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2022-08-01T16:23:25Z | Sanctions against Russia are not backfiring | Letters | Simon Jenkins (The rouble is soaring and Putin is stronger than ever – our sanctions have backfired, 29 July) writes that sanctions “are meant to intimidate peoples into restraining their princes”. Throughout his piece he puts forward this very instrumentalist view of sanctions, but says not a word about the ethical component.
If you learned that a friend was engaging in deeply immoral behaviour, you may well confront them on it, and if they persist you may choose to distance yourself. I doubt if anyone would think that withholding friendship will force them to change; you just don’t want anything to do with them any more. You no longer operate in a shared moral universe.
I think there are a great number of people in this country who would rather suffer high fuel costs than buy Russian gas – on moral grounds. Of course, the problem with ethical sanctions is where to draw the line; if Russia, then why not Saudi Arabia, China or Israel? This is often a grey area, not least because we in the “enlightened west” are far from being morally pure. But invading a neighbouring country, unprovoked, is as unequivocal a violation of the international order as you can find, and it should not be tolerated, whatever the cost.
David Sutherland
London
Mr Jenkins’ well-argued article misses the point. Although he correctly points out that “the interdependence of the world’s economies, so long seen as an instrument of peace, has been made a weapon of war”, he entirely misses the fact that the sanctions regime orchestrated against Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine is primarily targeted at breaking Russia’s interdependence – its supposed integration – in the world economy. Just as Angela Merkel foolishly believed integrating Russia into the world economy by importing its conveniently priced gas would reduce the threat, so now too many, Mr Jenkins included, fail to see that sanctions are effectively decoupling Russia from the world economy. The “cheap” energy from Russia has come at an enormous cost. But better to pay that cost now than to wait until Russia is eyeing Lithuania or Poland.
Scott Blau
Keighley, West Yorkshire
When I was reading Simon Jenkins’ piece about the sanctions against Russia, my wife was crying about the 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war murdered in Russia’s shelling of Olenivka prison in the Donetsk region. Those were Azov servicemen, who defended Mariupol.
Mr Jenkins might be absolutely right about the economic price of sanctions, but this one-dimensional, gas-heated view misses something important. The sanctions are not just a tool to hammer Russia’s economy “back to the stone age”, but rather a way to demonstrate solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
Switching sanctions off while continuing weapon supplies? Come on, it is like treating a broken limb with painkillers, but not using any firm bandages. The situation is getting painful and more difficult to handle for Russia. The sanctions, combined with Ukrainian successes on the battlefield, make Russia more inclined towards peace talks. Here, 400km from the frontline, we see Russia losing face.
Since 24 February, Ukrainian citizens see the world in black and white. While our people die from Russian missiles, there’s no room for “Yes, but …” We just don’t get that. We have a right to ignore all those “buts”.
I would like to thank the UK for its help and pray that the conflict ends with our victory.
Bohdan Kisil
Kyiv, Ukraine |
2022-07-26T07:54:56Z | Can Ukrainian forces recapture Kherson from Russia? | In the first phase of the war in Ukraine, the decisive weapon was arguably the British made NLAW anti-tank bazooka, helping repel Russian forces from the fringes of Kyiv. The second phase was dominated by Russia’s 152mm artillery, bombing cities to rubble before its ground forces gradually moved in.
But the talk now is of the impact of the US-made Himars rocket artillery, which the Ukrainian forces have been using to halt the Russian advance by striking ammunition dumps in the rear – 50 according to the country’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov – and whether they can create the conditions for a successful advance towards Kherson, one of the largest cities captured by the invaders.
Kherson, captured in early March, has long been a focus for the Ukrainians, with the defenders making limited gains in the countryside between Mykolaiv and the target city since April. But, apparently helped by the longer-range weapons, with an effective firing distance of up to 50 miles (80km), the Ukrainians are growing more confident.
Sergiy Khlan, an aide to the administrative head of the Kherson region, told Ukrainian TV a turning point had been reached, and the region “will definitely be liberated by September”. It is a bold claim on the available evidence, and perhaps not surprisingly, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, instead talked about liberating Kherson “step by step”.
The Himars – of which Ukraine has 12 with four more on their way – appear to be having an impact in allowing Kyiv’s forces to target four key bridges leading into Kherson. The city, the only Russian stronghold west of the Dnieper River, is obviously strategically vulnerable if Ukraine can muster the force to push the occupiers out.
But the tale of the bridges partly illustrates some of the difficulties Ukraine faces in recapturing its population centres. Social media postings by Khlan make clear that Ukraine’s goal is not to destroy key bridges, in this case the Dariv Bridge across the Inhulets River east of the city, but rather to damage them to the point where the Russians cannot transport heavy equipment across them.
The Ukrainian military wants to ensure that food supplies can still cross into the city, and so, Khlan added, the country’s armed forces would “do everything possible not to destroy the structure”. That may be a difficult balance to strike, even allowing for the greater accuracy of the Himars – but more importantly it reveals a key constraint on the Ukrainians’ ability to strike back.
Russian officials, according to the RIA Novosti news agency, acknowledged damage to another of the key bridges, near the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, across the Dnieper, about 40 miles to the east of Kherson. The damage, the Russians said, came from Himars rocket artillery, but the news agency shortly after released pictures to show workers apparently filling in a hole in the road.
If cutting off the city by destroying the bridges is challenging, then capturing it, given the remaining civilian population, will be harder. Russia has shown it was willing to destroy cities such as Mariupol and Sievierodonetsk before capturing them. But for Ukraine – seeking to liberate its own territory – that is not obviously an option. Dislodging the Russians may be difficult if they choose to stay in the city itself.
Nor is it obvious that the arrival of one longer-range weapon can create the conditions for a more rapid overall advance. Ukraine has no meaningful air power available, so it must rely on an assembling a preponderance of ground forces against an enemy that has held the city for nearly five months. Meanwhile, western supplies continue to arrive gradually rather than in the numbers Ukraine needs.
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Reznikov said on Monday the first three of 15 Gepard mobile artillery guns promised by Germany back in April had arrived in Ukraine, and that he hoped to take delivery of several dozen Leopard tanks soon – most likely from Spain. The increasing supply may help Ukraine tip the balance on one part of the front, but so far there has been no evidence the defenders can manage a breakthrough.
After four months of gradual Russian advance in the east and the south, the arrival of Himars and rocket artillery looks to have tilted the military balance towards an equilibrium. But it is not yet obvious that the invaders can be rolled back: perhaps no wonder then that Khlan optimistically suggested the best option for the Russians was to voluntarily surrender Kherson. |
2022-08-05T15:00:03Z | Nightlands review – talking through what’s become of Russia | Who exactly is the enemy currently laying waste to Ukraine? There was a time the answer would have been easy. Those of us who grew up on this side of the iron curtain were schooled to see the old USSR as a dictatorship, an unyielding empire hell-bent on protecting its interests. There was no ambiguity in such an adversary.
But three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, supposedly a triumph for the west, the nature of Putin’s Russia is harder to determine. For all the free-market values ushered in since perestroika, this is a country – and a president – on which the old ideology still exerts a force. Those shaped by communism have reason to believe democracy did not bring them all they were promised.
And if that sounds a lot to load on to two characters, one embodying Stalinist doctrine, the other standing for rootless youth, well, it is, but playwright Jack MacGregor makes a decent stab at it. His play is heavy with research, at times more of a dialectical argument than a drama (it could transfer seamlessly to radio), but it is also an intelligent attempt at describing how all of us are shaped by the forces of history.
His setting is Pyramiden, a model village in Svalbard, now deserted but once a Soviet coal-mining settlement, with a population of 1,000, on Norwegian territory. Here, as the polar night approaches and the Arctic storms kick off, Rebecca Wilkie’s Slava arrives as backup for Matthew Zajac’s Sasha, a security guard. They have a lot of time to talk and a lot of talk to be done, both actors hitting the text with energy and passion in MacGregor’s production for Dogstar.
It is a moot point whether this isolated outpost is a wasteland or some kind of utopia, but even in its emptiness, it holds memories of global power struggles. Sasha, no longer recognising the Russia of today, looks cynically at a world divided by different brands of capitalism. Slava, who was 15 when the USSR dissolved, is more ambivalent, but is defined by memories of her own.
If the two of them are more conduits than fully fleshed characters, they nonetheless show how our values are forged by political circumstance and remind us that it pays to know your enemy. |
2022-08-02T16:28:09Z | Russia claims US ‘directly involved’ in Ukraine war | The role of American intelligence in the war in Ukraine has been put under scrutiny after Russia accused the White House of supplying targeting information used by Kyiv to conduct long-range missile strikes.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed Washington was “directly involved” in the war, and had passed on intelligence that had led to the “mass deaths of civilians”. The US was responsible for rocket attacks by Kyiv on populated areas in the eastern Donbas and in other regions, it said.
“All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Biden administration has so far given more than $8bn (£6.55bn) in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s February invasion, including an additional $550m tranche unveiled on Monday. But it strongly denies it is a participant in the conflict or is at war with Russia.
The Kremlin’s comments came after an interview given to the Telegraph on Monday by Vadym Skibitsky, Ukraine’s acting deputy head of military intelligence. Skibitsky said the US-made long-range Himars artillery systems had been extremely effective in wiping out Russian fuel and ammunition dumps.
He said excellent satellite imagery and real-time information had helped. He denied US officials were providing direct targeting information. But he acknowledged there was consultation between US and Ukrainian intelligence officials before strikes, so Washington could vet and if necessary veto intended targets.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, leaped on the remarks. She told the RIA Novosti news agency: “No other confirmation of the direct involvement of the United States in the hostilities on the territory of Ukraine is required.
“The supply of weapons is accompanied not only by instructions on its use, but in this case they perform the function of gunners in their purest form.”
The US has given Ukraine 16 Himars systems so far. Four more arrived this week. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has credited them with slowing Russia’s advances in the east and south and inflicting significant damage on enemy operations.
Superior US-supplied artillery is likely to play a key role in a possible Ukrainian counter-offensive to recapture the southern city of Kherson, which the Russians took in the first days of the invasion. In recent days Russia has transferred troops and equipment to the southern front to shore up its defences.
Moscow claims a Himars strike killed 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war last week at a Russian-operated prison near Olenivka, in the Donetsk region. Another 73 were injured. Kyiv says the Russians murdered the prisoners from the Azov regiment, who were captured in May in Mariupol.
On Tuesday, the regiment called on the US state department to recognise Russia as a “terrorist state”.
“Russia has been proving this status with its daily actions for many years. Its army and special services commit war crimes every day,” it said, claiming its fighters were victims of a Moscow “public execution”.
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On Monday the Institute for the Study of War published a report that concluded Russian forces were behind the prison explosion. It said satellite imagery strongly suggested a “precision strike or an internally planted incendiary or explosive” caused the blast. |
2022-07-27T12:40:40Z | Is Russia killing off the International Space Station? | The International Space Station, which circles the planet from 250 miles up, is often considered to be above the earthly conflicts that play out beneath. The orbiting outpost has weathered its share of political turmoil in more than two decades of hosting humans. As a symbol of post-cold war cooperation, the US-Russian partnership has been a clear success. But it has not always been a smooth ride.
This week’s announcement by Yury Borisov, the new head of Roscosmos, that Russia will quit the International Space Station after 2024, is only the latest expression of the country’s discontent. In 2015, Roscosmos said it would leave the partnership in 2024, unbolt its modules, and use them to build an outpost of its own. A Russian space station remains one of the agency’s prime ambitions.
Fractures in the partnership, which also includes Europe, Canada and Japan, have appeared before. In 2014, Russia’s then deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said his country would reject plans to extend ISS operations beyond 2020, in protest against sanctions over the annexation of Crimea. The threat was dropped, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year sparked further upheaval for space cooperation that looks far harder to repair.
The US and Russia entered talks in January to operate the ISS until 2030, but Russia’s war in Ukraine triggered a fresh round of sanctions, with some having a direct impact on the country’s space programme. Responding to the sanctions, Rogozin, who was dismissed as the head of Roscosmos this month, claimed the station could crash on an unsuspecting nation without the Russians to keep it aloft. (Rogozin has a reputation for wayward remarks, once suggesting Nasa transport its astronauts to the ISS via a trampoline.)
Nasa’s current plan is to ditch the ISS in 2031, de-orbiting the ageing structure on a trajectory that would send any remnants of re-entry into a remote region of the south Pacific Ocean. In the years beforehand, the station may further open its airlocks to commercial enterprises, for activities as broad as tourism, sports and moviemaking.
02:18 Russia sends actor and director to ISS to make film in space – video
But the extreme uncertainty over Russia’s commitment means that space agencies working on the ISS must plan for the country’s departure while hoping it stays on. As Dr Pavel Luzin, a Russian military and space analyst, points out, Borisov said “after 2024”, not “at the end of 2024”, leaving the door open for longer involvement.
Dr John Logsdon, the former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, said that with Russia’s stance on the ISS, space agencies would be in dereliction of their duty if they had not made contingency plans. “It’s been a hope that Russia could be persuaded to continue, but that hope was pre-Ukraine,” he said. “With all the ramifications of the Ukraine situation, resuscitating west-Russia cooperation is going to be very challenging. The US and its partners have to take this seriously.”
If Russia quits, the immediate task would be keeping the station in orbit. That role is now fulfilled by the Russian Progress spacecraft, which gives the ISS periodic boosts to maintain its altitude. Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are contenders for taking over if Russia drops out, but it is not a trivial job.
“It is not easy, but technically it is possible,” said Luzin. “The US and other partners do have all necessary capabilities and technologies for this.” Another option is to pay Russia to carry on with its station-keeping service.
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Prof Jan Wörner, the former director general of the European Space Agency, said his “personal belief and hope” was that Russia would continue beyond 2024. “The station without the Russians makes no sense … If Borisov’s announcement becomes reality, it is the end of the ISS,” he said.
“Maybe with some extraordinary effort it is possible to keep the ISS without Russia, but I doubt that this will be done,” Wörner added. “I always said: space is a bridge over troubled water … and the Russian regime broke the bridge.”
Whatever the fate of the International Space Station, the next step in human space exploration will see alliances shift. While the US, Europe, Canada and Japan have plans for the moon, including a lunar space station, Russia will partner with China for a separate lunar station and moon base.
For Russia, the prospect of future space collaborations with the west looks dim, and that could affect its aspirations. “Russia destroyed the basis for these relations,” said Luzin. “The problem is that the Russian space programme is impossible without space cooperation with the west. Russia will lose its manned space programme, its space exploration programme, the Glonass [satellite navigation] system and even the military part of its space activity because all these fields depend on the American, European and Japan components, industrial equipment and technologies.”
According to Logsdon, Russia’s discontent with the ISS is an opportunity to think seriously about whether the station has had its time. “The US could, with agreement of its partners, say enough is enough and change its plans and de-orbit early,” he said. “It’s been a symbolic success, but you can’t say every year it’s newly a symbolic success. There’s a fair question as to why spend multiple billions of dollars to keep it in operation.” |
2022-06-21T16:28:56Z | Russia blocks Telegraph website over Ukraine reporting | Russia has blocked the website of the Telegraph for its reporting on the invasion of Ukraine.
The newspaper said it had been accused of “disseminating false information about a special military operation by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine”.
According to Russian government data, Telegraph.co.uk was blocked by internet censor Roskomnadzor for a report published before the invasion on the deployment of mobile crematoriums that could incinerate the bodies of soldiers killed on the battlefield.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, had told the newspaper that the system could be a way for the Kremlin to cover up any future combat losses.
The Telegraph report was published on 23 February, a day before Vladimir Putin launched a major attack on Ukraine that sought to capture the capital, Kyiv.
Online data from Roskomnadzor showed that the ban on the Telegraph website was approved in April. It is unclear why the ban was only enforced and made public in June. The topic of combat losses has been extremely controversial in Russia since the military campaign has faced setbacks in Ukraine.
The Telegraph has said it is the first British newspaper to have its website blocked in Russia for its coverage of the war. The website of the BBC and a number of other international media have been blocked in Russia for their coverage of the war as well.
The company said: “The Telegraph is proud of its reporting of the invasion of Ukraine and regrets attempts by Russia to restrict press freedoms.”
Last week, Russia banned 29 members of the British media, including five Guardian journalists, from entering the country. A number of the Telegraph’s staff, including Chris Evans, the editor, were also banned from Russia.
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Russia has banned most local independent media for criticising the war. The independent TV Rain shut down in March after it was blocked, while newspaper Novaya Gazeta suspended operations after government warnings over its coverage of the war.
Echo of Moscow, a popular radio station that was part of state-owned energy corporation Gazprom’s media empire, was also close in March for broadcasting reports and opinions critical of Russia’s war in Ukraine. |
2022-07-28T11:59:51Z | Brittney Griner lawyers welcome prospect of Russia prisoner swap | Brittney Griner’s defence team have given the prospect of including the WNBA star in a prisoner swap a cautious welcome, as Russia said talks between Moscow and Washington on exchanging prisoners were “ongoing”.
“Griner’s Russian defence team learned about US’s offer from the news … In any case, we would be really happy if Brittney will be able to come home and hope it will be soon,” said the WNBA star’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, in a statement.
“The defence team is not participating in the swap discussions,” the lawyers added.
On Wednesday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told reporters that the US offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing back Griner and another jailed American, ex-US marine Paul Whelan.
CNN and the New York Times have reported that Washington was willing to exchange Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States, as part of a deal.
Commenting on Blinken’s statements, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told journalists on Thursday that negotiations between Moscow and Washington on exchanging prisoners are ongoing, but have not “resulted in concrete results”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “so far there are no agreements in this area”.
Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February. She acknowledged in court earlier this month that she had vape canisters containing cannabis oil when she arrived in Russia but contends she had no criminal intent and the canisters ended up in her luggage inadvertently. Griner faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
The next hearing is planned for 2 August.
“From a legal point of view, an exchange is only possible after a court verdict,” Griner’s lawyers said.
Griner’s high-profile arrest has also brought renewed attention to the plight of Whelan, a former US marine who was detained in a Moscow hotel in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years in prison two years later, accused of spying. Whelan has repeatedly denied the charges against him.
