Contents tagged with Russia
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Crimea in dark
Almost 2 million people have been hit power cuts in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in March 2014.All four of the main power lines running through the mainland Kherson region of Ukraine have been knocked down. The first two were heavily damaged on Friday, and the second two were blown up on Sunday shortly after midnight plunging the disputed peninsula into darkness overnight and prompting a state of emergency there. Crimean Tatar activists, denying repair workers access to the …
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Putin – From Aggressor to Peacemaker
“Participation in the Syrian campaign will help Putin return to a more favorable position in world politics. But, it will hardly change world leaders’ opinions regarding the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine.” wrote Sergey Rudenko in a special comment for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Crimea’s annexation and the war in Donbas forced the West to implement harsh measures against Russia. However, the Syrian war and the union of Russia and France in fighting against the Islamic State may improve …
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Pegida movement: With Russian flags against Islam and Merkel
Anti-Islamic movement Pegida in Dresden appears to be acting in Russia’s interests. On November 16th, three days after the recent terrorist acts in Paris, more than 10 thousand people showed up in Dresden to participate in a protest demonstration against German authorities’ migration policies. The turnout was a few thousand more than the previous week but still less than during the rise of the protest movement. Pegida (short for Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West) followers …
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Pentagon Expresses Scepticism towards Russian Aviation Tactics in Syria
U.S President Barack Obama called Russia a constructive partner in searching for a political solution to the conflict in Syria. He promised to continue cooperation with Moscow despite all existing disagreements. However, according to Colonel Steve Warren, a representative of the International Coalition that conducts operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, there is no reason yet to talk about the full cooperation of Russian and U.S. forces. Warren stated that Russians use ordinary unguided …
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Islamic State Trying To Develop Chemical Weapons
Western nations and their allies in the Middle East are trying to keep a close eye on an ambitious program on the use of chemical weapons by the terrorist group “Islamic State.” A few days after terrorist actions were carried out in Paris that resulted in 129 casualties, the Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls delivered a warning speech. “We bear in mind that there is a threat of the use of chemical or bacteriological weapons. We aren’t ruling anything out,” he stated, in his speech at the …
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President of the European Commission offers Putin a deal if the truce is observed in Eastern Ukraine
The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Junker wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, offering closer trade relations between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union in the observance of the truce in Ukraine. Reuters refers to this letter that was written after the G20 Summit in Turkey. In his letter, Junker stressed the importance of stable relations with Moscow, which, unfortunately, have been difficult to maintain over the past year. According to Junker, he appealed to the European …
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Can Ukraine free itself from its dependence on Russian electricity?
Ukraine is going to continue to import electricity from Russia because the Soviet power system in place does not have the ability to generate sufficient electricity. The Ministry of Energy and Coal Mining stated the import of electricity from the Russian Federation is necessary because, “Electricity is a good which can’t be stored. It has to be generated at the very moment when consumption occurs.” There are several reasons why the current Ukranian system is not able to generate adequate …
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Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine Finds Serious Ceasefire Violations
Following a recent meeting in Minsk, the Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine (TCG) made a public statement. In the statement, the TCG indicated that the situation along the boundary line in the conflict area has worsened. The Trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine made an appeal to the parties in the conflict in Donbas to avoid the renewal of military actions and urged them to comply with the conditions of the Minsk agreement.
On November 17, Special Representative to the Organization for …
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Sanctions over Ukraine to be extended despite Russian cooperation in Syria
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, US and EU are prepared to keep pressure on Kremlin and renew their sanctions despite new Russian cooperation in the wake of the Paris attacks.The sanctions are expected to be discussed at EU leaders mid-December summit, and the decision must be backed by all 28 member states.
Officials say there is a broad agreement that economic pressure should be kept on Russia until the peace is fully implemented. The options discussed are: extending the sanctions …
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Russian court to overturn international court decisions
As reported by RIA Novosti, a group of Russian Parliament members has introduced a draft bill that would authorize the Russian Constitutional Court to overturn international court decisions “if they run counter to the provisions of the Russian constitution”.
The main goal of the proposal was “to safeguard Russian legal sovereignty,” one of the bill's co-sponsors, the Communist party lawmaker Vasily Likhachev, was quoted as saying.
The bill's authors explicitly mentioned the European Court of …