Tag Archives: Putin

Face of anti-Kremlin protests is the son of a Putin ally

A riot police officer climbs on a lamp pole to detain opposition supporters during a rally in Moscow, Russia March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

By Maria Tsvetkova and Maria Vasilyeva

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian high school student Roman Shingarkin had some explaining to do when he got home after becoming one of the faces of anti-Kremlin protests at the weekend. His father is a former member of parliament who supports President Vladimir Putin.

At the height of a protest in Moscow on Sunday against what organizers said was official corruption, 17-year-old Shingarkin and another young man climbed onto the top of a lamp-post in the city’s Pushkin Square.

Hundreds of protesters in the square cheered and whistled as a police officer, dressed in riot gear, shinned up the lamp-post and remonstrated with the two to come down. They refused, and the police officer retreated, to jubilation from the protesters down below.

As images of the protests, the biggest in Russia for several years, ricocheted around social media, Shingarkin’s sit-in on top of the lamp-post was adopted by Kremlin opponents as a David-and-Goliath style symbol of defiance.

Shingarkin was eventually detained when, after the protest in Pushkin Square had dispersed, police persuaded him to climb down. He was taken to a police station but as a minor, he could not be charged. From the police station, he had to ring his father to ask to be picked up.

His father, Maxim Shingarkin, was from 2011 until 2016 a lawmaker in the State Duma, or lower house of parliament. He was a member of the LDPR party, a nationalist group that on nearly all major issues backs Putin.

Putin last year gave the party’s leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a medal for services to Russia. With Putin standing next to him, Zhirinovsky proclaimed: “God protect the tsar.”

Shingarkin had not told his father he would be going to the protest, but the former lawmaker quickly guessed what had happened.

“When I rang my dad from the police station, he immediately understood why I was there,” Shingarkin, wearing the same blue and black coat he had on during the protest, said in an interview with Reuters TV.

“I went there (to the rally) out of interest to see how strong the opposition is, how many people would take to the streets, and at the same time to get a response from authorities to a clear fact of corruption.”

He decided to climb up the lamp-post because he “could see nothing from the ground”.

Contacted by telephone on Wednesday, Shingarkin senior said he was sympathetic with his son’s motives for attending the protest.

“He has a social position, against corruption, I support it completely,” Maxim Shingarkin said.

But he emphasized that his son’s actions did not mean that he or the family were opponents of Putin.

The Russian leader, Shingarkin senior said, is popular among voters and there is no one to replace him, but he is let down by the officials around him.

Roman Shingarkin said for now he would not attend any more protests unless they were approved by the authorities.

He said he might venture to a non-approved demonstration once he turns 18, because if he gets into trouble then, the police will charge him and not involve his parents.

(Writing by Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Generation born under Putin finds its voice in Russian protests

FILE PHOTO: Riot police officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in Moscow, Russia March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov/File Photo

By Denis Pinchuk and Svetlana Reiter

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Protests across Russia on Sunday marked the coming of age of a new adversary for the Kremlin: a generation of young people driven not by the need for stability that preoccupies their parents but by a yearning for change.

Thousands of people took to the streets across Russia, with hundreds arrested. Many were teenagers who cannot remember a time before Vladimir Putin took power 17 years ago.

“I’ve lived all my life under Putin,” said Matvei, a 17-year-old from Moscow, who said he came close to being detained at the protest on Sunday, but managed to run from the police.

“We need to move forward, not constantly refer to the past.”

A year before Putin is expected to seek a fourth term, the protests were the biggest since the last presidential election in 2012.

The driving force behind the protests was Alexei Navalny, a 40-year-old anti-corruption campaigner who uses the Internet to spread his message, bypassing the state-controlled television stations where nearly all older Russians get their news.

“None of my peers watches television and they don’t trust it,” said Maxim, an 18-year-old from St Petersburg who took part in a protest there.

He said messages about the demonstration were shared among his friends via a group chat on a messaging app: “Half the group went to the demonstration.”

Navalny, who was arrested at one of Sunday’s protests, tailors his message for YouTube and VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook.

One of his recent videos, a 50 minute expose accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of secretly owning an archipelago of luxury homes, has been watched more than 14 million times on YouTube. Medvedev’s spokeswoman called the allegations “propagandistic attacks” unworthy of detailed comment and said they amounted to pre-election posturing by Navalny.

While older Russians may have turned a blind eye to official corruption during years when living standards improved, younger Russians speak of it in terms of moral outrage.

