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Northeast Braces for First Severe Heat of the Year , by Johnny DiazNetanyahu Says He Didn’t Know About Plans to Pause Fighting, but Analysts Say He Probably Approved Them, by Isabel Kershner

Persons: Johnny Diaz Netanyahu, Isabel Kershner

☆ Russia Detains Another Defense Official, in New Sign of Putin Shake-Up
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-23 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Russia has jailed a top defense official, the fourth in a month, state media reported on Thursday, expanding President Vladimir V. Putin’s biggest shake-up of his military leadership since the invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. A Moscow military court ordered Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin jailed for two months on Wednesday on suspicion of “large-scale” bribery, state news agencies said. General Shamarin was a deputy head of the Russian military’s main commanding body, the general staff, and oversaw its communications directorate. Image A photograph of General Shamarin, released by the Russian Defense Ministry. Credit... Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, via Associated PressThe detention of General Shamarin is the latest in a series of high-profile arrests that have coincided with Mr. Putin’s appointment of a new defense minister, Andrei R. Belousov, earlier this month.

Persons: Vladimir V, Vadim Shamarin, General Shamarin, Shamarin, Putin’s, Andrei R Organizations: Russian Defense Ministry . Credit, Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Associated, Mr Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Russian

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia replaced his minister of defense on Sunday as he shook up his national security team for the first time since his invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Putin kept the minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, in his inner circle, tapping him to run the country’s security council. Andrei R. Belousov, an economist who served as first deputy prime minister in the last government and previously was the economic development minister, was nominated to become the new defense chief. It is unclear how much authority over the war effort Mr. Shoigu will retain. colleague of Mr. Putin who has headed the Russian security council for 16 years, would be moved to another position to be announced in the coming days.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Sergei K, Andrei R, Shoigu, Nikolai P, Mr Locations: Russia, Ukraine

Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicWarning: this episode contains descriptions of violence. More than a hundred people died and scores more were wounded on Friday night in a terrorist attack on a concert hall near Moscow — the deadliest such attack in Russia in decades. Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The Times, discusses the uncomfortable question the assault raises for Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin: Has his focus on the war in Ukraine left his country more vulnerable to other threats?

Persons: Anton Troianovski, Vladimir V, Putin Organizations: Spotify, The Times Locations: Moscow, Russia, Ukraine

☆ In First Remarks on Attack, Putin Tries to Link Assailants to Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia laid the groundwork on Saturday for blaming Ukraine for the Moscow concert hall attack. And in making his first remarks on the assault more than 19 hours after it began, he pledged to punish the perpetrators, “whoever they may be, whoever may have sent them.”Mr. Putin, in a five-minute televised address, claimed that someone in Ukraine had tried to help the attackers escape across the border from Russia before they were apprehended by Russian security services. He did not definitively pin the attack on Ukraine; nor did he refer to the assessment by American officials that a branch of the Islamic State was behind it. “They were trying to hide and were moving toward Ukraine,” Mr. Putin said, referring to the four men who carried out the attack and who the Kremlin said had been captured in western Russia. “Based on preliminary information, a window for crossing the border was prepared for them by the Ukrainian side.”

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Mr, “, ” Mr, ” Organizations: Ukraine, Islamic Locations: Russia, Moscow, Ukraine, Islamic State, Ukrainian

The warning was related to the attack on Friday, according to people briefed on the matter. Pro-Kremlin voices immediately seized on the U.S. Embassy’s warning to paint America as trying to scare Russians. And he has been quick to accuse Ukraine of acts of terrorism to justify his invasion of the country. But I would disabuse you at this early hour of any connection to Ukraine.”“Our thoughts obviously are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack,” he also said. Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, said in a video statement that “Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do” with the attack.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Mr, ”, John Kirby, Maria Zakharova, Washington, Mykhailo Podolyak, Aishvarya Kavi Organizations: U.S, Embassy, State Department, Kyiv, Biden’s National Security Council, White, Reuters, “ Locations: Moscow, America, Russia, Ukraine, Russian, U.S, Washington

