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Tag: Russia

  • Russia fumes over Queen Elizabeth II funeral snub

    Russia fumes over Queen Elizabeth II funeral snub

    Moscow has blasted London for not inviting Russian officials to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, calling the decision as deeply immoral.

    Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, on Friday said the UK Foreign Office notified Moscow invitations to the queen’s funeral weren’t sent to Russian officials due to the conflict in Ukraine.

    “We regard this attempt to use a national tragedy… for geopolitical goals and to settle scores with our country as deeply immoral,“ Zakharova said in a statement, accusing Britain of siding with “the Nazis and their Ukrainian accomplices.’’

    “We have to say that the example of Elizabeth II, who was a very strong unifying force and did not interfere in politics during her reign as a matter of principle, has not stopped London from making divisive statements in furtherance of its opportunistic aims,’’ the spokesperson said.

    Invitations to the Queen’s funeral have not been sent to Russia or Belarus against the backdrop of the invasion of Ukraine, news agency PA reported.

    Elizabeth II died on Sept.8, at the age of 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, her son Charles automatically became the new king of Britain.

    Numerous heads of state and government from all over the world are expected to attend the state funeral for the queen, scheduled for Monday.

  • Putin vows to press on with military action in Ukraine

    Putin vows to press on with military action in Ukraine

    Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has vowed to press on with Moscow’s military action in Ukraine until it achieves its goals.

     

    He threatened to completely cut energy supplies to the West if it tries to cap prices of Russian exports.

     

    TheNewsGuru.com recalls that President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, had said with the ongoing war between two European countries, Russia and Ukraine, his nation is set to fill the natural gas gaps in Europe.

     

    Speaking at an annual economic forum in the far-eastern port city of Vladivostok, Wednesday, Putin scoffed at the EU plans for a cap on Russian oil and gas prices as a “stupid” idea that “will only lead to a hike in prices.

     

    “An attempt to limit prices by administrative means is just ravings, it’s sheer nonsense,” Putin said. “If they try to implement that dumb decision, it will entail nothing good for those who will make it.”

     

    He warned that such a move by the EU would represent a clear breach of the existing contracts, saying that Russia could respond by turning off the faucets.

     

    “Will they make political decisions violating the contracts?” he said. “In that case, we will just halt supplies if it contradicts our economic interests. We won’t supply any gas, oil, diesel oil or coal.”

     

    The Russian leader charged that Russia will easily find enough customers in Asia to shift its energy exports away from Europe. “The demand is so high on global markets that we won’t have any problem selling it,” he said.

     

    Putin added that “those who try to force something on us aren’t in a position today to dictate their will,” pointing at protests in the West against rising energy prices.

     

    Just hours before it was due to resume natural gas deliveries to Germany on Friday after a three-day stoppage for repairs, Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom gas giant claimed it couldn’t do so until oil leaks in turbines are fixed. German officials and engineers refuted that claim.

     

    The Kremlin blamed the suspension of supplies on Western sanctions against Gazprom, charging that they hamper normal maintenance of the pipeline’s equipment and signaling that supplies may not resume until the restrictions are lifted. EU officials rejected the claim as a cover for a political power play.

     

    Putin dismissed the EU’s argument that Russia was using energy as a weapon by suspending gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany, charging that the sanctions made the pipeline turbine unsafe to operate. “They have driven themselves into deadlock with sanctions,” he said.

     

    He repeated that Moscow stands ready to start pumping gas “as early as tomorrow” through the Nord Stream 2, which has been put on hold by the German authorities.

     

    Turning to Ukraine, Putin declared again that the main goal behind sending troops into Ukraine was protecting civilians after eight years of fighting in the country’s east.

     

    “It wasn’t us who started the military action, we are trying to put an end to it,” Putin said, repeating his long-held argument that he ordered the military action to protect Moscow-backed separatist regions in Ukraine, which have fought Ukrainian forces in the conflict that erupted in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

     

    “All our action has been aimed at helping people living in the Donbas, it’s our duty and we will fulfill it until the end,” he said. “In the longer run, it will help strengthen our country both domestically and internationally.”

     

    Putin emphasized that Russia will keep protecting its sovereignty in the face of what he described as an attempt by the U.S. and its allies to preserve their global domination, saying that “the world mustn’t be founded on the diktat of one country that deemed itself the representative of the almighty or even higher and based its policies on its perceived exclusivity.”

