Tag Archives: Moscow

Putin says Russia could have sunk UK warship without starting World War Three

By Andrew Osborn and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia could have sunk a British warship that it accused of illegally entering its territorial waters without starting World War Three and accused Washington of a role in the “provocation.”

Tensions between Moscow and London soared last week after Russia challenged the right of HMS Defender to transit waters near Russian-annexed Crimea, something Britain said it had every right to do.

Putin’s comments add menace to earlier Russian warnings that Moscow would bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea in the event of further provocative actions by the British navy near heavily fortified Crimea.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and Britain and most of the world recognize the Black Sea peninsula as part of Ukraine, not Russia.

In an account of last week’s incident which London said it did not recognize, Russia said it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of the British warship which was en route from Ukraine to Georgia.

Putin, speaking during his annual question and answer session with voters, signaled his anger over what he called “a provocation” designed to reveal how Russian forces in Crimea reacted to such intrusions.

When asked if the world had stood on the precipice of World War Three during the standoff, Putin said: “Of course not.”

“Even if we had sunk the ship it is hard to imagine that the world would have been on the verge of World War Three because those doing it (the provocation) know that they could not emerge as victors from such a war,” he added.

Putin accused the United States and Britain of planning the episode together, saying a U.S. spy plane had taken off from Greece earlier on the same day to watch how Russia would respond to the British warship.

“It was obvious that the destroyer entered (the waters near Crimea) pursuing, first of all, military goals, trying to use the spy plane to see how our forces would stop such provocations, to see what is activated and where, how things work and where everything is located.”

Putin said Russia had realized what the aim of the exercise was and had responded in a way that would only give the other side the information Moscow deemed necessary.

Putin said he saw a political element to the incident, which took place shortly after he had met U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva.

“The meeting in Geneva had just happened, so why was this provocation needed, what was its goal? To underscore that those people (the Americans and British) do not respect Crimeans’ choice to join the Russian Federation,” he said.

The Russian leader accused London and Washington of a lack of gratitude, saying he had earlier this year given the order for Russian forces to pull back from near Ukraine’s borders after their build-up had generated concern in the West.

“We did this,” said Putin. “But instead of reacting positively to this and saying ‘OK, we’ve understood your response to our grumbling’ – instead of that, what did they do? They barged across our borders.”

(Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Alex Richardson and Catherine Evans)

Russia warns UK and U.S. not to tempt fate in Black Sea

By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia warned Britain and the United States on Friday against “tempting fate” by sending warships to the Black Sea, and said it would defend its borders using all possible means including military force.

In a statement broadcast on state television, the Defense Ministry said it was ill-advised for British and U.S. vessels to approach the coast of Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

“We call on the Pentagon and the British navy, which are sending their warships into the Black Sea, not to tempt fate in vain,” Major General Igor Konashenkov, the ministry’s spokesperson, said.

HMS Defender, a British destroyer that sailed through waters off Crimea on Wednesday, was “not more than a target” for the Black Sea fleet’s defenses, he said.

Russia considers Crimea part of its territory, but the peninsula is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.

Russia said on Wednesday it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British warship to chase it out of Black Sea waters off the coast of Crimea.

Britain rejected Russia’s account of the incident. It said it believed any shots fired were a pre-announced Russian “gunnery exercise”, and that no bombs had been dropped.

It confirmed HMS Defender had sailed through what it said were waters belonging to Ukraine.

The British embassy in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgian the South Caucasus, wrote on Twitter on Friday that HMS Defender was set to arrive in the port city of Batumi on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said separately that Washington and London were sowing strife by failing to accept Crimea was part of Russia, and that Russia was ready to defend its borders using all means, including military force.

Moscow warned Britain on Thursday that it would bomb British naval vessels in the Black Sea if what it called provocative actions by the British navy were repeated off the Crimean coast.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said separately on Friday that it was beginning joint navy and air force exercises in the eastern Mediterranean, where Moscow operates an air base on Syria’s coast.

(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy, Alexander Marrow and Vladimir Soldatkin; Writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Editing by Katya Golubkova, Timothy Heritage, William Maclean)

Russian security chief says Moscow will work with U.S. to find hackers

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia will work with the United States to track down cyber criminals, the head of the FSB security service said on Wednesday, a week after U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to increase cooperation in certain areas.

