Tag: putin

Moscow accuses Wagner of stoking ‘civil conflict’

MOSCOW, June 23, 2023 (AFP) – Russian authorities on Saturday accused the head of the Wagner mercenary group of trying to start a “civil conflict” and called for his detention. The FSB security service’s probe into calls to stage an “armed mutiny” came after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Moscow of targeting his forces with deadly missile strikes and vowed to retaliate. Prigozhin, 62, urged Russians to join his forces and punish Moscow’s military leadership […]

South Africa’s Ramaphosa tells Putin Ukraine ‘war must be settled’

MOSCOW, June 17, 2023 (AFP) – South Africa’s president, in Russia as part of a delegation pushing for peace between Kyiv and Moscow, told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Saturday that the fighting had to stop. His delegation put forward a set of principles that the Kremlin deemed “very difficult to implement”, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out talks with Moscow. The delegation brought the voice of a continent that has […]

Pres. Putin says sent nuclear warheads to Belarus

MOSCOW, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – President Vladimir Putin on Friday confirmed Russia had sent nuclear arms to its ally Belarus which borders Ukraine. “The first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus… This is the first part,” Putin told an annual economic forum, where AFP and media of other countries Russia deems “unfriendly” were not accredited. The Russian leader had announced the plans to send tactical nuclear weapons — less powerful than […]

‘Unprecedented’ security for Putin at St Petersburg forum

MOSCOW, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – Mobile communications were severed Friday in Saint Petersburg in “unprecedented” security measures as President Vladimir Putin attended a global economic forum amid growing Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil. The Roskongress Foundation, the organisers of the forum in Russia’s second city, earlier said internet communication via mobile operators would be blocked. “Use wifi”, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, linking the heightened security to the threat of attacks from Ukraine. In […]

Erdogan defends Putin against election meddling claims

ISTANBUL, May 12, 2023 (AFP) – President Recept Tayyip Erdogan on Friday defended Russia’s Vladimir Putin from allegations of meddling in Turkey’s crucial weekend election. Erdogan’s secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Thursday accused unnamed Russian actors of spreading “deep fakes” and other disinformation aimed at swaying the outcome of Sunday’s vote. The Kremlin “strongly” denied the allegation and Erdogan stood up for Putin at a televised campaign appearance on Friday. “Mr. Kemal is attacking Russia, […]

Putin has visited Ukraine’s Kherson, Lugansk regions: Kremlin

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited Ukraine’s Kherson and Lugansk regions to meet with military commanders, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. “The supreme commander of Russian Federation armed forces has visited the headquarters of the Dniepr military grouping” in the Kherson region in the south, as well as Russian national guard headquarters in the Lugansk region in the east, the Kremlin said in a statement. It did not say when the […]

Biden calls Putin’s nuclear deployment talk ‘dangerous’

    Washington, United States | AFP | US President Joe Biden on Tuesday blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated plan to deploy nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, branding it “dangerous” talk. “This is dangerous kind of talk and it’s worrisome,” Biden told reporters at the White House. The Kremlin leader announced on Saturday that he was ordering the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, run by fellow authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko as […]

Xi, Putin hail ties ahead of ‘journey of peace’ to Moscow

by Matthew WALSH Agence France-Presse BEIJING, China (AFP) — Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin applauded on Monday the solidity of their alliance as the Chinese leader headed to Moscow for a summit with the internationally isolated Russian president. Xi described his trip as a “journey of friendship, cooperation and peace”, though China has been criticized by Western nations for what they consider tacit backing and diplomatic cover for Russia’s war in Ukraine. “I look forward […]

China’s Xi to go to Russia on first visit since Ukraine invasion

  Beijing, China | AFP | Friday 3/17/2023 by Jing Xuan TENG / Matthew WALSH Chinese President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to Moscow next week, where he will hold talks with his strategic ally Vladimir Putin just over a year into Russia’s war in Ukraine. Xi will be in Russia from Monday to Wednesday, Beijing’s foreign ministry and the Kremlin said on Friday. China’s foreign ministry called Xi’s trip “a visit for […]

Putin hurts arms control but nuclear risk remote: experts

by Didier LAURAS Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Russia’s step back from a key arms control treaty is a blow to efforts to cap nuclear stockpiles, but does not immediately heighten the risk of nuclear war, experts said Tuesday. President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he was halting cooperation under the New START treaty should be understood as another attempt to put pressure on Western countries supplying Ukraine with weapons and money as it fights […]

Pres. Putin says West wants ‘to be done’ with Russia

Moscow, Russia | AFP | Tuesday 2/21/2023  President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday accused the West of using the Ukraine conflict to “be done” with Russia, said traitors must be punished, and proclaimed that Moscow had successfully withstood Western sanctions. “Western elites are not hiding their goal — to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. It means to be done with us once and for all,” Putin said three days before the first anniversary of the […]

Russian President Putin says situation in annexed regions ‘extremely difficult’

Moscow, Russia (AFP) President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the situation in four territories of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed was “extremely difficult”. “The situation in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions is extremely difficult,” Putin told the Russian security services on their professional holiday. Putin singled out those working in the “new regions of Russia”. “The people living there, the citizens of Russia, rely on you, […]