truck bomb Russia has since blamed on Ukraine.

    While Kyiv residents and government officials celebrated the act of sabotage and the Ukrainian postal service ordered up commemorative stamps, Ukraine did not formally claim its forces were behind the attack. Russia has blamed Ukraine’s military intelligence.

    What else did Putin say about Ukraine?

    At the news conference following the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Putin claimed that the partial mobilization he ordered would be over in two weeks.

    He added that there are no future plans at present for further call-ups. Sixteen thousand reservists are currently engaged in military activities, he noted.

    “Nothing additional is planned. No proposals have been received from the defense ministry and I don’t see any additional need in the foreseeable future,” he said.

    Though Putin once said the invasion and capture of Ukraine would be over swiftly, he ordered 300,000 reservists be called up to fight in Ukraine last month. Nearly as many men of military age left the country than to avoid mobilizing.

    Mobilized Russian soldiers lack equipment, food

    And he said there was no need for massive strikes on Ukraine “for now,” following a week of missile barrages on Ukrainian towns and cities.

    “Our aim is not to destroy Ukraine,” Putin said.

    What does Putin say about other countries’ perceptions of Russia’s war on Ukraine?

    Putin noted that China and India favor a “peaceful dialogue” over Ukraine after their leaders clashed with him at a different summit in Uzbekistan last month.

    While some countries once occupied by the Soviet Union are “worried,” Putin said he believes there has been no change in “the character and depth of the Russian Federation’s relations with these countries.”

    The Collective Security Treaty Organization consists of Russia and five other countries that were once considered part of the Soviet Union: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

    As with the Warsaw Pact that once existed in satellite countries under Russian tutelage during the Cold War, members of the organization have only seen Russian forces be used to suppress civil disturbances in their countries.

    The Russian leader also said he finds “no need” for future talks with US President Joe Biden, who earlier in the week dismissed the idea of dialogue with Putin.

    Putin said he has not made a decision yet on whether to attend the G20 summit in Bali next month, which would be his first encounter with leaders who stand vehemently opposed to his war against Ukraine.

     

  • Vladmir Putin: Germany unlikely to accept Russian gas

    Putin says Germany is unlikely to take Russian gas via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline’s one remaining undamaged line, two days after Berlin rejected his initial offer.

    “A decision has not been made, and it’s unlikely to be made, but that’s no longer our business; it’s the business of our partners,” Putin said.

    The Nord Stream pipelines, intended to carry gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, suffered unexplained damage, which European countries have called sabotage.

    But while Putin said on Wednesday that Russian gas could still be supplied to Europe through the one remaining intact line of the uncommissioned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a German government spokesman ruled this out.

    “They have to decide what is more important for them: fulfilling some kind of alliance commitment, as they see it, or safeguarding their national interests,” Putin said.

     

  • How Putin went from calling Ukrainians ‘Nazis’ to ‘terrorists’

    Vladimir Putin has attempted to justify Monday’s deadly missile strikes targeting cities in Ukraine as retaliation for its “terrorist action” against Russian territory.

    The Russian president said the strikes were a response to an attack on the Kerch Bridge which links Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula.

    And he claimed Ukraine had also “tried to blow up” the TurkStream natural gas pipeline – notably switching from calling Ukrainians “terrorists” rather than “Nazis” as he has in the recent past.

    Writing in The Guardian, chair of the steering committee of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, Simon Smith, said the newest label Mr Putin is using for Ukrainians signals “he is paying no heed to any waning commitment to the war among the population at large, following his mobilisation decision”.

    He goes on to write it is “partly an internal message: to underline to his ‘party of war’ that he’s one of them, that he’s lost no time in launching an act of vengeance for this purported ‘terrorist’ outrage.”

    Mr Smith writes that for those who have not condemned Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, “Putin’s hope is that those with no time to read beyond the ‘terrorist’ label will lazily reassure themselves that there are, after all, bad lots on both sides and that it’s okay to continue to sit on the fence”.

    “Perhaps we’ll see the ‘terrorist’ label emerge as part of a new Putinist rhetorical strategy, to replace the ‘Nazi’ label he ludicrously attached to Ukraine’s administration in his ‘justification’ of the 2022 invasion.”

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana 

    Source: Skynews

  • Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskyy pushes for additional sanctions after a “new wave of terror” 

    After the attacks on Ukraine on Monday, President Zelensky encouraged nations to impose additional sanctions on Russia in response to “a new wave of terror.”

    As Russian missiles struck various parts of the nation, at least 19 people were killed and numerous others were injured.

    Defiant, he said the attacks will only “delay our recovery a little”.

    Following more strikes on Tuesday, Mr Zelensky called on the West to find new ways to apply political pressure to Russia and support Ukraine.

    The calls came after he met the G7 group of nations for emergency virtual talks on Tuesday.

    The bloc – which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US – promised to continue providing “financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal” support to his country “for as long as it takes”.

    Mr Zelensky said: “For such a new wave of terror there must be a new wave of responsibility for Russia – new sanctions, new forms of political pressure, and new forms of support for Ukraine.”

    “The terrorist state must be deprived of even the thought that any wave of terror can bring it anything.”

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attacks were retaliation for Saturday’s explosion on a key bridge linking Russia to Crimea.

    Western countries have already placed widespread sanctions against Russian businesses as well as allies of President Putin since the invasion of Ukraine in February.

    This includes removing major Russian banks from the international financial messaging system Swift and sanctioning more than 1,000 Russian individuals and businesses – including oligarchs.