☆ Putin Breaks Silence on Navalny’s Death, Calling It an ‘Unfortunate Incident’
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-17 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Vladimir V. Putin described the death of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny as an “unfortunate incident” and claimed he had been ready to release him in exchange for Russian prisoners held in the West. Mr. Putin, in a news conference after Russia’s presidential election, said that “some people” had told him before Mr. Navalny’s death “that there was an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for some people held in correctional facilities in Western countries.”“I said, ‘I agree,’” Mr. Putin said. “Just with one condition: ‘We’ll trade him but make sure that he doesn’t come back, let him stay over there.’”He added: “But this happens. That’s life.”The comments, in response to a question from NBC News, were Mr. Putin’s first about Mr. Navalny’s death at a penal colony in the Arctic— and a rare moment, if not the first, when the Russian president uttered Mr. Navalny’s name in public.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Aleksei A, ”, Navalny, “, ‘, ’, Mr, Putin’s, Navalny’s Organizations: NBC News Locations: West, Russian

☆ Navalny’s Funeral to Be Held on Friday, Spokeswoman Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, will be buried on Friday after a funeral service in Moscow that will be open to the public, his spokeswoman said on Wednesday, although it was unclear whether the authorities would try to prevent people from attending. The planned service, at a church on Moscow’s outskirts, sets up the possibility of a rare display of opposition sentiment in the Russian capital, and Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, advised anyone planning to attend to “come early.”Two hours after Ms. Yarmysh’s announcement, another top aide to Mr. Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, posted on the Telegram social messaging app that “Putin is releasing all his dogs to prevent the funeral from taking place normally.”Mr. Zhdanov did not immediately elaborate. But regardless, mourners will be taking a risk by attending. Hundreds of people who turned out across Russia at spontaneous memorials for Mr. Navalny after his death were detained, according to OVD-Info, a Russian-based rights group that tracks arrests.

Persons: Aleksei A, Navalny’s, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, Putin, Mr, Zhdanov Locations: Russian, Moscow, Moscow’s, Russia

☆ Aleksei Navalny’s Body Was Returned to His Mother, Allies Say
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-24 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Russian authorities have transferred the body of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny to his mother, his spokeswoman said on Saturday, ending a grim battle for custody of his remains, but it is unclear whether he will get a funeral that the public can attend. “Aleksei’s body has been handed over to his mother,” Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said in a statement posted on social media. “The funeral is yet to come. She added that the opposition leader’s team would release information about the funeral “as it becomes available.”Mr. Navalny’s family and aides have accused the Russian authorities of keeping his body hostage and “blackmailing” his mother into agreeing to bury him in secret. On Friday, Ms. Yarmysh said that officials in Salekhard had given Ms. Navalnaya an ultimatum demanding that she assent to such a secret funeral within three hours, or else that he would be buried on prison grounds.

Persons: Aleksei A, Navalny, ” Mr, Navalny’s, Kira Yarmysh, Aleksei, Lyudmila Navalnaya, Yarmysh, Mr, “, ”, Salekhard, Navalnaya Locations: Salekhard

☆ Putin Offers Muted Response to Attack on Israel. That Speaks Volumes.
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-10 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has long cast himself as a friend of Israel and the Jewish people. But amid the worst attack on Israel in 50 years, the high regard that Mr. Putin has shown for Israel in the past appears remarkably absent. More than three days after the start of the incursion by Hamas, there has been no message of condolence from the Kremlin, even though Mr. Putin previously published such notes of sympathy in the wake of terrorist attacks in Israel. And he has not yet called Mr. Netanyahu, even though he spoke with Israeli leaders at least 11 times in 2022 and developed a close relationship with Mr. Netanyahu over more than a decade of meetings and phone calls. Instead, Mr. Putin’s spokesman on Monday struck a neutral stance, saying that Russia was “extremely concerned” and calling for an immediate halt to the fighting.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu, Putin’s Organizations: Moscow Jewish Museum, Kremlin Locations: Russia, Israel, Moscow, Jerusalem, Nazi, Leningrad

Azerbaijan said on Wednesday that it would stop its assault on a breakaway Armenian enclave after the pro-Armenian authorities there announced an apparent surrender to Azerbaijan’s demands, a development that could avert a wider war in a volatile region while altering its geopolitics. In a statement carried by the Azerbaijani state news agency Azertac, the country’s Defense Ministry said that it had agreed to halt its “antiterror measures” in the enclave, Nagorno-Karabakh, after the separatist government there agreed that its forces would lay down their arms and withdraw from their battle positions. Around the same time, the Armenian separatist government issued its own statement declaring that it had accepted a Russia-brokered cease-fire after Azerbaijani forces managed to break through Armenian positions and “take control of a number of heights and strategic road junctions.”Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave slightly bigger than Rhode Island in area, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but is home to tens of thousands of Armenians who stayed after a 2020 cease-fire and are under the protection of Russian peacekeepers.

