Russia

May 17, 2024 11:25 AM

Putin to push growing Moscow-Beijing trade in China’s northeast

After sealing pledges of a "new era" of strategic partnership with China's Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday is set to highlight the growing importance of trade near the Russian border in China's northeast. Putin ends his two-day, red-carpet visit to China in Harbin in Heilongjiang province, which has long-running trade and cultural ties to Russia, touring a Russian-China Expo and a forum on interregional cooperation. Facing political isolation and Western sanctions ov...

SAINT PETERSBURG, RUSSIA - APRIL 26: (RUSSIA OUT) Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during the Council of Legislators plenary session on April 26, 2024, in Saint Petersburg, Russia.President Putin is having a one day trip to Saint Petersburg to attend an annual meeting of regional parliament chairmen. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

May 17, 2024 9:09 AM

In a tit-for-tat move, Russia expels UK defence attache from Moscow

In a tit-for-tat move, Russia on Thursday expelled UK defence attache Adrian Coghill from Moscow in response to 'unfriendly moves by the UK,' the Russian news agency TASS reported, citing the Russian Foreign Minister's statement. This came in response to the UK decision on May 8 to expel Russia's defence attache, whom the UK accused of being an "undeclared military intelligence officer," and to remove diplomatic status from the Russian-owned Seacox Heath property in Sussex and the Russian embas...

May 16, 2024 11:17 PM

Putin and Xi wrap up talks with tea ceremony in a Beijing park

Russian president Vladimir Putin and president of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping ended negotiations with tea ceremony in Beijing's Zhongnanhai park on Thursday (May 16). Putin arrived early on Thursday for a two-day state visit that will include detailed talks on Ukraine, Asia, energy and trade with Xi, his most powerful political backer and fellow geopolitical rival of the United States. Xi said at a joint news conference that both countries agreed that a political settlement of th...

May 15, 2024 2:38 PM

Defying West, Russia’s Putin set to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing

Russian President Vladimir Putin's Beijing visit on Thursday is likely to be light on hard deals but will mark the start of his new presidential term with a show of support from his most powerful political partner, Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. Putin's two-day mission is expected to highlight the pair's vaunted "no limits" partnership in defiance from pressure from the United States over Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese foreign ministry confirmed Putin's trip on Tuesday...

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - FEBRUARY 23: (RUSSIA OUT) Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) speaks as Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (R) looks on while taking part in the wreath laying ceremony at the Unknown Soldier Tomb, marking the Defender of the Fatherland's Day, on February 23, 2024, in Moscow, Russia. Putin is candidate for the 2024 Presidential Elections. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

May 13, 2024 11:42 AM

Putin removes long-term ally Sergei Shoigu as defence minister

Russian President Vladimir Putin tapped a civilian economist as his surprise new defence minister on Sunday in an attempt to gird Russia for economic war by trying to better utilise the defence budget and harness greater innovation to win in Ukraine. More than two years into the conflict, which has cost both sides heavy casualties, Putin proposed Andrei Belousov, a 65-year-old former deputy prime minister who specialises in economics, to replace his long-term ally, Sergei Shoigu, 68, as defenc...

May 12, 2024 1:46 PM

Fierce fighting rages in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region as Russia touts gains

Fierce fighting raged into a second day on the fringes of Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region on Saturday as Moscow said it had captured five villages, while Kyiv said it was repulsing the attacks and battling for control of the settlements. Russia launched the armoured incursion early on Friday, an attack on a new front that may presage a broader push into Kharkiv region or aim to draw away overstretched Ukrainian forces from where Moscow's offensive is focused in the east. Kyiv has been on...

TOPSHOT - Firefighters work on a fire on a building after bombings on the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on February 24, 2022, as Russian armed forces are trying to invade Ukraine from several directions, using rocket systems and helicopters to attack Ukrainian position in the south, the border guard service said. - Russia's ground forces today crossed into Ukraine from several directions, Ukraine's border guard service said, hours after President Vladimir Putin announced the launch of a major offensive. Russian tanks and other heavy equipment crossed the frontier in several northern regions, as well as from the Kremlin-annexed peninsula of Crimea in the south, the agency said. (Photo by Aris Messinis / AFP) (Photo by ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

May 10, 2024 11:09 PM

Russian forces attack Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, opening new front

Russian forces launched an armoured ground attack on Friday near Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv in the northeast of the country and made small inroads, opening a new front in a war that has long been waged in the east and south. Ukraine sent reinforcements as fighting raged in the border areas of the region, the defence ministry said, adding that Russia had pounded the frontier town of Vovchansk with guided aerial bombs and artillery. "Russia has begun a new wave of counteroffensive actions ...

May 9, 2024 5:26 PM

Putin agrees to withdraw Russian forces from various Armenian regions, says Ifax

President Vladimir Putin has agreed to withdraw Russian forces and border guards from various parts of Armenia at Yerevan's request, Putin's spokesman was cited as saying on Thursday by Russia's Interfax news agency. The announcement follows the departure of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers from in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region which Azerbaijan returned by force in September last year. Their exit ended a multi-year deployment which gave Moscow a military foothold in the strategic S...

May 9, 2024 4:20 PM

Putin warns of global clash as Russia marks victory in World War Two

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West on Thursday of risking a global conflict and said no one would be allowed to threaten the world's biggest nuclear power as Russia marked the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. As Russian troops advance against Ukraine's Western-backed forces, Putin accused "arrogant" Western elites of forgetting the decisive role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany, and of stoking conflicts across the world. "We know wha...

May 9, 2024 8:50 AM

Russia backs India, questions US lack of evidence implicating India in Pannun case

Rubbishing the allegations by the US on India for a foiled assassination plot against pro-Khalistan radical Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Washington has not yet provided any reliable evidence of the involvement of Indian citizens in the case. "According to the information we have, Washington has not yet provided any reliable evidence of the involvement of Indian citizens in the preparation of the murder of a certain GS Pannun. Speculation on this topic in the a...