Contents tagged with Putin

  • Putin summons Russian billionaires to meeting in Kremlin

    Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with the top representatives of Russian business next week, presidential press-secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

    “The meeting will take place before New Year, but not this week,” the Kremlin spokesperson said.

    Putin frequently meets with major business owners. One such meeting took place on December 21 last year. At the time, the Russian president asked participants – around 60 of the most important Russian businessmen – to sum up the year and …

  • Putin condemns the inclusion of Jehovah's Witnesses in the list of extremist organizations in Russia

    Russian President Vladimir Putin called the inclusion of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the list of extremist organizations “complete nonsense”, Putin stated at a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.

    “There is a list of organizations, for example, that are allegedly involved in extremism and terrorism. There are 489 of them, 404 of which are Jehovah’s Witnesses. I will make an ominous pause here. There can be many claims against Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, …

  • Putin says it does not make sense to release Ukrainian filmmaker Sentsov

    During a session of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia has been considering the fate of prisoners, especially the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, but does not intend to “take a step towards Ukraine”.

    During the session, filmmaker Alexander Sokurov pointed out that Russia is experiencing great tension in connection with foreign policy problems. In this regard, he was particularly interested in the fate of the Ukrainian political …

  • One more Russian billionaire asks Putin for bailout

    Not long after Vladimir Potanin asked for budget assistance to help fund Nornickel’s ecological projects, another Russian billionaire has approached Russian President Vladimir Putin to solicit a government bailout, finanz.ru reports.

    Leonid Mikhelson, co-owner of Novatek and the third richest person in Russia with an estimated $18 billion according to Forbes, claims to be in need of 900 million rubles to speed up the construction and activation of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) transshipment …

  • Ukrainian President: Putin refuses to talk about Kerch Strait incident because he has nothing to say

    Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is disingenuous when saying that the reason he is refusing a telephone conversation because of the election process in Ukraine. In Poroshenko’s opinion, the head of the Kremlin simply has nothing to say.

    At a press conference on Sunday, the President of Ukraine said: “When, during the act of aggression, I called him to talk, he refused to have a conversation not because, as he explains, the election process in …

  • Lukashenko suspects that Kremlin is trying to incorporate Belarus into Russia

    At a press conference with reporters in Minsk, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that it is important for him to maintain independence from other countries, BelTA reported.

    Lukashenko noted that there are no absolutely independent states in the world. Russia itself, according to Lukashenko, is rather sovereign than independent.

    “If they want to divide us into regions and incorporate into Russia, as the LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky suggested, it will never happen. And if the …

  • Putin promises to get things straight with Cirque du Soleil in Moscow

    Vladimir Putin has promised to investigate the opening of a new venue of the Canadian circus, Cirque du Soleil, in the Skolkovo Center in Moscow.

    While speaking at a council session, Edgard Zapashny, director of the Great Moscow Circus, drew the president’s attention to the fact that a stationary venue of the Cirque du Soleil is to be opened in the Skolkovo Center in 2019. The artist considers this “unacceptable” because he fears it will negatively affect the Russian circus and Russian sport. …

  • The USA calls on Hungary to support Ukraine

    The United States urged Hungary to restore relations with Ukraine and not to try to block cooperation between Kyiv and NATO, stating “if Ukraine fails, Hungary will be at the front line of Russian aggression,” the Voice of America reported.

    US Ambassador in Budapest David Kornstein told the Parliament Committee that Hungary can do more for “establishing priority alliances” while Russia again poses a threat to Ukraine and Europe. “Now more than ever, Russia is testing the West,” Kornstein noted …

  • Putin expresses sympathy for Russian agent Butina detained in the US

    At a meeting of the Human Rights Council in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented on the case of the Russian woman Maria Butina arrested in the USA. According to Putin, Russian special services do not know anything about her.

    “But this girl Butina, how unfortunate, she is in prison, she faces 15 years. For what?” stated the Russian President.

    He added that after he heard about Butina’s arrest, he asked Russian special services leaders about her. “Who is she? Nobody knows anything …

  • Putin's ID found in German intelligence archives

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s identity card has been found in the archives of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (Stasi), reports the Bild newspaper.

    According to the newspaper, Putin was the Stasi employee until the end of the GDR’s existence. The certificate was discovered in the archives “personnel and qualification” department in Dresden. It was issued on December 31, 1985, and was extended quarterly until the end of 1989. The newspaper notes that this document has Putin's …