    While the US has banned all Russian oil and gas imports, the EU has been reluctant to do so because it relies on Russia for about 40% of its gas needs.

    Monday’s barrage of missile strikes was the heaviest bombardment Ukraine has seen since the early days of the war. Several strikes hit Kyiv – the first time the capital city has been targeted in months, and previous attacks have not hit the city center.

    Civilian areas including a popular park and children’s playground were hit during the morning rush hour. Infrastructure was destroyed, causing a power blackout in many neighbourhoods.

    On Tuesday, President Zelensky said 28 more missiles were fired, 20 of which were shot down. These included Iranian combat drones, he said. The BBC has not been able to verify this.

    “If it wasn’t for today’s strikes, we would have already restored the energy supply, water supply, and communications that the terrorists damaged yesterday,” the president said in his nightly address on Tuesday evening.

    “Today, Russia will achieve only one additional thing: it will delay our recovery a little.”

    He added that restoration works were taking place “quickly and efficiently” throughout the country and that electricity and communication had been restored to most cities and villages targeted in Monday’s attacks.

    “Where there was destruction, the infrastructure will be renewed everywhere. Where there were losses, there is already or will be construction,” he said.

    On Tuesday, reports also emerged of a mass grave being found in recently liberated Lyman, in the eastern Donetsk region.

    Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region’s military administration, was quoted by Associated Press as saying that more than 50 bodies of soldiers and civilians had been found in a series of graves. They included Ukrainian soldiers buried together in a mass grave, as well as individual graves holding the bodies of civilians.

    “We are finding bodies and parts of bodies here,” Mr Kyrylenko said.

    Lyman was liberated by Ukrainian troops last month, as part of a rapid counteroffensive that recaptured large parts of the east of the country from Russian forces.

    Meanwhile, in Washington, US President Joe Biden told CNN he believed Vladimir Putin was a “rational actor” who misjudged his ability to successfully invade Ukraine.

    “I think he thought he’d be welcomed with open arms – that this was the home of mother Russia in Kyiv and he was going to be welcomed – and I think he totally miscalculated,” Mr Biden said.

    Asked about the prospects of meeting President Putin at next month’s Group of 20 summits in Indonesia, Mr Biden said he did not currently see a reason to do so.

    “It would depend on specifically what he wanted to talk about,” the US president said, adding that he would be open to discussing Brittney Griner, the American basketball star currently serving a nine-year prison sentence in Russia on drug charges.

    “But look, he’s acted brutally. I think he’s committed war crimes, so I don’t see any rationale to meet with him now,” Mr Biden told CNN’s, Jake Tapper.

    President Biden also said he didn’t believe Mr Putin would resort to nuclear warfare, despite apparent threats to do so.

    “I think it’s irresponsible for him to talk about it, the idea that a world leader of one of the largest nuclear powers in the world says he may use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine,” Joe Biden said.

     

  • Elon Musk refutes claims he spoke to Putin about Ukraine war

    Elon Musk has refuted claims that he communicated with Vladimir Putin before putting his recommendations for stopping Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a Twitter poll.

    Ian Bremmer, head of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy, alleged that Mr Musk had personally told him about the conversation with Mr Putin.

    But Mr Musk has now refuted this.

    “I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space,” Mr Musk tweeted.

    Last week, the Tesla CEO asked his 107.7 million followers to vote on ways to resolve the Ukraine war.

    The suggestions included a proposal to hold votes in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia that the Kremlin says it has annexed. His comments were welcomed by Moscow.

    The multi-billionaire said: “Russia leaves if that is the will of the people.”

    President Putin has already declared four Ukrainian regions to be part of Russia, following so-called referendums denounced as fraudulent by Kyiv and its Western allies. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions.

    Mr Musk also suggested the world should “formally” recognise Crimea – illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014 – as part of Russia.

    In a newsletter, Mr Bremmer wrote that Mr Musk told him the Russian president was “prepared to negotiate”, but only if Crimea remained under Russian control if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and if Kyiv recognised Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

    Mr Bremmer said the SpaceX boss told him that Mr Putin said these goals would be accomplished “no matter what” and that there was the potential of a nuclear strike if Ukraine invaded Crimea.

    But Mr Musk has since denied the reports.

    Mr Musk’s initial poll caused widespread controversy.

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said people proposing Ukraine give up on its people and land “must stop using the word ‘peace’ as a euphemism to ‘let Russians murder and rape thousands more innocent Ukrainians, and grab more land’”.

    Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov called Mr Musk’s tweet “moral idiocy, repetition of Kremlin propaganda, a betrayal of Ukrainian courage & sacrifice”.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed Mr Musk’s suggestions, stating: “It is very positive that somebody like Elon Musk is looking for a peaceful way out of this situation.”

    Early in the war, the billionaire gained widespread popularity in Ukraine after sending a number of his Starlink internet terminals to the country. He was subsequently invited to visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

    But his recent tweets have seen that relationship sour, with Mr Zelensky last week hitting out at his Twitter polls.

    US federal law prevents private citizens from conducting foreign affairs without the permission or involvement of the US government.

    The Logan Act was signed into law by President John Adams in 1799, but nobody has ever been prosecuted under it.

     

     

  • Ukrainian foreign minister: ‘This nonsense about being provoked must stop’

    Dmytro Kuleba has responded to Vladimir Putin‘s comments in the last few minutes, saying: “No, Putin was not provoked to unleash missile terror.”