Persons: Azertac Organizations: country’s Defense Ministry Locations: Azerbaijan, Nagorno, Karabakh, Russia, Rhode

African leaders allied with Russia had grown used to dealing with Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the swaggering, profane mercenary leader who traveled the continent by private jet, offering to prop up shaky regimes with guns and propaganda in return for gold and diamonds. But the Russian delegation that toured three African countries last week was led by a very different figure, the starchy deputy defense minister Yunus-bek Yevkurov. Dressed in a khaki uniform and a “telnyashka” — the horizontally-striped undergarment of Russian armed forces — he signaled conformity and restraint, giving assurances wrapped in polite language. “We will do our best to help you,” he said at a news conference in Burkina Faso. The contrast with the flamboyant Mr. Prigozhin could not have been sharper, and it aligned with the message the Kremlin was delivering: After Mr. Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash last month, Russia’s operations in Africa were coming under new management.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Yunus, bek Yevkurov, —, ”, Prigozhin, Prigozhin’s Locations: Russia, Burkina Faso, Africa

Just as the news broke on Wednesday of the presumed death of the mercenary chief Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was presiding over a televised World War II anniversary ceremony on a dark stage lit dramatically in red. He held a moment of silence, flanked by service members in dress uniforms, while a metronome’s beats sounded, like the slow ticking of a clock: Tock. The eerie split screen — the reported fiery demise of the man who launched an armed rebellion in June and the Russian president telegraphing the state’s military might — may have been coincidental. But it underscored the imagery of dominance and power that Mr. Putin, 18 months into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, appears more determined than ever to project. His internet “troll farm” helped the Kremlin interfere in the 2016 American presidential election, while his mercenary empire helped Russia exert influence across Africa and the Middle East.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Prigozhin, Vladimir V, Putin, telegraphing Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Bakhmut, Africa

Online, the Defense Ministry published a splashy video ad focusing on two central motivations: machismo, and money. It defines military service as more meaningful — and manly — than what’s depicted as the Russian man’s typical, humdrum existence. Since the invasion’s beginning, state television newscasts have been offering viewers a sanitized view of the war. “I got all the payments that contract servicemen are entitled to if they’re wounded,” the veteran, Nikolai Karpenko, says. “Contract military service, Nikolai says, gave him the chance to show that he’s a real defender of the fatherland,” the reporter intones.

Persons: “, Nikolai Karpenko, Nikolai, intones Organizations: Defense Ministry, Russian Defense Locations: Russian, Irkutsk, Siberia, Ukraine

A Russian robotic spacecraft that was headed to the lunar surface has crashed into the moon, Russia’s space agency said on Sunday, citing the results of a preliminary investigation a day after it lost contact with the vehicle. The Luna-25 lander, Russia’s first space launch to the moon’s surface since the 1970s, entered lunar orbit last Wednesday and was supposed to land as early as Monday. On Saturday afternoon Moscow time, according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, the spacecraft received orders to enter an orbit that would set it up for a lunar landing. But an unexplained “emergency situation” occurred, and the orbital adjustment did not occur. On Sunday, Roscosmos said that measures to find and re-establish contact with the craft had failed, and that it calculated the failure of the adjustment meant that Luna-25 had deviated from its planned orbit and “ceased its existence as a result of a collision with the lunar surface.”

Persons: Luna, Roscosmos Organizations: “ Locations: Russian, Soviet Union

☆ Dozens Reported Dead in Fire at Gas Station in Southern Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A fire and an explosion at a gas station killed at least 35 people in southern Russia, the authorities said Tuesday, in a disaster that struck one of the country’s poorest regions. There were no immediate reports of foul play or of a connection to the war in Ukraine. Russian state media said a fire at a nearby building on Monday evening caused an explosion at the gas station in Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan region, on the Caspian Sea and near the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. Witnesses interviewed by the Russian news media described an enormous blast. “I was at home, lying on the couch,” one woman said in a video interview circulated by Tass, a state-run news agency.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Sergei Melikov Organizations: Tass Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Russian, Makhachkala, Dagestan, Caucasus

☆ Her Advice to Antiwar Russians: Resistance Is Futile, So Find Ways to Cope
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Anton Troianovski | More About Anton Troianovski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Emerging from a friend’s Maserati on southern Spain’s Mediterranean coast, Ksenia Sobchak wants the world to know: Back home in Russia, fighting for change is futile. “There is no resistance, nor can there be any,” she says. “This has to be understood.”She can point to ample proof to support her pessimism: Thousands of Russians have been arrested for protesting the war. Ms. Sobchak is one of the best-known media figures still based in Russia and the daughter of one of Mr. Putin’s first political mentors. She is able to widely communicate her call for Russians to just cope with the war, though her stance has also made her profoundly unpopular among two distinctly different sets.