Whelan lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told the Guardian on Thursday he believed Moscow wanted Bout to be part of a swap for his client.
According to Zherebenkov, Russia in 2020 proposed to exchange Whelan for Bout and the Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, an offer he claimed was rejected by the US.
Zherebenkov said that at the time, an American diplomat met Whelan in prison and said that the trade was “unrealistic because Russia will start to kidnap our citizens, illegally accuse them and then trade for them”.
Zherebenkov said he believed that exchange this time would take place and was realistic.
“Now I think a trade is realistic because as far as I understand the Russian side has always been for a trade and in this case, it now appears to be the position of the American side.”
Russian officials have repeatedly expressed interest in the release of Bout, an arms dealer once labelled the “Merchant of Death”.
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Bout’s wife, Alla, told RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday evening said that her husband wasn’t aware of any negotiations taking place.
“We talked yesterday on the phone. Victor doesn’t know anything about the negotiations between Russia and the US. We, of course, assume such talks could be talking place … but we both don’t have any information on the talks,” she said.
If successful, Whelan and Griner’s prisoner swap would mark the second high-profile exchange between the two adversaries this year. On 27 April , Russia and the US carried out a prisoner exchange swapping the former US Marine Trevor Reed for Yaroshenko, who was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States. |
2022-05-22T14:41:11Z | Russia bans 963 Americans from entering country | Russia on Saturday released a list of 963 Americans it said were banned from entering the country, a punctuation of previously announced moves against president Joe Biden and other senior US officials.
The country, which has received global condemnation for its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, said it would continue to retaliate against what it called hostile US actions, Reuters reported.
The lifetime bans imposed on the Americans, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and CIA head William Burns, are largely symbolic.
They came on the same day Biden signed a support package providing nearly $40bn (£32bn) in aid for Ukraine.
But the latest action by Russia forms part of a downward spiral in the country’s relations with the west since its invasion of Ukraine, which prompted Washington and allies to impose drastic sanctions on Moscow and step up arms supplies to Ukraine’s military.
Several on the Russian government’s list of undesirables wouldn’t have been able to make the trip anyway: they are already dead.
John McCain, the former Republican US presidential candidate and long-serving senator; Democrat Harry Reid, who served as senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015; and Orrin Hatch, whose 42 years in the chamber made him the longest-serving Republican senator in history; are all included.
McCain died in August 2018 at the age of 81; Reid died last December, aged 82; and Hatch died on 23 April at 88.
Notably, Donald Trump, who as president from 2017 to 2021 sought a close relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, is absent from the ban list.
Others who are still very much alive, but now banned from Russia for perceived slights against Putin or his regime, are the actor Morgan Freeman, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, British journalist and CNN correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of the DreamWorks animation studio.
Last month, Russia’s foreign ministry banned Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Ben Wallace and 10 other British government members from entering the country.
The ministry said the decision was made “in view of the unprecedented hostile action by the UK government”. |
2022-07-15T15:51:31Z | Russia escalating attacks on civilians, says top Ukrainian official | A top Ukrainian official has accused Russia of deliberately escalating its deadly attacks on civilian targets, after recent missile strikes including this week’s targeting of the crowded city centre of Vinnytsia, which killed 23 people, including three children.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told the Guardian that monitoring of Russian strikes suggested an increased emphasis in recent weeks on terrorising Ukraine’s civilian population.
“We have a system to monitor and track all airstrikes and other attacks in our country and what we have noticed recently is a tendency to destroy more and more civilian targets. They have decided to terrorise civilian population. That’s not my emotions but what our monitoring is telling us.”
While Russia has been accused of targeting civilians throughout its invasion of Ukraine, missile strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure appear to have increasingly become a distinct tactic with a string of deadly attacks over the past month.
An attack on a shopping mall at Kremenchuk, a small city on the Dnieper river, at the end of June killed 18 people and injured 59. An apartment block and beach hotel in Serhiivka, 50km south of Odesa, was hit on 1 July, killing 21 people and injuring 35.
Two apartment buildings in Chasiv Yar, near the frontline in Donetsk oblast, were hit on 9 July: 48 people are believed to have been killed, making it one of the deadliest single attacks in the entire five-month long war. Vinnytsia, a central city far from the frontlines, was struck on Thursday, five days later.
Danilov suggested that some attacks – including during a visit by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to Kyiv – appeared designed to deliver a message of defiance. Thursday’s attack in Vinnytsia took place as European ministers sat down in The Hague to discuss how to hold Russia accountable for atrocities committed during its invasion of Ukraine.
“We have an enemy that breaks all the rules of war and rejects international law so we cannot expect any better behaviour,” said Danilov. “What I am surprised by is the fact that a country that rejects international law is allowed to participate in international institutions to claim its ‘rights’.”
A multiple missile attack on Kyiv’s university district on 26 June, just as the G7 summit was beginning – and after an EU summit had just concluded – was interpreted as an attempt to intimidate Ukrainians and show that Russia did not fear the west. It was the first time the capital had been hit for three weeks.
Dr Sidharth Kaushal, an analyst from the Rusi thinktank, said that Russia had used long-range missiles, capable of hitting anywhere in Ukraine, for two purposes: either “disrupting the flow of supplies to the frontline or the terrorisation of civilians”. Recent strikes, he added, “suggest an emphasis on the latter function both because their targets were clearly nonmilitary”.
Some of the missiles used have been from the Soviet era – and used in a manner not intended by their original design. Kaushal said that at Kremenchuk, Russia used a AS-4 “kitchen’ anti-ship missile first deployed in the 1960s. Amnesty International said the same munition was used in the double missile strike in Serhiivka – indicating, Kaushal added, that “the goal is terror, not precision”.
Ukraine’s missile defence systems are limited, with early warning capabilities lost in the early stages of the war. Its system of air raid warnings is largely ineffective, and sirens in cities outside conflict zones are rarely followed by attacks. To improve the situation, Kyiv has sought to obtain defence systems from the west – receiving limited supplies so far.
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At the beginning of July, the US promised to supply two US-Norwegian Nasams air defence systems, which operate with a range of about 20 miles, suitable for protecting Kyiv or another major population centre. But Russia’s recent wave of missile strikes have been focused on secondary or tertiary centres.
Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst and director of Rochan Consulting, said he believed the increasing Russian strikes were linked to Ukraine’s use of longer-range multiple-launch rocket artillery systems, principally the newly arrived Himars truck-mounted battery from the US.
“The more successful Ukrainians will be with their employment of Himars, the more likely Russians are to target civilians,” Muzyka said, arguing that Moscow’s tactics were in effect a crude attempt at deterrence, designed to weaken Kyiv’s desire to counterattack and kick the invaders out.
Danilov rejected this interpretation. “You cannot connect the arrival of Himars with these strikes. Even if we did not have those systems they would still be terrorising and killing the civilian population so that linkage risks being a Russian narrative.”
A security alert released overnight on Thursday, headlined Missile Threat Awareness, once again advised Americans to leave Ukraine. It added: “Avoid large gatherings and organised events as they may serve as Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine, including its western regions.”
The latest attacks have coincided with intercepted messages and social media posts by Russian servicemen and pro-Russia bloggers explicitly celebrating the strikes on Ukrainian civilians.
On Friday Russia acknowledged it had targeted the centre of Vinnytsia, claiming the target was a meeting of Ukrainian officials and western arms dealers but without providing any evidence. Previously, pro-Kremlin sources had denied hitting Vinnytsia, claiming another town had been hit. |
2022-06-14T17:07:26Z | Russia bans 29 UK journalists, including Guardian correspondents | Russia has banned 29 members of the British media, including five Guardian journalists, from entering the country, its foreign ministry has said.
Moscow said the sweeping action was a response to western sanctions and the “spreading of false information about Russia”, as well as “anti-Russian actions of the British government”.
“The British journalists included in the list are involved in the deliberate dissemination of false and one-sided information about Russia and events in Ukraine and Donbas,” the ministry said in a statement.
Twenty individuals it described as “associated with the defence complex”, including military figures, senior aerospace figures and MPs, were also banned.
Among the journalists banned are the Guardian correspondents Shaun Walker, Luke Harding, Emma Graham-Harrison and Peter Beaumont, as well as Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian.
British journalists working for the BBC, the Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Independent, Daily Telegraph, Sky News and a number of other outlets have also been banned. The editors-in-chief of the Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Independent were also listed.
A Guardian spokesperson said: “This is a disappointing move by the Russian government and a bad day for press freedom. Trusted, accurate journalism is more important now than ever, and despite this decision we will continue to report robustly on Russia and on its invasion of Ukraine.”
Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on Russian and foreign independent news outlets since its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, as well as on foreign social media networks. Legislation was introduced soon after the war began to criminalise media outlets that disseminate “false information” about the Russian army.
A number of media groups stopped operating in Russia as a result, with the draconian law in effect threatening to punish independent journalism with prison sentences of up to 15 years. Russia has also blocked access to several foreign news organisations’ websites, including the BBC and Deutsche Welle.
Russia warned US news organisations this month they risked being stripped of their accreditation unless the treatment of Russian journalists in the US improved.
“Work on expanding the Russian ‘stop list’ will continue,” the statement said.
Among those banned on the second part of the list were the UK minister of state for defence procurement, Jeremy Quin, and Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston.
The full list is:
Shaun Walker, Guardian correspondent; Con Coughlin, Daily Telegraph columnist; Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent, Sky News; James Rothwell, Daily Telegraph journalist;
John Witherow, editor-in-chief, the Times; Chris Evans, editor-in-chief, the Daily Telegraph; Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief, the Guardian;
Richard Sharp, chair of the BBC board of governors; Timothy Davie, director general of the BBC; Clive Myrie, BBC correspondent and news presenter; Orla Guerin, BBC correspondent; Nick Robinson, BBC presenter; Paul Adams, BBC correspondent; Nick Beake, BBC correspondent; Alexander Thomson, Channel 4 News correspondent and presenter; Dan Rivers, ITV correspondent;
Peter Beaumont, Guardian correspondent; Emma Graham-Harrison, Guardian correspondent; Sophy Ridge, journalist and Sky News presenter; Catherine Newman, journalist and host of Channel 4 News; Edward Verity, editor-in-chief, Daily Mail; Christian Broughton, editor-in-chief, the Independent; Larisa Brown, military news editor, the Times; Mark Galeotti, political scientist;
Joseph Barnes, Daily Telegraph correspondent; Gideon Rachman, Financial Times correspondent; Luke Harding, Guardian correspondent; Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times and Daily Mail columnist; Lawrence Freedman, Sunday Times columnist.
Jeremy Quin, minister of state for defence procurement; Leo Docherty, under secretary of defence; Benjamin Key, commander of the Royal Navy, chief of staff of the Royal Navy; Mike Wigston, RAF commander; Robert Magowan, deputy chief, UK strategic command; Charles Stickland, commander, joint operations, UK armed forces;
Roger Martyn Carr, chair of the board of directors, BAE Systems; Charles Woodburn, executive director of the BAE Systems; David Armstrong, managing director of BAE Systems; Glynn Phillips, managing director of BAE Systems; Clifford Robson, managing director of BAE Systems; Alexander Cresswell, chair of the board of directors and CEO of Thales UK; Christopher Shaw, chief operating officer of Thales UK; Paul Gosling, vice-president, Thales UK; Ewen McCrorie, vice-president, Thales UK; Suzanne Stratton, vice-president, Thales UK; Lynne Watson, vice-president, Thales UK;
Gregory Campbell, MP; Gavin Robinson, MP; Samuel Wilson, MP. |
2022-06-12T14:55:07Z | McDonald’s restaurants in Russia reopen under new brand | Former McDonald’s restaurants in the Russian capital have reopened under a new name, Vkusno & tochka (“Tasty and that’s it”), in a rebranding intended to comfort Russians that they can continue to live western lifestyles – even if Big Macs are gone from the menu.
McDonald’s announced its exit from the Russian market in May, saying it would sell its 850 restaurants due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It joined an exodus of western businesses from the Russian market amid sanctions and serious shortages in some sectors.
On Sunday, the new Russian fast-food chain that bought out McDonald’s, opened its first 15 restaurants in Moscow. Vkusno & tochka plans to eventually reopen all 850.
At a grand opening on Moscow’s Pushkin Square, the restaurant appeared to be an intentional copy of the American chain. Fish burgers, chicken nuggets and double cheeseburgers were all on the menu. “Our goal is that our guests do not notice a difference either in quality or ambience,” said Oleg Paroev, chief executive of Vkusno & tochka. The restaurant served old packets of McDonald’s hot mustard sauce marked up to erase any reference to the fast-food chain.
The new name was an appeal to the nostalgia of many Russians, who have become accustomed to western goods and brands, even as the Kremlin has decried the influence of the west. “The name changes, the love remains,” read the new restaurant’s slogan. Slogans sewn on the employees’ uniforms said: “The same smiles.”
It was the employees’ smiles that many Russians remembered from 32 years ago when the first McDonalds’ opened on Pushkin Square in 1990, heralding an influx of western goods and services into the closed Soviet economy. More than 30,000 Soviet customers queued for hours in the cold to try their first hamburger or Coke.
Now, Vkusno & tochka’s opening marks a new trend toward isolation, as Russia’s war has left tens of thousands dead and its market has become untouchable for some of the world’s largest multinationals.
The name has been met with bemusement and some mockery. “It’s a bit specific but … interesting,” one Muscovite told the pro-Kremlin website Life. “MakDak would have been better,” said another, referring to the shorthand Russians often used to refer to McDonald’s. `
McDonald’s copies are not a new trend. A McDonald’s in Russian-occupied Donetsk was renamed DonMak after the city was captured following the beginning of the war in 2014.
Alexander Govor, the owner of the chain, said up to 7 bn roubles (£98.63m) would be invested this year in the business, which employs 51,000 people, Reuters reported. But BBC Russian reported that the sanctioned bank Sovcombank may also have played a role in the acquisition, saying that Govor would not have had enough capital to acquire the entire fast-food chain on his own.
As the restaurant reopened on Sunday, one protestor held up a sign: “Bring back the Big Mac.” He was swiftly escorted out. |
2022-07-08T13:13:04Z | Putin claims Russia has barely started campaign in Ukraine | Vladimir Putin has issued one of his most ominous warnings yet, claiming Moscow has barely started its campaign in Ukraine and daring the west to try to defeat it on the battlefield.
Speaking at a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday, the Russian president said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on.
“Everyone should know that by and large we haven’t started anything yet in earnest,” he said. “At the same time, we don’t reject peace talks. But those who reject them should know that the further it goes, the harder it will be for them to negotiate with us.”
Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov doubled down on the threats on Friday, saying that only “a small part” of Russia’s “great” military potential was currently being used in Ukraine.
Putin in his meeting with parliamentary leaders accused Ukraine’s western allies of fuelling hostilities, charging that “the west wants to fight us until the last Ukrainian” and that they were welcome to try but it would only bring tragedy for Ukraine.
“Today we hear that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say – let them try,” he said. “The goals of the special military operation will be achieved. There are no doubts about that.”
Putin’s statements contradict recent US intelligence that said Russian forces in Ukraine had been so heavily degraded by more than four months of combat that they could achieve only “incremental gains” in the near term.
Mikhail Podolyak, a key adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tweeted: “37,000 dead Russian soldiers. Total sanitary losses [injured] of 98-117 thousand people. 10 generals were eliminated. 1605 tanks, 405 planes/helicopters were turned into scrap. Has Russia not started fighting yet? Is [the] Kremlin considering war only by Stalin’s mathematics – 20 million losses?”
Nevertheless, the Russian leader’s comments indicate that the Kremlin has no intentions of winding down the fighting in Ukraine, an assessment shared by US officials who believe Putin still wants to seize most of Ukraine.
After Moscow failed to achieve a rapid victory following its invasion of Ukraine, the fighting has turned into a grinding war of attrition focused on the eastern Donbas region, with no clear end in sight. This week, Putin ordered his senior generals to carry on their advance towards western parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk province after the Russian army seized the country’s far eastern Luhansk region.
To continue its offensive in Donbas, Russia would need to replenish its infantry units, according to assessments made by military experts and western governments. In a recent intelligence briefing, the British defence ministry said Russia’s campaign would probably increasingly rely on echelons of reserve forces.
The Russian president said at a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday that the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on. Photograph: Sputnik/Reuters
Prisons and large state companies across Russia have started to recruit volunteers to fight in Ukraine, according to two reports by independent media published this week. And in another sign that Russia is preparing for the long haul, the parliament pushed through two bills on Wednesday that will give the state greater control over private business and workers, which will in effect place Russia on a war economy footing.
“In the context of operations carried out by the armed forces of the Russian Federation outside of Russia, including on the territory of Ukraine, there is a need to repair weapons, military equipment and provide the armed forces with material and technical means,” said an explanatory note to one of the bills.
The bills, which still need to be reviewed by the upper house of parliament and signed by Putin to become law, will allow the government to force businesses to supply the military with goods and compel their employees to work overtime and at night to provide goods to the army.
During a discussion of the new laws, the deputy prime minister, Yuri Borisov, acknowledged that western sanctions were creating pressure on the economy and that the new laws were needed to “guarantee the supply of arms and ammunition”.
He said: “Russia has been conducting a special military operation for four months now under enormous sanctions pressure.” |
2022-07-31T06:00:47Z | Ukrainian offensive forces Russia to bolster troops in occupied south | Russia is moving large numbers of troops to Ukraine’s south for battles against the country’s forces through the newly occupied territories and Crimea, according to Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence.
If Russia won, it would try to capture more territory, said Vadym Skibitsky. “They are increasing their troop numbers, preparing for our counteroffensive [in Ukraine’s south] and perhaps preparing to launch an offensive of their own. The south is key for them, above all because of Crimea,” he said.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy corroborated these reports in his latest national address, saying Russia was relocating troops from the east to the south of Ukraine in order to push towards Kherson’s regional capital as well as the Zaporizhzhia region.
