Page 71 - Russia

Russia-China first bilateral barter trade anticipated to come this autumn

Barter trading would allow Moscow and Beijing to circumvent payment issues, reduce the visibility Western regulators have over their bilateral transactions, and limit currency risk

Ukraine penetrates Russia's southern border, triggering fierce clashes

Russia's health ministry said 31 civilians, including six children, had been wounded. Smirnov said on Tuesday that five people had been killed

Olympics 2024: China wins gold in artistic swimming, US bags silver

China took gold in the artistic swimming team event Wednesday night at the Paris Olympics, with the United States getting silver and Spain taking bronze. China dominated in the absence of Russia, which had won every gold medal in artistic beginning with the 2000 Sydney Games. China finished with 996.1389 points, ahead of the Americans' 914.3421 and Spain's 900.7319. It was the first U.S. medal in the sport since 2004. It was a big medal for China, and also a step forward for the sport, which changed its name from synchronized swimming several years ago to update its image. Some swimmers still call it synchro. There is attention to the sport that has never happened before, said Adam Andrasko, who heads USA Artistic Swimming. This is an absolutely different sport. The smiles, the makeup and hair gelatin remain, but this is no longer the water ballet beneath flowery rubber caps that your grandparents watched. Wednesday's acrobatic routines, after technical and free routines on Monda

Putin accuses Ukraine of a provocation with its raid in southwestern Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday described a Ukrainian incursion into the country's southwestern Kursk region as a large-scale provocation as his officials asserted that they were fighting off cross-border raids for a second day. Ukrainian officials remained silent about the scope of the operation. Putin met with his top defense and security officials to discuss what he called the indiscriminate shelling of civilian buildings, residential houses, ambulances with different types of weapons. He instructed the Cabinet to coordinate assistance to the Kursk region. The fighting is about 500 kilometers (320 miles) from Moscow. Army chief of staff Valery Gerasimov told Putin at the meeting via video link that about 100 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the battle and more than 200 wounded, Russian news agencies reported. The Ukrainian shelling, meanwhile, killed at least two people a paramedic and an ambulance driver and injured 24, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson

Ukrainian forces pierce Russia's southern border, trigger fierce clashes

Ukraine struck back, and battles continued through night into Wednesday as Ukrainian forces pushed to northwest of the border town of Sudzha, 530 km southwest of Moscow, Russia's defence ministry said

Ukraine keeps up air attacks on Kursk, 4 drones destroyed, says Russia

The region was under a dozen air raid alerts over the past 24 hours, Smirnov's posts showed. By Wednesday morning, there were no reports of fresh ground fighting

Mexico invites Putin to Oct 1 presidential inauguration of Sheinbaum

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in 2023, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine

French imports of Russian LNG surge, Ukraine supporters call for halt

Shipments of Russian liquified natural gas to France more than doubled the first half of this year, according to new analyses of trade data, at a time when Europe has tried to pull back from energy purchases that help finance the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. Europe has restricted oil imports from Russia, but natural gas is still allowed. And while companies in France are importing the most, one analysis found EU countries overall imported 7% more Russian LNG, natural gas that has been chilled and liquified for easier ocean transport, in the first half of this year compared to the same period a year ago. Oleh Savytskyi, a founder of nonprofit Razom We Stand, which campaigns for tougher sanctions on Russian fossil fuels, said the EU's goal of phasing out all Russian fossil fuels by 2027 was appallingly off track. He said countries buying Russian LNG are sabotaging the continent's energy transition and contributing billions to Russia's war effort. European governments have said banni

Gershkovich prisoner swap was great news but it sets a worrying precedent

The Pulitzer prize winner also holds US permanent residency. And Gershkovich's parents were emigres from the Soviet Union

Putin ally holds talks in Iran as West Asia teeters on brink of wider war

Russia has condemned the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Iran last week

