Tag: Putin

  • President Putin Give Conditions For Peace Talks With Ukraine

    President Putin Give Conditions For Peace Talks With Ukraine

    Russian president, Vladimir Putin has revealed that he’s open for peace talks with Ukraine to end the war, but only if Kyiv accepts ‘new territorial realities’.

    The Kremlin claims it has annexed the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions despite not controlling them in their entirety.

    The Kremlin said on Thursday January 5, that Putin told Erdogan peace talks are possible, but only if Ukraine accepts that territories occupied by Moscow as Russian.

    ‘Putin again confirmed Russia’s openness to serious dialogue on the condition of Kyiv authorities fulfilling the well-known and repeatedly voiced requirements of taking into account the new territorial realities,’ the Kremlin said in a statement.

    Erdogan had called for peace talks in the phone call with Putin, his office said earlier.

    ‘The Russian side emphasised the destructive role of Western states, pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and military equipment, providing it with operational information and targets,’ the statement from the Kremlin added.

    This is not the first time Putin has expressed that he is ready for peace talks under the conditions set out by Moscow.

    On Christmas Day, in an interview with state television about the war in Ukraine, Putin said that Russia is ‘prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes’.

    The leaders also discussed the implementation of a landmark grain deal, brokered by the UN with the help of Turkey, to unblock Ukrainian grain.

    The Kremlin said the pair discussed ‘the unblocking of food and fertiliser supplies from Russia’ and the need for ‘the removal of all barriers to Russian exports.’

  • Most dangerous, unpredictable decade since WW II ahead – Putin warns

    Most dangerous, unpredictable decade since WW II ahead – Putin warns

    The Russian president has forecast greater uncertainty as the era of unipolar Western dominance comes to an end

    Russian President Vladimir Putin believes the world stands at the precipice of a tumultuous decade that will bring the most danger and unpredictability in several generations as Western hegemony inevitably draws to a close.

    “We are standing on a historic frontier,” Putin said on Thursday at the Valdai Discussion Club’s annual meeting in Moscow. “Ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of World War II.”

    Putin rebuked the West for playing a “dangerous, bloody and dirty” geopolitical game. He said the US and its NATO allies helped to incite the Russia-Ukraine conflict while at the same time stoking a crisis over China’s sovereignty in Taiwan to enforce its global dominance.

    “I have always believed in the power of common sense, and I still do, so I am convinced that sooner or later, the new centers of the multipolar world and the West will have to embark on an equal dialogue about our shared future, and the sooner that happens, the better,” Putin said.

    The Russian leader noted that when Moscow laid out the security concerns that would need to be addressed to avert the Ukraine crisis last December, NATO cast the proposal aside. “It’s not going to be possible to sit this one out. Whoever sows the wind will reap the storm. The crisis has taken on a truly global magnitude. It affects everyone, and we should not entertain any illusions otherwise.”

    Humanity essentially faces two options, Putin added. “Either we continue accumulating the burden of problems that is certain to crush all of us, or we can work together to find solutions – functional, if imperfect ones – solutions capable of rendering our world more stable and safer.”

    In any case, Putin said, “the historical period of the West’s undivided dominance over world affairs is coming to an end.” Citing a 1978 quote by Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he said, “the West has a blindness of superiority.”

    “Almost half a century later, the blindness Solzhenitsyn spoke of, openly racist and neo-colonial in nature, has become simply ugly, especially after the emergence of the so-called unipolar world.”

  • Putin Formally Begins Annexation of Ukraine Regions

    Putin Formally Begins Annexation of Ukraine Regions

    The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is set to stage a ceremony in an ornate Kremlin hall to announce Russia’s rule over around 15% of Ukraine, the biggest European annexation since World War II.

    Putin disclosed that the four Ukrainian regions would remain “Russian forever”.

    The annexation is coming on the heels of referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which the West countries have slammed as illegal.

    However, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s President, has hit out at the move, saying that Putin wanted a war more than life.

    UN chief Antonio Guterres also called it a dangerous escalation and a violation of the United Nations charter.

    It comes as Ukrainian forces partially surround a strategic city in eastern Ukraine.

    Meanwhile, a Russian rocket attack killed at least 25 in Zaporizhzhia, while another 50 were wounded.

  • Russia-Ukraine War: Putin won’t win in Ukraine – NATO

    Russia-Ukraine War: Putin won’t win in Ukraine – NATO

    Russian President, Vladimir Putin will not win the war in Ukraine despite his new order to mobilize thousands of extra troops, transatlantic military alliance, NATO has said.