“Now the Russian army is trying to strengthen its positions in the occupied areas of the south of our country, increasing activity in the relevant areas,” he said, adding that “strategically, Russia has no chance of winning this war”.
Russian troop movements come in response to Ukraine’s declared counteroffensive to liberate the southern occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian forces have retaken dozens of villages and towns along the border, according to the region’s military governor, Dmytro Butrii, and are pushing towards Kherson’s regional capital.
The Kherson region stretches across Ukraine’s Dnieper river. Earlier this month, Ukraine carried out precision strikes using US-supplied weapons on the Antonovskiy bridge in the Kherson region, damaging a key Russian supply line. Washington’s Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces and partisans also damaged the only two other bridges connecting occupied Kherson.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s military said it had killed scores of Russian soldiers and destroyed two ammunition dumps while fighting in Kherson.
Telling residents to stay away from Russian ammunition dumps, the first deputy head of the Kherson regional council, Yuri Sobolevsky, said that the “Ukrainian army is pouring it on against the Russians, and this is only the beginning”.
According to Skibitsky, Russia withdrew tactical groups of airborne forces from Donbas two weeks ago and moved them to occupied Kherson. Russia is also moving troops from its eastern military district, which was being used to attack Sloviansk, a town in Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk, and were in reserve in Russia’s southern Belgorod region.
The open-source investigative group, Conflict Intelligence Team, confirmed Skibitsky’s claim in part last week.
Meanwhile, in occupied eastern Ukraine, a prison holding Ukrainian prisoners of war was hit on Thursday night. Zelenskiy denounced the strike as a “war crime”, accusing Russia of carrying out the attack to cover up its mistreatment of prisoners. Russia denied responsibility and said Ukrainian forces had struck the prison with rockets. Zelenskiy said at least 50 people died. Ukraine’s authorities say they do not yet know the identities of the dead.
Despite moving its tactical battalion groups to the south from the Donbas, Russia would continue to attack in the region, albeit with less intensity, said Skibitsky.
In the Kharkiv area, he said, Russia was focused on defending positions and stopping Ukrainian forces from reaching the Ukraine-Russia border.
If Russia won the battles in southern and eastern Ukraine, it would pursue new offensives to capture more Ukrainian territory using units it was currently forming in Russia, said Skibitsky. “They are currently creating rifle battalions of reservists in each Russian military district and a third army corps in [Russia’s] western military district,” he said.
Training and equipping of the new corps had begun under the direct supervision of Russia’s minister and deputy minister of defence.
Where Russia used the new corps would depend on how the battle developed in Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions, Skibitsky said.
He warned that one of the Russian army’s “positives” lay in its ability to move troops and equipment quickly. He said Russia practised this during military exercises leading up to the war and pointed to how the Russian forces retreated from Ukraine’s northern regions in March and reappeared in the Donbas two weeks later. “We know they can return to Belarus in two to three weeks if they need to,” he said.
Skibitsky said that aside from more weapons, Ukraine needed help training troops abroad. He said that Russia had been actively targeting Ukrainian training bases, giving several examples, including a strike on a military base just north-east of Kyiv that killed 87 Ukrainian soldiers in May.
Running out of steam… https://t.co/bExZXZ3l3z — Richard Moore (@ChiefMI6) July 30, 2022
Last Thursday Russian forces hit a military base north-west of Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s armed forces. It was not clear if there were casualties. Ukraine has not disclosed military losses for strategic purposes since the war started.
The head of MI6, Richard Moore, tweeted on Saturday that Russia was running out of steam after losing dozens of men and that it had been forced to use Soviet-era weapons.
Skibitsky said Russia was running out of high-quality rockets, but he stressed that they had “a huge amount” of old, Soviet rockets left in its stockpiles. In the last two months, Russia has been using Soviet anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles on land targets.
“They are using rockets which are, let’s say, past their sell-by date – over 30 years old – so are less effective,” he said. “But they have enough of them and any rocket works to scare the population.”
Russia was ramping up production of new weapons, he added. In early July, Russia’s parliament passed war economy measures to compel businesses to supply the military with goods and oblige certain employees to work overtime.
Though western sanctions on hi-tech components that could be used for military purposes have made things slower and more difficult, Russia appears to have found ways to evade them. The US authorities have blacklisted dozens of companies for helping the Russian military dodge sanctions since the invasion.
“We are going into winter,” said Skibitsky, who said that Ukraine would need weapons as well as food and financing from the west to get through it.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian ships loaded with grain spent another day in port. The vessels are ready to begin exporting goods but the country is waiting for the go-ahead from the UN and Turkey, which brokered a deal with Russia to allow Ukrainian ships safe passage.
Shipments from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi will be overseen by an Istanbul-based joint coordination centre, which will involve Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN officials. |
2022-07-26T15:14:17Z | Russia seeks to play down closure of Israel migration agency | The Kremlin has insisted its decision to shut down the agency that processes Jewish migration to Israel should not be “politicised”, amid a widening rift between the two countries over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
Last week Russia’s justice ministry requested the liquidation of the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency, a private charity closely affiliated with the Israeli government that promotes migration to Israel.
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that the ministry’s request came after the organisation, which has several offices in cities across the country, violated Russian laws.
“There are issues from the point of view of complying with Russian law,” Peskov said. “The situation should not be politicised or projected on to the entirety of Russian-Israeli relations.”
While Israel is one of the few western nations not to have imposed sanctions on Russia, and has abstained from selling weapons to Ukraine, senior Israeli officials have grown more vocal in their condemnation of Russia’s war.
In April the then foreign minister, Yair Lapid, accused Moscow of war crimes after reports emerged of the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian towns of Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel.
Last month the family of Pinchas Goldschmidt, Moscow’s longtime rabbi, announced that Goldschmidt left for Israel weeks after the invasion of Ukraine after resisting Kremlin pressure to support the war.
Relations between the two countries also took a hit in May when Russia’s longtime foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews”. Israel has called these comments “unforgivable”.
Lapid, who is now Israel’s caretaker prime minister, said on Sunday that the closing of the Jewish Agency would be “grave, with ramifications for [bilateral] relations”.
Amid the diplomatic spat, Israel announced on Tuesday its plans to expand humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, which for the first time will include financial support for civil aid organisations in the war-battered country, the Times of Israel reported.
Meanwhile, Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, criticised Israel’s “completely unconstructive and, most importantly, biased” stance over Ukraine. “It has been completely incomprehensible and strange to us,” she told Russian state television on Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of Russians, many highly educated and skilled, have left the country since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine more than five months ago. About 16,000 people have arrived in Israel from Russia since the start of the war, according to the Jewish Agency.
Israel’s immigration minister, Pnina Tamano-Shata, told local television that 600,000 Russians were currently eligible to move to Israel.
Kremlin critics have linked the pressure on the Jewish Agency to the growing crackdown on civil society since the start of the campaign in Ukraine. Dozens of foreign-funded organisations and charities have been shut down.
According to the Jerusalem Post, several foreign-funded Jewish organisations operating in Russia received warning letters from the Russian government last week. |
2022-07-19T18:15:40Z | Germany worries about gas rationing as supply from Russia halted | Germans are fretting about the coming winter freeze even while Europe sweats in record temperatures, amid uncertainty over whether a complete stopping of Russian gas deliveries would force energy rationing on private households as well as industry.
Germany, which has managed to reduce its reliance on Russian gas from 55% to about 35% of its demand since the start of the Ukraine war, is still heavily reliant on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which closed down for 10 days from 11 July due to scheduled maintenance works.
The two other pipelines that usually carry Russian gas to Germany are also currently not servicing the country. Gazprom in May ceased deliveries through the Yamal pipeline passing through Belarus and Poland, while the Ukraine-transiting Transgas, an extension of the Soyuz pipeline from Russia, is having deliveries to Slovakia and Austria prioritised.
Sources in Moscow told news agency Reuters on Tuesday that Nord Stream 1 was expected to resume operation on time, though at less than its capacity of about 160m cubic metres (mcm) a day.
However, if Vladimir Putin does not turn the tap back on at the end of the maintenance period on Thursday – as a majority of Germans expect, according to one recent survey – it would put particular strain on Europe’s largest economy.
“The worst-case scenario is that European countries will need to reduce their gas consumption by around 15%,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based economic policy thinktank Bruegel.
Germany, however, would have to find reductions of almost 30%, or 20% if it manages to complete two floating LNG terminals in the North Sea ports of Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel by the start of next year, as planned.
“If European states fall into Putin’s trap and we have a scenario of energy protectionism by the winter, the economic damage will be considerably worse,” Tagliapietra added.
A survey by public broadcaster ZDF, published last Friday, suggests the German public still strongly backs its government’s political support of Ukraine: 70% of respondents said they would stand by the country under attack from its eastern neighbour in spite of rising energy prices.
But a separate survey by pollster Forsa shows concerns about an energy crisis to have steadily grown as the war begins to drop from the forefront of people’s minds. As of last week, 58% of respondents identified shortages as the most important issue of the day, while 70% named the military conflict in Ukraine.
Whether the government of Olaf Scholz can counter-steer Russian attempts to sap German morale will also depend on whether it can communicate a clear strategy for how it will meet the looming energy crisis, said Alexander Sandkamp, an economist at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
“Currently there is a lot of angst among Germany’s population because there has been a lack of clear messages around how rationing would hit household consumers,” said Sandkamp.
Under current plans, private households would be protected from gas rationing along with other “protected” customers such as care homes or hospitals. The brunt of reductions would have to be made by German industry, accountable for about a third of the country’s gas use.
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Yet in recent weeks voices from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries have started to make public appeals, arguing that rationing their sector could set off domino effects with more catastrophic consequences.
“Making medical supplies is obviously more essential than making videogame consoles,” said Sandkamp. “But it’s very hard for the government to set these priorities via gas quotas.”
Instead, Sandkamp called for a more transparent mechanism that allows energy providers to pass their rising gas prices to consumers, forcing them into making savings of their own accord. Since many private households in Germany pay their gas bills on account to property management companies, rising prices are not as apparent to consumers as rising fuel prices at petrol stations.
Recent comments by Germany’s energy minister, Robert Habeck, suggest he may harbour some sympathies for such a view. On a recent trip to Vienna, the Green politician said private households too had to “play their part”, since a long-term stop of industrial production would have “massive consequences”.
In turn, Germany’s government would probably have to move to offer further cost of living subsidies. Steffi Lemke, the minister for consumer protection, recently proposed temporarily barring gas and electricity companies from cutting off customers who were unable to pay their bills. |
2022-06-21T13:24:53Z | Russia threatens ‘serious consequences’ as Lithuania blocks rail goods | The head of the Kremlin’s security council has threatened the “population of Lithuania” in an escalation of the row over Lithuanian railway’s refusal to allow some goods to cross to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
After a meeting in the region, which is wedged between Lithuania and Poland, 800 miles from Moscow, Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally to Vladimir Putin, upped the rhetoric by threatening “serious consequences”.
“Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions,” Patrushev said. “Appropriate measures … will be taken in the near future … Their consequences will have a serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania.”
Patrushev did not specify how Russia would retaliate, merely saying it would be “interagency”. Lithuania has already blocked Russian energy imports, leaving few other options for the Kremlin.
At the weekend, Lithuanian state railway had told Russian clients it could no longer transport steel or iron ore across EU territory to Kaliningrad, on the Baltic sea.
Goods banned from entering the EU under sanctions introduced after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine include Russian coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology. Just less than half of the goods that cross Lithuania in about 100 train journeys every month fall under EU sanctions, although there are different dates for them coming into force.
Activists protesting outside the Lithuanian embassy in Moscow on 21 June against rail curbs in Kaliningrad display posters saying ‘Closing the border? Our army has visa-free’ and ‘Lithuania in queue for decommunisation’. Photograph: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA
A ban on oil will not be enforced until December as part of a compromise among the 27 EU member states.
The railways announcement prompted some panic shopping in Kaliningrad and an angry response from Moscow, where officials accused Lithuania of breaching transit agreements struck in 2004.
The European Commission has said Lithuania was acting legally, although the EU’s head of foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said on Monday that he would “double-check”, in what appeared to be an attempt to take the sting out of the row.
Patrushev had been speaking after a meeting in Kaliningrad, while earlier on Tuesday Russia’s foreign ministry summoned the EU ambassador to Moscow, Markus Ederer, over the “anti-Russian restrictions”.
“The inadmissibility of such actions, which violate the relevant legal and political obligations of the European Union and lead to an escalation of tensions, was pointed out,” the ministry said in a statement.
Speaking shortly after the meeting, Ederer said he had called on the Russian government to “remain calm” and “resolve this issue diplomatically”, the Russian news agency Tass reported.
Kaliningrad, which has a population of about 500,000, is the headquarters for Russian’s Baltic fleet and hosts some of its most powerful armaments, including hypersonic missiles. It was captured from Nazi Germany by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.
The region is strategically important to Russia. Nato has long identified a 50-mile strip of Polish and Lithuanian borderland, known as the Suwalki Gap, that lies between Russian Kaliningrad in the west and Kremlin-friendly Belarus to the east as a possible Putin target in the event of conflict.
Such a move could cut off Lithuania and Latvia in the north from the rest of the EU. |
2022-05-26T14:43:13Z | Russia uses Orwellian propaganda news vans in Mariupol | Russia has deployed mobile propaganda vans with large-screen televisions to humanitarian aid points in the captured city of Mariupol as the Kremlin has pushed forward with efforts to integrate newly occupied territories across the south of Ukraine.
Videos published by the Russian ministry of emergency situations showed the vans, which it called “mobile information complexes”, playing state TV news segments and political chat shows where pundits support the invasion to locals in the ruined city that still lacks electricity and running water.
The Orwellian turn comes as much of Mariupol was destroyed in an artillery bombardment that left thousands dead. One of the vans was deployed near the ruins of the Mariupol drama theatre, where hundreds were killed in an airstrike in March.
Several of the trucks now patrol the city, mainly playing Russian television news segments. “The people of Mariupol have been held in a virtual informational vacuum for three months due to the lack of electricity,” wrote the emergencies ministry in a statement.
The mobile screens have reportedly been deployed to places where Mariupol residents are receiving humanitarian aid, Russian documents, and at points in the city where drinking water is available.
“The practice of ‘there is nothing to eat, so feed them lies’ is gaining momentum,” wrote Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol. It’s “cynicism of the highest level”.
“The truth and the propaganda,” wrote Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry, posting a video of the trucks superimposed over images of the ruins of the city. This is “the Russian world”, he added.
The effort to install Russian propaganda in the ruined city is part of a larger effort at pacifying and integrating captured cities like Mariupol despite earlier assurances by Vladimir Putin that Russia did not seek to occupy new territory in Ukraine.
Putin on Wednesday signed a law that would fast-track applications for citizenship from Mariupol, as well as the Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that are partly under government control.
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The Kremlin decision has been decried as “passportisation”, an attempt to annex the territories by filling them with de facto Russian citizens.
Senior Kremlin officials have already promised to remain in southern Ukraine “for ever”.
“The simplified system will allow all of us to clearly see that Russia is here not just for a long time but for ever,” the Moscow-appointed deputy leader of the occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, told Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency.
“The illegal issuing of passports … is a flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as norms and principles of international humanitarian law,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Russian-controlled administration in Kherson also announced that it would begin issuing salaries in roubles on Thursday, effectively adopting Russia’s currency as part of the creeping annexation of southern Ukrainian territories.
Local authorities installed by Russia have also said they may formally request annexation. |
2022-04-26T15:34:29Z | Russia accused of shelling Mariupol humanitarian corridor | Russia has stepped up attempts to encircle defending forces in the east of Ukraine and stood accused of shelling a humanitarian corridor out of Mariupol, as the US vowed to move “heaven and earth” to help Ukraine win the war.
Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in Moscow and Germany, a fresh wave of civilian deaths were reported across eastern Ukraine as Vladimir Putin’s forces escalated their barrage of key targets on Tuesday and appeared to renege once again on giving safe passage to women and children.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, the besieged port city on the Sea of Azov where the remaining Ukrainian forces and civilians have been hiding out in a steel works, said the latest attempt to get people out had failed.
Andryushchenko claimed that agreement on a humanitarian corridor out of the Azovstal steelworks had proven to be a “trap”, with Russian forces firing their artillery on the exit zone just moments after announcing through loudspeakers that a green corridor had been opened.
Last week, Putin had ordered his troops not to storm the steel mill, but to seal it off so that “not even a fly comes through”. There are an estimated 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers in the complex, along with many of their families.
Andryushchenko said that over the past 24 hours, there had been 35 airstrikes against the Azovstal plant, with one strike causing a fire to break out in one of the workshops where civilians had been hiding, leaving some under rubble.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, meeting the UN secretary general in Moscow, dismissed Ukraine’s proposal to stage peace talks in the port city, saying it was a “theatrical gesture” and “they probably wanted another heartrending scene”.
Russia’s apparent flouting of the agreement for a humanitarian rescue of civilians trapped in Mariupol came amid increased efforts to push on in the east of Ukraine.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, reported that two people had been killed and six others wounded as “Russians continue to deliberately fire at civilians and to destroy critical infrastructure”.
In the neighbouring region of Luhansk, the governor, Serhiy Haidai, said three people had died after Russian shells hit a residential building in the city of Popasna, which Russian forces have been trying to capture.
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There were also reports of damage to an important bridge across the Dniester estuary linking the strategically vital region of Bessarabia to the rest of the country.
Should Ukrainian forces leave Bessarabia for fear of being cut off it could become a staging post for an attack on the Black Sea city of Odesa.
Russia has refocused its operations in Ukraine in recent weeks away from storming the capital, Kyiv, in the north and towards creating a Kremlin-controlled region stretching across the east and south of Ukraine.
At the US Ramstein airbase in Germany, Joe Biden’s defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, attending a meeting of officials from about 40 countries, pledged more weapons to foil Putin, while Germany announced it had cleared the way for delivery of Gepard anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine.
Austin said he wanted to find a “common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s near-term security requirements because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them”.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN’s atomic watchdog has condemned the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, describing the situation as “absolutely abnormal and very, very dangerous”.
Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, spoke to reporters as he arrived at the site of the former nuclear power plant, which was occupied by Russian troops for several weeks.
Grossi was heading an expert mission to Chernobyl to “deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems”, the IAEA said. |
2022-07-08T11:20:41Z | Russia has not paused its Donbas offensive, says Ukraine official | Russia is continuing its offensive into Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region after capturing almost the entire neighbouring Luhansk region, according to the head of Ukraine-controlled Luhansk’s regional civil administration.
Serhiy Haidai told Ukraine’s United News he did not agree with recent western assessments that Russia had paused its offensive and was resting to regroup. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based thinktank, and British military intelligence have both said in recent days that Russian forces are resting and taking time to reposition themselves for the next offensive.
“There has not been any kind of operational pause or reduction in shelling,” said Haidai. “Their attempts to advance forward are constant. They are putting in new units, including tank units.”
He said the assessment were predictions most likely based on Ukraine’s successful destruction of ammunition depots in Russian-occupied areas last week that could give Moscow real logistical problems.
Ukraine’s general staff said on Friday that Russian forces had made advances eastwards towards the Ukrainian-controlled town of Bakhmut, in north-eastern Donetsk oblast.
Meanwhile, over the past week, Russian forces have repeatedly hit major urban areas in the Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk. At least eight people have been killed and 27 injured in strikes on Sloviansk in the past week, according to the city’s authorities.
Particularly harrowing was the 5 July strike on Sloviansk’s town market, where people had been working and shopping. Video footage shows Ukrainian soldiers and civilians pulling people out of a fire, while other bystanders try to extinguish it.
Russian forces struck a market and a residential area in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk on July 5. Ukrainian officials said at least two people were killed and seven others were injured. (WARNING: Viewers may find the content of this video disturbing.) pic.twitter.com/9AN4DatrxX — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (@RFERL) July 5, 2022
Russian forces have also hit the city of Kramatorsk, the post-2014 regional capital of Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk, twice in the past week, killing one person and injuring seven.
Tens of thousands of civilians have fled Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk in the anticipation of type of the shelling unleashed in neighbouring Luhansk oblast. The mayor of Sloviansk has been encouraging the population to leave, but about 23,000 residents remain.
To get to the main towns under Ukrainian control, the Russians must push through areas in the northern and eastern parts of Donetsk oblast where Ukrainian forces had dug in their positions, said Haidai.
“Within that 100 sq metres, if Russian soldiers are being killed and their equipment is being destroyed that we can still say Luhansk region is still holding,” said Haidai, referring to the slither of Luhansk oblast still controlled by Ukraine.
“They are trying to put all their reserve forces into getting to the administrative borders [of Luhansk oblast] but so far they have not been successful.”
The UK’s defence ministry said on Friday that Russian forces were pausing to replenish and reposition their equipment to launch an offensive on Siversk, a small town in the north of Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk, in order to push towards the urban areas under Ukrainian control.
Earlier this week, the Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces were pausing to rest and regain their combat capabilities – a statement Russia’s defence ministry confirmed.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said at a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday that Russia had not “started anything yet in earnest” in Ukraine and that it would be harder to negotiate the longer the conflict continued.
00:54 Putin warns Russia is just getting started in Ukraine – video
Russia’s reported strategy has been to systematically destroy buildings in order to strip the Ukrainian forces of cover for their positions, forcing them to retreat. But this tactic requires a constant stream of artillery ammunition, say experts, which Ukrainian are targeting.
Ukraine has hit 20 Russian ammunition depots in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, the Ukrainian military expert Ivan Kyrychevsky told Ukraine’s Radio NV.
Ukraine’s general staff claimed on Friday that they had successfully hit an ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka, Kherson region, killing 44 Russian soldiers and destroying air defence systems in the process.
Military experts told the Guardian that the longer-range rocket systems recently supplied by the west, in particular the US Himars systems, had allowed Ukrainian forces to target storage facilities behind enemy lines, slowing down Russia’s operational strategy and forcing them to be more careful with their ammunition.
The Himars rockets systems allow Ukrainian forces to precisely strike their target, unlike the systems they used before.
The military expert Oleg Zhdanov told FeganLive, a popular analysis programme on YouTube, that there were nine Himars operating in Ukraine. The most a Himar missile would deviate from its target was one to three metres, if targeting an object 75km away, Zhdanov said. Whereas a Smerch, said Zhdanov, could deviate by 1km when attempting to hit a target 70km away.
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The US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, while visiting Kyiv on Thursday, said the US should quickly supply Ukraine with more weaponry, including ammunition for Himars, Reuters reported.
“We have a chance here in the next 60 days … the decisions we make can turn the tide of this war in favour of Ukraine,” Graham said.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his advisers have said they believe UK support for Ukraine would remain unchanged despite Boris Johnson’s resignation on Thursday.
Johnson became popular in Ukraine because of his vocal support for Kyiv on the international stage and the UK’s supply of weapons to Ukraine.
“We have no doubt that Great Britain’s support will be preserved, but your personal leadership and charisma made it special,” Zelenskiy said.
The UK’s army chief visited his Ukrainian counterpart in Ukraine on Thursday and reiterated the UK’s support. |
2022-08-01T14:53:34Z | Grain ship leaves Ukraine port for first time since Russia blockade | A ship carrying Ukrainian grain has left the port of Odesa for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion under an internationally brokered deal to unblock Ukraine’s agricultural exports and ease a growing global food crisis.
The Sierra Leone-flagged ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn, finally set sail for Lebanon on Monday morning, according to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry, following weeks of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, led by Turkey and the United Nations.
The Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports since the start of the war in February has stoked a worldwide grain shortage that has caused the UN to warn of a looming hunger catastrophe.
“Ukraine, together with our partners, has taken another step today in preventing world hunger,” said Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister. He stressed that Ukraine had done “everything” to restore the ports and said the lifting of the blockade would give Ukraine’s economy $1bn (£820m) in foreign exchange revenue.
The Kremlin said the news of the departure was “very positive” and Turkey’s defence ministry said more ships would follow. Kubrakov said 16 loaded vessels had been stuck in Ukraine’s ports since the Russian invasion began and that officials planned for the ports to regain full transport capacity in the coming weeks.
Fighting meanwhile continued across Ukraine’s frontlines, according to Ukraine’s general staff, as four additional US-supplied Himar long-range rocket systems as well as a third German Mars II, another long-range rocket system, arrived in Ukraine.
4 additional HIMARS have arrived in🇺🇦. I’m grateful to @POTUS @SecDef Lloyd Austin III and 🇺🇸people for strengthening of #UAarmy
We have proven to be smart operators of this weapon. The sound of the #HIMARS volley has become a top hit 🎶 of this summer at the front lines!
🇺🇦🤝🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/iOBoxfjV7e — Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) August 1, 2022
The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Syenkevych, said Sunday’s shelling of the city, which has been hit almost every day since the war began, had been the heaviest yet. Among the dead was an agro-tycoon and one of Ukraine’s richest men, Oleksiy Vadaturskyi. One man was also killed and another injured in shelling early on Monday in Kharkiv, which continues to be shelled regularly.
In the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the regional military administration, said on Monday that three people were killed and 16 injured as a result of fighting on Sunday. Ukraine’s authorities have called for all residents in areas of Ukrainian-controlled Donbas, which has no stable gas or electricity supply, to evacuate and its minister for the temporarily occupied territories, Iryna Vereshchuk, said they planned to evacuate about 50,000 children and 200,000 adults. Those who choose to stay, said Vereshchuk, will be asked to sign a form acknowledging their decision.
The first 🇺🇦 grain ship since #RussianAggression has left port. Thanks to the support of all our partner countries & @UN we were able to full implement the Agreement signed in Istanbul. It’s important for us to be one of the guarantors of 🌏 food security. pic.twitter.com/jOz3bdmdfB — Oleksandr Kubrakov (@OlKubrakov) August 1, 2022
Russia’s blockade of Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest grain producers, has caused a worldwide grain shortage and price rises, which pushed some countries that are reliant on grain imports, mainly in the Middle East and Africa, towards famine. About 20m tonnes of grain is reportedly stuck in the country waiting to be exported.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, described the departure of the grain shipment as a “day of relief for the world” and Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, tweeted that he hoped exports from Ukraine would continue without interruptions and problems.
“We’ll do what is necessary to this end. We hope that the agreement will lead to a ceasefire and lasting peace,” he said.
The UN’s joint coordination centre, set up to facilitate the deal, said it authorised the ship to leave the port and that it would be monitoring the vessel as it sailed through the agreed path.
But the world is watching to see if Russia sticks to its side of the bargain, after an attack on the port of Odesa a week ago.
The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who is leading the race to become Britain’s next prime minister, described the shipment as an important first step and accused Russia of weaponising global food supplies. She said in a statement that the “only way [Vladimir] Putin can alleviate the global food security crisis is by ending his brutal invasion of Ukraine”.
“There’s room for cautious optimism today but implementation is still fraught with risks,” said Timothy Ash, senior sovereign strategist at Bluebay Asset Management and associate fellow at Chatham House. “I think we need to remember it is still a very active war zone; it only takes one stray missile for shipments to stall.”
In the deal, signed on 22 July in Istanbul, Russia agreed to allow grain ships to leave Ukraine and to not attack them, or Ukraine’s ports, while the shipments were in transit. Less than 24 hours later, the veracity of the deal was cast into doubt when Russian forces struck the port of Odesa.
When questioned by Turkey’s defence minister, Russia at first denied it was involved in the attack. But the next day it issued a statement saying it had struck a Ukrainian vessel that was in the port and carrying western weapons. Ukraine’s authorities rejected Russia’s explanation.
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Since the blockade, Ukraine has managed to export more than 4m tonnes of grain through the Danube River and its railways, but work is needed to reach the prewar export levels of 6m to 8m tonnes a month, say experts.
Industry experts have said finding insurers and crews ready to take the risk will be a major obstacle for exports now and in the future.
On Friday, the Lloyd’s of London insurer Ascot and the broker Marsh announced they had launched marine cargo and war insurance for grain and food products moving from the Black Sea ports.
The British ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, said that while the UK was not involved in the deal, it had helped in securing commercial insurance for the ships from providers in London. The announcement from Ascot signalled that progress had been made.
Simmons said the port attack had worried insurance companies, but she insisted they should not be deterred. “The main thing is not to be scared of Russia’s tactics because that’s what they are – tactics, to stop this from happening,” she said. |
2022-06-12T07:00:43Z | Specialist gang ‘targeting’ Ukrainian treasures for removal to Russia | A specialist gang is smuggling valuable historic artefacts out of Ukraine and into Russia, according to an international team of academics and digital technology experts who are tracking thefts.
“There is now very strong evidence this is a purposive Russian move, with specific paintings and ornaments targeted and taken out to Russia,” said Brian Daniels, an anthropologist working with archaeologists, historians and digital imaging specialists.
From a laboratory in the US state of Virginia, Daniels and his colleagues have monitored the despoiling and destruction of cultural targets since the invasion began, and have detected patterns in the crimes.
The trail of thefts focuses heavily on precious Scythian gold. These are high-worth ancient filigree pieces, often depicting animals. They were produced by tribes of the area of central Asia and eastern Europe once known as Scythia.
“These items are visually stunning, and there are now so many reports of thefts it is evident that it is a strategy,” said Daniels. “The Ukrainians, of course, are also very keen that we establish a list of stolen items.”
Daniels told the Observer that it was hard to know if the monetary value was the most important factor for the Russians, or whether the objects were chosen for their cultural significance. “There is a possibility it is all part of undermining the identity of Ukraine as a separate country by implying legitimate Russian ownership of all their exhibits.”
What is clear to Daniels is that the thefts tend to follow the menacing interrogation of museum curators and custodians. Russian attempts to locate and steal hidden artefacts in occupied Ukrainian cities are becoming more determined.
“We have growing concern for the museum workers and security staff, particularly when they find themselves behind Russian lines,” said Daniels. |
2022-07-04T17:30:22Z | Russia releases photo of cosmonauts holding Luhansk flag on ISS | Russia’s space agency has published photos appearing to show cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) holding the flags of the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk.
In a message posted to the official Roscosmos Telegram channel, Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov appear to be holding the flags of the two occupied territories, whose occupiers are recognised as legitimate authorities only by Russia and Syria among UN member states.
The cosmonauts with the flag of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Photograph: Roscosmos
The message accompanying the pictures says: “Liberation Day of the Luhansk People’s Republic! We celebrate both on Earth and in space.”
Roscosmos goes on in the statement to say: “Roscosmos and our cosmonauts, who are working today at the International Space Station, join the congratulations of the head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, on the ‘new Day of the Great Victory’.
“This is a long-awaited day that residents of the occupied areas of the Luhansk region have been waiting for eight years. We are confident that 3 July 2022 will for ever go down in the history of the republic. Citizens of the allied Donetsk People’s Republic, wait!”
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It is unclear how the flags might have arrived at the ISS, although on 3 June an uncrewed Russian Progress cargo spacecraft docked with the space station, having departed from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. According to Nasa, it was carrying almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies.
Also at the station working with the three Russian cosmonauts are Nasa’s American astronauts Jessica Watkins, Robert Hines and Kjell N Lindgren, as well as the Italian Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The crew, Nasa and the ESA have not commented on the flag-raising. Hines tweeted about US Independence Day on Monday.
“Happy Birthday, America! … I am so thankful for the opportunities our country provides. God Bless America!” he wrote, adding emojis of the US flag, a hamburger and a hotdog.
Happy Birthday, America! The crew of FREEDOM and @Space_Station Expedition 67 wishes everyone back home a Happy Independence Day! I am so thankful for the opportunities our country provides. God Bless Ameica! 🇺🇸🎆🎇🍔🌭🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/88EYidqXDF — Bob “Farmer” Hines (@Astro_FarmerBob) July 4, 2022
Artemyev, Matveyev and Korsakov were the first Russian crew to join the ISS since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February, and when they emerged from their Soyuz capsule in yellow uniforms it was widely seen as a message of solidarity with Ukraine. However, the cosmonauts were coy about that interpretation. Asked about the suits at the time, Artemyev said every crew chose their own.
Korsakov, Artemyev and Matveyev were the first new faces in space since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine and emerged from the Soyuz capsule in February wearing yellow flight suits with blue stripes. Photograph: AP
“It became our turn to pick a colour. But in fact we had accumulated a lot of yellow material so we needed to use it,” he said. “So that’s why we had to wear yellow.”
The so-called Luhansk People’s Republic claims to control almost all of Ukraine’s eastern oblast of Luhansk, which borders Russia, after Ukrainian forces withdrew from the city of Lysychansk on Sunday. |
2022-07-26T17:01:01Z | EU agrees plan to ration gas use over Russia supply fears | The EU has been forced to water down its plan to ration gas this winter in an attempt to avoid an energy crisis generated by further Russian cuts to supply.
Energy ministers from the 27 member states, except Hungary, backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe.
After days of fraught negotiations, ministers agreed opt-outs for island nations and possible exclusions for countries little connected to the European gas network, which will blunt the overall effect in the event of a full-blown gas crisis.
The deal came less than 24 hours after Russia’s state-controlled energy firm, Gazprom, announced a steep reduction in gas supplies through the critical Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Wednesday. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said there was “no justifiable technical reason” for the cut.
She has accused the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, of attempting to blackmail European countries for supporting Ukraine. Russia has cut or reduced supplies to a dozen EU countries.
“The announcement by Gazprom that it is further cutting gas deliveries to Europe through Nord Stream 1, for no justifiable technical reason, further illustrates the unreliable nature of Russia as an energy supplier,” Von der Leyen said. “Thanks to today’s decision, we are now ready to address our energy security at a European scale, as a union.”
EU officials hailed the agreement as a milestone for a united energy policy that recalled the leap in integration on health taken during the Covid pandemic.
Jozef Síkela, the Czech minister of industry and trade, who brokered the final deal, said: “I know the decision was not easy but I think at the end everyone understands that this sacrifice was necessary. We have to and we will share the pain,” he told reporters. He said the decision meant Europe could avoid “dramatic consequences in winter”, including price hikes.
02:43 'We will share the pain': EU to ration gas this winter in case Russia cuts supply – video
The European Commission had suggested that a collective 15% gas savings target would reduce gas consumption by 45bn cubic metres. Once exemptions are taken into account the final tally will be lower, after a revolt led by southern European countries that use less or no Russian gas. A senior EU diplomat said the plan would not hit the 45bn cubic metres estimate in the event of a major supply crisis, but still added up to “significant reductions”.
But the backing for the plan was not unanimous. Hungary, which has already secured an opt-out from the EU’s embargo on Russian oil, was alone in voicing its opposition. Unusually for an EU energy ministers’ meeting, Hungary was represented by its foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, who was given an award by Putin last November, only a few months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hungary has backed EU sanctions against Russia but has blamed the measures for increasing prices for Hungarian drivers and households, a link strongly rebutted by Brussels.
Under the energy savings plan, all EU member states will strive to reduce gas consumption by 15% from August through to the end of March. In the event of a total shutdown of Russian gas or high demand, EU states can declare an energy emergency that triggers immediate mandatory savings. Member states rejected an attempt by the European Commission to decide when an energy emergency was under way, which would launch compulsory energy rationing.
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Countries will be exempt from mandatory cuts if they are island nations unconnected to the EU gas network, a provision that applies to Ireland, Malta and Cyprus.
The Baltic states can also apply for an exemption because their electricity systems are linked to Russia, making them vulnerable to blackouts in the event of a Kremlin-ordered switch-off. The exemption is designed to protect the three former Soviet countries if they are forced to rely on gas to boost electricity supplies.
Member states can also ask for an exemption or reduced savings target if they are little connected to the European gas network and can send liquified natural gas to their neighbours, a provision that affects Spain.
Spain, with Portugal and Greece, led opposition to the uniform 15% target, arguing it was unfair and failed to take account of their national circumstances.
Arriving at the Brussels meeting, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, Teresa Ribera, said no one questioned the need for solidarity but the initial proposal was “not necessarily the most effective approach”. Her rejection of the proposal last week kindled memories of the eurozone crisis, when southern European member states faced strictures from Germany for falling into debt.
