Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

The Guardian reports: Vladimir Putin has proposed changes to Russia’s constitution that would limit the power of a potential successor if he steps down in 2024, indicating he may occupy a beefed-up role as Russia’s prime minister or in the government’s state council. In a televised speech before senior officials, Putin suggested amending Russia’s constitution to limit a future president …

Politico Europe reports: Boris Yeltsin had a reputation for the sensational and the unpredictable, from ordering tanks to shell a rebellious Russian parliament to drunkenly hunting for pizza in Washington in his underwear. But he saved arguably his biggest surprise for last. Twenty years ago this New Year’s Eve, with six months to go until the end of his final …

Reuters reports: Russia said on Sunday it had thwarted terrorism attacks reportedly planned in St. Petersburg thanks to a tip from Washington, bringing personal thanks again from President Vladimir Putin to his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. Russian news agencies cited the Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying that thanks to the information, two Russians were detained on Dec. 27 on …

Agence France-Presse reports: A new intercontinental weapon that can fly 27 times the speed of sound became operational Friday, Russia’s defense minister reported to President Vladimir Putin, bolstering the country’s nuclear strike capability. Putin has described the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle as a technological breakthrough comparable to the 1957 Soviet launch of the first satellite. The new Russian weapon and …

Agence France-Presse reports:  China, Iran and Russia will hold joint naval drills starting on Friday in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, China’s defense ministry said on Thursday amid heightened tension in the region between Iran and the US. China will send the Xining, a guided missile destroyer, to the drills, ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly news …

The Washington Post reports: Almost from the moment he took office, President Trump seized on a theory that troubled his senior aides: Ukraine, he told them on many occasions, had tried to stop him from winning the White House. After meeting privately in July 2017 with Putin at the G20 summit, Trump grew more insistent that Ukraine worked to defeat …

The Associated Press reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin says U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment is far-fetched. Putin said Thursday at his annual news conference in Moscow that the move is a continuation of the Democrats’ fight against Trump. He predicted the impeachment motion will be rejected by the Senate. Putin said that “the party that lost the election is continuing …

Reuters reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow is prepared to immediately extend the only remaining nuclear arms reduction pact with the United States. Speaking at a meeting with military officials, Putin said that Russia has repeatedly offered the U.S. to extend the New START treaty that expires in 2021 but that it hasn’t heard back. “Russia is …

“If you excluded debunked conspiracy theories, could any of these people actually tell you why Vladimir Putin is so bad? Why is he so bad? He’s bad, Chuck Todd says. Okay, speak slowly so I can understand. What makes Vladimir Putin worse than, I don’t know, a whole long list of American allies? Let’s try the King of Saudi Arabia, …

Reuters reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed legislation requiring all smartphones, computers and smart TV sets sold in the country to come pre-installed with Russian software. The law, which will come into force on July 1 next year, has been met with resistance by some electronics retailers, who say the legislation was adopted without consulting them. The country’s …

Politico reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s pleased that the “political battles” in Washington have put on the back-burner accusations that Russia interfered in U.S. elections. “Thank God,” he told an economic forum in the Russian capital on Wednesday, “no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore; now they’re accusing Ukraine.” Some Republicans have used …

Reuters reports: President Trump said Friday he is considering visiting Russia next year to attend its May Day Parade. “I was invited. I am thinking about it. It is right in the middle of our campaign season,” Trump told reporters at the White House. Trump said he would like to attend the parade, which Russian President Vladimir Putin invited him …

The Week reports: On Monday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) released a letter to National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien expressing his deep concern about “reports that the Trump administration is withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty” and urging the administration to abandon “such a reckless action.” The treaty, in force since 2002 with 34 nations as signatories, …

Agence France-Presse reports: A Russian court has ruled that two popular LGBT networking sites be blocked for disseminating “anti-family values”, including a major online group with nearly 200,000 members. The court in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday announced the decision against the groups on VK, a Russian platform similar to Facebook. “An inspection showed they contain information available to the public, …

The Associated Press reports: Russia voiced hope Friday that the U.S. administration wouldn’t publish private conversations between the two nations’ presidents, like it did with Ukraine. The rough transcript of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy released by the White House Wednesday shows that Trump urged Ukraine to “look into” his Democratic political rival Joe Biden. The July 25 …

The New York Times reports: A potentially explosive complaint by a whistle-blower in the intelligence community said to involve President Trump was related to a series of actions that goes beyond any single discussion with a foreign leader, according to interviews on Thursday. The complaint was related to multiple acts, Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for American spy agencies, told …

The Huffington Post reports: President Donald Trump on Thursday denied having made an “inappropriate” comment to a foreign leader during a phone call, as The Washington Post reported a day earlier. Trump questioned whether anybody is “dumb enough” to believe that he would say something “inappropriate” on the phone with a foreign leader. The Post reported Wednesday that a U.S. …

The Washington Post reports: The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the …

CNN reports: In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN. A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump …

Second Nexus reports: President Donald Trump spent much of this past weekend’s G7 summit advocating for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched an attack on the sanctity of American democracy in 2016 and has continued to do so. Now Russian state television is mocking Trump for being such an unwavering ally to Putin. Russia was booted from the G7—then the …