    In an address to Russians on Wednesday, September 21, Putin announced he would call up 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine and backed a plan to annex parts of the country, telling the West he was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.

    “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will use all available means to protect our people – this is not a bluff,” Putin said.

    Russia possesses “lots of weapons to reply,” Putin added.

    Russia-Ukraine war: Putin won

    Responding to Putin’s threats, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general,
    said the Russian leader’s threat to use nuclear weapons was “dangerous and reckless rhetoric.”

    Stoltenberg, speaking to Reuters Editor in Chief Alessandra Galloni in New York, said that Russia’s first mobilization since World War Two would escalate the conflict and cost more lives including Russians and Ukranians.

    He said the move was evidence that Putin had miscalculated since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

    He said NATO, the 30-nation Western defense alliance will stay calm and “not engage in that same kind of reckless and dangerous nuclear rhetoric as President Putin.”

    “The speech of President Putin demonstrates that the war is not going according to President Putin’s plans. He has made a big miscalculation,” Stoltenberg said.

    “More troops will escalate the conflict. That will mean more suffering, more loss of lives – Ukrainian lives, but also Russian lives,” Stoltenberg added.

    Stoltenberg said that although Russian troops were ill-equipped and lacked proper command and control, it was hard to foresee the wat ending soon.

    He said as long as Russia does not accept that Ukraine is a sovereign, independent nation.

    “The only way to end this war is to prove that President Putin will not win on the battlefield. When he realizes that, he has to sit down and negotiate a reasonable agreement with Ukraine,” said Stoltenberg.

    Stoltenberg added that members of the alliance have provided unprecedented support to Ukraine and that the NATO allies now need to replenish their stocks of weapons and ammunition.

    As NATO was prepared for a “long haul” in dealing with Putin, it was now in close dialogue with the defense industry to build back its stocks of materiel, Stoltenberg said.

  • Putin Accuses Ukraine Of ‘War Crimes’ In Macron Call

    Putin Accuses Ukraine Of ‘War Crimes’ In Macron Call

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused Kyiv of “war crimes” in a call with his French counterpart, saying that Moscow was doing “everything possible” to avoid civilian deaths in Ukraine.

    “Attention was drawn to the numerous war crimes committed daily by the Ukrainian security forces,” the Kremlin said of the call between Putin and Emmanuel Macron.

    “In particular massive rocket and artillery attacks on the cities of Donbas,” the Kremlin added, referring to Ukraine’s Russian-speaking east, part of which is controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.

    Putin told Macron the Russian army was “doing everything possible to safeguard the lives of peaceful civilians, including by organising humanitarian corridors for their safe evacuation,” the Kremlin said.

    Both leaders also discussed ongoing talks between Moscow and Kyiv to end the conflict in Ukraine in the telephone call, which was a “French initiative”, it said.

  • Sanctions Imposed on Russia Akin to Declaration Of War – Putin

    Sanctions Imposed on Russia Akin to Declaration Of War – Putin

    Vladimir Putin says the sanctions imposed on Russia by western countries over the invasion of Ukraine are like a declaration of war.

    Speaking to flight attendants on Saturday at an Aeroflot training centre near Moscow, Putin insisted he only wanted to “demilitarise” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

    “These sanctions are methods of fighting against Russia,” he said.

    “These sanctions that you can see are equivalent to declaring a war – but thankfully it has not come to an actual war but we understand what these threats are about.”

    Putin also warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be seen as “participation in the armed conflict”.

    President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for a no-flight-zone over Ukraine in order to protect the country from Russian missiles but the appeal was rejected.

    NATO had said taking such an action could result in a “full-fledged war in Europe involving many more countries”.

    Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, a series of sanctions have been imposed on Russia by the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the European Union.

    Some of the sanctions include blocking certain Russian banks’ access to the SWIFT payment system and freezing the foreign assets of the country’s central bank.

    Three of the country’s wealthy individuals were sanctioned by the UK while the Council of Europe also suspended Russia from the continent’s human rights organisation.

    In addition, FIFA and UEFA also suspended Russian clubs and national teams from all competitions.

    Samsung, Paypal, Zara, Apple, and Mercedes-Benz have all announced the suspension of their operations in the country.

  • Russia Announces ‘Military Operation’ In Ukraine

    Russia Announces ‘Military Operation’ In Ukraine

    Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday with explosions heard soon after across the country and its foreign minister warning a “full-scale invasion” was underway.