Persons: Sobchak, Vladimir V, Putin’s Organizations: Maserati, Liberal Locations: Russia, Ukraine

For the first time in nearly half a century, Russia has launched a spacecraft that is headed to the moon. On Friday morning at a spaceport in the far eastern part of Russia, a rocket lifted Luna-25, a robotic lander of moderate size, to Earth orbit. The Soyuz rocket began its flight under cloudy skies at the Vostochny launchpad. About 10 minutes into the flight, the spacecraft and a space tug propulsion unit separated from the rocket’s third stage. In about an hour, the space tug will push Luna-25 on a course to the moon.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Luna Organizations: Soyuz Locations: Russia, Ukraine

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had fired at least three drones at Moscow, the latest in a wave of attacks in Russia demonstrating that few places are off limits after more than 17 months of war. One drone was destroyed in Odintsovo, outside Moscow, the Defense Ministry said, adding that two others struck commercial buildings in the capital after being intercepted by Russian air defenses. Ukraine does not typically claim responsibility for attacks in Russia, in an effort to maintain a military advantage and an element of surprise. However, senior Ukrainian officials said last week that recent drone attacks on Moscow were orchestrated by Kyiv. A few hours after Sunday’s attack, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman released a statement that neither accepted nor denied responsibility.

Persons: Moscow’s, Sergey Sobyanin Organizations: Russian Defense Ministry, Defense Ministry, Kyiv, Ukrainian Air Force Locations: Moscow, Russia, Odintsovo, Ukraine

Moscow said it shot down two Ukrainian missiles over southwestern Russia on Friday, including one that fell and exploded in a city center — apparently rare instances of Ukraine using such powerful weapons to attack targets inside Russia. Coming as Ukraine, within its own borders, steps up its counteroffensive against the Russian invaders, the missile attacks could signal a more aggressive effort to expand a war that until now has brought death and destruction almost exclusively to Ukrainian territory. Russian officials said one downed missile fell in the city of Taganrog, about 80 miles southeast of the nearest front lines, injuring at least nine people, none severely, and damaging some buildings, and that the other fell in “a deserted area” near the city of Azov, which lies some 25 miles farther from the fighting. Video and photographs circulated by Russian state media and local outlets showed the aftermath of a blast in Taganrog, a port city on the Sea of Azov, including piles of rubble and blown-out windows and garage doors. The regional governor, Vasily Golubev, said the detonation hit near an art museum and a cafe in the city center.

Persons: Vasily Golubev Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Taganrog, “, Azov

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday pledged free grain for some African countries and accused the West of “telling lies” about the dormant deal that had allowed Ukrainian food exports, scrambling to shore up support among African leaders and casting his war in Ukraine as part of an increasingly global conflict. Mr. Putin hosted around 20 African leaders for the start of a two-day summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, drawing a significant contingent of officials from across the continent looking to Russia as a source of arms and food. But the gathering attracted fewer than half the number of leaders who attended the summit in 2019, a sign of how the war has tempered support for Moscow even in a region it has assiduously courted. The Russian president began the summit on the defensive, having refused last week to extend a deal that had protected Ukrainian grain exports, pushing up the price of grain around the world. But Mr. Putin has responded with a multipronged charm offensive that underscored how he is seeking to take on the West on multiple fronts, well beyond the battlefield in Ukraine.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Azali Assoumani, ” Organizations: African Union Locations: Russia, Ukraine, St . Petersburg, Moscow, Russian, Comoros

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia pledged on Thursday to ship free grain to at least six African countries over the next four months, scrambling to shore up Moscow’s image on the continent in the wake of the Kremlin’s refusal to extend a deal that had protected Ukrainian grain exports that help feed millions of people around the world. Mr. Putin, speaking at a summit for African countries in St. Petersburg that drew far fewer African leaders than its 2019 iteration, insisted in a keynote speech that Western hypocrisy rather than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was to blame for disruptions in the global food supply. “Nothing happened of what was discussed and promised to us,” Mr. Putin said, repeating his assertion that the West had failed to fulfill its end of the grain deal and had done nothing to clear the way for Russian food and fertilizer exports. He added that those casting Russia as an unreliable food supplier were “telling lies,” which he said had “been the practice of some Western states for decades, if not centuries.”

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, ” Mr, “, ” Locations: Russia, St . Petersburg, Ukraine

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