Turning the eurozone debate on its head, Ribera said Spain had “done our homework” by investing in infrastructure to boost supplies of liquified natural gas, comments that were widely seen as an implicit criticism of Berlin’s decades-long reliance on cheap Russian gas.
Critics complained the plans had been designed to help Germany, which has been accused of allowing itself to become dangerously dependent on Russian gas.
“Germany made a strategic error in the past with its great dependency on Russian gas and the faith that it would always flow constantly and cheaply,” said Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, who is responsible for energy. “But it is not just a German problem.”
France’s minister for energy transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said the health of the whole European economy was at stake: “Our industrial chains are completely interdependent: if the chemical industry in Germany coughs, the whole of European industry could come to a halt.” |
2022-07-23T23:00:08Z | US accuses Russia of deepening global food crisis – as it happened | From 23 Jul 2022 22.17 The US Secretary of State has condemned the Russian attack against Odesa, accusing Russia of deepening the global food shortage. In a statement posted on Twitter, Anthony Blinken said, “The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports.” The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports. — Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 23, 2022 Blinken also said that the attack undermines the diplomacy of the UN, Turkey and Ukraine in formulating the deal in attempts to alleviate the growing food crisis around the world. “This attack casts serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to yesterday’s deal and undermines the work of the UN, Turkey and Ukraine to get critical food to world markets,” he added. The Secretary of State went on to blame Russia for the global food shortage and said “Russia bears responsibility for deepening the food crisis and must stop its aggression.”
Updated at 22.28 BST
23 Jul 2022 00.00 Summary Thank you for joining us for today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. It’s 2am in Kyiv and we will be pausing our live reporting overnight and returning in the morning. You can read our comprehensive summary of the day’s events below. Ukraine’s defence ministry on Saturday urged citizens in Enerhodar, a key area seized by Russia, to reveal where Russian troops were living and who among the local population was collaborating with the occupying authorities. “Please let us know as a matter of urgency the exact location of the occupying troops’ bases and their residential addresses…and the places of residence of the commanding staff,” it said, adding that exact coordinates were desirable.”
“Please let us know as a matter of urgency the exact location of the occupying troops’ bases and their residential addresses…and the places of residence of the commanding staff,” it said, adding that exact coordinates were desirable.” The governor of the Zaporizhizhia has said that Russia is keeping 170 people captive in the Zaporizhizhia oblast, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to governor Oleksandr Starukh, Russian forces have abducted at least 415 people in the southern region since February 24 - the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine - and at least 170 individuals are still being kept captive.
According to governor Oleksandr Starukh, Russian forces have abducted at least 415 people in the southern region since February 24 - the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine - and at least 170 individuals are still being kept captive. The US Secretary of State has condemned the Russian attack against Odesa, accusing Russia of deepening the global food shortage. “ In a statement posted on Twitter, Anthony Blinken said, “The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports.”
In a statement posted on Twitter, Anthony Blinken said, “The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports.” 3.7 million Ukrainian refugees have received temporary protection status in the European Union, according to the UNHCR. In a new report released Friday, the UNHCR cited that 3.7 million Ukrainians have registered for Temporary Protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe.
In a new report released Friday, the UNHCR cited that 3.7 million Ukrainians have registered for Temporary Protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe. Video footage has emerged of a powerful explosion that took place in the Russian-occupied territory of Horlivka on Saturday in the Donetsk Oblast, Euromaidan reports. Emerging reports from outlets have been claiming that Ukrainian armed forces have hit a Russian ammunition depot.
Emerging reports from outlets have been claiming that Ukrainian armed forces have hit a Russian ammunition depot. The former deputy secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council has been suspected of high treason, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to a report released on Saturday by the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations, Volodymyr Sivkovych is suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence services and managing a network of agents in Ukraine that spied on behalf of Russia.
According to a report released on Saturday by the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations, Volodymyr Sivkovych is suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence services and managing a network of agents in Ukraine that spied on behalf of Russia. Germany has delayed defense weapon delivery to Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports. The outlet, sourcing German media organization German Welt, cites that anonymous Ukrainian officials have reported that Ukraine’s application for eleven IRIS-T air missile defense systems is currently being held up by Germany’s Federal Security Council.
The outlet, sourcing German media organization German Welt, cites that anonymous Ukrainian officials have reported that Ukraine’s application for eleven IRIS-T air missile defense systems is currently being held up by Germany’s Federal Security Council. Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban Saturday called for US-Russian peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, lashing out at the European Union’s strategy on the conflict. In a speech in Romania, the 59-year-old ultra-conservative leader also defended his vision of an “unmixed Hungarian race” as he criticised mixing with “non-Europeans.” Orban has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but maintains an ambiguous position on the conflict.
Updated at 00.25 BST
23 Jul 2022 23.50 Two US citizens recently died in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, CNN reported on Saturday, citing a U.S. State Department spokesperson. Reuters reports: The spokesperson, not named in the report, did not provide any details about the individuals or the circumstances of their deaths but said the US administration was in touch with the families and providing “all possible consular assistance,” according to CNN. “Out of respect to the families during this difficult time, we have nothing further to add,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by CNN. The State Department did not respond to emailed queries from Reuters on Saturday. Ukraine has been under siege by Russia for nearly five months in what Moscow calls a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Kyiv and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war. Several Americans have volunteered to fight alongside Ukrainian forces despite warnings not to take up arms. A US citizen was killed in combat in May after he joined thousands of foreign fighters who have volunteered to help Ukraine fend off Russian forces.
23 Jul 2022 23.22 Ukraine’s defence ministry on Saturday urged citizens in Enerhodar, a key area seized by Russia, to reveal where Russian troops were living and who among the local population was collaborating with the occupying authorities. “Please let us know as a matter of urgency the exact location of the occupying troops’ bases and their residential addresses ... and the places of residence of the commanding staff,” it said, adding that exact coordinates were desirable. The statement by the ministry’s defence intelligence directorate was posted on Telegram and was directed towards Enerhodar residents and those around the city, which is home to a major nuclear power station. The statement also asked residents for details “of local collaborators who went over to the side of the enemy,” including where they lived and worked, as well as information about “people who ‘sympathise’ with the occupiers.” Russian forces captured Enerhodar in early March and in May, the Russian-appointed head of the city was injured in an explosion. Russia has identified the explosion as a “terrorist attack.” The intelligence directorate’s appeal also asked for the routes that Russian military equipment was using in Enerhodar. “Together, let’s kick the occupants out of our homeland!” it said, adding people could either provide details via WhatsApp or Signal or by phone calls. Enerhodar had a pre-war population of more than 50,000. Many residents work at the two power plants near the town, one of which is the Zaporizhzhia facility, the largest nuclear power station in Europe.
23 Jul 2022 22.52 The governor of the Zaporizhizhia has said that Russia is keeping 170 people captive in the Zaporizhizhia oblast, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to governor Oleksandr Starukh, Russian forces have abducted at least 415 people in the southern region since February 24 - the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine - and at least 170 individuals are still being kept captive.
23 Jul 2022 22.17 The US Secretary of State has condemned the Russian attack against Odesa, accusing Russia of deepening the global food shortage. In a statement posted on Twitter, Anthony Blinken said, “The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports.” The United States strongly condemns Russia’s attack on the port of Odesa today. It undermines the effort to bring food to the hungry and the credibility of Russia’s commitments to the deal finalized yesterday to allow Ukrainian exports. — Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 23, 2022 Blinken also said that the attack undermines the diplomacy of the UN, Turkey and Ukraine in formulating the deal in attempts to alleviate the growing food crisis around the world. “This attack casts serious doubt on the credibility of Russia’s commitment to yesterday’s deal and undermines the work of the UN, Turkey and Ukraine to get critical food to world markets,” he added. The Secretary of State went on to blame Russia for the global food shortage and said “Russia bears responsibility for deepening the food crisis and must stop its aggression.”
Updated at 22.28 BST
23 Jul 2022 21.32 3.7 million Ukrainian refugees have received temporary protection status in the European Union, according to the UNHCR. In a new report released Friday, the UNHCR cited that 3.7 million Ukrainians have registered for Temporary Protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe. Additionally, the organization cited that there are now nearly six million individual Ukrainian refugees across Europe since the war began in February. In total, nearly one-third of Ukrainians have been forced from their homes since the Russian invasion, making the conflict the “largest human displacement crisis in the world today.”
23 Jul 2022 20.59 Video footage has emerged of a powerful explosion that took place in the Russian-occupied territory of Horlivka on Saturday in the Donetsk Oblast, Euromaidan reports. Emerging reports from outlets have been claiming that Ukrainian armed forces have hit a Russian ammunition depot. A powerful explosion occurred today in the Russian-occupied Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast
As "Novosti Donbasa" reports, the explosion occurred on the territory of the Mashzavod after shelling pic.twitter.com/2ttphj23Ep — Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) July 23, 2022 Massive explosions in the occupied Horlivka again. Reportedly, Ukraine's armed forces have hit a concentration of Russia's equipment pic.twitter.com/qMTC5bbxBI — UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) July 23, 2022
23 Jul 2022 20.18 The former deputy secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council has been suspected of high treason, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to a report released on Saturday by the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigations, Volodymyr Sivkovych is suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence services and managing a network of agents in Ukraine that spied on behalf of Russia. The outlet also reported the bureau saying that Ukraine’s former deputy head of security service in Crimea, Oleh Kulinich, was detained due to him allegedly being part of the same network of spies.
23 Jul 2022 19.38 Germany has delayed defense weapon delivery to Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports. The outlet, sourcing German media organization German Welt, cites that anonymous Ukrainian officials have reported that Ukraine’s application for eleven IRIS-T air missile defense systems is currently being held up by Germany’s Federal Security Council. The council is led by German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who in recent weeks defended his country’s record of delivering weapons to Ukraine, saying that Germany began sending weapons to Ukraine as soon as the war began in February. Germany’s ministry of economy had previously approved of Ukraine’s application for the defense systems and passed the decision onto the Federal Security Council, German Welt reported.
23 Jul 2022 18.43 Hungary’s nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban Saturday called for US-Russian peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, lashing out at the European Union’s strategy on the conflict. Agence France-Presse reports: In a speech in Romania, the 59-year-old ultra-conservative leader also defended his vision of an “unmixed Hungarian race” as he criticised mixing with “non-Europeans.” Orban has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but maintains an ambiguous position on the conflict. Before Moscow sent in troops, he had sought close ties with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. And last week, he said Europe had “shot itself in the lungs” by imposing sanctions against Moscow over the military operation. “We’re sitting in a car with four flat tyres”, he said on Saturday, of efforts to stem the bloodshed. He went on to add, “A new strategy is needed, which should focus on peace negotiations instead of trying to win the war.” Orban said “only Russian-US talks can put an end to the conflict because Russia wants security guarantees” only Washington can give. The EU, he added, “should not side with the Ukrainians, but position itself” between both sides. The sanctions “will not change the situation” and “the Ukrainians will not come out victorious”, he said, adding, “The more the West sends powerful weapons, the more the war drags on.” Orban claimed the “war would never have broken out if Donald Trump were still head of the United States and Angela Merkel were the German Chancellor.” Hi everyone, this is Maya Yang and I’ll be taking over the blog for the next few hours with the latest updates. Stay tuned.
23 Jul 2022 18.05 Three people were killed and 19 others were injured when 13 Russian missiles hit a military airfield and railway infrastructure in Ukraine’s central region of Kirovohrad, the regional governor has said. A soldier and two security guards were among those killed at an electricity substation, Andriy Raikovych said on television. Raikovych said the strikes had disrupted the electricity grid and that one district of the regional capital, Kropyvnytskyi, had been left without power as a result, Reuters reported.
Updated at 18.19 BST
23 Jul 2022 17.40 Miranda Bryant Under the threat of imprisonment and interrogation, and the constant pressure of searches by Russian soldiers, six artists secretly met in a basement studio in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson. In the months after their homes were taken over by Putin’s forces, the artists formed a residency during which they created dozens of works, including drawings, paintings, video, photography, diary entries and stage plays. The results, which they have named Residency in Occupation, offer a harrowing insight into the horrors endured by millions of Ukrainians living under the Russian invasion. Kherson’s secret art society produces searing visions of life under Russian occupation Read more
Updated at 17.43 BST
23 Jul 2022 17.23 Ruth Michaelson Turkey’s defence minister, Hulusi Akar, has said Turkish officials are “concerned” following the Russian missile attack on Odesa, highlighting that the attack occurred a day after a deal to safely export Ukrainian grain was signed in Istanbul. Akar said the Turkish defence ministry spoke to the Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, and infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s signatory for the grain deal yesterday. “We received the necessary information,” said Akar. “There was a missile attack there. They stated that one of the missile attacks hit one of the silos there, and the other one fell in an area close to the silo, but that there was no negativity in the loading capacity and capability of the docks, which is important, and that the activities there can continue.” Akar added that he had also spoken with the Russian side: “In our contact with Russia, the Russians told us that they had absolutely nothing to do with this attack and that they were examining the issue very closely and in detail. “The fact that such an incident occurred right after the agreement we made yesterday regarding the grain shipment really worried us. “However, we continue to fulfil our responsibilities within the agreement we made yesterday, and we also expressed in our meetings that we are in favour of the parties to continue their cooperation calmly and patiently here.” The text of the agreement states that the deal to export the grain from three Ukrainian ports including Odesa should last for a period of 120 days, unless one party officially notifies the others of its intent to pull out. However, it also states that “the parties will not undertake any attacks against merchant vessels and other civilian vessels and port facilities engaged in this initiative”. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has pushed to position Turkey as a key diplomatic partner for both Russia and the west on Ukraine and hosted multiple sets of talks, mentioned the grain deal during a speech to workers in a small central Turkish town, but with no reference to the port attack.
Updated at 17.29 BST
23 Jul 2022 17.06 Oleksandr Chubuk, a Ukrainian farmer, stands on wheat grain in a warehouse in the village of Zghurivka, in Kyiv oblast. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
Updated at 17.17 BST |
2022-05-10T06:00:31Z | China’s pro-Russia propaganda exposed by online activists | A number of Chinese government-linked media outlets and pro-Russia social media accounts are spreading pro-Kremlin sentiment on the Chinese internet by mistranslating or manipulating international news about the war in Ukraine.
In response, online, anonymous volunteers – such as those under the Twitter account Great Translation Movement – have exposed China’s pro-Russia propaganda by highlighting mistranslations that falsely blame Ukrainian troops for bombings and atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces against civilians.
On 21 April, an article published by the Guardian revealed how civilians, who died during the Russian occupation of the Ukrainian city of Bucha, were killed by tiny metal arrows called flechettes, from shells of a type fired by Russian artillery.
However, the South Review, an official state media and subsidiary of the Chinese Communist party, owned by the Guangzhou Daily newspaper group, mistranslated the article, claiming the flechette rounds were fired by Ukrainian forces.
In China's EN-CN dictionary, "Russia" translates into "Ukraine." @guardian @Lorenzo_Tondo, MISTRANSLATION of your article by South Reviews. This is official state media, a subsidiary of the #CCP owned Guangzhou Daily Newspaper Group.#大翻译运动 #TheGreatTranslationMovement pic.twitter.com/pV8vDRbga1 — The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动官方推号 (@TGTM_Official) April 26, 2022
“The UK Guardian published the first postmortem findings of the Bucha incidents: they were caused by Ukraine shelling Bucha,” reads the article from South Review. On Weibo, a military-focused account with more than 4.7 million followers added: “Although the Guardian normally publishes anti-Russian comments, this time the forensic doctor’s report turned out to be the exact opposite.” (When checked by the Guardian on 6 May, the author had since modified this Weibo entry).
The apparently mistranslated article caused much controversy even on China’s heavily monitored social media. Many English-speaking users of Weibo pointed out the mistake. On 27 April, China Fact Check, under the Shanghai-based the Paper news website, clarified and said it was “mistranslation”.
On other occasions, despite Chinese officials preaching a neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine, pro-Russia social media accounts have manipulated the news coming from the Ukrainian front.
For example, on 8 April, in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, two Russian ballistic missiles exploded over the railway station, dropping cluster munitions, killing 59 people and injuring hundreds of passengers.
The same day, a popular military Weibo account with more than 34 million followers falsely claimed the attack was carried out by Ukrainian troops. Towards the end of the entry, the account added a hashtag that suggested US labs in Ukraine were working on eight severely infectious diseases.
‘‘In China’s EN-CN dictionary, Russia translates into Ukraine,” the Great Translation Movement, which has about 150,000 followers, said on Twitter.
Born shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Great Translation Movement – a Twitter account and a related hashtag that identifies itself as “fourth estate” and “holds muck-rake in hand, wears crown from gutter” – has been a source for English-language speakers to understand how state-linked Chinese social media discuss the war in Ukraine.
The decentralised anonymous group is operated by several hundred volunteers around the world. For security reasons, they say, they do not know geographical locations of fellow contributors. But they were glued together by the same mission: contradicting Beijing’s propaganda and naming and shaming those in China who support Putin’s military adventure in his neighbour.
“To put it simply, the context behind everything is the colossal gulf between the different types of messaging that the Chinese government shapes for the rest of the world, versus that of within China,” they said in a written statement.
Debates about Russia’s invasion do exist in China, but on social media, which is heavily monitored, views similar to those in the western media are often met with censorship. Anti-western commentators of the events toe a Kremlin line, blaming Nato and the US for what they call “special military actions”.
Last month, some Chinese pundits went so far as to question whether the killings in Bucha were a “staged performance”. “[A]fter all, Zelenskiy is an actor doing what actors are trained to do,” said a military commentator on Phoenix TV. A month earlier, the same pundit said Russia’s invasion was “in self-defence” in the face of US pressure.
But as the Great Translation Movement began its crusade against pro-Russian misinformation, Chinese state media also launched their own campaign to discredit it. The nationalist tabloid the Global Times, for example, has since March published a number of articles accusing it of being a part of the “anti-China force”. It even compared the account to the anti-communist McCarthyist crusade in 1950s America.