    Mr Putin claimed Monday’s deadly missile strikes targeting cities in Ukraine were in retaliation for its “terrorist action” against Russian territory – namely the hit on Kerch bridge this weekend.

    But Mr Kuleba refutes this, saying: “This nonsense about being provoked must stop. He does not need anything to provoke him in order to commit heinous crimes.”

     

  • No new intelligence behind Biden nuclear war remarks says, White House

    The US does not have any new intelligence that sparked Joe Biden’s remarks about nuclear “Armageddon”, the White House has said.

    President Biden had said the world is closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.

    In statements this afternoon, the White House said the US has seen no reason to change its own nuclear posture.

    Its spokesperson said Russia’s talk of using nuclear weapons was irresponsible, but added that it has no indications that Moscow is preparing to imminently use them.

    President Biden’s comments show how seriously he takes the threats, the spokesperson added.

     

  • Moscow planning to cancel Christmas?

    Are Christmas festivities set to be cancelled in the Russian capital?

    Moscow authorities are set to discuss whether New Year and Christmas events in the capital should be cancelled, according to Russian news site GazettaRu.

    As we understand it, their tweet about it reads: “Moscow authorities announced a discussion on the cancellation of New Year and Christmas events in the capital”

    A few other Russian cities have already announced that they are canceling festivities.

     

  • In the midst of a war crisis, Putin prays for his health as he turns 70

    On Friday, President Vladimir Putin celebrated his 70th birthday with the adoring greetings of his subordinates and a request from Orthodox Patriarch Kirill for everyone to pray for the well-being of the most powerful man in Russia since Josef Stalin.

    Putin is facing the biggest challenge of his rule after the invasion of Ukraine triggered the gravest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. His army there is reeling from a series of defeats in the past month.

    Officials hailed Putin as the saviour of modern Russia while the patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia implored the country to say two days of special prayers so that God grants Putin “health and longevity”.

    “We pray to you, our Lord God, for the head of the Russian state, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and ask you to give him your rich mercy and generosity, grant him health and longevity, and deliver him from all the resistances of visible and invisible enemies, confirm him in wisdom and spiritual strength, for all, Lord hear and have mercy,” Kirill said.

    Putin, who promised to end the chaos which gripped Russia after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, is facing the most serious military crisis any Kremlin chief has faced for at least a generation since the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-89.

    Opponents such as jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny say that Putin has led Russia down a dead end towards ruin, building a brittle system of incompetent sycophants that will ultimately collapse and bequeath chaos.

    Supporters say Putin saved Russia from destruction by an arrogant and aggressive West.

    “Today, our national leader, one of the most influential and outstanding personalities of our time, the number one patriot in the world, president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, turns 70 years old,” Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said.

    “Putin has changed the global position of Russia and forced the world to reckon with the position of our great state.”

    More than seven months into the invasion, Russia has suffered huge losses in men and equipment and been beaten back on several fronts within the past month as Putin’s army has lurched from one humiliation to the next.

    Putin has resorted to proclaiming the annexation of territories only partly under Russian control – and whose borders the Kremlin has said are yet to be defined – and threatening to defend them with nuclear weapons.

    A partial mobilisation declared by the president on September 21 has unfolded so chaotically that even Putin has been forced to admit mistakes and order changes. Hundreds of thousands of men have fled abroad to avoid being called up.

    Even normally loyal Kremlin allies have denounced the failings of the military – though they have stopped short, so far, of criticising the president.

    Putin finds himself confronted with a resurgent, united, and expanding NATO despite his insistence that the “special operation” in Ukraine was aimed at enforcing Russian “red lines” and preventing the alliance from moving closer to Russia’s borders.

    Signs of disquiet have emerged from China and India, on which Russia is increasingly reliant as geopolitical and economic partners in the wake of successive waves of Western sanctions.

    Reflecting on Putin’s birthday, former Kremlin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov said: “On an anniversary, it’s customary, to sum up, results, but the results are so deplorable that it would be better not to draw too much attention to the anniversary.”

     

    History lessons

    Putin has dominated Russia for nearly 23 years since being handpicked by President Boris Yeltsin as his preferred successor in a surprise announcement on New Year’s Eve 1999.

    Changes adopted to the constitution in 2020 paved the way for him to rule potentially until 2036, and there is no obvious frontrunner to succeed him.

    He maintains a full schedule of meetings and public events and invariably appears in control of his brief, holding forth at length in video conferences on topics ranging from energy to education. The Kremlin has denied recurrent speculation about alleged health problems.

    As he has grown older, Putin has appeared increasingly preoccupied with his legacy. In June he compared his actions in Ukraine with the campaigns of Tsar Peter the Great, suggesting both of them were engaged in historic quests to win back Russian lands.

    Putin has become increasingly fond of quoting Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin, who argued that Russia had an exceptional mystical and holy path to follow that would ultimately restore order to an imperfect world.

    In a televised encounter with teachers this week, Putin showed a keen interest in another episode from history – an 18th-century peasant revolt against Empress Catherine the Great – that he blamed on “the weakness of central authority in the country”.

    From the man who has dominated Russia for more than two decades, it sounded as though a lesson had been taken to heart: faced with the possibility of rebellion, the ruler needs to be both strong and vigilant.

     

  • Biden issues a dire “Armageddon” warning regarding risks associated with Putin’s nuclear threats

    President Joe Biden on Thursday delivered a stark warning about the dangers behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats as Moscow continues to face military setbacks in Ukraine.

    “First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going,” Biden warned during remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in New York where he was introduced by James Murdoch, the youngest son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, according to the pool report.

