Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

Michael Snyder discusses Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin: It’s become clear Western Leaders don’t want peace and anyone who asks questions is the enemy

Tucker Putin Interview

Important Takeaways:

  • Have You Seen Tucker’s Interview With Vladimir Putin? The Reason Why The Elite Are Freaking Out Is Because They Don’t Want Peace
  • This week, the biggest news story in the entire world is Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin. Honestly, it was kind of a bizarre interview, and you can watch it for yourself below.  But I give Tucker Carlson a ton of credit for going to Russia and sitting down with Putin.  I think that the real reason he did this is because he wanted to see for himself if there is any hope of avoiding a cataclysmic conflict between our two nations.  Every day we get even closer to the unthinkable, and so it would make sense for both sides to pursue a peaceful way out of this mess.  But at this point the western elite are not interested in peace, and they don’t want any talk of peace in the media.  So they are going to great lengths to discredit Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin, because they don’t want their carefully crafted narratives to be disrupted.
  • Prior to the invasion, the Russians were primarily concerned about three main things. They didn’t want Ukraine to join NATO, they didn’t want western missiles in Ukraine, and they didn’t want Ukraine to invade the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.  At the time of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainians had massed 70,000 troops on the borders of the DPR and the LPR, and they were shelling the living daylights out of the major population centers.  So the Russians sent troops into the DPR and the LPR, but the Ukrainians continued to shell the major population centers.  Shortly thereafter, the invasion of Ukraine began.
  • But even after the invasion happened, there was still a chance for peace
  • Tucker: So I just want to make sure I’m not misunderstanding what you’re saying. I don’t think that I am. I think you’re saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.
  • Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it. We prepared the huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said, we were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over long ago. 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talk to us out of it and we missed that chance. Well, you missed it. You made a mistake. Let them get back to that. That is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes? I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbas. As I have already said by means of weapons. Let me get back to furthering history. I already told you this. We were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991, when we were promised that NATO would not expand to 2008, when the doors to NATO opened to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and U.S. military bases started to appear on the territory, Ukraine creating threats to us. Let us go back to coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly, but they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?
  • [Michael Snyder] Let’s find a way out before we reach a point of no return.
    • Because if we ultimately get to a point where one side decides to start using nuclear weapons, billions of people could die.
    • This is why Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin is so incredibly important.
    • Unfortunately, the elite in the western world are completely uninterested in using this moment as an opportunity to begin peace talks.
    • For example, even before the interview aired Hillary Clinton was referring to Tucker as a “useful idiot”…
      • Hillary Clinton, speaking on MSNBC Wednesday, joked that she ‘would not be surprised if he emerges with a contract with a Russian outlet, because he is a useful idiot’ in response to the news.
    • And just before the interview was released, John Kirby was telling everyone not to believe “anything” that they heard…
      • Today, before the interview dropped, White House Communications Coordinator John Kirby told Americans not to believe ‘anything’ in the interview.
      • ‘Anybody that watches that interview you need to make sure to remember that you are listening to Vladimir Putin,’ he said.
      • ‘You shouldn’t take at face value anything he has to say.’
    • On the other side of the Atlantic, some politicians actually want to punish Tucker Carlson.
    • In fact, one lawmaker actually wants to impose a travel ban on him…
      • Carlson’s work in Russia could see the former Fox News host in hot water with the EU, Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and current member of the European Parliament, told Newsweek.
      • The lawmaker—who has called for the EU to explore imposing a “travel ban” on Carlson—described Carlson as “a mouthpiece” of former President Donald Trump and Putin, adding: “As Putin is a war criminal and the EU sanctions all who assist him in that effort, it seems logical that the External Action Service examine his case as well.”
    • They want this war in Ukraine, and so for now there will be no peace talks.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Russia’s most prominent news anchor says World War III ‘already underway’

Vladimir-Solovyov

Important Takeaways:

  • The Vladimir Putin ally and anchor of the Russia 1 channel has frequently described on his nightly programs how Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a confrontation with the West, pushed Kremlin rhetoric and issued nuclear threats against Kyiv’s allies.
  • Once again, Solovyov returned to this theme, warning that Russia was being “confronted with a formidable enemy—we are dealing with the collective West, so to speak, which means more than 50 countries.”
  • “Some of them are not Western, the West is no longer a geographical term,” Solovyov said in the clip posted by journalist and Russia watcher Julia Davis on Monday. “Either way, they will get the economy going and move it onto a war footing.”
  • He said this meant that Russia had only a year and a half to two years to bring its economy “up to a level when it will be able to stand up to these countries with their economic potential.”
  • “We are moving towards World War III. In my opinion, it’s already underway.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Putin and Xi cement partnership in face of Western pressure

By Anastasia Lyrchikova

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia and China should stand firm in rejecting Western interference and defending each other’s security interests, presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping agreed in a video call on Wednesday.