“Such a despicable ‘movement’ has a large potential audience, mostly in the west,” wrote one piece on 31 March. “Some of them are novelty-seeking and feel superior on a cultural level. In light of China’s rapid rise and the west’s decline, these people need an illusional superiority to feel better.” |
2022-07-22T16:41:06Z | Ukraine and Russia sign UN-backed deal to restart grain exports | Ukraine and Russia have signed a UN-backed deal to allow the export of millions of tonnes of grain from blockaded Black Sea ports, potentially averting the threat of a catastrophic global food crisis.
A signing ceremony at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul was attended by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, who had played a key role during months of tense negotiations.
Guterres said in remarks at the ceremony that the deal would open the way to significant volumes of food exports from Ukraine and alleviate a food and economic crisis in the developing world. He said “the beacon of hope was shining bright in the Black Sea” and called on Russia and Ukraine to fully implement the accord.
In Kyiv, there is deep scepticism about Russia’s intentions but Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine was trusting in the UN and Turkey to police the agreement.
The aim of the deal is to secure the passage of grain and essential goods such as sunflower oil from three Ukrainian ports, including Odesa, even as the war continues to rage elsewhere in the country. The UN had warned that the war risked mass malnutrition, hunger and famine.
The arrangement also seeks to guarantee the safe passage of Russian-made fertiliser products, essential for ensuring future high yields on crops, amid efforts to ease a global food crisis provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
UN officials said they hoped preliminary shipments of grain could begin as soon as Saturday, with the hope of reaching prewar levels of export from the three Ukrainian ports – a rate of 5m metric tonnes a month – within weeks.
According to UN officials, under agreements signed by Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and Ukrainian infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov:
A coalition of Turkish, Ukrainian and UN staff will monitor the loading of grain on to vessels in Ukrainian ports before navigating a pre-planned route through the Black Sea, which remains heavily mined by Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Ukrainian pilot vessels will guide commercial vessels transporting the grain in order to navigate the mined areas around the coastline using a map of safe channels provided by the Ukrainian side.
The vessels will then cross the Black Sea towards Turkey’s Bosphorus strait while being closely monitored by a joint coordination centre in Istanbul, containing representatives from the UN, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey.
Ships entering Ukraine will be inspected under the supervision of the same joint coordination centre to ensure they are not carrying weapons or items that could be used to attack the Ukrainian side.
The Russian and Ukrainian sides have agreed to withhold attacks on any of the commercial vessels or ports engaged in the initiative to transport vital grain, while UN and Turkish monitors will be present in Ukrainian ports in order to demarcate areas protected by the accord.
Guterres said brokering such a deal between two warring countries was “unprecedented” and that it would “bring relief for developing countries on the edge of bankruptcy and the most vulnerable people on the edge of famine”.
“And it will help stabilise global food prices, which were already at record levels even before the war – a true nightmare for developing countries,” he added.
“Specifically, the initiative we just signed opens a path for significant volumes of commercial food exports from three key Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea – Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny..”
Kubrakov said the agreement was made possible thanks to the Ukrainian military’s defence of waters off Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. In June, Ukraine pushed Russian forces from Snake Island near Odesa. Ukraine claimed Russia had planned to use the island to launch a land invasion.
The agreement would help boost the Ukrainian economy, he added. “More than 20m tons of grain have been in warehouses since last year,” he said. “If the president’s team did not manage to move this issue from a dead end, Ukrainian farmers would question the very need to sow fields for the next year.”
The agreement is the product of months of constant and difficult negotiations between UN officials, including Guterres, and leading Russian and Ukrainian officials, who first broached the issue in April.
US officials had accused the Russian government of effectively “weaponising food” by taking Ukrainian grain hostage in order to reduce the effects of sanctions on Russian exports. Still, the US and EU have both reassured businesses carrying Russian agricultural goods that they are not violating sanctions ahead of the signing of the deal.
Senior UN officials said prior to the signing of the agreement that demining Ukraine’s coastline had not been seen as a viable option. Ukrainian officials expressed concerns that removing defensive mines from their coastline would increase their vulnerability to Russian attacks.
But the final text contains provisions for a potential minesweeping operation by an agreed party to check that the maritime route for the ships remains safe, as well as a potential search and rescue vessel in the Black Sea.
UN officials emphasised that the deal to prevent attacks only included specific areas in Ukraine’s ports covered by the grain agreement.
They added that they had engaged with the shipping industry and insurers to ensure the commercial costs of insuring the grain shipments does not become punitive, thereby raising the cost of the grain on the international market.
The details were finalised after Erdoğan met Russia’s president, , in Tehran earlier this week, officials in Ankara said. Turkey has the authority over sea traffic entering and leaving the Black Sea.
İbrahim Kalın, a spokesperson for Erdoğan, said the arrangement would be “critical for global grain security”.
Ukraine is the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter but exports have badly stalled since the war began, with about 20m tonnes of grain stuck in silos at Odesa close to the frontline.
The US state department said it welcomed the deal “in principle” and was focused on holding Russia accountable for implementing it.
Putin effectively called the deal a quid-pro-quo earlier this week, saying that Russia would “facilitate the exportation of Ukrainian grain, but we are proceeding from the fact that all restrictions related to … the export of Russian grain will be lifted.”
While Russian grain exports were not sanctioned by the US, some shipping companies have avoided carrying Russian goods because of the financial and reputations risks involved.
Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the deal was “nothing short of life-saving for people across the world who are struggling to feed their families”.
“Nowhere are the consequences felt harder than in communities already affected by armed conflict and climate shocks”, he said. “For example, our market monitoring, over the past six months has seen the price of food staples rise by 187% in Sudan, 86% in Syria 60% in Yemen, 54% in Ethiopia, as compared to the same time period last year.” |
2022-05-08T21:30:12Z | UK expands import sanctions against Russia and Belarus | The UK government has expanded its sanctions against Russia to include punitive import tariffs on Russian precious metals, as well as export bans on certain UK products, to increase economic pressure on Moscow over the invasion of Ukraine.
The third wave of sanctions was announced by the Department for International Trade just hours ahead of Russia’s 9 May Victory Day celebrations, when the country celebrates the end of the second world war with military parades and when President Vladimir Putin is expected to repackage details of the war in Ukraine to citizens.
The latest £1.7bn sanctions on Russia and neighbouring Belarus – which has joined in the invasion of Ukraine and been used as a base for Russian soldiers – are aimed at knocking Putin’s ability to fund his war.
The announcement came shortly after G7 leaders, including Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden, held a video call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a show of unity with the country ahead of the Kremlin’s Victory Day parades.
The new package of restrictions includes £1.4bn of UK import tariffs – border taxes paid by buyers on goods shipped from Russia – that will affect imports of platinum, palladium and other products including chemicals from Russia.
The international trade department said Russia was highly dependent on the UK for exports of the precious metals, which will be subject to additional 35 percentage point tariffs.
The government will also ban the export of more than £250m of goods in sectors where the Russian economy is most dependent on UK products, including key materials like chemicals, plastics, rubber and machinery.
The latest measures, announced by the international trade secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, bring the total value of products subject to full or partial trade sanctions since Russia’s invasion to more than £4bn.
Previous rounds of measures have targeted the energy sector, and have also included an asset freeze on Russia’s largest bank, and sanctions against people and organisations principally involved with information and media.
Trevelyan said: “This far-reaching package of sanctions will inflict further damage on the Russian war machine.
“It is part of a wider coordinated effort by the many countries around the world who are horrified by Russia’s conduct and determined to bring to bear our economic might to persuade Putin to change course.”
Sunak said: “Working closely with our allies, we can and will thwart Putin’s ambitions.” |
2022-06-27T14:23:05Z | Russia defaults on debt for first time since 1998 – reports | Russia is poised to default on its debt for the first time since 1998, further alienating the country from the global financial system after sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine.
The country missed a deadline of Sunday night to meet a 30-day grace period on interest payments of $100m (£81.2m) on two eurobonds originally due on 27 May, Bloomberg reported on Monday morning.
Some Taiwanese holders of Russian eurobonds said on Monday that they had not received interest payments due, two sources told Reuters. Official confirmation of the default was expected to come from international ratings agencies.
Russia’s efforts to avoid the default hit a insurmountable roadblock in late May when the US treasury department’s office of foreign assets control (OFAC) effectively blocked Moscow from making payments.
“Since March we thought that a Russian default is probably inevitable, and the question was just when,” Dennis Hranitzky, the head of sovereign litigation at law firm Quinn Emanuel, told Reuters. “OFAC has intervened to answer that question for us, and the default is now upon us.”
While a formal default would be largely symbolic given Russia cannot borrow internationally at the moment and does not need to thanks to plentiful oil and gas export revenues, the stigma would probably raise its borrowing costs in future.
The Kremlin denied the country was in default, with Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, calling the claims “absolutely unjustified” and saying it was “not our problem” that sanctions had prevented intermediaries from transferring the payments.
Russia has defaulted for first time in a century on $100m in interest payments
Russia has pushed back against the default, saying it has the funds to cover & has been forced into non-payment
Investors can wait & see
A formal default declaration would come from a ratings agency https://t.co/n27uvzPs6I pic.twitter.com/RILrYAQ3Cy — Ayesha Tariq, CFA (@ayeshatariq) June 27, 2022
Russia owes about $40bn in foreign bonds. Before the start of the war, Moscow had about $640bn in foreign currency and gold reserves, much of which was held overseas and is frozen.
Ukraine and some western countries want to use this frozen cash to repair the damage caused by the war and compensate for Kyiv’s losses. Peskov called such an idea “completely illegal and essentially amount to straight-up theft”.
Investors have expected Russia to default for months. Insurance contracts that cover Russian debt have priced a 80% likelihood of default for weeks, and rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s have placed the country’s debt deep into junk territory.
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Once a country defaults, it can be cut off from bond-market borrowing until the default is sorted out and investors regain confidence in the government’s ability and willingness to pay. Russia has already been cut off from western capital markets, so any return to borrowing is a long way off anyway.
The Kremlin can still borrow roubles at home, where it mostly relies on Russian banks to buy its bonds.
Western sanctions over the war have sent foreign companies fleeing from Russia and interrupted the country’s trade and financial ties with the rest of the world. Default would be one more symptom of that isolation and disruption.
Investment analysts are cautiously reckoning that a Russian default would not have the kind of impact on global financial markets and institutions that came from its default in 1998. Back then, Russia’s default on domestic rouble bonds led the US government to step in and get banks to bail out Long-Term Capital Management, a large US hedge fund whose collapse, it was feared, could have shaken the wider financial and banking system. |
2022-06-01T16:31:48Z | Luhansk governor says Russia now controls 70% of Sievierodonetsk | Russian forces now control more than two-thirds of the key eastern Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, conceded that Kyiv’s forces were suffering up to 100 deaths and 500 wounded every day.
With fierce street fighting in Sievierodonetsk, western officials suggested that the city of Sloviansk was the likely next target for a Russian advance that has made gains in the past two weeks, even as the Biden administration in the US announced it was sending advanced rocket systems to Kyiv.
Confirming the latest gains in Sievierodonetsk, a strategically important city in Ukraine’s east, the Luhansk regional governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Wednesday that Russia controlled 70% of the city.
“Unfortunately, today, Russian troops control most of the city,” said Haidai. “Some Ukrainian troops have retreated to more advantageous, pre-prepared positions.”
Haidai also said “quite a few” civilians were sheltering in Soviet-era bomb shelters under a chemical plant in the city, although he said the complex was not likely to become the site of a prolonged siege similar to that of the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol.
Ukraine said on Tuesday that Russian forces had struck a tank containing nitric acid at a Sievierodonetsk chemical plant.
The high levels of attrition on the Ukrainian side, whose defenders have been pounded by Russian shelling, was conceded by Zelenskiy in an interview with the US Newsmax TV channel. “The situation is very difficult; we’re losing 60-100 soldiers per day as killed in action and something around 500 people as wounded in action. So we are holding our defensive perimeters,” he said.
Joe Biden announced the supply of advanced rocket systems, called Himars, and munitions that could strike with precision at long-range Russian targets as part of a $700m (£560m) weapons package expected to be unveiled on Wednesday.
“We have moved quickly to send Ukraine a significant amount of weaponry and ammunition so it can fight on the battlefield and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table,” the US president wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces continued to hit northern, southern and eastern districts of the city of Sievierodonetsk in Luhansk, one of two provinces in the eastern Donbas region that Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.
If Russia captures Sievierodonetsk, and its smaller twin Lysychansk on the higher west bank of the Siverskyi Donets River, it will hold all of Luhansk, a key war aim of Vladimir Putin’s forces.
The update added that Russian forces were regrouping and strengthening their positions in preparation for launching a renewed attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk in Donetsk. Russian forces currently occupy Izium, a city north of Sloviansk.
The expected Ukrainian loss of Sievierdonetsk, however, “is unlikely to be the crux” of Russia’s Donbas campaign, a western official said, adding that the war that could now grind on “to the end of the year” given the slow rate of Moscow’s advance.
The average gain of Russian forces in Popansa south of Sievierdonetsk has “averaged between 500 metres and one kilometre” a day in the last month, the official added, meaning capturing the remainder of the Donetsk region in the Donbas would take months more at least.
Russia would have to achieve “further challenging operational objectives” to declare victory on the Kremlin’s now reduced campaign terms, the official said.
That would require taking the city of Kramatorsk, and more of the M04 main road between the Ukrainian-held city of Dnipro and the Russian-held city of Donetsk, they added, and more rivers would have to be crossed in the process.
“Although we see Russia is starting to learn from its mistakes and make advances in the Donbas, I think it’s important to stress that the battle for Sievierodonetsk is unlikely to be the kind of the crux of the Donetsk campaign” the official said in a briefing.
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The latest fighting in the east came amid predictions from some analysts that Russia may be overstretched in other areas, including around Kherson.
In its daily update, the US-based Institute for the Study of War noted: “Moscow’s concentration on seizing Sievierodonetsk and Donbas generally continues to create vulnerabilities for Russia in Ukraine’s vital Kherson oblast, where Ukrainian counteroffensives continue.
“Kherson is critical terrain because it is the only area of Ukraine in which Russian forces hold ground on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
“If Russia is able to retain a strong lodgement in Kherson when fighting stops, it will be in a very strong position from which to launch a future invasion. If Ukraine regains Kherson, on the other hand, Ukraine will be in a much stronger position to defend itself against future Russian attack.”
However, a recent limited Ukrainian counteroffensive around Kherson appears to have had only limited success so far. An official in southern Ukraine said Russian troops were retreating and blowing up bridges to obstruct a possible Ukrainian advance.
Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Tuesday that Ukrainian fighters had seen “some success in the Kherson direction”.
Russia is concentrating most of its military power on trying to capture all of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Franz-Stefan Gady, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, also cautioned over how much impact the newly announced US rocket systems might have on the balance of the fighting and how quickly they could be effectively deployed.
We have an incomplete picture of the current combat status of the Ukrainian armed forces. I would be cautious when attempting to assess how quickly 🇺🇦 would be able to integrate new platforms/weapons systems to increase combat effectiveness in a larger-scale counteroffensive. — Franz-Stefan Gady (@HoansSolo) June 1, 2022
Writing on Twitter he said: “We have an incomplete picture of the current combat status of the Ukrainian armed forces. I would be cautious when attempting to assess how quickly Ukraine would be able to integrate new platforms/weapons systems to increase combat effectiveness in a larger-scale counteroffensive.
“Combined arms manoeuvre is a complex undertaking. What you don’t want is rushing undertrained brigades into combat. Knowing how to rudimentary use and do simple repairs on a weapon system is merely the first step and does not indicate how effective units will be in actual combat.” |
2022-07-20T09:50:44Z | Erdoğan asks Russia and Iran to back Turkey’s incursion into Syria | The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has used trilateral talks with his Iranian and Russian counterparts in Tehran to make the case for a further Turkish incursion into north-western Syria.
Erdoğan cited Kurdish forces in Tel Rifaat and Manbij, two towns in north-west Syria where Russian and Iranian forces are present, as justification for Turkey extending its zone of control in the country. “What we expect from Iran and Russia is to support Turkey in its fight against terrorist organisations,” he told a press conference following the meeting.
The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Erdoğan against a further invasion during talks at his office, stating that “a military incursion of Syria will benefit terrorists”.
The visit to Tehran provided Erdoğan with an opportunity to reaffirm ties to both Tehran and Moscow, along with plentiful opportunities to court Moscow’s cooperation on key issues.
Putin and Erdoğan greeted each other warmly at the start of their bilateral talks, despite a brief moment where the Turkish leader kept his counterpart waiting. The talks provided an opportunity for Erdoğan to secure Moscow’s backing for a tentative agreement to evacuate grain across the Black Sea with a control centre in Istanbul, with UN-backed talks expected to continue in Istanbul this week.
“With your mediation, we have moved forward. True, not all issues have yet been resolved, but the fact that there is movement is already good,” Putin told Erdoğan. The Turkish president later referred to his counterpart as “my dear friend Putin” during a roundtable discussion on Syria.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Turkish authorities have insisted on balancing the country’s Nato membership with its longstanding relationship with Moscow.
Turkey has hosted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and sold Ukraine armed drones for use against Russian forces. Haluk Bayraktar, who heads the company manufacturing the TB2 drones used in Ukraine, told CNN shortly before Erdoğan arrived in Tehran that his company would never sell drones to Russia, as “we support Ukraine, its sovereignty and its resistance”.
But Turkey has declined to join sanctions against Russia, stepped up its purchases of Russian oil since the invasion, and continues to push ahead with construction of a nuclear power plant by the Russian state company Rosatom, under threat due to western sanctions on Sberbank, a major backer of the project.
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“Russia can’t afford not to engage with Turkey. They want a relationship with Turkey as a Nato ally – that wouldn’t change even if Putin and Erdoğan step aside tomorrow,” said Hanna Notte, an analyst at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. “But the fact they deal so efficiently and closely on issues, that you can put down to the Putin-Erdoğan rapport,” she added, saying the leaders share elements of anti-western sentiment that has fuelled a longstanding personal relationship.
