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☆ Georgia's flagship airline bans president over Russia flights criticism - TASS
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Felix Light | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

TBILISI, May 21 (Reuters) - The founder of Georgia's national airline Georgian Airways has banned the country's president from using its services after she said she would boycott the airline over its resumption of flights to Russia, Russia's TASS news agency reported on Sunday. Russia announced this month it was lifting a four-year old ban on direct flights with Georgia and removing a decades-old visa requirement for Georgians travelling to Russia. President Salome Zourabichvili urged Georgian authorities to thwart the Russian initiative, an appeal they ignored. Many Georgians oppose any rapprochement with Moscow whose troops garrison two breakaway regions - Abkhazia and South Ossetia - that make up around one fifth of the country's territory. President Zourabichvili, whose position is largely ceremonial and whose relations with the government are strained, has warned that deepening ties with Russia could jeopardise the country's chances of the EU one day.

☆ Russian parliament chief proposes Polish truck ban, says Warsaw owes Moscow billions
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, May 21 (Reuters) - Russia's top lawmaker on Sunday called for a ban on Polish trucks transiting Russian territory and for Poland to compensate Moscow financially for what he said was the Soviet rebuilding of the east European country after World War Two. He said Poland should also hand back territory it received after the war. Volodin said a parliamentary committee would begin considering a ban on Polish trucks entering Russian territory as soon as Monday. Strained Russian-Polish relations have deteriorated further since the war in Ukraine - something Moscow calls "a special military operation" with Warsaw positioning itself as one of Kyiv's key allies. In March 2022, Poland said it was expelling 45 Russian diplomats suspected of working for Moscow's intelligence services.

☆ Explainer: How important is Wagner's claimed capture of Bakhmut?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/4] A general view shows a building damaged by a Russian military strike, amid their attack on Ukraine, in the front line city of Bakhmut, in Donetsk region, Ukraine February 27, 2023. REUTERS/Alex... Read moreLONDON, May 20 (Reuters) - Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday that his Wagner fighters had completed the capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after months of intense fighting, a claim denied by Ukraine. Zelenskiy portrayed "Fortress Bakhmut" as a symbol of defiance which he said was bleeding the Russian military dry. If confirmed, Bakhmut would be Russia's first major capture since July last year and a morale-boosting battlefield win after a string of defeats. The city's capture would be a boost for Russia's most high-profile mercenaries - Wagner - and their publicity-hungry founder Prigozhin.

☆ Do Dress Sneakers Belong in the Oval Office?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Think of it as a rare instance of cross-aisle consensus or else a sartorial trend gone badly wrong. But it did not go unnoticed when, in a photograph from the Oval Office posted to President Joe Biden’s account this week, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Hakeem Jeffries were all captured wearing some variant of the dreaded footwear hybrid: the sneaker shoe. Weighing in on Twitter, cult men’s wear commentator Derek Guy (@dieworkwear) called out the footgear as a clear lapse in dignity, if not actual protocol. Why pay a visit to a sitting president dressed in shoes designed for power-walking at the mall? “Awful,” Yang-Yi Goh, style director of GQ, pronounced the shoe that has become a style default among Capitol Hill staffers.

☆ The Taliban promised to provide security to Afghans. New data shows threat from ISIS is growing
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Eliza Mackintosh Ehsan Popalzai Antonio Jarne Lou Robinson | Eliza Mackintosh | Ehsan Popalzai | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +19 min

“Currently we don’t have security in Afghanistan at all, whenever we go out we don’t know if we will come home alive or not,” he added. Taliban security forces guard a checkpoint near the foreign ministry in Kabul on March 27, after an ISIS-K suicide bomber struck the site. The data, which is available in a live map, includes 367 pieces of open-source evidence — largely videos and images shared on social media — about 70 ISIS-K attacks since August 2021. As the Taliban try to minimize the threat ISIS-K poses, attacks on civilians continue. Taliban security forces have been waging ongoing operations and night raids against ISIS-K.