    He added: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

    It’s striking for the President to speak so candidly and invoke Armageddon, particularly at a fundraiser, while his aides from the National Security Council to the State Department to the Pentagon have spoken in much more measured terms, saying they take the threats seriously but don’t see movement on them from the Kremlin.

    “I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp?” Biden said during the event, “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia?”

    His comments come as the US considers how to respond to a range of potential scenarios, including fears that Russians could use tactical nuclear weapons, according to three sources briefed on the latest intelligence and previously reported by CNN.

    Officials have cautioned as recently as Thursday that the US has not detected preparations for a nuclear strike. However, experts view them as potential options the US must prepare for as Russia’s invasion falters and as Moscow annexes more Ukrainian territory.

    “This nuclear saber-rattling is reckless and irresponsible,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said earlier Thursday. “As I’ve mentioned before, at this stage, we do not have any information to cause us to change our strategic deterrence posture, and we don’t assess that President Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons at this time.”

    Following Biden’s remarks, officials emphasized to CNN Thursday night that they had not seen any changes to Russia’s nuclear stance.

    A US official said that despite Biden’s warning that the world is the closest it has been to a nuclear crisis since the 1960s, they have not seen a change to Russia’s nuclear posture as of now. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s Tuesday statement that there has been no indication of a change in Russia’s posture and therefore no change in the US posture still stands, the official said.

    A senior US government official expressed surprise at the President’s remarks, saying there were no obvious signs of an escalating threat from Russia.

    While there is no question Russia’s nuclear posture is being taken seriously, this official said the President’s language at a fundraiser tonight caught other officials across the government off guard.

    “Nothing was detected today that reflected an escalation,” the official said, who went on to defend Biden’s remarks because of the ongoing gravity of the matter.

    At the fundraiser, Biden was speaking clearly about the threat officials believe Russia poses, a person familiar with his thinking told CNN.

    Still, US officials have taken somber note of the Russian President’s repeated public threats to use nuclear weapons. In a televised address late last month, Putin said, “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, without doubt, use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.”

    Last Friday, at a ceremony in which he announced the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Putin said Russia would use “all available means” to defend the areas, adding that the US had “created a precedent” for nuclear attacks in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

    “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Biden said of Putin Thursday. “He’s not joking when he talks about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly under-performing.”

     

  • Ukrainian regions annexation: EU to foist new sanctions on Russia

    Following Moscow’s illegitimate annexation of four areas of Ukraine during its months-long conflict, EU member states agreed Wednesday to impose a price cap on Russian oil as well as further sanctions, according to EU officials.

    Diplomats struck the deal in Brussels that also includes curbs on EU exports of aircraft components to Russia and limits on steel imports from the country, according to an official statement from the Czech rotating EU presidency.

    The 27-nation bloc will impose a ban on transporting Russian oil by sea to other countries above the price cap, which the Group of Seven wealthy democracies wants in place by Dec. 5, when an EU embargo on most Russian oil takes effect. A specific price for the future cap has yet to be defined.

    A deal on the price cap was not easy to reach because several EU countries were worried it would damage their shipping industries. More details about the sanctions will be published as soon as Thursday.

    The new package of sanctions was proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week amid heightened security concerns over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats and his annexation of parts of Ukraine.

    “We have moved quickly and decisively,” von der Leyen said as she welcomed the deal. “We will never accept Putin’s sham referenda nor any kind of annexation in Ukraine. We are determined to continue making the Kremlin pay.”

    The new sanctions also include an “extended import ban” on goods such as steel products, wood pulp, paper, machinery and appliances, chemicals, plastic, and cigarettes, the Czech presidency said.

    A ban on providing IT, engineering, and legal services to Russian entities will also take effect.

    The package, which will also include new criteria for sanctions circumvention, builds on already-unprecedented European sanctions against Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine in February.

    EU measures to date include restrictions on energy from Russia, bans on financial transactions with Russian entities, including the central bank, and asset freezes against more than 1,000 people and 100 organizations.

  • Putin and Saudi prince relation: fears in west as Russia and Saudi Arabia deepen ties

    Prince Mohammed’s decision to strengthen relations has alarmed allies, but he has long admired the Russian leader.

    hey both started wars in neighbouring countries, hold significant sway over energy markets, are known to brook no dissent, and covet spots in history. Russia’s embattled president, Vladimir Putin, and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, seem to have a lot in common.

    Nearly eight months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, relations between Riyadh and Moscow are at a high point. As much of Europe, the US and the UK double down on attempts to combat an ever more menacing Russian leader, Prince Mohammed has instead chosen to deepen ties.

    An Opec+ meeting in Vienna on Wednesday is the latest landmark in a growing relationship that is increasingly defying the demands of Riyadh’s allies and appearing to give Putin comfort at a critical juncture in the war. Both countries are likely to seek to raise oil prices by cutting global supply by 1-2m barrels a day.

    Such a move would follow widespread disruption to gas supplies to Europe caused by the war and predictions of a worsening energy security crisis as the northern winter approaches. It would also alienate Washington, an ally that has tried to recruit Riyadh to the cause of decreasing supply pressures by opening valves to its enormous reservoirs.

    Instead, Joe Biden finds himself staring down a partner in the Middle East whom he had personally visited during the summer as the extent of the supply crisis became apparent. Biden walked away empty-handed and, as a result, faces the uncomfortable prospect of taking high bowser prices to midterm elections. Perhaps more importantly for the US president, a rise in oil prices could be seen as helping fund Putin’s war effort.