“We will work together (on locating hackers) and hope for reciprocity,” the RIA news agency quoted FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov as saying at a security conference in Moscow.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told an investor conference that Russia had been “able to establish a very thorough and down-to-earth exchange with the U.S. side” on cyber security.

Another senior ministry official said Moscow was awaiting an answer from Washington on starting consultations, TASS news agency reported.

Biden told Putin at the summit that certain critical infrastructure should be “off-limits” to cyber-attacks after hackers seeking ransom money triggered the brief closure of a major U.S. oil pipeline network.

Washington has said those responsible for some cyber-attacks in the United States have been working either directly for the Russian government or from Russian territory. The Kremlin has denied any state involvement.

Putin and Biden also agreed to embark on negotiations to lay the groundwork for arms control agreements and risk-reduction measures.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that Moscow had requested greater transparency about the deployment of missiles in Europe.

He said Putin had proposed measures such as a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate- and short-range missiles in Europe to build mutual trust. The Kremlin has accused NATO of dismissing the proposals.

“The overall situation in Europe is explosive, which requires concrete steps to de-escalate it,” Shoigu said. “We are ready to work towards this.”

Russia’s relations with the West are at post-Cold War lows, strained by issues ranging from Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine to allegations of Russian hacking of U.S. elections.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Tom Balmforth; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov/Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Kremlin blames vaccine hesitancy as Delta variant drives Moscow surge

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin on Friday blamed a surge in COVID-19 cases on reluctance to have vaccinations and “nihilism” after a record 9,056 new infections in Moscow, mostly with the new Delta variant, fanned fears of a third wave.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin extended restrictions he had imposed this month, which include a ban on events with more than 1,000 people, an 11 p.m. closing time for restaurants, and the closure of fan zones set up for the European soccer championship.

He had said earlier this week that the situation in the capital, home to 13 million people, was deteriorating rapidly.

“According to the latest data, 89.3% of Muscovites (recently) diagnosed with COVID-19 have the mutated, so-called Delta or Indian variant,” the news agency TASS quoted Sobyanin as saying on state television.

Moscow accounted for more than half the 17,262 reported across Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin was monitoring the situation closely.

Asked to explain the surge, Peskov blamed the virus’s “cunning nature” – a reference to its mutations – as well as “total nihilism, and the low vaccination level”.

At a briefing, he rejected suggestions that Russians were reluctant to have vaccinations because they distrusted the authorities.

As of June 2, the most recent tally available, only 18 million Russians had received at least one dose of vaccine: at one-eighth of the population, that is far less than in most Western countries.

Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova said voting in this autumn’s parliamentary election would be extended, largely because of the pandemic, to run over three days, from Sept. 17-19, rather than one, the Interfax news agency reported.

Moscow authorities this week said anyone working in a public-facing role must have a vaccination, and on Friday they said anyone who had not been vaccinated would be refused non-emergency hospital treatment.

Sobyanin said it was now even vital to start administering further boosters – in effect, a third dose. He said he himself had just received a top-up, after being fully vaccinated a year ago.

The third doses being offered are a repeat of the first dose of the two-shot Sputnik V vaccine, he said.

Several Russian officials and members of the business elite, as well as some members of the public, have already been securing third and fourth doses of Sputnik V, Reuters reported in April.

The question of how long a vaccine offers protection against COVID-19 will be vital as countries gauge when or whether revaccination will be needed, and Russia’s findings will be closely watched.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov, Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov and Polina Ivanova; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Kevin Liffey)

Moscow to toughen enforcement of COVID-19 rules as cases rise

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Authorities in Moscow said on Wednesday they would step up enforcement of rules requiring people to wear medical masks and gloves in indoor public spaces due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases in the Russian capital.

Russia on Wednesday reported 10,407 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, its highest number of daily infections since early March. In Moscow, there were 4,124 infections, creeping past the 4,000 mark for the first time since mid-January.

“The epidemiological situation is worsening in Moscow, the number of cases is rising,” RIA news agency quoted city official Yevgeny Danchikov as saying.

“The enforcement of the use of personal protective equipment by people in public places, including on public transport, on the metro and at entertainment centers, … will increase.”

Muscovites are required to wear masks and gloves on public transport, in taxis and in places like shopping malls, but the rules are not strictly enforced.