☆ Greenpeace to shut down in Russia after being declared 'undesirable organisation'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, May 19 (Reuters) - The Russian branch of environmental group Greenpeace on Friday said it would shut down after authorities declared the group an "undesirable organisation", effectively banning it from operating. The label "undesirable" has been applied to dozens of foreign groups since Moscow began using the classification in 2015, and effectively bans an organisation outright. "This decision makes it illegal for any Greenpeace activity to continue in Russia. Therefore, the Russian branch of Greenpeace is forced to close," Greenpeace Russia said in a statement posted on Telegram. Later, Russia chief executive Sergei Tsyplenkov said he would take legal advice before deciding whether to appeal the ruling.

☆ Belarus opposition told to 'be ready' for democracy push as rumours of leader's ill health swirl
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/2] Exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya speaks at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, in Copenhagen, Denmark May 15, 2023. State TV later broadcast a clip of Lukashenko at what it said was a central air force command base. Dressed in a military uniform, Lukashenko appeared to have a bandage on his left hand and to be short of breath at times. "There are many rumours about the dictator Lukashenko's health," Tsikhanouskaya she tweeted to supporters. Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, said in televised comments that Kyiv had information about Lukashenko's health, but said he would not comment for various reasons.

☆ Russia denounces Macron over China comments
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, May 15 (Russia) - Russian officials on Monday denounced comments by French President Emmanuel Macron that Moscow was becoming subservient to China, saying Western countries must get used to a world underpinned by the Kremlin's close ties with Beijing. The Russian criticism focused on an interview Macron gave to the Paris daily l'Opinion in which he decried the Kremlin's isolation brought on by its invasion of Ukraine more than 14 months ago. "(Russia) has de facto started a form of vasallisation with China and has lost access to the Baltic that was critical to it as it has precipitated the decision by Sweden and Finland to join Nato," Macron was quoted as saying in the daily. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia's relations with China were those of a strategic partner and had nothing to do with dependence. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Paris had become preoccupied with Moscow's strengthened relations with China and changes that implied for the world order.

☆ Kremlin calls Polish decision to rename Kaliningrad 'hostile act'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Soldiers build razor wire fence on Poland's border with Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad near Bolcie, Poland November 3, 2022. Arkadiusz Stankiewicz/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERSMay 10 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Poland's decision to rename the Russian city of Kaliningrad in its official documents was a "hostile act", as bilateral ties continue to fray over the war in Ukraine. Kaliningrad was known by the German name of Koenigsberg until after World War II, when it was annexed by the Soviet Union and renamed to honour Soviet politician Mikhail Kalinin. Relations between Poland and Russia have historically often been very strained, including during and after World War Two. Most Poles believe the Soviet Union replaced Nazi occupation with another form of repression.

☆ Russian mercenary chief says he's still not getting enough shells for Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 10 (Reuters) - Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin complained on Wednesday that his Wagner fighters were still not getting enough shells from the defence ministry to underpin what he said was their advance in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. "We're not receiving enough shells, we're only getting 10% (of what we need)," Prigozhin, whose forces have been spearheading the assault on Bakhmut despite taking heavy losses, said in the statement. Prigozhin said that the Russian leadership had asked the defence ministry to check the status of Wagner's shell request, but that bureaucracy meant the process was a slow one. There was no immediate comment on his latest assertions from the defence ministry while the Kremlin earlier on Wednesday said it had not seen a public appeal for more shells that Prigozhin had made on May 9. Prigozhin said the target of his anger remained the same however - the army's top brass.

☆ How the US Air Force's 2 newest fighter jets stack up
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Kris Osborn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The F-35 and F-15EX are different in many respects, including their tech and likely missions. F-15EX vs. F-35A US Air Force F-35A over the Pacific in June 2022. The most advanced and rapidly emerging Russian- and Chinese-built air defenses are now much more likely to operate with an ability to detect even stealth aircraft to some degree. US Air Force/Ethan WagnerConsidering these factors, some are likely to wonder if the F-15EX is an aircraft without a clearly defined mission. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel.