Their conversation, eight days after Putin spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden in a similar format, underscored how shared hostility to the West is bringing Moscow and Beijing closer together.

“At present, certain international forces under the guise of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ are interfering in the internal affairs of China and Russia, and brutally trampling on international law and recognized norms of international relations,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as saying.

“China and Russia should increase their joint efforts to more effectively safeguard the security interests of both parties.”

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Xi had offered support to Putin for his push to obtain binding security guarantees for Russia from the West, saying he understood Moscow’s concerns.

He said the pair also expressed their “negative view” of the creation of new military alliances such as the AUKUS partnership between Australia, Britain and the United States and the Indo-Pacific “Quad” of Australia, India, Japan and the United States.

PRESSURE

The call highlighted the ways in which Russia and China are drawing on each other for mutual support at a time of high tension in their relations with the West. China is under pressure over human rights and Russia is accused of threatening behavior towards Ukraine.

The Kremlin said Putin briefed Xi on his conversation with Biden, in which the U.S. president warned Russia against invading Ukraine – which Moscow denies it is planning – and Putin set out his demand for security pledges.

“A new model of cooperation has been formed between our countries, based, among other things, on such principles as non-interference in internal affairs and respect for each other’s interests,” Putin told Xi.

He said he looked forward to meeting Xi at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February – an event that the White House last week said U.S. government officials would boycott because of China’s human rights “atrocities” against Muslims in its western region of Xinjiang.

“I would like to note that we invariably support each other on issues of international sports cooperation, including rejection of any attempts to politicize sports and the Olympic movement,” Putin said.

Putin has used Russia’s partnership with China as a way of balancing U.S. influence while striking lucrative deals, especially on energy. He and Xi this year agreed to extend a 20-year friendship and cooperation treaty.

The Russian leader said bilateral trade was up 31% in the first 11 months of this year to $123 billion, and the two countries aimed to exceed $200 billion in the near future.

He said China was becoming an international center for production of Russia’s Sputnik and Sputnik Light vaccines against COVID-19, with contracts signed with six manufacturers to make more than 150 million doses.

(Additional reporting by Ryan Woo and Ella Cao in Beijing; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Russian lawmakers approve extension of nuclear arms pact with U.S.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s parliament on Wednesday approved a five-year extension of the New START nuclear arms control treaty with the United States, which a senior official said had been agreed on Moscow’s terms at the eleventh hour before it expires next week.

Signed in 2010, the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) is a cornerstone of global arms control and limits the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers that Russia and the United States can deploy.

The White House did not immediately confirm a Kremlin announcement on Tuesday of a deal to extend the treaty but said new President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin had discussed the issue by telephone and agreed that their teams work urgently to complete the pact by Feb. 5, the expiry date.

Both Russia’s lower and upper houses of parliament, the State Duma and Federation Council, rushed through votes on Wednesday to approve the extension of the last major pact of its kind between the two nuclear powers.

“The essence of the agreement is to extend it for five years, as it was signed, without any changes,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Duma.

The next step is expected to be President Vladimir Putin signing the legislation.

Ryabkov said the treaty would be formally extended once Russia and the United States had exchanged diplomatic notes after completing all their respective domestic procedures.

He said the extension had been agreed “on our terms,” the TASS news agency reported.

Moscow and Washington had failed to agree an extension under former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration had wanted to attach conditions to a renewal that Moscow rejected.

Addressing a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Putin cast the extension as “a step in the right direction” – at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are strained in other areas.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, described it as a good treaty that ensured Russia’s national security.

“If the treaty had not been extended, ceilings and quantitative limits would have disappeared, which would open the opportunity for an arms race,” he said.