     

    The Russian leader acknowledged that the national economy will shrink by 2% this year, but said that the economic and financial situation in Russia has stabilized, consumer prices inflation has slowed down and unemployment has remained low.

     

    “Russia has resisted the economic, financial and technological aggression of the West,” Putin said. “There has been a certain polarization in the world and inside the country, but I view it as a positive thing. Everything unnecessary, harmful, everything that has prevented us from going forward will be rejected.”

     

    Commenting on scores of critical media outlets being forced to shut down after the start of the military campaign in Ukraine following the passage of a new law that criminalized any reporting on military action that differs from the official line, Putin said their reporters were happy to leave the country.

     

    “They were always working against our country while they were here, and now they happily moved out,” he said.

     

    Russia’s top independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, was among the outlets that were forced to shut down under official pressure. On Monday, a court in Moscow upheld a motion from Russian authorities to revoke its license.

     

    Dmitry Muratov, Nobel Peace Prize-winning editor-in-chief of the newspaper, called the ruling on Monday “political” and “not having the slightest legal basis.”

     

    Putin sought to slight Muratov’s prize, describing it as politically driven and, in a side jab, compared it to the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Barack Obama while he was the U.S. president.

     

    “We had business-like relations with President Obama, but what did they give him the Nobel prize for?” Putin said. “What did he do to help protect peace? I mean, those military operations in some regions of the world that the president conducted.”

     

    Commenting on the European Union’s decision to make it harder for Russian citizens to enter the 27-nation bloc, Putin said that Russia won’t respond in kind and will continue to welcome visitors.

     

    “We aren’t going to halt contacts, and those who do it, they isolate themselves and not us,” he said.

  • Russia gaining from conflict in Ukraine – Putin

    Russia gaining from conflict in Ukraine – Putin

    President Vladimir Putin said Russia had gained, not lost, from the conflict in Ukraine because it was embarking on a new sovereign path that would restore its global clout.

    Putin increasingly casts the conflict in Ukraine, which he calls a “special military operation”, as a turning point in history when Russia finally threw off the humiliations which accompanied the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

    In an attempt to underscore Russia’s tilt towards Asia, Putin, speaking to the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok, said that the West was failing while Asia was the future.

    In his main speech, Putin hardly mentioned Ukraine beyond a reference to grain exports.

    But when asked by a moderator if anything had been lost from the conflict, Putin said Russia had gained and would emerge renewed.

    “We have not lost anything and will not lose anything,” said Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999.

    “Everything that is unnecessary, harmful and everything that prevents us from moving forward will be rejected.”

    “In terms of what we have gained, I can say that the main gain has been the strengthening of our sovereignty, and this is the inevitable result of what is happening now,” Putin said.

    He added: “This will ultimately strengthen our country from within.”

    He did, though, acknowledge that the conflict had unleashed “a certain polarization” in both the world and in Russia.

    Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.

    Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance. Neither side has disclosed how many soldiers have been killed.

    Putin’s assessment of Russian gains did not take account of NATO’s huge build-up of forces in eastern Europe and its planned admission of Sweden and Finland as members. Preventing NATO expansion was one of his stated objectives for intervening in Ukraine.

    He also brushed aside the impact of sanctions that have starved Russian industry of key components like microchips, cut Russians off from international payment systems and led to the departure of thousands of Western companies.

    The economy would contract by “around 2 per cent or a little more” this year and the budget would be in surplus, he said.

    Putin, who turns 70 in October, told the West in July he was just getting started in Ukraine and dared the United States – which enjoys economic and conventional military superiority over Russia – to try to defeat Moscow.

    It would, he said, fail.

    The confrontation with the West over Ukraine has prompted Russia to accelerate a pivot towards Asia and particularly China, once a junior partner of the Soviet Union and now the world’s second largest economy.

    For much of the past 300 years, Russia has looked to the West as the crucible of economic growth, technology and revolutionary ideas. In that period it has also twice been invaded from the West, by Napoleon and Hitler.

    Putin, though, said that the West was failing because a futile and aggressive attempt to isolate Russia with sanctions was destroying the global economy just as Asia was rising to claim the future.

    The United States and its allies imposed the most severe sanctions in modern history on Russia for its actions in Ukraine. Putin says the sanctions are akin to a declaration of economic war.