☆ Mercenary chief makes cryptic but profane remark about Russian war leadership
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MOSCOW, May 9 (Reuters) - Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on Tuesday made a cryptic but profanity-laced comment about those in charge of Russia's war on Ukraine that risks getting him into more trouble with the Kremlin. The defence ministry has said it is working to ensure all battlefield units have what they need. The identity of the grandfather figure Prigozhin referred to was unclear, but sufficiently ambiguous to invite speculation. Prigozhin has previously poured scorn on Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, but has avoided all personal criticism of President Vladimir Putin. Reporting by Reuters Writing by Andrew Osborn Editing by Guy FaulconbridgeOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

It also highlights Russian frustration at failing to complete the capture of Bakhmut after more than nine months of costly, intense battle. ANGRY TIRADEWhat looked real, however, was Prigozhin's fury at Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov. "If Putin wants him to be in combat, he'll force him in one way or another to do so." Marten said its involvement in the battle for Bakhmut, including fighters recruited from Russian prisons, had allowed Putin to avoid declaring a full-scale mobilization. Whatever its immediate intentions around Bakhmut, Wagner is likely to remain a significant player in the war, given Prigozhin's personal ambitions and determination to stay in the limelight.

☆ Analysis: Kremlin drone incident gives Putin cover to deepen Ukraine war
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/3] The Russian flag flies on the dome of the Kremlin Senate building, while the roof shows what appears to be marks from the recent drone incident, in central Moscow, Russia, May 4, 2023. Inside Russia, it helped reinforce the Kremlin-backed narrative that its war in Ukraine is an existential one for the Russian state and people. "It's an attempt to gather all the sacred things in one statement," Alexander Baunov, a former Russian diplomat and Kremlin watcher, said of the Kremlin's response. Former president Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent pro-Kremlin TV commentators, both argued for precisely such action in the aftermath of the drone incident. An investigation into the drone incident is certain to uncover shortcomings in Russia's own air defences.

☆ Kremlin says German involvement in Ukraine conflict is growing due to arms supplies
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MOSCOW, May 2 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Germany's involvement in the Ukraine conflict was growing by the day, and that Berlin had no way of ensuring that weapons it had provided to Ukraine would not be used against Russian territory. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said German-supplied weapons were already being used in the Donbas region, which Russia has declared its own, a step Ukraine and the West have dismissed as illegal. Second, the weapons supplied by Germany to the Kyiv regime are already firing at Russian territory, because the Donbas is a Russian region." He said Germany's "direct and indirect involvement" in the conflict was increasing, adding: "The German chancellor should take that as his starting point." The two regions of eastern Ukraine collectively known as the Donbas have been the focus of fighting between Ukraine and Russian or Russian-backed forces since 2014.

☆ Russia to lodge official protest over 'seizure' of embassy school in Warsaw
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MOSCOW, April 29 (Reuters) - Russia will lodge an official diplomatic protest over what it says is the illegal seizure by the Polish authorities of its embassy school in Warsaw, Moscow's ambassador to Poland told Russian state news agencies on Saturday. "This is an illegal action and a violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations. Polish state-run news channel TVP Info reported that police were present outside the school on Kieleckiej street in Warsaw on Saturday morning. The two countries' already fraught relations have soured further over the war in Ukraine with Warsaw helping arm Kyiv. Reporting by Reuters Additional reporting by Alan Charlish in Warsaw Editing by Andrew OsbornOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Scores of world figures urge Putin to free Navalny in open letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 28 (Reuters) - Scores of famous figures, including writers and actors, have signed an open letter urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to free opposition politician Alexei Navalny and to end what they called his torture in prison. Russian authorities say Navalny and his supporters are extremists with links to the U.S. CIA intelligence agency intent on trying to destabilise Russia. They have outlawed his movement and Navalny himself is facing new charges that could add years to his prison sentence. Navalny's supporters have grown increasingly worried about his health in recent weeks, saying they fear he could die in jail. The Kremlin denied trying to kill him and said there was no evidence he was poisoned with a nerve agent.

☆ Kremlin plays down idea that Russia is preparing a nuclear weapons test
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MOSCOW, April 28 (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Friday played down the idea that Russia might be preparing to carry out a nuclear weapons test, saying all nuclear states were abiding by a moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons. President Vladimir Putin said in February, without citing evidence, that some in Washington were considering breaking a moratorium on nuclear testing and that Russia should be ready to act in kind. If the United States conducts tests, then we will. When asked about Tracy's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down the idea that Moscow was planning its own nuclear test. Nuclear tensions between Russia and the United States have increased since the start of the conflict with Ukraine with Putin repeatedly warning that Russia is ready to use its nuclear arsenal if necessary to defend its "territorial integrity".