(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy, Darya Korsunskaya, Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow; Editing by Tom Balmforth and Mark Heinrich)

Russia says its Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine is 92% effective

By Polina Ivanova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is 92% effective at protecting people from COVID-19 according to interim trial results, the country’s sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday, as Moscow rushes to keep pace with Western drugmakers in the race for a shot.

Russia’s results are only the second from a late-stage human trial, following on swiftly from data released on Monday by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech, which said their shot was also more than 90% effective.

While experts said the Russian data was encouraging and reinforced the idea the pandemic could be halted by vaccines, they warned that the results were only based on a small number of trial volunteers who had contracted COVID-19.

The analysis was conducted after 20 participants developed the virus and examined how many had received the vaccine versus a placebo. That is significantly lower than the 94 infections in the trial of the vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

“I assume there was political pressure after the press release from Pfizer and BioNTech earlier in the week to now draw level with their own data,” said Bodo Plachter, deputy director of the Institute of Virology at the Mainz University. “What is missing for now is an analysis of statistical significance.”

To confirm the efficacy rate of its vaccine, Pfizer said it would continue its trial until there were 164 COVID-19 cases.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which has been backing Sputnik V’s development, said the Russian trial would continue for six months.

Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Institute which developed the vaccine, said the interim results demonstrated that Sputnik V was effective and mass vaccinations would be rolled out in Russia in the coming weeks.

European stocks and U.S. stock futures extended their gains slightly after Russia’s announcement though the reaction was far more muted than after Pfizer’s results.

China’s Sinopharm, which is running large-scale late-stage clinical trials for two COVID-19 vaccine candidates, said on Wednesday that its data was better than expected, though it did not give further details.

‘NOT A COMPETITION’

Successful vaccines are seen as crucial to restoring daily life around the world by helping end the pandemic that has killed more than 1.26 million people, shuttered businesses and put millions out of work.

However, experts said knowledge about the Russian trial’s design was sparse, making it hard to interpret the data.

Scientists have raised concerns about the speed at which Moscow has worked, giving the regulatory go-ahead for the shot and launching mass vaccinations before full trials to test its safety and efficacy had been completed.

“This is not a competition. We need all trials to be carried out to the highest possible standards and it is particularly important that the pre-set criteria for un-blinding the trial data are adhered to avoid cherry picking the data,” said Eleanor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh.

“Anything less than this risks a public loss of trust in all vaccines, which would be a disaster.”

The results are based on data from the first 16,000 trial participants to receive both shots of the two-dose vaccine.

“We are showing, based on the data, that we have a very effective vaccine,” said RDIF head Kirill Dmitriev, adding that it was the sort of news that the vaccine’s developers would talk about one day with their grandchildren.

The so-called Phase III trial of the shot is taking place in 29 clinics across Moscow and will involve 40,000 volunteers in total, with a quarter receiving a placebo shot.

The chances of contracting COVID-19 were 92% lower among people vaccinated with Sputnik V than those who received the placebo, the RDIF said.

That’s well above the 50% effectiveness threshold for COVID-19 vaccines set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The RDIF said data from the study would be published in a leading medical journal following a peer review. The results of the early-stage Russian trials were peer reviewed and published in September in The Lancet medical journal.

Experts said that as with the Pfizer results, it was not yet clear how long immunity would last after taking the Russian vaccine, nor how efficient it would be for different age groups.

“We certainly need longer-term observations to draw valid conclusions about efficacy and side effects. The same goes for Pfizer’s and BioNTech’s numbers,” said Plachter in Mainz.

As Moscow seeks partners abroad to boost output, China’s Tibet Rhodiola Pharmaceutical Holding announced a deal soon after the results to released to make, sell and test the shot in China.

SPUTNIK V

The Russian drug is named Sputnik V after the Soviet-era satellite that triggered the space race, a nod to the project’s geopolitical importance for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia registered the vaccine for public use in August, the first country to do so, ahead of the start of the large-scale trial in September.

So far, it has inoculated 10,000 members of the public considered at high risk of contracting COVID-19 such as doctors and teachers, outside of the trial.

The vaccine is designed to trigger a response from two shots administered 21 days apart, each based on different viral vectors that normally cause the common cold: human adenoviruses Ad5 and Ad26.

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and is designed to trigger an immune response without using pathogens, such as actual virus particles.