People without personal protective equipment can face fines.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin — who last month remarked on how few residents had chosen to get vaccinated against COVID-19 despite free and easy access to shots — said on Wednesday the city of more than 12 million was not planning to impose a fresh lockdown.

The government coronavirus task force said on Wednesday that 399 people had died nationwide as a result of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 124,895.

The federal statistics agency has kept a separate toll and said that Russia recorded around 270,000 deaths related to COVID-19 between April 2020 and April 2021.

Russia, home to around 145 million people, has recorded more than 5.1 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov and Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

MH17 plane crash families prepare for critical trial phase

By Stephanie van den Berg

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Families of people who died in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 said they were preparing to hear painful details when a critical stage of a trial over the crash starts on Monday.

MH17 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by a missile fired from territory held by pro-Russian rebels during fighting with Ukrainian government troops, international investigators say.

All 298 people on board were killed, two-thirds of them Dutch nationals.

Dutch judges overseeing the murder trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian man accused of having responsibility for the downing will summarize evidence at the hearing in a high-security courtroom next to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.

“On the one hand we want to know exactly what happened, why it happened and who was responsible, but the price you pay for that is that there is also information released that could be shocking,” Piet Ploeg, a spokesman for the relatives, said.

“Eventually that should lead to getting justice and justice includes at least that we have an independent court rule on who was responsible,” he told Reuters. Ploeg lost his brother, sister-in-law and nephew in the crash.

After years of collecting evidence, a team of international investigators concluded in May 2018 that the missile launcher used to shoot down the aircraft belonged to Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.

The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible. Russia denies any involvement.

Prosecutors, who say the four defendants all held leading positions in pro-Russian militias operating in Ukraine, will present evidence and may call witnesses, court officials said.

None of the defendants are in custody. One, Russian Oleg Pulatov, is represented in the proceedings and has said he had no involvement in the crash.

The other three are being tried in absentia and have not appointed lawyers to represent them during the proceedings.

Prosecutors say the investigation into MH17 is still ongoing and they are looking at other possible suspects, including the people who manned the missile system and ordered its firing.

After the prosecution presents its view on the judges’ summary of the case file on June 17 and 18, the defense will have an opportunity to respond.

No date has yet been set for closing arguments, but the court said that victims’ families could address the judges directly about the impact of the crash on their lives in hearings in September.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Andrew Heavens)

Putin threatens to ‘knock out the teeth’ of foreign aggressors

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Moscow would “knock out the teeth” of any power that tried to take a chunk of Russia’s territory.

The Russian leader, in televised remarks during a virtual meeting with senior officials, cited what he said were foreign remarks questioning Russia’s control of energy-rich Siberia.

A similar comment has been attributed in Russia to a former U.S. secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, although she has denied making it.

“Some even dare to say publicly that it is allegedly unfair that Russia owns the wealth of a region such as Siberia. Only one country does,” said Putin.

Using combative language that appeals to his power base among the armed and security forces, Putin said Moscow would give a blunt and forceful response to any would-be aggressors.

“Everyone wants to ‘bite’ us somewhere or ‘bite off’ something of ours, but those that would do this should know that we will knock out the teeth of all of them so they aren’t able to bite… And the key to this is the development of our armed forces,” he said.

The comments come amid a push to agree a summit between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden aimed at preventing Moscow’s dire relations with Washington sliding further.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Moscow decries ‘unfriendly actions’ as U.S. ends visa services for most Russians

By Dmitry Antonov and Alexander Marrow

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin accused Washington on Friday of fueling tension with “unfriendly actions” after the U.S. embassy in Moscow said it was cutting staff and stopping processing visas for most Russians.

The embassy said it was cutting consular staff by 75% and that from May 12 it would stop processing non-immigrant visas for non-diplomatic travel after a new Russian law imposed limits on how many local staff can work at foreign diplomatic missions.

That means Russians, who are not diplomats or green card seekers, will no longer be able to apply inside their own country for visas to visit the United States for tourism and other purposes. They will have to make such applications in third countries instead if they need to.

The Russian foreign ministry pointed out that Russian consulates in the United States were still issuing visas within 10 days despite suffering diplomatic cutbacks themselves and said there was nothing to stop Washington from topping up staff by bringing in U.S. nationals.

It said the U.S. diplomatic staff quota in Russia stood at 455, but that there were only 280 accredited employees, giving Washington ample room to top up staff numbers.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the embassy’s decision would have little practical impact because, he said, Russians have already been struggling to get U.S. visas.