☆ Russia sacks deputy defence minister sanctioned by West over Mariupol, reports say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 28 (Reuters) - Russian Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, who was sanctioned by the West and dubbed the "Butcher of Mariupol" for his role in the Ukraine war, has been removed as deputy defence minister, according to a military blogger and a leading news website. Mizintsev orchestrated the siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in the early months of the war last year. In September, he was appointed deputy defence minister in charge of logistics and supplies. His departure was reported by a Russian military blogger, Alexander Sladkov, and by the RBC news site. Russia has seized more than a sixth of Ukraine's territory, but has sustained heavy losses in the course of the 14-month war.

☆ 'It was a joke': Russia's Prigozhin denies suspending artillery fire in Bakhmut
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Wagner has been spearheading Russia's assault on Bakhmut since last summer in the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, but Ukrainian forces have so far thwarted its attempts to take full control of the city. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's founder, said in an audio message published on Thursday by his press service: "A decision has been taken to suspend artillery fire so that American journalists can safely film Bakhmut and go home." However, in a later audio message, Prigozhin said: "Guys, this is military humour. Prigozhin, who has publicly lambasted Russia's military establishment over its conduct of the war in Ukraine, is known for his combative, down-to-earth style and also for his ironic sense of humour. Reporting by Reuters Editing by Andrew OsbornOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russia demands full implementation of Black Sea grain deal
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MOSCOW, April 27 (Reuters) - Only its full implementation can save the Black Sea grain deal from collapse, Russia's foreign ministry said on Thursday, reaffirming Moscow's dissatisfaction with an accord that aims to prevent a global food crisis. The deal, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, allows Ukrainian grain trapped by the conflict to be safely exported from the country's Black Sea ports. But Russia has repeatedly said it will not allow the deal to be extended beyond May 18 unless the West removes obstacles to Russian grain and fertiliser exports. Russia and Ukraine are major grain producers, but Moscow says parts of the deal that are meant to allow it to export its own agricultural goods via the Black Sea are not being honoured. One of Russia's main demands in negotiations is the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT payments system.

☆ Russia expands war recruitment drive with video ad calling for 'real' men
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/6] A man studies a leaflet given by a campaign member promoting Russian army service in Moscow, Russia April 12, 2023. Russia, which says it is prosecuting what it calls "a special military operation," does not disclose full casualty figures. Next in the video, a man is walking through the fog with other soldiers on what looks like a battlefield. the video asks, before cutting to a taxi driver taking a client's fare who then transforms into a soldier on the battlefield. Posters seeking professional soldiers have sprung up in the Russian capital in recent weeks declaring that "Our Profession is to defend the Motherland."

☆ 'I screamed so loud, I blacked out': Afghans tell of the Taliban's return to their old torture playbook
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Zahid Mahmood | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

"There were about 12 Taliban members surrounding me, they tied me to a chair and started beating me from all sides," Zafri told CNN. He added: "I screamed so loud, I blacked out because of the trauma." Fereshta Abbasi, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told CNN that, since the Taliban's comeback, a local journalist told her how bleak the media landscape is, threatening free speech. "Freedom of speech and media in Afghanistan was one of the country's biggest achievements, which has now unfortunately gone." Meanwhile, Zafri remains stuck in Afghanistan despite repeated attempts to leave following his detention and torture by the Taliban.

☆ Kremlin critic Yashin defiant after losing appeal against long jail term
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Andrew Osborn | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Yashin's appeal was turned down two days after his fellow Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years on charges of treason and also, like Yashin, "knowingly spreading false information". "The sentence handed down to me is staggering: eight-and-a-half years in prison for a 20-minute speech on the Internet. After Yashin was convicted in December, President Vladimir Putin was asked about the case during a news conference, and asked who Yashin was. In court, Yashin predicted that Russia would one day be a very different place. "I will become one of those who will build a new, free and happy Russia on the ruins of Putinism."

Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, denies the espionage charges. When asked by the judge if he needed translation, Gershkovich said in Russian that he understood everything. The Kremlin has said Gershkovich, the first U.S. journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War, was caught "red-handed". "He is reading a lot in prison - Russian literature in the original Russian," Nozhkina told Reuters, adding that he was reading Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece "War and Peace" about the French invasion of Russia in 1812. Asked about the prison food, Nozhkina said Gershkovich was being given porridge in the mornings and that the food was normal.

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