Russia is also testing a different vaccine, produced by the Vector Institute in Siberia, and is on the cusp of registering a third, Putin said on Tuesday, adding that all of the country’s vaccines were effective.

RDIF said as of Nov. 11 no serious side effects had been reported during the Sputnik V Phase III trial.

Some volunteers had short-term minor adverse events such as pain at the injection site, flu-like syndrome including fever, weakness, fatigue, and headache, it said.

In late October, the vaccination of new volunteers was temporarily paused due to high demand and a shortage of doses.

Russia’s deputy prime minister said on Wednesday that the Vector Institute vaccine was expected to start post-registration trials on Nov. 15.

She also said that Russia would produce 500,000 doses of Sputnik V in November, lower than a previous forecast of 800,000 doses given by Trade and Industry Minister Denis Manturov.

Russia reported 19,851 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours and a record high of 432 deaths. At 1,836,960, its overall case tally is the fifth largest in the world, behind the United States, India, Brazil and France.

(Reporting by Polina Ivanova; Additional reporting by Kate Kelland, Ludwig Burger, Josephine Mason and Thyagaraju Adinarayan; Editing by David Clarke)

China, Russia hold off on congratulating Biden; U.S. allies rally round

By Cate Cadell and Dmitry Antonov

BEIJING/MOSCOW (Reuters) – China and Russia held off congratulating U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Monday, with Beijing saying it would follow usual custom in its response and the Kremlin noting incumbent Donald Trump’s vow to pursue legal challenges.

Democrat Biden clinched enough states to win the presidency on Saturday and has begun making plans for when he takes office on Jan. 20. Trump has not conceded defeat and plans rallies to build support for legal challenges.

Some of the United States’ biggest and closest allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia quickly congratulated Biden over the weekend despite Trump’s refusal to concede, as did some Trump allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday called for the European Union and United States to work “side by side,” holding up Biden as an experienced leader who knows Germany and Europe well and stressing the NATO allies’ shared values and interests.

Beijing and Moscow were cautious.

“We noticed that Mr. Biden has declared election victory,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a daily media briefing. “We understand that the U.S. presidential election result will be determined following U.S. law and procedures.”

In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent congratulations to Trump on Nov. 9, a day after the election.

Relations between China and the United States are at their worst in decades over disputes ranging from technology and trade to Hong Kong and the coronavirus, and the Trump administration has unleashed a barrage of sanctions against Beijing.

While Biden is expected to maintain a tough stance on China — he has called Xi a “thug” and vowed to lead a campaign to “pressure, isolate and punish China” — he is likely to take a more measured and multilateral approach.

Chinese state media struck an optimistic tone in editorials, saying relations could be restored to a state of greater predictability, starting with trade.

KREMLIN NOTES TRUMP’S LAW SUITS

The Kremlin said it would wait for the official results of the election before commenting, and that it had noted Trump’s announcement of legal challenges.

President Vladimir Putin has remained silent since Biden’s victory. In the run-up to the vote, Putin had appeared to hedge his bets, frowning on Biden’s anti-Russian rhetoric but welcoming his comments on nuclear arms control. Putin had also defended Biden’s son, Hunter, against criticism from Trump.

“We think it appropriate to wait for the official vote count,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

Biden cleared the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House on Saturday, four days after the Nov. 3 election. He beat Trump by more than 4 million votes nationwide, making Trump the first president since 1992 to lose re-election.

Asked why, in 2016, Putin had congratulated Trump soon after he had won the Electoral College and beaten Democrat Hillary Clinton, Peskov said there was an obvious difference.

“You can see that there are certain legal procedures that have been announced by the current president. That is why the situations are different and we therefore think it appropriate to wait for an official announcement,” he said.

Peskov noted that Putin had repeatedly said he was ready to work with any U.S. leader and that Russia hoped it could establish dialogue with a new U.S. administration and find a way to normalize troubled bilateral relations.

Moscow’s ties with Washington sank to post-Cold War lows in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Biden was serving as vice president under President Barack Obama at the time.

Relations soured further over U.S. allegations that Moscow had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to try to tilt the vote in Trump’s favor, something the Kremlin denied.