    Weeks of intense diplomacy and the imposition of Western sanctions on Russia failed to deter Putin, who had massed between 150,000 and 200,000 troops along the borders of Ukraine.

    “I have made the decision of a military operation,” Putin said in a surprise television announcement that triggered immediate condemnation from US President Joe Biden and sent global financial markets into turmoil.

    Shorly after the announcement, explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and several other cities, according to AFP correspondents.

    Putin called on Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their arms, and justified the operation by claiming the government was overseeing a “genocide” in the east of the country.

    The Kremlin had earlier said rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine had asked Moscow for military help against Kyiv.

    The extent of Thursday’s attacks was not immediately clear, but Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the worst-case scenario was playing out.

    “Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes,” Kuleba tweeted.

    “This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now.”

    Biden immediately warned of “consequences” for Russia and that there would be a “catastrophic loss of life and human suffering”.

    NATO’s chief condemned Russia’s “reckless and unprovoked attack” on Ukraine.

    Putin’s move came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional appeal late on Wednesday night to Russians not to support a “major war in Europe”.

    Speaking Russian, Zelensky said that the people of Russia were being lied to about Ukraine.

    Zelensky said he had tried to call Putin but there was “no answer, only silence”, adding that Moscow now had around 200,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s borders.

    Earlier on Wednesday the separatist leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk sent separate letters to Putin, asking him to “help them repel Ukraine’s aggression”, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

    The two letters were published by Russian state media and were both dated February 22.

    Their appeals came after Putin recognised their independence and signed friendship treaties with them that include defence deals.

    – ‘Moment of peril’ –
    Putin had for weeks defied a barrage of international criticism over the crisis, with some Western leaders saying he was no longer rational.

    His announcement of the military operation came ahead of a last-ditch summit involving European Union leaders in Brussels planned for Thursday.

    The 27-nation bloc had also imposed sanctions on Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu and high-ranking figures including the commanders of Russia’s army, navy and air force, another part of the wave of Western punishment after Putin sought to rewrite Ukraine’s borders.

    The United Nations Security Council met late Wednesday for its second emergency session in three days over the crisis, with a personal plea there by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Putin going unheeded.

    “President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine, give peace a chance, too many people have already died,” Guterres said.

    The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, warned that an all-out Russian invasion could displace five million people, triggering a new European refugee crisis.

    Before Putin’s announcement, Ukraine had urged its approximately three million citizens living in Russia to leave.

    “We are united in believing that the future of European security is being decided right now, here in our home, in Ukraine,” President Zelensky said during a joint media appearance with the visiting leaders of Poland and Lithuania.

    Western capitals said Russia had amassed 150,000 troops in combat formations on Ukraine’s borders with Russia, Belarus and Russian-occupied Crimea and on warships in the Black Sea.

    Ukraine has around 200,000 military personnel, and could call up to 250,000 reservists.

    Moscow’s total forces are much larger — around a million active-duty personnel — and have been modernised and re-armed in recent years.

    – High cost of war –
    But Ukraine has received advanced anti-tank weapons and some drones from NATO members. More have been promised as the allies try to deter a Russian attack or at least make it costly.

    Shelling had intensified in recent days between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists — a Ukrainian soldier was killed on Wednesday, the sixth in four days — and civilians living near the front were fearful.

    Dmitry Maksimenko, a 27-year-old coal miner from government-held Krasnogorivka, told AFP that he was shocked when his wife came to tell him that Putin had recognised the two Russian-backed separatist enclaves.

    “She said: ‘Have you heard the news?’. How could I have known? There’s no electricity, never mind internet. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but to be honest, I’m afraid,” he said.

    In a Russian village around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border, AFP reporters saw military equipment including rocket launchers, howitzers and fuel tanks mounted on trains stretching for hundreds of metres.

    Russia has long demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining the NATO alliance and that US troops pull out from Eastern Europe.

    Speaking to journalists, Putin on Tuesday set out a number of stringent conditions if the West wanted to de-escalate the crisis, saying Ukraine should drop its NATO ambition and become neutral.

    Washington Wednesday announced sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which Germany had earlier effectively suspended by halting certification.

    Australia, Britain, Japan and the European Union have all also announced sanctions.

  • Biden Says He Agrees That Putin Is A ‘Killer’

    Biden Says He Agrees That Putin Is A ‘Killer’

    President Joe Biden said he agrees with the assessment that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a “killer.”