“Why do I believe that what is happening right now is wrong? Because when I was little, my mum read fairy tales to me, and they said you should not steal, you should not lie, you should not kill,” said Katya, a 17-year-old who was at the protest in Moscow. “What I see happening now, you should not do,” she said.

Like other students who spoke to Reuters at the demonstrations, Katya, Maxim and Matvei asked that their surnames not be published to avoid repercussions.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Young people actively seeking change represent a new challenge for the Kremlin. It has built and maintained support for Putin for years by focusing mainly on ensuring stability, which Russians sought after the chaos of the immediate post-Soviet years.

Putin came to power after the 1990s, when the Soviet Union disintegrated and millions found themselves destitute. But young people who do not remember those times have different priorities than those even a few years older, said Yekaterina Schulmann, a political analyst.

“Our political regime is fixated on what it calls stability, that is a lack of change,” she said. “The political machine believes the best offer it can make to society is ‘Let’s keep everything the way it is for as long as possible’.”

“Young people need a model of the future, clear prospects, rules of the game which they recognize as fair, and … a social leg-up. Not only do they not see any of that, no one is even talking about it,” said Schulmann.

According to user data compiled from a social media page for people who said they planned to attend Sunday’s protest in St Petersburg, more than one in six were aged under 21.

It is still too early to say whether the new phenomenon will emerge as a serious challenge to Putin’s rule. It could be a burst of youthful idealism that fizzles out.

In any case, opinion polls show that Putin will win comfortably if, as most people expect, he runs for president next year.

His most serious rival for the presidency, Navalny, trails far behind in polls and could be barred from running because of an old criminal conviction which he says is political.

Still, the involvement of so many young people has forced the Russian authorities to pay attention.

A Kremlin spokesman said youngsters had been offered money by protest organizers to show up. The Kremlin offered no evidence to support this allegation, and none of the young people who spoke to Reuters said they had been offered payment.

Several students said school and university authorities had warned them before the protests they could be punished for taking part.

Pavel, a 20-year-old studying to be a veterinarian who attended a protest in Moscow, said it was worth it to risk some of Russia’s stability in the hope of change.

“Yes, maybe it will be negative; yes, maybe there won’t be the stability that we have now. But for a person in the 21st century it’s shameful to live in the kind of stability we have now.”

(Additional reporting by Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg, Russia; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Peter Graff)

Life under Russia not all it was cracked up to be: Crimean ex-leader

Sevastopol Mayor Alexei Chaliy applauds during a meeting of deputies of the State Duma, Russia's lower parliament house, with members of the Crimean parliamentary delegation in Moscow

By Darya Korsunskaya and Anton Zverev

SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (Reuters) – The pro-Moscow Crimean politician who signed a document handing control over the Ukrainian peninsula to Russia in March 2014 said the three years since had been a time of disappointment for many people in the region.

Alexei Chaliy, who at the time of Russia’s annexation was the self-proclaimed governor of Crimea’s biggest city Sevastopol, said he has no regrets about the region becoming part of Russia – a status that Ukraine and most other countries do not recognize.

But he took issue with the way the region had been run since, saying local leaders who took over from him were ineffective, plans to develop the economy had gone nowhere, and prices for consumer goods had shot up.

“If we’re talking about changes linked to quality of life in the region, then here – we have to acknowledge – in a significant way things don’t correspond to what was expected,” Chaliy said.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea, in the days after an uprising installed pro-Western leaders in the Ukrainian capital, prompted Europe and the United States to impose sanctions on Russia and dragged east-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War.

Chaliy, a 55-year-old businessman, played a major role in events on the ground leading up to the annexation.

While Russian soldiers appeared on the streets, and many officials loyal to Kiev fled, Chaliy took de facto control of the local administration in the city of Sevastopol. Crimea voted to join Russia in a referendum that is regarded as illegitimate by Ukraine and Western states.

Soon after the vote, Chaliy, dressed in his trademark tight black sweater, attended a March 18 Kremlin ceremony with Russian President Vladimir Putin to co-sign a document on Crimea’s status within Russia.

Afterwards, he served briefly as the Moscow-backed governor of Sevastopol before stepping aside for new leaders. He is now a member of the Sevastopol legislative assembly.

In an interview in his office in the city – three years after the annexation – Chaliy said that Sergei Menyailo, who took over from him as Moscow-backed governor of Sevastopol, had failed to follow up on a strategy for economic development.