“You know, here one has to look at the root cause of the tense situation that is developing in our bilateral relations,” Peskov told reporters.

“If you unravel the knot of unfriendly steps in the opposite direction, then it becomes obvious that the precursor to all of this is the unfriendly actions of the United States.”

He said Russia had “expected better” of the first 100 days of Joe Biden’s U.S. presidency.

He welcomed moves to extend the New START nuclear arms treaty. “But this positive baggage is still small in comparison with the load of negativity that we have accumulated over these 100 days. This load unfortunately prevails,” he said.

Moscow and Washington have long differed over a range of issues, but ties slumped further after Biden said he believed President Vladimir Putin was “a killer”.

SANCTIONS

The United States imposed sanctions on Russia this month for alleged malign activity, including interfering in last year’s U.S. election, cyber hacking and “bullying” neighboring Ukraine.

Moscow retaliated with sanctions against the United States, and has rejected U.S. criticism of its treatment of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Russia’s ties with several countries in central and eastern Europe have also deteriorated in recent weeks, leading to a series of diplomatic expulsions.

When Putin signed the law limiting local staff employed at diplomatic missions last week, he also told the government to draw up a list of “unfriendly” states to be subject to the restrictions.

A draft list published by Russian state TV suggests the United States is one of the countries that will be on it.

“We regret that the actions of the Russian government have forced us to reduce our consular work force by 75%,” the U.S. embassy said in a statement.

“Effective May 12, U.S. Embassy Moscow will reduce consular services offered to include only emergency U.S. citizen services and a very limited number of age-out and life or death emergency immigrant visas,” it said.

“I have always been afraid of the ‘Iron Curtain’, only now it’s not being imposed by our side, but by the other side,” said Ksenia Sobchak, a former Russian presidential candidate.

(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Writing by Alexander Marrow, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Czechs order Russia to cut more embassy staff in worsening spy row

By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Robert Muller

MOSCOW/PRAGUE (Reuters) -The Czech Republic on Thursday ordered Russia to remove more of its diplomatic staff from Prague in an escalation of the worst dispute between the two countries in decades. Moscow said it would swiftly respond.

The spy row flared on Saturday when Prague expelled 18 Russian staff, whom it identified as intelligence officers, saying two Russian spies accused of a nerve agent poisoning in Britain in 2018 were behind an earlier explosion at a Czech ammunition depot that killed two people.

Russia has denied the Czech accusations and on Sunday ordered out 20 Czech staff in retaliation.

Thursday’s decision, announced by Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek, requires Russia to match the number of Czech envoys in Moscow, meaning Russia will have to pull around 20 diplomats and dozens of other staff from Prague by the end of May.

“We will put a ceiling on the number of diplomats at the Russian embassy in Prague at the current level of our embassy in Moscow,” Kulhanek said. A ministry spokeswoman said the decision included both diplomats and other staff.

“At the moment Prague is on the path to destroying relations,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at her weekly briefing.

“We will respond shortly.”

At a time of acute tensions in Russia’s relations with the West, the dispute has prompted NATO and the European Union to throw their support behind the Czech Republic, which is a member of both blocs.

“Allies express deep concern over the destabilizing actions Russia continues to carry out across the Euro-Atlantic area, including on alliance territory, and stand in full solidarity with the Czech Republic,” NATO’s 30 allies said in a statement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow took a negative view of Prague’s “hysteria”.

In the past week, Moscow has also kicked out diplomats from Bulgaria, Poland and the United States in retaliation for expulsions of its own staff.

President Vladimir Putin warned foreign powers in his state of the nation speech on Wednesday not to cross Russia’s “red lines”, saying Moscow would make them regret it.

CZECHS SAY THEIR EMBASSY PARALYSED

On Wednesday the Czech Republic demanded that Moscow allow the return of all 20 staff to Moscow by Thursday or face further evictions of its diplomats from Prague, but Kulhanek said Moscow did not respond.

The Czechs say the loss of the 20 staff has effectively paralyzed the functioning of their Moscow embassy, which is much smaller than the Russian mission in Prague.

The Czechs have 5 diplomats and 19 other staff in Moscow, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, while Russia has 27 diplomats and 67 other staff in Prague after the previous expulsions. That would mean the Czechs ordered a reduction of 70. The ministry did not spell out exact numbers on Thursday.