(Additional reporting by Brenda Goh, Tony Munroe and Lusha Zhang in Beijing; Darya Korsunskaya and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber in Moscow; Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Catherine Evans)

U.S. House members ask Trump to probe Navalny poisoning, suggest sanctions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee called on President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday to investigate the suspected poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, suggesting sanctions might be necessary.

“If the Russian government is once again determined to have used a chemical weapon against one of its own nationals, additional sanctions should be imposed,” Representatives Eliot Engel, the Democratic committee chairman, and Michael McCaul, the panel’s top Republican, said in a letter to Trump.

Germany, where Navalny is in a hospital, has said Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent and wants the perpetrators held to account. Russia has until now not opened a criminal investigation and said there is no evidence yet of a crime.

Navalny is the most popular and prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin, and the German announcement that he was poisoned by a nerve agent has raised the possibility of further Western sanctions against Moscow.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. Trump said on Friday his administration had not yet seen proof that Navalny was poisoned.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.S. troops to start extended exercises in Lithuania amid tensions over Belarus

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) – U.S. troops and tanks will arrive in Lithuania on Friday for a two-month deployment near the Belarus border, but the government said the move was not a message to its Russian-backed neighbor, where protests continue over a disputed election.

In an announcement on Wednesday evening, NATO member Lithuania said U.S. troops will be moved from Poland for pre-planned military exercises. These are “defensive in nature and not directed against any neighbor, including Belarus,” it added.

However, the troops are arriving earlier and staying longer than the government had indicated before the outbreak of protests in Belarus over the Aug. 9 election that returned President Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, to power.

Lukashenko has denied accusations by the Belarus opposition and Western countries that the vote was rigged and has resisted protesters’ demands to step down. He has accused NATO of a military buildup near Belarus’ borders, something the alliance denied, and has said he will ask for Russian military help if needed.

The deployment in Lithuania, which will begin on Friday and will last until November, includes 500 American troops and 40 vehicles, such as Abrams tanks and Bradley armored troop carriers, a Lithuanian army spokesman said.

On July 29, Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told BNS wire the United States would send a battalion-sized troop contingent – between 300 to 1,000 soldiers – in September, for two weeks’ training, beginning in the middle of the month.

He repeated that information on Aug. 4 in an interview with public radio LRT.

“Deployment was aligned with training schedule and training area availability,” defense minister spokeswoman Vita Ramanauskaite told Reuters.

In addition to the U.S. deployment, up to 1,000 troops and military planes from France, Italy, Germany, Poland and others will take part in an annual exercise on Sept. 14-25, the Lithuanian army spokesman said.

The ministry did not state any plans for those troops to stay beyond Sept. 25.

Karoblis said earlier this month that there was a real danger Russia would send forces to Belarus.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Simon Johnson, Steve Orlofsky and Frances Kerry)

Kremlin tells West not to rush to judge it on Navalny as sanctions talk starts

By Andrew Osborn and Madeline Chambers

MOSCOW/BERLIN (Reuters) – Russia said on Thursday the West should not rush to judge it over the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and that there were no grounds to accuse it of the crime, as talk in the West of punishing Moscow intensified.

The Kremlin was speaking a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Navalny had been poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder him and that she would consult NATO allies about how to respond.

Navalny, 44, is an outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has specialized in high-impact investigations into official corruption. He was airlifted to Germany last month after collapsing on a domestic Russian flight after drinking a cup of tea that his allies said was poisoned.

Berlin’s Charite hospital, which is treating Navalny, has said he remains in a serious condition in an intensive care unit connected to an artificial lung ventilator even though some of his symptoms are receding.

Novichok is the same substance that Britain said was used against a Russian double agent and his daughter in an attack in England in 2018. The deadly group of nerve agents was developed by the Soviet military in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow rejected any suggestion that Russia had been behind the attack on Navalny and warned other countries against jumping to conclusions without knowing the full facts.

“There are no grounds to accuse the Russian state. And we are not inclined to accept any accusations in this respect,” Peskov told reporters.

“Of course we would not want our partners in Germany and other European countries to hurry with their assessments.”

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence agency, said Moscow could not rule out Western intelligence agencies had orchestrated the poisoning to stir up trouble, the RIA news agency reported.

Russian prosecutors have said they see no reason to launch a criminal investigation because they say they have found no sign a crime was committed, though pre-investigation checks are continuing.