    “Previous Saudi administrations would have been much more sensitive to the US’s feelings and to messaging, even though they would likely do the same thing,” said Robin Mills, the chief executive of Qamar Energy. “Saudi has pretty much always done what it wanted in oil regardless of favours to the US but it usually sugar-coated it. Not this time.”

    Another sign of a deepening bond between Moscow and Riyadh emerged last month when, in a rare moment of global diplomacy, Saudi diplomats secured the release of international prisoners, including five Britons, captured during fighting inside Ukraine. The optics were stark, and appeared sanctioned by Putin to give Riyadh a moment on a world stage; here were Saudi diplomats a long way from home brokering a deal that had nothing obvious to do with the Middle East.

    “This was a gift from Putin to MBS,” said a British official familiar with the political dynamics. “Putin wanted it to happen, and he wanted it to seem as though the Saudis had achieved this through diplomacy.”

    After four years of global fallout from the assassination of the Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Prince Mohammed’s security aides in Istanbul, the heir to the Saudi throne is in the midst of a global comeback. His attempts to position the kingdom as a regional power and global mover are among the 37-year-old’s core goals. Saudi officials have not condemned Putin’s invasion, and nor has Moscow weighed into Saudi Arabia’s invasion of Yemen over the past five years – a war that has left its eastern neighbour impoverished and in ongoing need of significant aid.

    NGOs warned this week that the non-renewal of a ceasefire in Yemen would exacerbate the suffering of millions. Widespread destruction and humanitarian suffering in Ukraine, meanwhile, have not been a focus of Saudi discourse. Prince Mohammed seems unperturbed by Putin’s recommitment to blood and soil nationalism and a bid to reclaim the lost glories of the Soviet Union. There have, in fact, been frequent signs that he would like to emulate the veteran Russian tyrant, with a blood and oil nationalism of his own.

    In 2016, when Prince Mohammed was still deputy defence minister, the then 30-year-old summoned British diplomats, among them senior MI6 officers, to Riyadh. The sole purpose of the meeting was to seek the UK’s advice on how to deal with Putin.

    “He was fascinated by him,” one of the Britons told the Observer several years later. “He seemed to admire him. He liked what he did.”

    In the years since Prince Mohammed has come to emulate the man he studied. His crackdown on dissent has strong echoes of the Russian leader and so does the nascent emergence of a Saudi police state – built on Arab nationalist foundations and secured by controlling dissenters, co-opting oligarchs and consolidating a power base.

    Both men have been further united in recent months by their dislike of Biden, whose administration has led the push to arm the Ukrainian military and forced the Russian army into a series of humiliating retreats. Biden had also led the push to sideline Prince Mohammed, who had taken pleasure in a US leader traveling to Jeddah with cap in hand and leaving empty-handed.

    “Putin sees this as new world order stuff, and thinks he can bring MBS along with him,” said the British official. “The Saudis sit on a very powerful asset in oil, which still has a strategic role to play. Don’t write off carbon as a political tool for decades. MBS knows the optics of being seen to help out Putin, but he doesn’t care. Neither are progressive liberals. They see leadership through the same lens.”

  • Putin likely to address nation later today to change status of ‘military operation’, reports suggest

    Russian President Vladimir Putin may address his nation later today, according to Russian media reports.

    It’s important to note that this isn’t coming from Russian state media – rather from the independent outlet Readovka.

    The website says Mr Putin could change the status of the “special military operation” – known to most of the world as its invasion of Ukraine.

    In a previous address, Mr Putin accused the West of engaging in “nuclear blackmail” and said he wasn’t bluffing and would use “all the means available to us” if Russian territory was threatened.

  • Russian state TV pundit admits panel shouldn’t be discussing Lyman

    Before the host intervenes and denies it, a pundit on Russian official television appears to have revealed that the panellists weren’t intended to bring up the liberated city of Lyman.

    Maxim Yusin, a foreign policy specialist, asserts that Russians likewise think the conflict is not going well for their nation.

    He says on the show: “I see the dynamics of the military action on the front.

    “We aren’t talking about what is happening near Lyman.”

    The host then interjects with: “Who forbade you to talk about it?”

    Russian troops pulled out of the eastern city of Lyman due to the risk of being encircled by Ukraine’s forces.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday the city had been “fully cleared” of Putin’s troops.

    Mr Yusin later said on the Russian state TV broadcast: “Ask anyone here, when they’re in the make-up room.

    “I think anyone will honestly admit they don’t know whether the mobilisation will help us or not, to change the course of military actions.

    “It’s easy to say ‘after the liberation of Zaporizhzhia’.

    “Yeah, try liberating it, the way everything is going.”

    The host Andrey Norkin also said at one stage the Ukrainians are “planning to declare war against Russia” before another pundit suggest Ukraine might start bombing Moscow.

    Retired four-star US army general Barry R McCaffrey shared the video and said it shows “Russian State TV is starting to fragment.”

    He continues: “Lyman a disaster for the Russians. The Kherson pocket could lose 15,000 Russian prisoners. The mobilisation a disaster. All pressures on Putin criminal action might generate a desperate reaction. He’s unravelling.”

  • Biden blasts Russia’s “shameless” annexation efforts

    A “so-called referendum” conducted by Russia in Ukrainian territory has been denounced by Joe Biden as a “shameless and transparent endeavor by Russia to acquire parts of neighboring Ukraine.”

    The US president made the comments during a White House summit with Pacific Island nations.

    Mr Biden said the results of Russia’s “referendums” “were manufactured in Moscow”.

    He added “the United States will never, never, never recognise Russia’s claims on Ukraine sovereign territory.

    The US and its allies have promised to adopt even more sanctions than they’ve already levied against Russia and to offer millions of dollars in extra support for Ukraine.

  • Truss: UK will never accept the 4 Russia’s annexed regions as anything other than Ukrainian

    Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia would never be accepted by the UK, according to Prime Minister Liz Truss.

    In advance of President Vladimir Putin’s anticipated decision to recognise the territories once occupied by Ukraine as Russian following widely condemned referendums, she released a statement on Friday morning.

    She said: “Vladimir Putin has, once again, acted in violation of international law with clear disregard for the lives of the Ukrainian people he claims to represent.

    “The UK will never ignore the sovereign will of those people and we will never accept the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia as anything other than Ukrainian territory.

    “Putin cannot be allowed to alter international borders using brute force. We will ensure he loses this illegal war.”

  • Alisher Usmanov: Yacht of Russian oligarch raided by German police

    A yacht associated with a Russian oligarch has been searched by investigators as part of a money laundering investigation. The yacht is the largest recreational boat in the world in terms of tonnage.

    More than 60 police officers raided a luxury yacht in northern Germany tied to a Russian businessman accused of breaching sanctions and money laundering, Frankfurt prosecutors said Tuesday.

    Authorities identified the suspect only as a 69-year-old Russian businessman but did say he was the target of the same investigation last week.

    At that time, police raided a lakeside villa registered to Alisher Usmanov — a close ally of Vladimir Putin’s. They also searched 24 other properties connected to him in the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, and Schleswig-Holstein.

    Prosecutors say they are investigating the funneling of several million euros acquired in illegal activities, including tax evasion. In a statement, they said this involved an “extensive and complex network of companies and corporations.”

    They said the yacht raid was also carried out to comply with a request for help from the US Justice Department, which has launched a probe of its own.

    In a statement on Monday, representatives of Usmanov called the charges “baseless and defamatory.”

    Who is Alisher Usmanov?

    The UK’s Sunday Times newspaper ranked Usmanov at No. 6 in a list of the world’s richest people in 2021. He was one of the dozens of Russian billionaires to be hit by Western sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine.

    He is possibly best known for his metals and mining interests, for owning the Kommersant publishing house in Russia, and for owning Russia’s second-largest mobile phone operator, Megafon. He also was formerly a major stakeholder in Premier League football giants Arsenal.

    Usmanov is said to be worth an estimated net of $16.2 billion (€16.9 billion). He has 49% economic interest and 100% voting rights in the global conglomerate and holding company USM.

    While the United States has blocked his personal assets, it has kept companies controlled by him off its list of sanctions in a bid not to drive up commodity prices. He is thought to presently be living in his native Uzbekistan.

    The Official Journal of the European Union described Usmanov in March as a “pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.”

    But Usmanov disputes this. Along with former Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, he is one of the oligarchs appealing his inclusion on the EU sanctions lists, at the bloc’s General Court.

    The yacht that was searched — the “Dilbar” — is the world’s largest yacht by tonnage and is officially owned by Usmanov’s sister.

    The 155-meter (500-foot) vessel was named after Usmanov’s mother. It is valued at some $600 million and was previously docked in a Hamburg shipyard since October 2021 for repairs. The vessel is now moored in the northern port city of Bremen.

  • Former Italian PM defends Russian war on eve of Italian election

    Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is backed by the former Silvio Berlusconi, who insists that Putin had been “pushed” into the conflict.

    The Russian president has a long-standing ally in the three-time Italian prime minister.

    According to the 85-year-old, Russian forces were sent in to overthrow the current administration and install “decent people” in its place.

    The three-time Italian PM is a long-term ally of the Russian president.

    This weekend his party is expected to take power as part of a right-wing coalition in a general election in Italy.

    A narrative alleging the Ukrainian government was slaughtering Russian speakers in the east of the country was created by the media in Moscow, Mr Berlusconi told Italian TV.

    He said the reporting, pushed by separatist forces and nationalist politicians in the Russian government, had left Mr Putin with no choice but to launch a limited invasion.

    “Putin was pushed by the Russian population, by his party, and by his ministers to invent this special operation,” he said.

    “The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv in a week, replace the Zelensky government with decent people and a week later come back,” Mr Berlusconi added.

    “Instead they found an unexpected resistance, which was then fed by arms of all kinds from the West.”

    Opposition leaders were quick to condemn Mr Berlusconi’s comments, with Centrist Party leader Carlo Calenda accusing him of speaking “like a Putin general”.

    And Enrico Letta of the center-left Democratic Party said the intervention proved if Sunday’s election is “favourable to the right, the happiest person would be Putin”.

    But on Friday, Mr Berlusconi attempted to clarify his comments, saying his views had been “oversimplified” .

    “The aggression against Ukraine is unjustifiable and unacceptable, [Forza Italia’s] position is clear. We will always be with the EU and Nato,” he said.

    Mr Berlusconi has long been an admirer of Mr Putin, in 2012 joining the then-prime minister for a skiing trip in the Russian city of Sochi.

    But in April, he condemned the invasion and said he was “deeply disappointed and saddened” by Mr Putin’s behaviour, adding that the “massacres of civilians in Bucha and other localities are real war crimes”.

    The Forza Italia party leader is currently campaigning as part of a right-wing coalition ahead of Sunday’s general election.

    His centre-right party is the junior partner of the alliance, which is anchored by Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy and Matteo Salvini’s populist Lega Nord party. Polls have suggested the bloc will win a majority.

    Despite Mr Berlusconi’s past friendship with Mr Putin, and Mr Salvini’s criticism of Western sanctions on Russia, Ms Meloni, who is expected to lead any potential government, has pledged to continue Italy’s support of Ukraine.

    “The war in Ukraine is the tip of the iceberg of a conflict aimed at reshaping the world order,” she said earlier this month. “So we have to fight this battle.”

  • Russians flee to border after military mobilization

    Following the military call-up for the war in Ukraine, queues have developed along Russia’s border as men try to leave the country.

    On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization that may call up to 300,000 individuals to fight.

    The Kremlin says reports of fighting-age men fleeing are exaggerated.

    But on the border with Georgia, miles-long queues of vehicles have formed including men trying to escape the war.

    One man, who did not want to be named, told the BBC’s Rayhan Demytrie he had grabbed his passport and headed to the border, without packing anything else, immediately after President Putin’s announcement – because he fell into the group that could potentially be sent to the war.

    Some witnesses estimated the queue of cars at the Upper Lars checkpoint to be some 5km (3 miles) long, while another group said it had taken seven hours to get across the border. Video from the scene showed some drivers leaving their cars or trucks temporarily in standstill traffic.

    Georgia is one of the few neighboring countries that Russians can enter without needing a apply for a visa. Finland, which shares a 1,300km (800 miles) border with Russia, does require a visa for travel, and also reported an increase in traffic overnight – but said it was at a manageable level.

    Other destinations reachable by air – such as Istanbul, Belgrade, or Dubai – have seen ticket prices skyrocket immediately after the military call-up was announced, with some destinations sold out completely. Turkish media have reported a large spike in one-way ticket sales while remaining flights to non-visa destinations can cost thousands of euros.

  • Tempers high in Moscow after mobilization order

    People are out on the streets after Putin gave a partial mobilization announcement earlier today, according to Sky news’ Diana Magnay’s reports from the city.

    “We haven’t seen protests in cities for the last five or six months, people have been so scared of the fact that they will be detained and that is clearly what is happening.

    “But this mobilisation announcement has brought people out onto the streets here in Moscow and in various other cities across the country.

    “Police are dealing with them very brutally, it’s extraordinary to see how brave people are being to hear them chanting ‘no to war’, to brave the police reaction.

    “I’m not saying everybody in this country is against this partial mobilization, I’ve been out on the streets talking to people today and some people, especially the older generation, are saying, ‘this is what we have to do, we have to save the people of Donbas’, and they soak up Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric.

    “But there are people here who don’t agree with this, who are worried about this escalation, who don’t want to go and have to fight.

    “This is something that the Kremlin has avoided, they have said this entire duration, that they are not considering a partial or full mobilisation, and just two weeks after that counteroffensive, president Putin makes that announcement.”

  • Partial mobilization call: A ‘statement of weakness’ – Truss and Von der Leyen

    Prime Minister Liz Truss and President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, have described Vladimir Putin’s call for partial mobilisation as a  “statement of weakness”.

    The pair released a joint statement after meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York.

    A Downing Street spokesperson said: “They strongly condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine and agreed that Putin’s recent calls to mobilise parts of the population were a sign that Russia’s invasion is failing. It is a statement of weakness.”

    Earlier today, the Russian president announced a partial military mobilisation, with 300,000 reservists set to be called up as the Kremlin attempts to regain ground in the face of a counter-attack by Ukraine’s forces.

    The spokesperson added that Ms Truss and Ms Von der Leyen “underscored their joint commitment to sustaining support for Ukraine in its struggle as long as it takes”.

    The pair also discussed UK-EU relations including energy, food security, and the Northern Ireland Protocol.

  • Analysis: Putin’s decision to raise the stakes signals he cannot give up

    A decision by Vladimir Putin to raise the stakes even higher over Ukraine is a sign that his war is going badly, but it is also a signal that the Russian president cannot give up, writes Sky’s security and defence editor, Deborah Haynes.

    A partial mobilization; the holding of referendums to turn four Ukrainian regions “Russian”; and the spectre once more of nuclear confrontation mark a serious moment of escalation and a new test for the Ukrainian government with its Western backers.

    It comes in response to a significant counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces over the past three weeks, which has seized back swathes of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region, forcing Russian troops into retreat and giving the Ukrainian side the momentum.

    Analysts have said from the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion that Putin cannot afford to lose this war as it would almost certainly mean the end of his presidency.

    But Ukraine has made clear it will not stop fighting until all Ukrainian territory is recaptured, meaning escalation will continue until either side blinks.

    It is interesting, therefore, to consider how the position – and risk appetite – of the UK, the US, and other western allies has evolved over the past nearly seven months of the war.

    There has been an unwavering desire to support Ukraine, but this support was initially constrained by a desire to avoid giving so much weaponry that it would be seen by Moscow as an escalatory step drawing Russia closer into direct confrontation with the West.

    But as the war has drawn on and Russian forces have resorted to exploiting their greater stockpiles of long-range artillery to smash Ukrainian positions, the West’s appetite has grown to gift Ukraine more powerful weapons – such as long-range multiple-launch rocket systems, tanks, and aircraft – regardless of the escalatory potential.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana

    Source: Sky News

  • Ukraine war: Biden warns Putin not to use tactical nuclear weapons

    Russia has been cautioned not to use chemical or tactical nuclear weapons in the conflict in Ukraine by US Vice President Joe Biden.

    This will “alter the face of battle unlike anything since World War Two,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with CBS News.

    He remained mum regarding the US’s response to the use of such weapons.

    After its invasion of Ukraine in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin put the nation’s nuclear forces on “special” alert.

    He told defence chiefs it was because of “aggressive statements” by the West.

    Nuclear weapons have existed for almost 80 years and many countries see them as a deterrent that continues to guarantee their national security.

    Russia is estimated to have around 5,977 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

    It, however, remains unlikely that it intends to use such weapons.

    Tactical nuclear weapons are those which can be used at relatively short distances, as opposed to “strategic” nuclear weapons which can be launched over much longer distances and raise the spectre of all-out nuclear war.

    In an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley in the White House, President Biden was asked what he would say to President Putin if he was considering using weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.

    “Don’t, don’t, don’t,” was President Biden’s response.

    Mr Biden was then asked what the consequences would be for Mr Putin if such a line was crossed.

    “You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be? Of course, I’m not gonna tell you. It’ll be consequential,” Mr Biden responded.

    “They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur.”

    The war in Ukraine has not gone as well as the Kremlin had hoped.

    In recent days, Ukraine says it has recaptured more than 8,000 sq km (3,088 sq miles) of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

    Despite the apparent setback, President Putin has insisted that Ukraine’s successful counter-offensive will not stop Russia’s plans of continuing its operations in the east of the country.

  • The Ukrainian counter-offensive will not alter Russia’s goals – Putin

    Vladimir Putin has stated in his first public remarks on the subject that Russia’s plans will not be altered by the current counteroffensive by Ukraine.

    In a quick counterattack, Ukrainian forces claim to have taken over 8,000 square kilometres (3,000 square miles) in the northeastern Kharkiv region in just six days.

    However, Mr. Putin claimed he wasn’t in a rush, and the attack in the Donbass region of Ukraine is still on schedule.

    Additionally, he pointed out that Russia has not yet sent out all of its forces.

    “Our offensive operation in the Donbas is not stopping. They’re moving forward – not at a very fast pace – but they are gradually taking more and more territory,” he said after a summit in Uzbekistan.

    The industrial Donbas region in east Ukraine is the focus of Russia’s invasion, which Mr Putin falsely claims is necessary to save Russian speakers from genocide.

    Parts of the Donbas have been occupied by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. The Kharkiv region, where Ukraine’s recent counter-attack was launched, is not part of the Donbas.

    In Friday’s comments, Mr Putin threatened a “more serious” response if Ukrainian attacks continue.

    “I remind you that the Russian army isn’t fighting in its entirety… Only the professional army is fighting.”

    Russia initially denied sending conscript soldiers to Ukraine, but several officers were disciplined after cases came to light of conscripts being forced to sign contracts and in some instances being taken, prisoner.

    So far, Russia has not officially declared war on Ukraine and only refers to its invasion as a “special military operation”.

    But after Russia’s recent losses, some pro-Kremlin commentators have called for more forces to be mobilised. A recently leaked video that appears to show an attempt to recruit convicts to a private military company suggests Russia is struggling to find enough men willing to fight.

    Later on Friday, US President Joe Biden reiterated his call on Russia to refrain from using chemical or tactical nuclear weapons.

    Speaking during an interview with CBS News, Mr Biden said such action would “change the face of war unlike anything since World War Two”.

    President Putin put the country’s nuclear forces on a “special” alert following its invasion of Ukraine in February.

    The Russian leader has rarely left his country since then.

    This week’s visit to the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Uzbekistan – where he met the Chinese leader Xi Jinping – highlights his need to foster ties with Asian countries after being sidelined by the West.

    But even there, leaders have expressed concern over the invasion.

    “Today’s time is not a time for war,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Mr Putin.

    And on the previous day, Mr Putin hinted that Xi Jinping also disapproved.

    “We understand your questions and concerns,” he told the Chinese leader in reference to the war.

  • Schedule constraints: Vladimir Putin will not attend friend Mikhail Gorbachev’s funeral

    The Kremlin has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend Mikhail Gorbachev’s funeral because of his “work schedule.”

    Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader and one of the most significant figures of the 20th century, will be laid to rest on Saturday.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the ceremony will have “elements” of a state funeral, including a guard of honour, and the government was helping with the organization.

    Mr Peskov said Mr Putin had paid his respects on Thursday morning by visiting and laying a wreath at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, where Mr Gorbachev died on Tuesday.

    However, he confirmed the president will not be attending the funeral.

    Mr Putin paid tribute to Mr Gorbachev on Wednesday as a leader who had a “huge impact on the course of world history” and found his “own solutions to urgent problems”.

    The Russian president said in a statement: ” “He led our country during a period of complex, dramatic changes, large-scale foreign policy, economic and social challenges.

    “He deeply understood that reforms were necessary, he strove to offer his own solutions to urgent problems.”

    Mr Putin also noted the “great humanitarian, charitable, education activities” carried out by Mr Gorbachev in the years before his death aged 91.

    Mr Gorbachev was known for ending the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

    When Mr Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, he set out to revitalize the communist system and shape a new union based on a more equal partnership between the 15 USSR republics.

    However, he attempted political and economic reforms simultaneously and on too ambitious a scale, unleashing forces he could not control.

    As pro-democracy protests swept across communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force – unlike predecessors who had deployed tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

    The demonstrations fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the republics, and the last Soviet leader failed to anticipate the strength of nationalist feelings.