The two suspects named by Prague, known under the aliases Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, are reportedly part of the elite Unit 29155 of Russia’s GRU military intelligence service.

Britain charged them in absentia with attempted murder after the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018.

The Skripals survived, but a member of the public died. The Kremlin denied involvement in the incident.

(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Tom Balmforth and Dmitry Antonov; Robert mulle rand Jan Lopatka in Prague; additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Brussels; writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; editing by Mark Trevelyan and Gareth Jones, William Maclean)

Putin warns West of harsh response if it crosses Russia’s “red lines”

By Gleb Stolyarov and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday not to cross Russia’s “red lines”, saying Moscow would respond swiftly and harshly to any provocations and those responsible would regret it.

At a time of acute crisis in ties with the United States and Europe, with Russian troops massed near Ukraine and opposition leader Alexei Navalny on hunger strike in jail, the Kremlin leader used his state of the nation speech to project a message of Russian strength and defiance in the face of outside threats.

“We want good relations…and really don’t want to burn bridges,” Putin told both houses of parliament.

“But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn down or even blow up these bridges, they should know that Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, swift and harsh.”

Russia would determine where its red line lay in each specific case, he said, comparing the country to a tiger surrounded by hyenas.

His comments came at the climax of a 78-minute speech dominated by Russia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic hardship.

“In some countries, they have developed a highly unseemly habit of picking on Russia for any reason, and most often for no reason at all – a kind of sport,” said Putin, standing alone on a vast stage flanked by white, blue and red national flags and a backdrop of a giant double-headed eagle.

“Organizers of any provocations that threaten our core security interests will regret what they have done like they’ve never regretted anything for a long time.”

Putin, who is 68 and has dominated Russia for two decades, made no mention of Navalny. The opposition leader is ill in prison after starving himself for three weeks to demand access to his own doctors.

The rouble firmed after Putin’s speech, with markets interpreting it as not escalating tensions with the West.

CONFRONTATION WITH WEST

Recent weeks have seen an intensification of confrontation between Russia and Western countries, which are alarmed by Navalny’s worsening condition and by what they say is the massing of tens of thousands of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Russian-annexed Crimea.

Last week, Washington tightened sanctions on Russia over accusations of computer hacking and election interference, and the Czech Republic accused Moscow of a role in explosions at an arms depot in 2014. Both expelled Russian diplomats. Russia denied wrongdoing and responded with tit-for-tat expulsions.

Tensions are also strained over the fate of Navalny, whose supporters were trying to rally across Russia on Wednesday in his support.

Two of Navalny’s closest allies were arrested on Wednesday, their lawyers said. Lyubov Sobol, one of the faces of Navalny’s popular YouTube channel, and Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, were both detained in Moscow.

“As usual, they think that if they isolate the ‘leaders’, there won’t be any protest,” said Leonid Volkov, a close Navalny associate. “Of course that’s wrong.”

Another Navalny aide, Ruslan Shaveddinov, tweeted: “Right now across the whole of Russia they are detaining potential protesters. This is repression. This cannot be accepted. We need to fight this darkness.”

European Council President Charles Michel called the arrests “deplorable” and urged Russian authorities to respect people’s right to assemble.

The Russian government has said the gatherings are illegal. Previous pro-Navalny rallies have been dispersed by force, with thousands of arrests.

The OVD-Info monitoring group said more than 50 people had been arrested as demonstrations got under way, beginning in the far east.

Four doctors from outside Russia’s federal prison service visited Navalny on Tuesday and found his health to be satisfactory, Russian human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said.

In his speech, Putin urged all citizens to get vaccinated and predicted that Russia would achieve collective immunity by the autumn.

On the eve of an online climate summit to be hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden, Putin also called for tougher “polluter pays” rules and set a goal for Russia to cut its greenhouse gas emissions below those of the European Union in the next 30 years.

(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Gleb Stolyarov, Tatiana Voronova, Olesya Astakhova, Oksana Kobzeva, Daria Korsunskaya , Elena Fabrichnaya, Ekaterina Golubkova, Andrey Ostroukh, Anastasia Lyrchikova, Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Tom Balmforth, Polina Ivanova, Anton Zverev and Anton Kolodyazhny; Writing by Mark Trevelyan/Andrew Osborn; editing by Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage)