NATO foreign ministers have vowed that the Western alliance will continue to adapt in the face of “rising threats and systemic competition,” and underlined that “Russia’s aggressive actions constitute a threat to Euro-Atlantic security.””Assertive and authoritarian powers, and non-state actors, challenge the rules-based international order, including through hybrid and cyber threats, the malicious use of new technologies,…
TEHRAN (FNA)- Russian President Vladimir Putin in a message on Tuesday congratulated Nowruz to his Iranian counterpart President Hassan Rouhani, and stressed the need for further development of ties and constructive cooperation between the two countries. “Accept sincere congratulations on the occasion of Nowruz,” Putin said in his message. “Iran-Russia relations are based on the…
MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he and U.S. President Joe Biden should hold live online talks in coming days after Biden said he thought the Russian leader was a killer and diplomatic ties sank to a new post-Cold War low. “I want to offer President Biden that we continue our…
Russia’s easternmost peninsula is notorious for its seismic activity and is prone to earthquakes and volcano eruptions. A strong 6.9-magnitude earthquake has struck off the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia, some 185 kilometres southeast of Ust-Kamchatsk, the United States Geological Survey reported Tuesday. The tremor was registered at a depth of 57 kilometres at 18:38:25…
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Algeria, and Myanmar were the largest buyers of China weapons. (Photo: REUUTERS/Stringer) China, the world’s second-largest arms producer, saw its worldwide exports of weapons drop between 2016 and 2020 – but it imported more weapons from Russia in the same period. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says arms exports by China over these…
Reminder: Internet censorship can have unintended consequences. Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images Russian internet users began noticing something strange on Wednesday: a number of websites, including the Kremlin’s own Kremlin.ru, were down. Just hours earlier, Roskomnadzor, the Russian government body overseeing communications and technology, announced that it was purposely slowing down access to Twitter, claiming the company…
Why is Germany tolerating the presence on its soil of elements of Vladimir Putin’s chemical weapons program? The question arises in light of new sanctions introduced against Russia on Tuesday, in response to its August 2020 chemical weapons attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Those sanctioned include three German companies, now added to the U.S. government’s so-called…
Ambassador Chizhov regretted the EU’s decision to impose sanctions on Russia. Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s long-time ambassador to the European Union, thinks the bloc’s decision to impose further sanctions on Russia is a missed opportunity to fix relations between the two neighbours. Foreign ministers from EU countries agreed on Monday to punish four Russian officials believed to be…
Russian president Vladimir Putin during a video-conference with security chiefs last week (Photo: kremlin.ru) Arguments over the plight of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and Saturday’s (23 January) street protests across Russia demonstrate that there is no such thing as purely domestic politics, and may have serious implications for Europe. Navalny, poisoned by Russian security officers…
EU foreign relations chief Josep Borrell speaking to US secretary of state Anthony Blinken by video-link on Monday (Photo: consilium.europa.eu) The EU has agreed to blacklist Russian officials guilty of wrongly jailing opposition figure Alexei Navalny, in a new “low” in relations. The asset-freezes and visa-bans ought to be in force in early March, EU…