Tag Archives: Russia

Russia has no plans to invade Ukraine and suggestions to the contrary are malicious US propaganda, Moscow’s foreign intelligence chief said on Saturday. U.S., NATO, and Ukrainian officials have raised the alarm in recent weeks over what they say are unusual Russian troop movements near the border with Ukraine, suggesting …

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday said Ukraine had uncovered a plot to overthrow his government next week involving individuals from Russia, although he declined to say whether he thought the Kremlin was behind it. Speaking at an hour-long press conference, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian intelligence had obtained audio recordings of the …

Kiev’s forces are increasingly launching offensives in war-torn Donbass, attempting to use Western firepower to bring the two breakaway self-declared separatist republics to heel with military force, Moscow has blasted. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the situation in the east of the …

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday fired the head of Russia’s prison service, weeks after the emergence of leaked videos that appeared to show prisoners being tortured and sexually assaulted. Alexander Kalashnikov was dismissed with immediate effect, according to a terse decree published on the Kremlin’s website. Arkady Gostev, a deputy …

Russia staged military drills in the Black Sea, south of Ukraine, on Wednesday and said it needed to sharpen the combat-readiness of its conventional and nuclear forces because of heightened NATO activity near its borders. Ukraine, which with its ally the United States has said it believes Russia may be …

Russia’s defence minister on Tuesday accused U.S. bombers of rehearsing a nuclear strike on Russia from two different directions earlier this month and complained that the planes had come within 20 km (12.4 miles) of the Russian border. The accusation comes at a time of high tension between Washington and …

Two refitted former U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats intended to bolster the Ukrainian navy have arrived at the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa, the Ukrainian navy said on Tuesday. “We appreciate the contribution of the United States to deter the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine,” naval …

Russian energy giant Gazprom will withdraw gas transit to Moldova in the next 48 hours after Chisinau failed to settle its outstanding debt for supplies already delivered, a spokesman for the company announced on Monday. At the end of last month, the Saint Petersburg-based company and Moldavgaz agreed a new …

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Sunday slammed the United States for driving “hysteria” over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine after Western countries accused Moscow of a troop build-up near the ex-Soviet country. His comments come as Western countries this week raised alarm over Russian military activity near Ukraine and …

Ukraine summoned the Bulgarian ambassador on Friday after Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said the Crimean Peninsula was part of Russia after being annexed from Ukraine in 2014. In a presidential debate ahead of Bulgaria’s run-off presidential vote on Sunday Radev said Western sanctions against Moscow were not delivering the expected …

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the West was taking Russia’s warnings not to cross its “red lines” too lightly and that Moscow needed serious security guarantees from the West. In a wide-ranging foreign policy speech, the Kremlin leader also described relations with the United States as “unsatisfactory” but …

Armenia has asked Russia to help defend its territorial sovereignty against Azerbaijan after a reported heavy border clash, Russia’s TASS news agency said on Tuesday. Tensions between Yerevan and Baku remain high after a 44-day war last year between ethnic Armenian forces and the Azeri army, backed by Turkey, that …

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan’s troops on Monday of violating the border between the two countries and sacked his defense minister, the Interfax news agency reported. Another Russian news agency, RIA, quoted Armenia’s Security Council as saying the incident took place on Sunday but the Azeri troops had …

The European Union agreed on Monday to draft a framework for possible sanctions on Russian mercenaries who could be deployed to West Africa’s Sahel region, France’s foreign minister said. Reuters reported in September that Mali’s military junta was in discussions about deploying Russia’s Wagner Group in Mali, which France says …

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that Western countries, rather than Belarus, were ultimately responsible for a migrant crisis on the Belarus-Poland border, pointing to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia is a key ally of Belarus, which the European Union has accused of mounting a “hybrid attack” by …

France on Friday warned Russia against harming Ukraine’s territorial integrity, after the United States shared with European allies its fears over Russian troop movements on the Ukrainian border and over a potential attack. Four European diplomats told Reuters that US officials had raised their concerns about an attack on Ukraine …

Belarusian and Russian paratroopers staged joint drills on Friday near the Polish and Lithuanian borders, during a standoff between Belarus and the EU over migrants camped in freezing forests at the frontier. The exercise at the Gozhsky training ground involved airborne units landing and carrying out combat training, including capturing …

Russia said on Thursday it had scrambled a fighter jet to intercept a British spy plane operating near Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russia’s defense ministry said the British foray was part of a wider uptick in military activity by the United States …

Countries bordering Belarus on Thursday warned the migrant crisis on the European Union’s eastern borders could escalate into a military confrontation while Ukraine said it would deploy thousands more troops to reinforce its frontier. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia said Belarus posed serious threats to European security by deliberately escalating its …

Russia took the rare step of dispatching two nuclear-capable strategic bombers to patrol Belarusian airspace on Wednesday in a show of support to close ally Belarus at a time when it is locked in a migrant standoff with the European Union. Moscow’s decision to up the ante came as the …