Peskov said Russia was eager to know what had happened to Navalny, but couldn’t do so without receiving information from Germany about the tests that had led to Berlin’s conclusions about Novichok.

SANCTIONS PRESSURE

OPCW, the global chemical weapons agency, said the poisoning of any individual with a toxic nerve agent would be considered use of a banned chemical weapon.

The European Commission said the bloc could only slap new sanctions on Russia after an investigation revealed who was responsible for Navalny’s poisoning. Lithuania said it would ask EU leaders to discuss the poisoning at their next summit.

Merkel said that any German or European response would depend on whether Russia helped clear up the case.

After her strong statement on Wednesday, she is under pressure at home to reconsider the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will take gas from Russia to Germany.

“We must pursue hard politics, we must respond with the only language (Russian President Vladimir) Putin understands – that is gas sales,” Norbert Roettgen, head of Germany’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told German radio.

“If the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is completed now, it would be the maximum confirmation and encouragement for Putin to continue this kind of politics,” Roettgen, a member of Merkel’s conservatives, told German television separately.

Nord Stream 2 is set to double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream 1 pipeline in carrying gas directly from Russia to Germany. Led by Russian company Gazprom with Western partners, the project is more than 90% finished and due to operate from early 2021. This may complicate efforts to stop it.

It is fiercely opposed by Washington and has divided the European Union, with some countries warning it will undermine the traditional gas transit state, Ukraine, and increase the bloc’s reliance on Russia.

Peskov said the Kremlin regarded talk of trying to thwart Nord Stream 2 as being based on emotions. He said the project was a commercial one which benefited Russia, Germany and Europe.

“We don’t understand what the reason for any sanctions could be,” said Peskov.

(Additional reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Anton Kolodyazhnyy and Maxim Rodionov in Moscow and by Thomas Seythal and Vera Eckert in Berlin and by Gabriela Baczynska, John Chalmers, and Marine Strauss in Brussels, Andrius Sytas in Vilnius and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by William Maclean)

Putin speeds up Russian political shake-up, details new power center

By Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin accelerated a shake-up of Russia’s political system on Monday, submitting a constitutional reform blueprint to parliament that will create a new center of power outside the presidency.

Putin also replaced Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, who had held the role since 2006, a move suggesting his planned changes could reach beyond the political system and the government.

In a surprise move, Putin announced plans for reforms last week. Long-time ally Dmitry Medvedev then resigned as prime minister along with the government, saying he wanted to allow room for the president to make the changes.

Putin’s proposed changes are widely seen as giving him scope to retain influence once his term expires in 2024 though he said at the weekend he did not favor the Soviet-era practice of having leaders for life who die in office.

In draft amendments submitted to the State Duma lower house, Putin offered a glimpse of how his reforms look on paper. Under his plan, some of the president’s broad powers would be clipped and parliament’s powers expanded.

In one of the biggest changes, the status of the State Council, now a low-profile body that advises the president, would for the first time be enshrined in the constitution.

Putin, 67, has not disclosed what he plans to do once he leaves the Kremlin. One option could be to head the beefed-up State Council once he leaves the presidency.

Under his proposals, the president would pick the make-up of the State Council which would be handed broader powers to “determine the main directions of domestic and foreign policy.”

His changes also envisage preventing any future president serving more than two terms. Putin first became president in 2000 and is now in his fourth term as head of state.

OPPOSITION PROTEST MARCH

Chaika, 68, has long been one of the most powerful figures in the Russian justice system and has faced allegations of corruption from the political opposition which he denies.

The Kremlin said Chaika was moving to another, unspecified, job and proposed Igor Krasnov, deputy head of the Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, to replace him.

Krasnov, 44, has led high-profile criminal investigations including the inquiry into the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead near the Kremlin in 2015.

Russia’s opposition said on Monday it planned to stage a protest march next month against the reforms.

“Society needs a big and genuinely mass protest,” wrote opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who said Putin’s changes amounted to a move to “rule forever”.

The Duma is due to discuss Putin’s amendments on Thursday.

Putin has said the public will be invited to vote on the proposed changes.

Andrei Klishas, a senior lawmaker involved in drafting the legislation, said the vote might be held once parliament approved the legislation, the RIA news agency reported.

(Additional reporting by Andrey Kuzmin, Alexander Marrow and Anton Zverev, Editing by Timothy Heritage)