    In an interview with ABC News broadcast on Wednesday, Biden said Putin would “pay a price” for trying to undermine his candidacy in the US 2020 election as alleged in a new US intelligence report.

    Asked if he thought Putin, who is accused of being ruthless with his opponents, is “a killer,” Biden said, “I do.”

    The statement marked a stark contrast with predecessor Donald Trump’s steadfast refusal to say anything negative about the Russian president.

    Biden said he had spoken to Putin in January after taking office.

    “We had a long talk, he and I, I know him relatively well,” Biden said.

    “The conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared,” Biden said.

    He did not specify if he meant Russia interfering in the US election or other behavior to which the US objects, such as the poisoning and jailing of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

    Russia reacted furiously to Biden’s comments on Putin being a killer.

    “Biden insulted the citizens of our country with his statement,” the speaker of the lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that attacks on Putin are “attacks on our country.”

    AFP

  • Vladimir Putin signs law extending nuclear arms treaty between US and Russia

    Vladimir Putin signs law extending nuclear arms treaty between US and Russia

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law ratifying the extension of New START, an important arms control treaty with the United States, a week before it was due to expire, the Kremlin said in a statement on Friday, January 29.


    The treaty limits the number of strategic offensive weapons both countries can have.


    The nuclear arms control agreement has been extended for five years until February 5, 2026, the Kremlin said.


    It limits each country to no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers; no more than 1,550 warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs and heavy bombers for nuclear armaments; and a total of 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers.


     The deal between Russia and the US is the last major deal between both countries after the Trump administration pulled out of a separate nuclear arms control agreement with Russia, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), in 2019, claiming China needed to be part of the agreement and also reduce it’s Nuclear arsenal.


    According to the Kremlin, Putin and US President Joe Biden spoke on the phone on Tuesday this week expressing “satisfaction” over the exchange of diplomatic notes between both countries on extending the treaty. 


    On Wednesday, the Russian Parliament voted to ratify the five-year extension of the treaty.


    The landmark treaty was first signed for a period of 10 years by former US President Barack Obama and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010. It took effect on February 5, 2011.

    “Renewing the Treaty meets the national interests of the Russian Federation, makes it possible to maintain the transparency and predictability of strategic relations between Russia and the United States and to support global strategic stability; it will have a beneficial effect on the international situation, and contribute to the nuclear disarmament process,” the Kremlin said in the statement published Friday evening.


    Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters “that the New START Treaty is in the national security interests of the United States, and this extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial, as it is at this time.”


    Psaki added that it was the “only remaining treaty constraining Russian nuclear forces and is an anchor of strategic stability between our two countries.”

  • Putin, Merkel discuss joint vaccine production

    Putin, Merkel discuss joint vaccine production

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have discussed the possibility of jointly producing coronavirus vaccines in a phone call, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

    “Issues of cooperation in combating the coronavirus pandemic were discussed with an emphasis on the possible prospects for joint production of vaccines,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

    The Kremlin added that an agreement was reached to “continue contacts on the issue” between the two countries’ health ministries and specialised agencies.

    The two leaders also discussed the settlement of the conflict between Kiev and pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, that has largely remained at a standstill since peace accords were signed in 2015.

    Both Russia and Germany have recently started mass vaccination drives at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus and avoid reimposing nationwide lockdowns.

    While Germany is using the vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and the Mainz-based company BioNtech, Russia has put into mass circulation its homemade jab — Sputnik V.

    Russia announced the registration of Sputnik — named after the Soviet-era satellite — in August, before the start of large-scale clinical trials, raising concerns over the fast-tracked procedure.

    Some critics have described it as a tool to bolster Russia’s geopolitical influence.

    Russia started a mass vaccination drive in early December, making the jab first available to high-risk groups including medics, teachers and the elderly.

    Alexander Gintsburg, the director of the state-run Gamaleya research centre that developed Sputnik, on Tuesday said that over 1 million people in Russia have received the jab so far.

    Moscow also sent batches of its vaccine to Belarus, Serbia and Argentina and announced that 2.6 million doses will be supplied to Bolivia but acknowledged that it was struggling with production capacity.

    In another sign of recognition for the Sputnik jab that has been viewed with scepticism by the West, British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca in December announced a clinical trial programme that would use a combination of its vaccine and the Russian one.

    Both use the adenovirus vectors, although it remains unclear when these tests will go ahead.