Explore Business Standard
Russia
The US Treasury Department has imposed a USD 7.1 million fine on a New York-based property management firm, accusing it of violating sanctions by managing luxury real estate properties for oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Gracetown Inc. had received 24 payments between April 2018 and May 2020 totaling USD 31,250 on behalf of a company owned by Deripaska. OFAC says it gave Gracetown notice that dealings with Deripaska were prohibited, but the firm proceeded anyway. Justice Department filings from 2022 connect Gracetown Inc. with UK businessman Graham Bonham-Carter, who was arrested in October 2022 for conspiracy to violate US sanctions imposed on Deripaska as well as for wire fraud connected to funding Deripaska's US properties and efforts to expatriate the oligarch's artwork to New York. A lawyer who has represented Deripaska previously didn't immediately respond to a request for comment
Ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India, the Congress on Thursday recalled Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev's tour of India and said the India-Russia ties are the direct outcome and continuation of the Indo-Soviet partnership cemented for the first time in late half of 1955. Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh noted that the 23rd annual summit between the President of Russia and the Prime Minister of India in the last 26 years begins today. "These ties go back even longer.Exactly 70 years ago the top two leaders of the USSR came to India. Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev were here for an extraordinary 19 days: from November 18 to 30, 1955, and again from Dec 7 to 14, 1955. This followed Jawaharlal Nehru's journey to the USSR six months earlier," Ramesh said. The Bulganin-Khrushchev visit established the foundations of close Indo-Soviet collaboration of which the Bhilai Steel Plant and IIT Bombay were only tw
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will host a private dinner for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, hours after he lands in Delhi to expand overall bilateral strategic and economic partnership against the backdrop of frosty ties between India and the US. Boosting defence ties, insulating India-Russia trade from external pressure and exploring cooperation in small modular reactors are set to be the focus of the summit meeting between Modi and Putin on Friday that is expected to be closely watched by Western capitals. Following the 23rd India-Russia summit, the two sides are expected to seal several agreements, including in areas of trade. As the Russian leader is visiting India amid renewed American push to end the war in Ukraine, the issue is likely to figure prominently at the summit. The Russian president is likely to arrive in New Delhi at around 4:30 pm on Thursday, and hours later, Modi will host him for a private dinner in reciprocation of a similar gesture extended to
Talks between Russia and the US on ending the nearly four-year war in Ukraine were productive, but much work remains, Yuri Ushakov, a senior adviser to President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Wednesday. Putin met US President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner in the Kremlin in talks that began late Tuesday as part of a renewed push by the Trump administration to broker a peace deal. Both sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the talks. Ushakov called the five-hour conversation rather useful, constructive, rather substantive, but added that the framework of the US peace proposal was discussed rather than specific wording. Putin's aide also said that so far, a compromise hasn't been found on the issue of territories, without which, he said, the Kremlin sees no resolution to the crisis. Some of the American proposals seem more or less acceptable, but they need to be discussed. Some of the wording that was proposed to us doesn't suit us. So, th
Diplomats face an uphill battle to reconcile Russian and Ukrainian red lines as a renewed US-led push to end the war gathers steam, with Ukrainian officials attending talks in the US over the weekend and Washington officials expected in Moscow early this week. US President Donald Trump's peace plan became public last month, sparking alarm that it was too favourable to Moscow. It was revised some following talks in Geneva between the US and Ukraine a week ago. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the revised plan could be workable. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a possible basis for a future peace agreement. Trump said Sunday there's a good chance we can make a deal. Still, officials on both sides indicated a long road ahead as key sticking points over whether Kyiv should cede land to Moscow and how to ensure Ukraine's future security appear unresolved. A look at where things stand and what to expect this week: US holds talks with Kyiv then Moscow Trump .
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn is visiting Moscow for energy talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare step from a European leader while Russia's war grinds on in Ukraine. The trip to Moscow is the second since last year for Orbn, who is widely considered Putin's closest partner among all European Union leaders. In comments to state media before departing for Moscow early Friday, Orbn said the focus of his talks with Putin would be Hungary's continued access to "cheap Russian oil and gas, resources that have come under sanctions by the US government. Hungary remains among the only EU countries to continue importing large quantities of Russian fossil fuels, and has strongly opposed efforts by the bloc to wean its member nations off Russian energy supplies. Earlier this month, Orbn travelled to Washington for a meeting with US President Donald Trump where he succeeded in securing an exemption to sanctions the Trump administration placed on Russian energy companies Luko
President Emmanuel Macron will unveil a new national military service plan Thursday as France seeks to bolster its armed forces to address growing concerns over Russia's threat to European nations beyond the war in Ukraine. Macron will stress the need to prepare the nation for growing threats, the president's office said ahead of his visit to the Varces military base, in the French Alps. Earlier this year, Macron announced his intention to provide French youth with a new option to voluntarily serve in the military. Conscription, which France ended in 1996, is not being considered. France is seeking to boost its defences as Russia's war in Ukraine puts the European continent at great risk, Macron said. The day that you send a signal of weakness to Russia which for 10 years has made a strategic choice to become an imperial power again, that's to say advance wherever we are weak well, it will continue to advance, he told radio RTL on Tuesday. Macron has announced 6.5 billion euros
Money is as central to Europe's vital support of Ukraine as ammunition and intelligence. Yet, the bloc's most viable funding mechanism involves seizing billions of dollars worth of Russian assets that US President Donald Trump has proposed taking over. The first draft of Trump's 28-point peace plan called for an investment scheme for Ukraine's reconstruction controlled by the US but financed by USD 100 billion in frozen Russian assets matched by another USD 100 billion from the European Union with 50 per cent of profits sent back to Washington. The plan surprised Europeans, who have spent years fiercely debating the fate of Russia's frozen fortune. Those funds are central to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's plan to both maintain pressure on Russia and increase support for Ukraine as mysterious drone incursions and sabotage operations rattle European capitals. "I cannot see any scenario in which the European taxpayers alone will pay the bill," she said Wednesday
The soil surrounding the gas facility in Ukraine was once pitch-black before it was burned to a rusty red by a massive Russian drone and missile assault. Scattered remnants of Shahed drones littered the reservoir designated for storing tanks of liquefied propane gas. Nearly a month after the October 30 attack, several tanks lay empty and in ruins. It hurts to look at all this (damage) because I saw firsthand (the facility's) establishment, construction and development, said Victor, who has worked there for 28 years and who cannot be named in full for security reasons. But we have, what we have and we must continue to work. The Associated Press gained exclusive access to Naftogaz's gas extraction fields in central Ukraine last week. The AP is the first and only news outlet to be allowed to film and photograph war damage at the facilities. Due to strict security protocols, the AP cannot name the facility or its exact location. Russia has targeted Ukrainian gas extraction this year in
Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine's capital Kyiv early Tuesday, striking residential buildings and energy infrastructure, according to video footage and local authorities. A residential building in the central Pechersk district and another in Kyiv's eastern district of Dniprovskyi were badly damaged, Mayor Vitalii Kitschko said. Video footage posted to Telegram showed a large fire spread through multiple floors of the nine-story building in Dniprovskyi. At least four people were injured, the head of Kyiv city administration, Tymor Tkachenko, said. Ukraine's energy ministry said that energy infrastructure had been hit, without specifying what type or the extent of the damage. The Russian attack followed talks between US and Ukraine representatives in Geneva on Sunday about a US-Russia brokered peace plan. Oleksandr Bevz, a delegate from the Ukrainian side, told The Associated Press on Monday that the talks had been "very constructive" and the two sides were able to discu