“Why didn’t it work out? Because the executive arm which came in … turned out to be incompetent and unwilling,” Chaliy said. “Therefore if we’re talking about expectations, then a lot of expectations were not fulfilled.”

He also said that funds injected from Moscow were misspent by the local administration.

Menyailo was moved from the post last year and is now the presidential plenipotentiary for Siberia. He did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Chaliy said he supported the new governor.

Most Crimean residents interviewed by Reuters reporters over several visits in the past few months said they had no wish to go back to rule from Kiev.

HARSH REALITY

Chaliy said many people in Crimea had hankered for the certainties of life in the Soviet Union, the last time the peninsula was ruled from Moscow.

“There are lots of people who are disappointed because … it wasn’t Russia they were joining but, for many of them, it was the Soviet Union. Back to 1988 or 1989, when factories were operating and there were loads of specialists and jobs.”

“They don’t understand that this won’t happen, and cannot happen.”

Soon after Russian’s annexation, pensions and public sector wages rose dramatically because they were brought into line with Russian levels, higher than in Ukraine.

This though was offset by a rise in prices in stores, partly the result of difficulties of getting goods to the peninsula – which is not connected by land to Russia.

“For us, 2015 and 2016 were very difficult from the point of view of inflation. Now the process has stabilized. As a whole, prices are at a high level. In Sevastopol they’re higher than anywhere else,” said Chaliy.

“Of course, if you compare this with people’s expectations, then in this sense a lot of people are disappointed.”

The private sector, heavily dependent on tourism, has suffered. Ukrainian tourists stopped visiting, and major companies, including some Russian ones, suspended investments because of the risk of being hit by sanctions.

“Businessmen are accustomed to going skiing in Europe and nobody wants to leave themselves open” to being included on a list of people barred from entering the European Union, Chaliy said.

He saw no prospect of the sanctions being lifted any time soon, and offered advice to his fellow Crimeans: “Breathe slowly, relax, and live under a state of sanctions.”

(Editing by Christian Lowe and Pravin Char)

Kremlin rejects U.S., EU calls to free detained opposition protesters

A law enforcement officer climbs on a lamp pole to detain opposition supporters during a rally in Moscow. REUTERS/Sergei

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Monday rejected calls by the United States and the European Union to release opposition protesters detained during what it said were illegal demonstrations the previous day and accused organizers of paying teenagers to attend.

The protests, estimated to be the biggest since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2011/2012, come a year before a presidential election that Vladimir Putin is expected to contest, running for what would be a fourth term.

Police officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in Vladivostok.

Police officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in Vladivostok. REUTERS/Yuri Maltsev

Police detained hundreds of protesters across Russia on Sunday, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against corruption and demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev’s spokeswoman has called corruption allegations against him “propagandistic attacks,” saying they amount to pre-election posturing by Navalny, who hopes to run against Putin next year.

Opinion polls suggest the liberal opposition, which Navalny represents, has little chance of fielding a candidate capable of unseating Putin, who enjoys high ratings. But Navalny and his supporters hope to channel public discontent over official corruption to attract more support.

The United States and the European Union both issued statements calling on Russia to free detained protesters, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday such calls were wide of the mark.

“We can’t agree with these calls,” Peskov told reporters on a conference call, saying the police had been professional and properly enforced Russian law.

He said the Kremlin had no problem with people expressing their opinions at protest meetings, but said the timing and location of such events had to be agreed with the authorities in advance, something which he said had not been done in large part on Sunday.

The authorities are concerned opposition activists will try to encourage people to break the law again in future, he said.

Law enforcement officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in Moscow.

Law enforcement officers detain an opposition supporter during a rally in Moscow. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

“We can’t respect people who deliberately misled minors — in essence children — calling on them to take part in illegal actions in unsanctioned places and offering them certain rewards to do so, thus putting their lives at risk,” said Peskov.

“What we saw yesterday in certain places, and especially in Moscow, was a provocation.”

He said police had gathered factual evidence that some teenagers, who had been detained, had been paid cash by protest organizers to attend.

The Kremlin would listen to what people who took part in other sanctioned anti-government protests in some Russian cities had said on Sunday, Peskov promised.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn/Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Kevin O’Flynn)

Iran’s presence in Syrian blocks peace deal, Netanyahu tells Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, Russia, March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Pavel Golovkin/Pool

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday there could never be peace in Syria as long as there was an Iranian presence there.

