Contents tagged with Putin

  • Russia warns US not to interfere in Saudi royal succession

    Russia has warned the US not to attempt to interfere in the order of succession in Saudi Arabia, and has expressed its support for crown prince Mohammad bin Salman despite the accusations that he had the government critic Khashoggi killed. 

    President Putin’s special representative for the Near East said that Prince Mohammed has the full right to the throne after 82 year-old King Salman dies. 

    “Of course we are opposed to interference. The Saudi nation and leaders must deal with such issues …

  • Head of Russian Anti-Doping Agency to Putin: Russian sport may end up in isolation

    If Russia refuses to provide the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) with the data of Russian athletes’ doping samples by December 31, Russian athletes may lose the right to compete abroad, and Russia will not be able to host international competitions, Yury Ganus, the head of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) stated in his address to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

    According to Ganus, if WADA conditions are not fillfilled, RUSADA will be disqualified in mid-January. "The revocation of …

  • Kremlin starts to prepare population for changes to Russian Constitution 

    Having carried out its unpopular pension reform, the Russian government is now starting to prepare the population for changes to the Constitution, finanz.ru reports. 

    Following the example set by the head of the Constitutional Court, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has proposed a reassessment of the relevancy of the Constitution’s provisions. 

    In its current form, the Constitution is “not dogma,” Volodin said in the Kremlin at a meeting with other MPs and President Vladimir Putin.  …

  • Putin: new hypersonic nuclear missile makes an excellent New Year’s gift for Russia

    The Russian Defense Ministry conducted test launches of an Avangard hypersonic glider missile. 

    The missile, the fruit of a 20 trillion ruble ($290 billion) state arms program, passed the testing “completely successfully”, Putin said after the Strategic Missile Troops drill at the Kura Test Range. 

    “All the tactical and technical data has been confirmed,” Interfax cites the Russian president as saying. “The Avangard system is invulnerable to the current and future anti-air and anti-missile …

  • Two Russian billionaires decline invitation to meet with Putin 

    Two Russian billionaires were unable to go to the Kremlin to take part in President Vladimir Putin’s annual meeting with the country’s top businessmen. 

    Petr Aven, head of Alfa-Bank’s board of directors with an estimated $5.1 billion according to Forbes, and Yandex co-owner and CEO Arkady Volozh ($1.5 billion) declined to attend the meeting which took place on Wednesday, December 26. 

    “I’m just not in Moscow, I am very far from Moscow. There is no special reason,” Aven told TASS. 

    A source …

  • Ukraine imposes additional sanctions against Russia 

    The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine approved the introduction of additional sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities. The decision is made in connection with the incident in the Kerch Strait, as well as with the holding of elections in the self-proclaimed LPR and DPR. 

    The press service of the National Security Council of Ukraine specified that the sanctions are imposed on those Russian companies, businessmen, politicians and deputies, law enforcement …

  • Russian State Duma proposes a constitutional review to Putin 

    Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the leadership of the State Duma and Federation Council. Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin proposed to him that the Russian Constitution needed an overhaul and that legal experts should be called in to evaluate its relevance to the current reality. 

    “25 years ago is the time when such questions could have be answered,” TASS cites Volodin as saying. The Deputy claimed that judges from the Constitutional Court, scholars in the Constitutional Right and …

  • Putin invites Lukashenko to lunch for a private chat

    Vladimir Putin has invited Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived recently in Moscow, to a meal without any delegations from the two countries, TASS reports. 

    “I propose this arrangement: we will listen to how our colleagues have been working, and then we will give the delegations another opportunity to talk, and then I want to invite you separately to a New Year’s work lunch,” Putin said. 

    When speaking about how Russia-Belarus relations have been developing in recent times, …

  • Gaddafi's son sends letter to Putin about the next Presidential Elections in Libya

    Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi wrote a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Russian media.

    Russian news outlets report that the question whether Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is going to run for the president still remains open.  According to RIA-Novosti, in his letter, Gaddafi’s son wrote about a road map for resolving the Libyan crisis.

    “We did not discuss the issues of running for President as it is too early to talk about it,” said …

  • Volker: Russia needs a pretext for aggression in Ukraine 

    Russia needs a pretext for aggression in Ukraine, US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told TSN.Tyzhden in an interview. 

    According to Volker, the US used to think it was unlikely that Russia was set on aggression in Ukraine, but in the wake of the Kerch Strait incident, it will be necessary to reconsider the realistic probability that there may be new aggression from Russia. 

    “We must do everything we can to stop it from coming to this. We must do everything to prevent this …