“They share a view of the world as multipolar, where countries outside of the west should have a say on how things are run.”
Yet Erdoğan’s approach to foreign policy rests on showing that Turkey acts independently, putting its interests first. This aids his appeal to a domestic audience ahead of an election expected in the coming year, where Erdoğan faces increasing opposition.
Despite previously lifting objections to Finland and Sweden joining Nato and securing the lifting of some weapons sales in the process, Erdoğan this week repeated threats to “freeze” their accession if Turkish demands aren’t met. At a Nato summit in Madrid in late June, Erdoğan’s tactics secured him a meeting with the US president, Joe Biden, who stated his support for sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, despite ongoing opposition from Congress.
Last week, the Turkish president leaned on Putin during a phone call in which he pressed for Russian agreement on the UN security council’s cross-border aid mechanism providing vital aid to more than 2 million Syrians in rebel-held areas in the north-west, blunting Russian threats to veto the aid renewal altogether.
“There’s all this leverage building up because of Ukraine and all these crises at once; it would be surprising if Erdoğan doesn’t try to squeeze something out of this moment, as this is what he does,” said Aron Lund, of the Washington-based thinktank the Century Foundation.
“Under Erdoğan, especially in the latter half of his rule, Turkey is always stirring up crises and then getting something in return for stopping them. That’s been the modus operandi all along,” said Lund.
“It damages Turkey’s standing in a lot of countries. We witnessed a severe lack of appreciation for this in Congress and in the EU parliament, for example. But Erdoğan doesn’t care, or doesn’t seem to. He can show off the results to aid public opinion and he benefits domestically – plus Turkey benefits in real foreign policy terms, they do get results,” he said. |
2022-06-25T16:14:29Z | Russia pushes to block off city of Lysychansk, says Ukraine | Russian forces are trying to cut off the strategic twin city of Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine, having reduced Sievierodonetsk to rubble.
Lysychansk is set to become the next main focus of fighting, as Moscow has launched massive artillery bombardments and airstrikes on areas far from the heart of the eastern battles.
According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, Russian troops entered Lysychansk, the last city held by Kyiv in Luhansk province, on Saturday after Ukrainian forces were ordered to withdraw from Sievierodonetsk.
If Lysychansk falls, the entire region of Luhansk, which along with Donetsk makes up the eastern Donbas region, could fall under Russian control, marking another strategic breakthrough for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, since the beginning of the invasion.
“The people’s militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Russian army have entered the city of Lysychansk,” Andrei Marochko, a representative for pro-Russian separatists, said on Telegram. “Street fighting is currently taking place,” he added.
The claim could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side.
However, Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk province, said on Facebook that Russian and separatist fighters were trying to blockade Lysychansk from the south.
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Haidai said the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk and the villages of Synetsky and Pavlograd, and others, were shelled, but made no mention of casualties.
Vitaly Kiselev, an interior ministry official of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, which is recognised only by Russia, told the Tass news agency it would take another week and a half to secure full control of Lysychansk.
About 95% of Luhansk is already under the control of Russian troops while about half of Donetsk is also occupied by Moscow’s forces.
In a separate development on Saturday, 20 rockets “fired from the territory of Belarus and from the air” targeted the village of Desna in the northern Chernihiv region, Ukraine’s northern military command said.
The command added that infrastructures were hit, but no casualties had yet been reported.
Although it is officially not involved in the conflict, Belarus has provided logistic support to Moscow since the beginning of the invasion.
“Today’s strike is directly linked to Kremlin efforts to pull Belarus as a co-belligerent into the war in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian intelligence service said.
The attack came before a planned meeting between Putin and his Belarussian counterpart and close ally, Alexander Lukashenko, in St Petersburg on Saturday.
Meanwhile, four Russian rockets hit a “military object” in Yaroviv, the Lviv regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said. He did not give further details of the target, but, according to the Associated Press, Yaroviv has a sizable military base used for training fighters, including foreigners who have volunteered to fight for Ukraine.
Although far from the frontlines, the Lviv region, described as the soul of Ukraine and a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism, has come under fire at various points in the war.
During what has been described as the most difficult moment for Ukrainian troops since the beginning of the invasion, Kyiv pressed for more weapons again on Friday. Its top general, Valeriy Zaluzhny, told his US counterpart in a phone call that Kyiv needed “fire parity” with Moscow to stabilise the situation in Luhansk.
AFP, Associated Press And Reuters contributed to this report |
2022-07-20T09:50:44Z | Erdoğan asks Russia and Iran to back Turkey’s incursion into Syria | The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has used trilateral talks with his Iranian and Russian counterparts in Tehran to make the case for a further Turkish incursion into north-western Syria.
Erdoğan cited Kurdish forces in Tel Rifaat and Manbij, two towns in north-west Syria where Russian and Iranian forces are present, as justification for Turkey extending its zone of control in the country. “What we expect from Iran and Russia is to support Turkey in its fight against terrorist organisations,” he told a press conference following the meeting.
The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Erdoğan against a further invasion during talks at his office, stating that “a military incursion of Syria will benefit terrorists”.
The visit to Tehran provided Erdoğan with an opportunity to reaffirm ties to both Tehran and Moscow, along with plentiful opportunities to court Moscow’s cooperation on key issues.
Putin and Erdoğan greeted each other warmly at the start of their bilateral talks, despite a brief moment where the Turkish leader kept his counterpart waiting. The talks provided an opportunity for Erdoğan to secure Moscow’s backing for a tentative agreement to evacuate grain across the Black Sea with a control centre in Istanbul, with UN-backed talks expected to continue in Istanbul this week.
“With your mediation, we have moved forward. True, not all issues have yet been resolved, but the fact that there is movement is already good,” Putin told Erdoğan. The Turkish president later referred to his counterpart as “my dear friend Putin” during a roundtable discussion on Syria.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Turkish authorities have insisted on balancing the country’s Nato membership with its longstanding relationship with Moscow.
Turkey has hosted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and sold Ukraine armed drones for use against Russian forces. Haluk Bayraktar, who heads the company manufacturing the TB2 drones used in Ukraine, told CNN shortly before Erdoğan arrived in Tehran that his company would never sell drones to Russia, as “we support Ukraine, its sovereignty and its resistance”.
But Turkey has declined to join sanctions against Russia, stepped up its purchases of Russian oil since the invasion, and continues to push ahead with construction of a nuclear power plant by the Russian state company Rosatom, under threat due to western sanctions on Sberbank, a major backer of the project.
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“Russia can’t afford not to engage with Turkey. They want a relationship with Turkey as a Nato ally – that wouldn’t change even if Putin and Erdoğan step aside tomorrow,” said Hanna Notte, an analyst at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. “But the fact they deal so efficiently and closely on issues, that you can put down to the Putin-Erdoğan rapport,” she added, saying the leaders share elements of anti-western sentiment that has fuelled a longstanding personal relationship.
“They share a view of the world as multipolar, where countries outside of the west should have a say on how things are run.”
Yet Erdoğan’s approach to foreign policy rests on showing that Turkey acts independently, putting its interests first. This aids his appeal to a domestic audience ahead of an election expected in the coming year, where Erdoğan faces increasing opposition.
Despite previously lifting objections to Finland and Sweden joining Nato and securing the lifting of some weapons sales in the process, Erdoğan this week repeated threats to “freeze” their accession if Turkish demands aren’t met. At a Nato summit in Madrid in late June, Erdoğan’s tactics secured him a meeting with the US president, Joe Biden, who stated his support for sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, despite ongoing opposition from Congress.
Last week, the Turkish president leaned on Putin during a phone call in which he pressed for Russian agreement on the UN security council’s cross-border aid mechanism providing vital aid to more than 2 million Syrians in rebel-held areas in the north-west, blunting Russian threats to veto the aid renewal altogether.
“There’s all this leverage building up because of Ukraine and all these crises at once; it would be surprising if Erdoğan doesn’t try to squeeze something out of this moment, as this is what he does,” said Aron Lund, of the Washington-based thinktank the Century Foundation.
“Under Erdoğan, especially in the latter half of his rule, Turkey is always stirring up crises and then getting something in return for stopping them. That’s been the modus operandi all along,” said Lund.
“It damages Turkey’s standing in a lot of countries. We witnessed a severe lack of appreciation for this in Congress and in the EU parliament, for example. But Erdoğan doesn’t care, or doesn’t seem to. He can show off the results to aid public opinion and he benefits domestically – plus Turkey benefits in real foreign policy terms, they do get results,” he said. |
2022-05-31T09:51:07Z | Mongolia under pressure to align with Russia and China | Mongolia, a squeezed outpost of democracy in north-east Asia, is under renewed pressure from its authoritarian neighbours, Russia and China, to shed its independence and form a triangle of anti-western cooperation in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
The country is doggedly pursuing a path of neutrality, coupled with a policy of economic diversification designed to keep its unique culture and still relatively recent independence alive, according to Nomin Chinbat, its culture secretary.
A Soviet satellite state until 1990, and heavily dependent on China as a market and conduit for its copper and coal exports, Mongolia has to tread carefully. It is three times the size of France but has a population of only 3.5 million, half of whom live in the capital, Ulaanbaatar.
So far it has dodged a definitive position on Ukraine by abstaining in major UN votes. However, its governing Mongolian People’s party is attending briefings given by United Russia, the biggest party in Russia – which has been interpreted in Russia as support for the war.
Doubtless all this is a disappointment to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, who spent four of his childhood years in the Mongolian town of Erdenet as the son of a Soviet mining specialist.
Nomin Chinbat and US deputy secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, visit the Choijin Lama Temple Museum in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, July 2021. Photograph: Byamba-Ochir Byambasuren/EPA
Chinbat, a graduate of the University of East Anglia, is a model of diplomacy when she points out the term ambassador was invented in Mongolia. “Abstaining was a decision that our country had to make because of our geopolitical location,” she said. “We have had very healthy and manageable relationships with our two neighbours, but we also have a third neighbour policy that allows us to develop a multi-pillar international relationships with other countries.
“We have survived where we are, and our sovereignty has been respected by our neighbours. But democracy is what will keep us developing further.”
Chinbat, who has been tasked with attracting foreign investment to her country – whether from film-makers, industrialists or tourists – said there had been a generational shift among Mongolians, over 60% of whom are under 35. The outlook of younger people, she said, is less defined by relations with the country’s neighbours and more by Mongolia’s own development.
Nevertheless, if there is a prolonged war Mongolia’s ultimate political orientation may once again be up for grabs, especially if China and Russia genuinely form the long-discussed anti-western alliance, making it harder for Mongolia to play its two powerful neighbours off one another.
One path for the country is to form the third part of a Russian-Chinese triangle, largely becoming a transport hub between the two superpowers, and supplier of raw materials, while the other option is to try to acknowledge the two countries’ economic importance, while exploiting Mongolia’s own mineral resources to diversify the economy and modernise. The visit in May of the UK Asia minister, Amanda Milling, is a sign that Britain and the US will try to coax it along the latter course.
Nomin Chinbat. Photograph: World Economic Forum
Some claim Mongolia in reality has already chosen the Sino-Russian option, since four days after the invasion it signed a memorandum of understanding to press ahead with the long-planned trans-Mongolian gas pipeline deal. This pipeline would increase Mongolia’s dependence on Russia by taking gas from Siberia’s Yamal fields and allowing Russia to transport gas originally destined for Europe to find a new market in China.
As a landlocked country, its vulnerability to China has been exposed by the prolonged Chinese border closures caused by Covid, slowing a planned rise in Mongolian energy exports to Chinese ports due to be enabled by a network of new freight lines that will cut journey times by a third.
Chinbat said the government had invested heavily in a wider economic policy of privatisation, tourism, climate and rural development policies, which will allow it to diversify its economy over the next 20 years. The plan needs to succeed: in April, young people took to the streets to protest against the impact of inflation on their lives.
Once in charge of one of her country’s largest independent broadcasters, Chinbat said Mongolia would not backslide from democracy. “We have free media and democracy. It is one of the beauties of Mongolia: that we have this ability to have so much different media, from black and white to middle ground.”
Chinbat acknowledged that Mongolia’s culture of ubiquitous citizen journalists operating in a society that is not particularly media literate could be frustrating, but said: “Media should be challenging – that is what I fought for in my period in the media industry. Democracy and freedom of speech keeps our society lively and upright.”
A bigger problem Chinbat identified was keeping younger people committed to the nomadic lifestyle, when parents sometimes want to send their children to be educated in the city.
Chinbat said that at the heart of the nomad mentality was a respect for nature, a skill to survive in extreme weathers and a neighbourliness that means doors are left open in case herdsmen get lost. Mongolian politicians will require all that tact and resourcefulness in the years ahead. |
2022-06-23T15:57:05Z | Germany moves closer to gas rationing as Russia chokes supplies | Germany has moved one step closer to gas rationing, after the country’s economic ministry on Thursday warned of a high risk of long-term supply shortages due to Russia systematically choking off gas deliveries.
Economy minister Robert Habeck announced the second of three energy emergency plan phases, which enables utility firms to pass on high gas prices to customers and thereby help to lower demand.
The ministry said the reason for the warning was a reduction in Russian gas deliveries since 14 June amid continued high prices on the gas market. Should Russian gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline continue to remain at the low level of 40%, the ministry said in a statement, “a storage target of 90% by December cannot be reached without additional measures”.
Habeck said there would “hopefully never” be a need to ration gas, but added: “Of course, I cannot rule it out. The plan was to making savings, expand infrastructure and switch to alternative sources of energy during the hot summer months to avert a rationing scenario in the winter.
Germany’s plans to replenish its gas reserves face another obstacle next month, when the Nord Stream 1 pipeline is closed for its annual inspection on 11 July and will be unable to carry any gas. The inspection usually lasts around 10 days, but Habeck indicated concerns that Russia’s president could use the opportunity to stop deliveries completely under some technical pretext.
“There’s no point pretending – the throttling of gas deliveries amounts to an economic attack on us by Putin,” the minister for economic and energy affairs said. “Putin’s strategy is blatantly to stir insecurity, to drive up prices and to drive a wedge through our society.
“Even if it doesn’t feel like it yet, we are in a gas crisis,” he added. “From now on, gas is going to be a scarce good.”
The Green party politician said the current crisis was also a result of preceding German governments having allowed themselves to become too reliant on Russian gas and not sufficiently diversified its energy sources.
“That is now coming back to haunt us and must be rectified at great speed,” Habeck said at a press conference on Thursday morning.
Germany has been racing to fill its gas storage facilities in time for the winter, as Europe’s largest economy scrambles to wean itself off Russian energy supplies in the face of a possible European embargo or a potential decision by Moscow to completely cut off supplies.
In a move controversial with the Green party’s voter base, the German government is planning to build two new liquified natural gas terminals on the North Sea coast and restart some coal-fired power plants that were due to be phased out.
On 14 June, Gazprom announced it was reducing deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline by 40%, citing delayed repairs of technical parts by German company Siemens. Habeck said on Thursday the technical reasons given were “only a pretext”.
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The economic minister rallied German industry leaders around his emergency plans on Tuesday, warning them that large companies could face not just days but months of gas shortages in the coming winter.
“If the plan works out, the storage units will be full in winter,” he said at a meeting of German DAX companies in Berlin. “There is a certain degree of hope that we can manage this. But make no mistake, we are not there yet, the units are only at 60%.” |
2022-05-02T20:49:41Z | Israel summons Russia envoy over minister’s Hitler comments | Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology over remarks by the Kremlin foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood” and that the “most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews”.
The remarks were part of Lavrov’s defence of Russia’s policy of “denazification” in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s term for a sweeping purge that Ukraine says is a pretext for “mass murder.”
In an interview with Italian TV, Lavrov was asked to address how Russia could say it needed to “denazify” the country when its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is Jewish.
“As to [Zelenskiy’s] argument of what kind of nazification can we have if I’m Jewish, if I remember correctly, and I may be wrong, Hitler also had Jewish blood,” Lavrov said during an interview with Italian television channel Mediaset. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“We have for a long time listened to the wise Jewish people who say that the most rabid antisemites tend to be Jews,” Lavrov continued. “There is no family without a monster.”
The remarks have sparked a diplomatic row with Israel, one of the few western countries that has yet to impose sanctions on Russia over its invasion and has not provided military aid to Ukraine.
“His words are untrue and their intentions are wrong,” said the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett. “Using the Holocaust of the Jewish people as a political tool must cease immediately.”
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, said Israel made “every effort” to have good relations with Russia “but there is a limit and this limit has been crossed this time. The government of Russia needs to apologise to us and the Jewish people.”
He said: “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error. Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.”
Israeli officials confirmed Russia’s ambassador, Anatoly Viktorov, had been summoned to the foreign ministry and Israel had “stated its position”.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Lavrov’s comments showed that Moscow has forgotten, or never learned, the lessons of the second world war.
“No one has heard any denial or any justification from Moscow. All we have from there is silence … this means that the Russian leadership has forgotten all the lessons of world war two,” he said. “Or perhaps they have never learned those lessons.”
World leaders also condemned the remarks, which the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, described as “obscene” and Canada’s Justin Trudeau said were “ridiculous and unacceptable.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, called Lavrov’s statement “antisemitic” and said that it was “further evidence that Russia is the legal successor of Nazi ideology”.
“Trying to rewrite history, Moscow is simply looking for arguments to justify the mass murders of Ukrainians,” he said.
Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, also condemned Lavrov’s remarks as “absurd, delusional, dangerous and deserving of condemnation”.
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The organisation in March had also attacked Zelenskiy for comparing Russia’s intentions in Ukraine to the Holocaust.
Lavrov has addressed Zelenskiy’s religion in the past as Moscow has been pressed to explain how it can “denazify” a country with a Jewish leader. In March, shortly after Russia began its war in Ukraine, Lavrov told US broadcaster ABC News: “I think the Nazis and neo-Nazis manipulate [Zelenskiy].”
In his interview this week, Lavrov also said he did not want Ukraine to surrender but simply that it “stop resisting”.