“We discussed at length the matter of Iran, its objectives and intentions in Syria, and I clarified that there cannot be a peace deal in Syria when Iran is there and declares its intention to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in footage supplied by his office after their meeting.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him in the country’s civil war.

“(Iran) is arming itself and its forces against Israel including from Syria territory and is, in fact, gaining a foothold to continue the fight against Israel,” he said in reply to a reporter’s question.

“There cannot be peace when they continue the war and therefore they have to be removed.”

Russia, also Assad’s ally, is seen as holding the balance of power in achieving a deal on Syria’s future. In Geneva last week, the first U.N.-led Syria peace talks in a year ended without a breakthrough.

Israeli leaders have pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shi’ite Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.

Last year, Avi Dichter, the chair of Israel’s foreign affairs and defense committee, said Iran had tried several times in the past to move forces into the Syrian Golan Heights, next to territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Dichter said those moves were repelled, but gave no details.

Netanyahu has said that Israel has carried out dozens of strikes to prevent weapons smuggling to the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah via Syria. Two years ago, Israel and Russia agreed to coordinate military actions over Syria in order to avoid accidentally trading fire.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Andrew Roche)

Russia looks for positive signals in Trump’s speech to Congress

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov sits near the Syrian national flag as he addresses a news conference in Damascus in this file photo dated June 28, 2014. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s deputy foreign minister said on Tuesdays that relations with the United States were at their lowest ebb since the Cold War, but hoped they could improve under U.S. President Donald Trump.

Russia will analyze Trump’s debut address to Congress later on Tuesday for signs of any change in the U.S. stance, Sergei Ryabkov told parliament in Moscow.

“It will be important to analyze those signals and approaches which will be a part of Trump’s first appearance as the head of a superpower,” the RIA news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

“It would be desirable to believe that changes in Washington will create a window of opportunity for an improvement of a dialogue between our countries.”

In Washington, Trump’s opponents accuse him of already getting too close to Moscow. A U.S. congressional committee is investigating contacts between Trump’s election campaign and Russia to see if there were any inappropriate communications.

Relations between the two nuclear powers are strained over a number of issues, including Ukraine, the war in Syria, and relations with Iran.

Ryabkov said Russia had not discussed with Washington the sanctions imposed over the annexation of Crimea, but said it would be easier for to work with the United States on the Syria crisis if they were lifted.

“We did not discuss and we do not discuss criteria for the lifting of sanctions. Restrictions in a number of areas are of course affecting us, but no more than the damage they cause to American exports,” the Itar TASS agency quoted Ryabkov as saying.

(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Polina Devitt and Robin Pomeroy)

Ukrainian right-wing groups stage anti-government rally in Kiev

Activists of nationalist groups and their supporters take part in the so-called March of Dignity, marking the third anniversary of the 2014 Ukrainian pro-European Union (EU) mass protests, in Kiev, Ukraine, February 22, 2017. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A few thousand Ukrainians rallied on Wednesday to demand a change of political leadership in a demonstration that coincided with the third anniversary of the ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich amid mass street protests.

The rally was organized by three right-wing parties who accuse the government of being too weak and conciliatory in the face of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

The crowd chanted “Glory to Ukraine!” and carried banners with slogans such as “The government should fight (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, not Ukrainians.”

Kiev resident Vasyl Volskiy said he was taking part in the demonstration because he believed the authorities had failed to deliver on promises to reform the economy.

“There has been no improvement, it has even become worse compared to what it used to be. The army still has no resources, just like before. People have become three times poorer and the authorities are not doing anything,” he said.

None of the three groups behind the rally – the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, the far-right Right Sector and the newly formed National Corps party founded by members of the Azov battalion – are currently represented in parliament.

Yanukovich has lived in exile in Russia since fleeing Ukraine on Feb. 22, 2014. His successor, Petro Poroshenko, has tried to move Ukraine towards the European Union but the country is still dogged by poverty and corruption, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine remains unresolved.

Ukrainians are also now concerned that U.S. President Donald Trump may roll back sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in Ukraine.

(Reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Trump’s defense chief sees no military collaboration with Russia

US Defense Secretary

By Phil Stewart and Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s defense secretary on Thursday said he did not see the conditions for military collaboration with Russia, in a blow to Moscow’s hopes for repairing ties with the United States following Trump’s election.