    “I am speaking of the West’s sanctions fever, with its brazen, aggressive attempt to impose models of behaviour on other countries, to deprive them of their sovereignty and subordinate them to their will,” Putin said.

    “In an attempt to resist the course of history, Western countries are undermining the key pillars of the world economic system built over centuries,” he said, adding that confidence in the dollar, euro and sterling was falling.

    Among the guests at the forum was China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu, currently ranked No.3 in the Chinese Communist Party. Putin will meet China’s Xi Jinping next week in Uzbekistan.

    Putin said that China would pay Gazprom for its gas in national currencies, based on a 50-50 split between the Russian rouble and Chinese yuan.

    The West’s attempt to economically isolate Russia – one of the world’s biggest producers of natural resources – has propelled the global economy into uncharted waters with soaring prices for food and energy.

    It has hurt Russia too.

    Putin said Russia’s economy was coping with what he termed the financial and technological aggression of the West, but acknowledged some difficulties in some industries and regions.

    He warned of a looming global food crisis and said he would discuss amending a landmark grain deal with Ukraine to limit the countries that can receive cargo shipments.

  • Russia admits it was behind Ukrainian train station strike

    Russia admits it was behind Ukrainian train station strike

    Russia’s Defence Ministry has confirmed that its forces were behind Wednesday’s missile strike on a railway station in central Ukraine that Kiev said left at least 25 people dead, including civilians.

    However, Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov claimed that more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers on their way to fight in the Donbass region had been killed in the attack in the central Dnipropetrovsk region town of Chaplyne.

    No evidence was produced to support the claim that so many soldiers died, however. Konashenkov added that the rocket hit a part of the station used by the Ukrainian military and that military equipment had also been destroyed.

    The Ukrainian authorities said that 25 people, including two children, had died in the attack, while at least 30 others were injured.

    The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said that both residential areas and railway infrastructure in Chaplyne had been targeted by Russian forces.

    Tymoshenko said that an 11-year-old who was crushed under rubble and a 6-year-old killed in a car fire near the train station had been among the victims.

    Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian claims could be independently verified.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, which was carried out on Ukraine’s Independence Day, which fell six months to the day after the Russian invasion began.

    US President Joe Biden called Zelensky on Thursday to offer him his moral support and to promise Washington’s continuing backing for Kiev as the war entered its seventh month.

    Ukrainian train stations and rail infrastructure have repeatedly been targeted during the war.

    In April, at least 57 people died in an attack on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donbass region.

    Another recurring feature has been Russian efforts to take control of Ukrainian nuclear plants, which has led to worries that a miscalculation could result in a nuclear catastrophe.

    Kiev said on Thursday that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, had been disconnected from the Ukrainian electricity grid, though Ukrainian nuclear agency Enerhoatom stressed that the plant’s power supply, which is vital for its safetly, was being maintained.

    In his Thursday night video address, Zelensky called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to act with greater urgency over the contested plant:

    “Every minute that the Russian military remains at the nuclear power plant means the risk of a global radiation disaster,” he stressed.

    Moscow said that the last two last operational reactors at the plant had been forced to temporarily shut down due to Ukrainian shelling, though the Russian-installed governor of the Zaporizhzhya region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on Telegram that one of the reactors had subsequently been restarted.

    Kiev and Moscow have repeatedly blamed each other for the shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

    According to Enerhoatom, all four of the power plant’s supply lines have now been damaged by Russian shelling.

    Washington blasted Russia’s attempts to claim the plant and the energy it produced on Thursday.

    “No country should turn a nuclear power plant into an active war zone,” said deputy State Department spokesperson Verdant Patel, adding that it was very clear that the energy produced at Zaporizhzhya belonged to Ukraine.

    Also on Thursday, the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) cited observers as saying that internationally-banned cluster munitions have been used in by Russian forces in Ukraine.

    Calling the reports “shocking,” the CMC said that the munitions had caused hundreds of casualties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine began in February.

    “Preliminary data indicates at least 689 casualties reported during cluster munition attacks in Ukraine for the first half of 2022.

    Many casualties may have gone unrecorded,” it added.

    An 2008 international treaty bans cluster munitions, though many key countries, including the United States and Russia, are not signatories to the agreement.

    In another hint that the war could still escalate, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered a 137,000-person expansion of the Russian army, growing its entire personnel to over 2 million, including some 1.15 million troops.

    No official reason was given for the increase.

  • WAR: Russia missile hit Ukraine train station, kills 22 persons

    WAR: Russia missile hit Ukraine train station, kills 22 persons

    About 22 persons were feared killed when a Russian missile hit a train station in Eastern Ukraine, in an attack that brought home the harsh reality of the six-month-old war.

    Zelensky said in an evening video address that “five of the dead were recovered from a car on the railway track, and search and rescue operations are ongoing.”

    “Charlene is our pain today,” he added.

    Over 50 people were injured in the shelling, according to earlier information. It’s not possible to independently verify the details.

    “Rescuers are working,” President Zelensky said during a remote address to the U.N. Security Council via video. “But, unfortunately, the number of dead may still increase.”

    “There is no such war crime that the Russian occupiers have not yet committed on the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

    Ukrainian officials said that by Thursday morning about 25 had died while 31 persons are still injured.

    meanwhile, hours before the strike, a rocket slammed into a house in the same area, killing an 11-year-old child, according to the official in the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Two children narrowly escaped with their lives, officials said. They had been buried under the rubble but were rescued by emergency crews.

    The hostility between Russia and Ukraine started on the 24th of February after Russia claimed Ukraine had perfected plans to join NATO a body considered anti-Russia.

  • WAR: Russia strengthens relationship with North Korea

    WAR: Russia strengthens relationship with North Korea

    Amid its war with Ukraine,  Russia is seeking to strengthen its ties with the Asian country of North Korea.

    Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin made this known via a statement signed and released by him on Sunday in Moscow.

    In a letter sent to his counterpart Kim Jong-un on Pyongyang’s liberation day, Mr. Putin said the move would be in both countries interests.

    In his reaction, North Korean President, Kim said their relationship dates back to pre-World War years with victory over Japan.

    He added that their “comradely friendship” would grow stronger.

    North Korean Television, KCNA, reports that the expanded bilateral relations would “conform with the interests of the two countries”.

    It added that “strategic and tactical cooperation, support and solidarity” between the two countries “had been put on a new high stage, in the common front for frustrating the hostile forces’ military threat and provocation”.

    Pyongyang did not identify the hostile forces by name, but the term has been used repeatedly by North Korea to refer to the US and its allies.

    The Soviet Union was once a major ally of North Korea, offering economic cooperation, cultural exchanges, and aid.

    Meanwhile, the relationship between these two nations went sour the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) disintegrated into smaller units in 1989

    In July, North Korea was one of the few countries to officially recognize two Russian-backed separatist states in eastern Ukraine, after Russia signed a decree declaring them an independent.

    Meanwhile both leaders  Kim Jong Un and  Vladimir Putin met  on Thursday at a summit designed to show that Washington is not the only power able to set the agenda on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

    Putin and Kim, in their first ever face-to-face encounter, shook hands outside the summit venue, a university campus, then sat down in a conference room to exchange greetings in front of the television cameras

    However, Ukraine which is at war with Russia, in his retaliation, has cut off all diplomatic ties with Pyongyang in North Korea.

  • WAR: UN warns Russia over attack on external facilities in Ukraine

    WAR: UN warns Russia over attack on external facilities in Ukraine

    The United Nations has warned Russia to stop attacking European facilities in Ukraine, describing its latest action as suicidal.

    Russia had sent rocket fire around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in central Ukraine.

    The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said that “any attack on nuclear power plants is a suicidal thing.”

    Addressing reporters in Tokyo, Japan, in a news bulletin shown on a Cable TV, the UN boss added, “I hope that these attacks will end.”

    He further called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to be given access to the plant.

    The Zaporizhzhia plant is Europe’s largest and occupies an extensive site on the river Dnipro.

    The nuclear power station was captured by Russian forces in early March and has continued operating at reduced capacity.

  • Russia moves to create own international court to try Ukrainians

    Russia moves to create own international court to try Ukrainians

    Russian plans to bring more than 200 Ukrainians to trial for crimes against humanity before an international court it is in the process of creating.

    The Head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin said such a tribunal would be under the leadership of a partner organisation of Russia.

    He said Bolivia, Iran and Syria, among others, have expressed interest in participating in the tribunal.

    Bastrykin added that there are investigations against British, U.S., Canadian, Dutch, and Georgian citizens for mercenary activities.

    “They are accused of fighting on Ukraine’s side.

    “Two Britons and a Moroccan have already been sentenced to death by pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk.

    “The appeal proceedings are still ongoing.”

    Russia, however, is facing more than 1,300 criminal proceedings against some 400 people at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes committed against the civilian population in Ukraine.

    In preliminary investigations, some 220 people were convicted of crimes against humanity.

    On the ground, Russian troops made further assault attempts on the Slovyansk-Kramatorsk conurbation in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.

    He said most attacks were repelled.

    In the south, the general staff reported heavy artillery battles and Russian air strikes in Kherson.

    The information could not be independently verified.

    The British intelligence said that in addition to its “well documented personnel problems, Russia likely continues to struggle to extract and repair the thousands of combat vehicles which have been damaged in action in Ukraine.”

  • EU to replace gas from Russia with Nigeria

    EU to replace gas from Russia with Nigeria

    The European Union (EU) Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS said on Friday that, it would replace the gas from Russia with Nigeria Gas due to the invasion in Ukraine.

    The Deputy Director-General Department for (Energy), European Commission in Brussels, Mr Matthew Baldwin, said this at a news conference on Friday in Abuja.

    Baldwin will be meeting with Nigerian top government officials and private sector players, including key stakeholders in the country’s Energy Sector.

    The EU’s executive body had urged member states to slash their gas consumption by 15 per cent as it warned that a complete shutdown of Russian supplies was “likely”.

    The EU has been scrambling to wean itself off Russian gas since the invasion of Ukraine, but is alarmed about a potential energy crisis this winter.

    “In summary, I am on a mission from Europe to try to deliver Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) today in the context of NLG partnership tomorrow with Nigeria.

    “Europe is in a tight spot in relations to gas, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the instability in our gas market and the threat of cutting off supply altogether.

    “So, we have launched the energy platform task force and the primary goal is to reach out to our reliable partners such as Nigeria to replace the gas from Russia with gas from reliable partners,” he said.

    According to him, you would have seen perhaps early this week, we launched a gas demand reduction plan and we are looking to reduce demand of gas by 15 per cent to manage the demand aspect of the equation.

    “To be clear, we need to manage the supply side and that’s why we want to expand what is currently at 14 per cent shares of our total LNG import from Nigeria and we want it to go up.

    “Our gas percentage was 60 per cent but now we want to go,’’ he said.

    He added that Nigerian products had an extraordinary potentials and that was why EU wanted to expand the short term delivery.

    Also, he said that by the end of August this year EU hopefully to kick start the partnership, adding that, it would create a long term partnership with Nigeria.

    Speaking also, Ms Samuela Isopi, the EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said that the bloc was doing its part in contributing to the energy sector through different collaborations with Nigerian Government.

    She said that currently, EU’s contribution stands at 400 million euros “ The EU as a bloc remains Nigeria’s biggest trading partner accounting for more than 20 per cent of Nigerian trade with the world.

    In 2021 the volume of EU-Nigeria trade stood at 28.7 billion euros (an increase of more than 25 per cent over 2020) with a trade balance of 6.4 billion euros in favour of Nigeria.

  • War: Zelensky fires Ukraine’s security chief over alleged collaboration with Russia

    War: Zelensky fires Ukraine’s security chief over alleged collaboration with Russia

     President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has issued executive orders ordering the sacking of Ukraine’s prosecutor general and the head of the powerful Security Service of Ukraine (Sluzhba Bespeky Ukrayiny, or SBU) in the country.

    The orders late on Sunday dismissing SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelenskyy, and Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova, who led the effort to prosecute Russian war crimes in Ukraine, were published on the president’s official website.

    Zelenskyy noted that he fired the top officials because he received many cases of members of their agencies collaborating with Russia amid the ongoing war.

    He said 651 treason and collaboration cases had been opened against prosecutorial and law enforcement officials, and that more than 60 officials from Bakanov and Venediktova’s agencies were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied territories.

    “Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state … pose very serious questions to the relevant leaders,” Zelenskyy said.

    “Each of these questions will receive a proper answer,” he said.

    Zelenskyy replaced Venediktova with her deputy Oleksiy Symonenko as the new prosecutor general in a separate executive order that was also published on the president’s site.