“We don’t demand that [Zelenskiy] surrender,” Lavrov said. “We demand that he give the order to release all civilians and stop resisting. Our goal does not include regime change in Ukraine.”
Italy’s Mediaset TV channel also came under fire for giving space to Lavrov, with Enrico Letta, the leader of the centre-left Democratic party, describing the exclusive interview on the current affairs programme Zona bianca as “a propaganda advert”.
Laura Garavani, a senator with the small Italia Via party, said the interview, conducted by Giuseppe Brindisi, “was an offensive spectacle for a democracy like ours. The network acted as a sounding board for Russian propaganda by letting Lavrov speak undisturbed, denying the crimes he is committing without any cross-examination”.
Ruth Dureghello, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, said Lavrov’s statements were “delusional and dangerous”, and that their most serious aspect was that they were made “on Italian television, without any cross-examination and without the presenter opposing the lies that were uttered”. “This is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to pass by in silence,” she added. |
2022-06-21T11:43:38Z | Eastern Donbas ‘extremely difficult’ for Ukrainians as Russia intensifies attacks | The military situation for Ukraine’s defenders in the eastern Donbas is “extremely difficult”, the governor of the Luhansk region has said, as Russian attacks intensified in an effort to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.
Serhiy Haidai said overnight that Russia had said 568 civilians were holed up in the Azot chemical plant at Sievierodonetsk, the last site held by Ukraine’s forces in the city on the east bank of the Siverskyi Donets River.
“It is a sheer catastrophe,” he told the Associated Press. “Our positions are being fired at from howitzers, multiple rocket launchers, large-caliber artillery, missile strikes.”
Neighbouring Lysychansk on the west bank was being shelled “en masse”, Haidai added, while analysts warned of a nearby Russian breakthrough that meant the invaders’ forces were four miles (7km) south-east of the city.
A police station in the city took a “direct hit”, wounding 20 officers, according to special forces colonel Oleksandr Kutsepalenko, and the residential neighbourhood around it was marked with craters from shelling and airstrikes.
The Ukrainian president’s office said that at least six civilians had been killed in the previous 24 hours, and 16 others were wounded. It said Russian forces has shelled the northern Chernihiv region, and intensified their shelling of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Explosions had also occurred on Tuesday morning in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst, said the situation in Lysychansk looked “increasingly bleak for Ukrainians” after Russians broke defence lines near the villages of Toshkivka and Ustynivka to its south.
Haidai acknowledged that “the situation along the entire Luhansk front is extremely difficult” in an earlier posting on his Telegram channel, saying Russia was launching “a large-scale offensive” using reserve forces.
Rodion Miroshnik, the ambassador to Russia of the self-proclaimed republic in Luhansk, said its forces were “moving from the south towards Lysychansk” and predicted an imminent victory.
Capturing Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk would hand Russia almost all Luhansk oblast, one of the two regions of the Donbas. Moscow’s goal may be to demonstrate to the west it can achieve a military victory before the EU, G7 and Nato summits that starting on Thursday this week.
Previously, Volodymyr Zelenskiy had predicted Russia would step up attacks before the EU summit. Overnight he added: “Russia is very nervous about our activity. We are defending Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk. This whole region is the most difficult, there are the hardest battles.”
Muzyka said Ukraine should have withdrawn from Sievierodonetsk some time ago and focused on the defence of Lysychansk, which sits at a higher elevation to its near neighbour and is in theory easier to protect. But the flanking advance across the river from the south-east now threatens it.
00:38 Drone footage shows artillery strikes on Ukrainian town since captured by Russia – video
The two sides have been engaged in an increasingly intense struggle over the past six weeks for Sievierodonetsk, with thousands of casualties. Ukraine has almost certainly suffered most in the face of a protracted artillery bombardment by the Russians that has destroyed dozens of buildings.
Ukrainian forces meanwhile claimed their first successful use of western-donated Harpoon anti-ship missiles to engage Russian forces, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday. “The target of the attack was almost certainly the Russian naval tug Spasatel Vasily Bekh, which was delivering weapons and personnel to Snake Island in the north-western Black Sea,” it said in its daily update.
Kyiv’s defence ministry also said it had “finally” deployed an advanced German artillery system after all seven howitzers promised by Berlin arrived. “Panzerhaubitze 2000 are finally part of 155 mm howitzer arsenal of the Ukrainian artillery,” Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on social media, thanking his German counterpart, Christine Lambrecht.
Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said that Russia would further strengthen its armed forces as a result of “potential military threats”, in a speech to a group of graduates of Russian military academies.
“We will continue to develop and strengthen our armed forces, taking into account potential military threats and risks,” he said. Putin added that the Russian army was being supplied with the S-500 surface-to-air missile system and said that Russia would this year deploy the newly tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of more than 10 nuclear warheads.
Russia’s defence ministry said Russian television was now broadcasting across the entire occupied Kherson region in the south, captured by the invaders in the first week of the war.
It is the latest step in a forced Russification of the occupied areas of Ukraine, where Russia has tried to issue passports, introduce the rouble, ask teachers to switch curriculums and other measures.
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Two US volunteer soldiers captured in fighting north of Kharkiv a fortnight ago have been filmed by Russian television at a detention facility in the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk, some distance from where they were taken.
Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, both from Alabama, had been fighting as part of the Ukrainian army. The US state department said it was aware of the film and was “closely monitoring”.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in an interview released by NBC News that the men “should be held responsible for those crimes that they have committed” and were not covered by the Geneva conventions protecting prisoners of war.
Three other foreign fighters, the Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and the Moroccan Brahim Saadoun, were sentenced to death by a court in Donetsk earlier this month, although they have time to appeal. Russia does not carry out the death penalty but the separatist republic, unrecognised by the west, does. |
2022-06-22T14:32:36Z | Russia bears down on Lysychansk, targeting police and judicial buildings | Sievierodonetsk and its neighbouring city, Lysychansk, continue to be battered by intense Russian shelling as Moscow edges closer to seizing the last pocket of resistance in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.
Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Wednesday that Russian forces were moving towards Lysychansk, targeting the buildings of police, state security and prosecutors.
“Lysychansk is constantly suffering from enemy fire … Massive shelling significantly destroyed infrastructure and housing,” Haidai said in a post on Telegram
Sievierodonetsk is also shelled “every day”, he added.
Ukrainian officials have said that the coming days will be decisive in Russia’s efforts to take Sievierodonetsk, as fears in Kyiv grow that Russian advances could envelop the entire region.
Russia is now believed to control all of Sievierodonetsk with the exception of the Azot chemical plant, where about 500 Ukrainian citizens and an unknown number of Ukrainian troops are hiding.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Tuesday evening that Russian forces could soon cut off Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk from Ukrainian-held territory.
“The threat of a tactical Russian victory is there, but they haven’t done it yet,” he said in an online video.
Russia has been aiming to capture Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk for months, bombing much of the area’s civilian infrastructure in the process.
Control of the two cities would give Moscow command of the entire Luhansk region and allow its forces to focus on the neighbouring Donetsk region. Luhansk and Donetsk provinces combined are known as the Donbas.
During his nightly video address on Tuesday, Zelenskiy admitted that the military situation in Luhansk was very difficult as Russia stepped up an effort to drive Ukrainian troops from key areas.
“That is really the toughest spot. The occupiers are pressing strongly,” he said.
In its latest intelligence briefing, Britain’s defence ministry said that Russia was “highly likely preparing to attempt to deploy a large number of reserve units to the Donbas”, in a push to make further gains in the region. Britain further said that pro-Russian separatists were experiencing “extraordinary attrition” in the Donbas.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia resumed its shelling of Kharkiv, the country’s second-biggest city, on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, Oleh Synegubov, the regional governor, said that at least 15 civilians were killed in the Kharkiv region as a result of Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
The city, which was returning to normal life after Ukraine pushed back Russian forces, experienced some of the worst Russian shelling to date in the last week, as worries grow in Kyiv that Russia is mounting another attack on the city.
Ukrainian military on Wednesday provided more detail about Monday’s attack on Snake Island, saying it had destroyed a Russian air defence system, radar installation and vehicles on the strategically important Russian-controlled Black Sea island.
Russia’s defence ministry said it prevented the Ukrainian attack, which Moscow claimed was meant to land Ukrainian soldiers on the island.
“The unsuccessful fire attack forced the enemy to abandon the landing on Snake Island,” the Russian military said in a statement.
Satellite images provided by US-based Maxar Technologies showed an overview of Snake Island on Tuesday, with damage visible to the tower on the southern end of the island and burned vegetation in several places.
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Meanwhile, Ukraine was accused on Wednesday of using two drones to hit a major Russian oil refinery in the Rostov region, near the border with Ukraine.
“As a result of terrorist actions from the western border of the Rostov region, two unmanned aerial vehicles struck at the technological facilities of Novoshakhtinsk,” representatives of the plant said in a statement.
Social media footage on Wednesday morning showed a drone flying towards the refinery, located just five miles from the border with Ukraine, before a fire explosion erupts from it.
Pro-Russian separatists also accused “Ukrainian saboteurs” of staging a “failed assassination” on the Moscow-appointed head of a town outside Kherson, a Black Sea port city occupied by Russia.
The Russian state agency TASS, citing local security services, said that the head of the town of Chernobaevka, Yuri Turulev, was lightly injured as a result of a car bomb attack.
The extent of partisan warfare in Kherson is difficult to measure, with little information trickling out of the occupied region, but several attacks have recently been reported in Kherson on Russian soldiers as well as Ukrainian officials who switched sides to collaborate with the Russians. |
2022-06-19T11:18:10Z | Russia-Ukraine war could last for years, say western leaders | Western leaders have said the war in Ukraine could last for years and will require long-term military support as Russia brought forward reserve forces in an apparent attempt to capture the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk.
“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years,” Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in an interview with the German newspaper Bild on Sunday. “We must not let up in supporting Ukraine.”
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, echoed Stoltenberg’s comments. “I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war,” he said, adding that it was necessary “to enlist time on Ukraine’s side”.
It came as the new head of the British army said British troops must prepare “to fight in Europe once again”. “There is now a burning imperative to forge an army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle,” Gen Sir Patrick Sanders said, writing to his charges about the challenges they face.
The statements suggest the west believes Ukraine cannot achieve a rapid military breakthrough despite the anticipated arrival of fresh Nato-standard arms, while officials in the country have continued to call for rapid help.
Ukraine’s forces remain on the defensive in the eastern Donbas region, where fighting continues in Sievierodonestsk. Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, said Russia was massing forces in an attempt to take full control of the city after weeks of fighting.
“Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, they will throw in all the reserves they have … Because there are so many of them there already, they’re at critical mass,” Haidai told Ukrainian television.
Russia already controls most of Sievierodonetsk, Haidai said on Sunday morning, and if Ukrainian forces lose the city, fighting is expected to focus on neighbouring Lysychansk, from which 32 residents have been evacuated over the weekend despite heavy shelling.
Russia’s defence ministry also said its Iskander missiles had destroyed weaponry supplied by the west in the Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, north-west of Luhansk. A Ukrainian interior ministry official said Russian forces were trying to approach Kharkiv, which experienced intense shelling earlier in the war, and turn it into a “frontline city”.
Smoke and flames rise from the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk after a Russian bombardment on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters
The UK’s Ministry of Defence said in a morning update that the intense fighting meant combat units from both sides were “likely experiencing variable morale”, a rare acknowledgment of the pressures faced on both sides.
“Ukrainian forces have likely suffered desertions in recent weeks. However, Russian morale highly likely remains especially troubled. Cases of whole Russian units refusing orders and armed standoffs between officers and their troops continue to occur,” the ministry said on Twitter.
Ukraine has been calling for a large influx of western weaponry so that it can try to push back the Russian invaders, but what has been offered so far is less than Kyiv has requested. The US, UK and Germany have promised to send 10 rocket artillery systems, but Ukrainian advisers have called for 60 or even 300.
One Ukrainian official said that helping the country win a quick victory would be a saving in the long term. Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, said: “We need these weapons because winter is coming,” adding that the country would face greater economic costs if the war dragged on.
The problems could extend beyond Ukraine, he said, arguing that Europe could face another wave of immigrants from African and Middle Eastern countries previously reliant on grain exports from Ukraine if the war continued to disrupt maritime exports.
Stoltenberg said the price of long-term support for Ukraine was justified, despite the cost of military equipment and rising energy and food prices, because the west would pay a much higher price if Vladimir Putin were to succeed and Russian forces occupied large parts of Ukraine.
Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times, said the supply of weapons had to continue, and that it would be necessary to “preserve the viability of the Ukrainian state” by providing financial support “to pay wages, run schools, deliver aid and begin reconstruction”.
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The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, conceded in an interview that his country had “concentrated our energy supply too much on Russia” to the point that it was not possible to change course “if the worst came to the worst”. But he defended his predecessor Angela Merkel’s policy of seeking good relations with Moscow.
Germany’s minister for economic affairs and climate action, Robert Habeck, said coal-fired power plants would have to be used more as an emergency measure to offset falls in the supply of Russian gas. Bringing back coal-fired power plants was “painful, but it is a sheer necessity”, he said.
City mayors and regional governors in Ukraine say that in most cases they already face funding shortfalls and there is no money to repair infrastructure and buildings damaged in places such as Borodianka, north-west of Kyiv because government spending is focused on the war effort.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the south-western frontline at Mykolaiv and the nearby city of Odesa on Saturday. He insisted after his visit that Ukraine would not cede any of the occupied territories in the south of the country to Russia, which occupies the bulk of the country’s coastal areas.
“We will not give away the south to anyone. We will return everything that’s ours and the sea will be Ukrainian and safe,” he said. “Russia does not have as many missiles as our people have the desire to live.” |
2022-06-20T17:01:41Z | Russia threatens retaliation as Lithuania bans goods transit to Kaliningrad | Russia has provoked concern in Brussels after threatening to retaliate over Lithuania’s ban on the transit of some goods across its territory to Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.
The move by the government in Vilnius was described as “unprecedented” in Moscow, where the Russian foreign office said they reserved the right to respond to protect their national interest.
The comments set off alarm bells in Brussels, where the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Lithuania was simply enforcing the bloc’s sanctions regime. He added, however, that he was concerned by the risk of retaliation and that he would check that all the rules were being followed, while accusing the Kremlin of peddling propaganda.
“I am always worried about Russian retaliation,” he said. “There is no blockade. The land transit between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia has not been banned. Second, transit of people and goods that are not sanctioned continues. Third, Lithuania has not taken any unilateral national restrictions.
“We are in a precautionary mood. We will double-check the legal aspects in order to verify that we are completely aligned with any kind of rule.
“But Lithuania is not guilty. It is not implementing national sanctions. It is not implementing their will. Whatever they are doing has been the consequence of previous consultation with the commission, which has provided guidelines. And implementing guidelines.”
There was panic buying in Kaliningrad over the weekend after authorities in the region claimed that Lithuania was preparing to close off rail and gas pipe links to Russia.
Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, further escalated tensions on Monday by threatening a response to what he said was an “illegal move”. He said: “This decision is really unprecedented. It’s a violation of everything. We consider this illegal. The situation is more than serious … We need a serious in-depth analysis in order to work out our response.”
Wedged between Lithuania to its north and east, and Poland to its south, Kaliningrad is about 800 miles (1,300km) from Moscow and relies on much of its supplies coming in by rail.
Russia’s foreign ministry said Vilnius must reverse the “openly hostile” move. “If cargo transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the Russian Federation via Lithuania is not fully restored in the near future, then Russia reserves the right to take actions to protect its national interests,” it said.
The foreign ministry summoned Lithuania’s chief diplomatic representative in Moscow for a formal protest and alleged that the Baltic nation was acting in breach of international agreements.
However, after a meeting in Brussels, Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said Moscow was spreading false information and that the state railway service was acting lawfully by merely implementing the EU’s sanctions regime prohibiting the supply of steel or goods made from iron ore to Russia.
Landsbergis said that under half of the goods usually supplied by transiting across Lithuania would be covered by the sanctions regime over time, with the ban on steel coming into force on 17 June.
“I think there was some false information, not for the first time, announced by the Russian authorities, but I’m glad that we have a chance to explain this,” he said. “At this point, about slightly less than half of goods that transit Lithuania are on the sanctions list, but that doesn’t mean that all of them are under sanctions right now.
“Because there are different wind-down periods, and some of it, for example oil, will be sanctioned just at the end of the year, starting from December, even though the authorities have announced it is sanctioned already, which is not true actually.”
Goods banned under EU sanctions introduced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine include coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology.
Much of the panic in the exclave appeared to have been prompted by calls for calm from the region’s governor, Anton Alikhanov, on Saturday.
He said two vessels were already ferrying goods between Kaliningrad and St Petersburg, and seven more would be in service by the end of the year. “Our ferries will handle all the cargo,” he said on Saturday.
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Video footage that could not be independently verified subsequently emerged of people loading up shopping trolleys in DIY stores in response to the news.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted: “Russia has no right to threaten Lithuania. Moscow has only itself to blame for the consequences of its unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. We commend Lithuania’s principled stance and stand firmly by our Lithuanian friends.”
Kaliningrad, where Russia’s Baltic Sea fleet has its headquarters, has a population of about 500,000 people. It was captured from Nazi Germany by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of the war. |
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Dataset Card for Russia Ukraine Conflict
Dataset Summary
###Context
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. The invasion caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 6.3 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced (Source: Wikipedia).
###Content
This dataset is a collection of 407 news articles from NYT and Guardians related to ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The publishing date of articles ranges from Feb 1st, 2022 to Jul 31st, 2022.
###What you can do?
Here are some ideas to explore:
- Discourse analysis of Russia-Ukraine conflict (How the war has evolved over months?)
- Identify most talked about issues (refugees, food, weapons, fuel, etc.)
- Extract sentiment of articles for both Russia and Ukraine
- Which world leaders have tried to become mediators?
- Number of supporting countries for both Russia and Ukraine
- Map how NATO alliance has been affected by the war
I am looking forward to see your work and ideas and will keep adding more ideas to explore.
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