“We are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level. But our political leaders will engage and try to find common ground,” Jim Mattis told reporters after talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

Asked whether he believed that Russia interfered in U.S. presidential elections, Mattis said: “Right now, I would just say there’s very little doubt that they have either interfered or they have attempted to interfere in a number of elections in the democracies.”

Mattis’ remarks came shortly after his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu expressed readiness to resume cooperation with the Pentagon and the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was in the interests of both nations to restore communications between their intelligence agencies.

“It’s in everyone’s interest to resume dialogue between the intelligence agencies of the United States and other members of NATO,” Putin said, addressing Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

“It’s absolutely clear that in the area of counter-terrorism all relevant governments and international groups should work together.”

Mattis told a closed-door session of NATO on Wednesday that the alliance needed to be realistic about the chances of restoring a cooperative relationship with Moscow and ensure its diplomats could “negotiate from a position of strength”.

That prompted a terse reply from Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

“Attempts to build a dialogue with Russia from a position of strength would be futile,” Shoigu was quoted as saying by news agency TASS.

Mattis shot back: “I have no need to respond to the Russian statement at all. NATO has always stood for military strength and protection of the democracies and the freedoms we intend to pass on to our children.”

The back-and-forth was the latest indication from the Trump administration that rebuilding U.S. ties with Moscow could be more difficult than Trump might have thought before his election.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia hacked and leaked Democratic emails during the presidential campaign as part of efforts to tilt the vote in the Nov. 8 election in Trump’s favor.

Concerns over the extent of Russian interference have been magnified since Trump forced out national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on Monday.

Flynn resigned after disclosures he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office, and that he later misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

Congressional inquiries into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. elections are gaining momentum as Capitol Hill investigators press intelligence and law enforcement agencies for access to classified documents.

The FBI and several U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating Russian espionage operations in the United States.

They are also looking at contacts in Russia between Russian intelligence officers or others with ties to President Vladimir Putin’s government and people connected to Trump or his campaign.

(This story has been refiled to add Mattis’ first name in second paragraph.)

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by John Stonestreet)

Kremlin says Putin-Trump meeting possible before July

A billboard showing a pictures of US president-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen through pedestrians in Danilovgrad, Montenegro,

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Monday there was talk of a possible meeting between President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump taking place before a G20 summit in July, but there was nothing specific to report so far.

The two men have never met, but both have said they want to try to mend battered U.S.-Russia ties, which fell to their lowest level since the Cold War after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.

The new U.S. administration is under pressure over Russia however because Michael Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser, is struggling to get past a controversy over a call he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak before Trump took office.

Top White House officials have been reviewing over the weekend Flynn’s contacts and whether he discussed the possibility of lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia once Trump took office, which could potentially be in violation of a law banning private citizens from engaging in foreign policy.

When asked about it on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed lifting sanctions on Moscow.

“Obviously every ambassador informs the center (Moscow) about all the contacts he has so the information gets to us, but we are not willing to comment on internal discussions being held in Washington,” Peskov said.

Asked if there had been talks between any Russian and U.S. representatives on easing sanctions, Peskov said: “We have already said there have not been any (such talks)”.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Writing by Denis Pinchuk; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Merkel urges Putin to help end violence in eastern Ukraine

Tanks seen in Ukraine

BERLIN (Reuters) – German leader Angela Merkel urged Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a telephone call on Tuesday to use his influence on separatists in eastern Ukraine to stop the violence there, and the two agreed on the need for new ceasefire efforts, a German government spokesman said.

Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists have both blamed each other for the latest flare-up in a conflict that has killed some 10,000 people since April 2014.

“The German Chancellor and the Russian President agreed that new efforts must be made to secure a ceasefire and asked foreign ministers and their advisers to remain in close contact,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have long tried to broker an end to the conflict but the two-year-old Minsk peace deal has merely locked the two sides in a stalemate.

The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on Russia. Ukraine and NATO accuse the Kremlin of fuelling the conflict by supporting separatists with troops and weapons – a charge it denies.

The Kremlin, in its description of the Merkel-Putin call, said “serious concerns were expressed in connection with the escalation of the armed conflict resulting in human losses”.

Kiev is nervous that U.S. President Donald Trump will shift the political balance in Russia’s favour and that he may consider lifting sanctions against Moscow.

The fighting in eastern Ukraine broke out a month after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014. The statement from Merkel’s spokesman made no mention of Crimea, although the Chancellor does regularly repeat sharp criticism of the annexation.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Paul Carrel and Mark Trevelyan)