Russia offers disaster aid to N Korea for flood damage, hails strong bond

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered humanitarian assistance to help North Korea cope with damages from recent floods, both countries said, in another sign of expanding relations between the two nations. In a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday, Putin extended deep sympathy and support and conveyed his willingness to provide immediate disaster aid to help North Korea recover from the floods, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday. Russia's state news agency Tass carried a similar report, saying that Putin told Kim in the message: You can always count on our assistance and support. Ties between North Korea and Russia have been improving significantly amid widespread outside beliefs that North Korea has supplied conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. During a meeting in Pyongyang in June, Kim and Putin signed a pact stipulating mutual military assistance if either country is

Russia reports Ukrainian drone barrage, Kyiv says it hit an airfield

Russian officials have said that Ukrainian forces overnight targeted multiple Russian regions with a massive drone barrage. Russia's Defence Ministry said in a statement that its air defence systems intercepted and destroyed a total of 75 drones over a number of regions that lie on the border with Ukraine or not far from it, including Belgorod, Krasnodar, Kursk, Oryol, Rostov, Voronezh, and the Ryazan region deeper inside Russia. One of those drones was also shot down over the Azov sea, the statement said. Thirty-six drones were destroyed over the Rostov region, according to the ministry. Rostov Gov. Vasily Golubev said in an online statement, however, that the region was attacked by a total of 55 drones. He didn't specify how many of these were intercepted and how many hit the targets, saying only that warehouse facilities in the Morozovsk and Kamensky districts sustained damage in the attack. Ukraine's General Staff said on Saturday in a Facebook post that its forces struck an ...

Atmanirbhar shouldn't lead to inefficient import substitution: Ex RBI chief

Owing to supply disruptions caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war, many countries started thinking about being self-sufficient with respect to critical imports' and India needs to ensure that Atmanirbhar should not degenerate into inefficient import substitution', former RBI Governor C Rangarajan said on Saturday. Addressing the 14th Convocation of the ICFAI Foundation For Higher Education, he said India's development strategy should be multidimensional and growth may be stimulated by raising investment rate, emphasizing agriculture, manufacturing and services, absorbing new technologies and promoting a mix of sectors that are employment friendly. Any import substitution must look at cost. Expensive, import substitution is not to the advantage of anybody. What we need to do is efficient import substitution. Atman should not degenerate into the old style import substitution. I think that is contrary to what is good for our country, he said. Jobless growth is certainly a matter of ...

Americans freed alongside Russian assassin in biggest post-Cold War swap

After a year of secret negotiations, 24 prisoners were swapped: 16 moved from Russia to the West, and eight from the West to Russia

Newly freed Americans back in US after landmark prisoner swap with Russia

The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free. Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual US-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were also there to greet them. The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European .

'Feat of diplomacy': Joe Biden hails prisoner exchange deal with Russia

In addition to Whelan and Gershkovich, prominent Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is a US permanent resident, and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva were also freed

Weapons and technology

In its procurement decisions, India faces a balance-of-power choice as it weighs its options between western democracies and Russia

Telegram CEO says he has 100 biological kids; Elon Musk gives this reaction

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said that he plans to 'open-source his DNA' so that his biological children can find each other more easily

Russia, Iran, and China seek to shape US election by recruiting Americans

Some US citizens have been helping foreign govts seed, promote and add credibility to narratives that serve the foreign actors' interests, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said

Ukrainian troops say Russia has driven them out of 2 more Donetsk villages

Russian forces have overrun two front-line villages in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, a Ukrainian army sergeant said Monday, after relentless assaults that are part of a Kremlin summer push to overwhelm battlefield defences there. Separately, attacks in Russia's Kursk region by the Security Service of Ukraine, also known as the SBU, struck a number of substations causing power outages, according to a statement from the General Staff of Ukraine. The claim of responsibility came after Russia said it thwarted a nighttime Ukrainian drone attack. They pressed non-stop to capture Vovche and Prohres, the chief sergeant of Ukraine's 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Oleh Chaus, told Radio Svaboda. They sent in a large number of troops, which had not previously been used. Russia's Defence Ministry claimed in recent days that it had taken control of the villages, but the Ukrainian General Staff made no official comment. The villages lie about 30 kilometres northwest of Avdiivka, a Donetsk