RUSSIA

Putin's demands for peace include an end to NATO enlargement, sources say

Reuters — Wed, 28 May 2025 15:09:03 GMT

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin's conditions for ending the war in Ukraine include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia, according to three Russian sources with knowledge of the negotiations.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the deadliest European conflict since World War II and has shown increasing frustration with Putin in recent days, warning on Tuesday the Russian leader was "playing with fire" by refusing to engage in ceasefire talks with Kyiv as his forces made gains on the battlefield.

After speaking to Trump for more than two hours last week, Putin said that he had agreed to work with Ukraine on a memorandum that would establish the contours of a peace accord, including the timing of a ceasefire. Russia says it is currently drafting its version of the memorandum and cannot estimate how long that will take.

Kyiv and European governments have accused Moscow of stalling while its troops advance in eastern Ukraine.

"Putin is ready to make peace but not at any price," said one senior Russian source with knowledge of top-level Kremlin thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The three Russian sources said Putin wants a "written" pledge by major Western powers not to enlarge the U.S.-led NATO alliance eastwards — shorthand for formally ruling out membership to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and other former Soviet republics.

Russia also wants Ukraine to be neutral, some Western sanctions lifted, a resolution of the issue of frozen Russian sovereign assets in the West, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine, the three sources said.

The first source said that, if Putin realizes he is unable to reach a peace deal on his own terms, he will seek to show the Ukrainians and the Europeans by military victories that "peace tomorrow will be even more painful."

The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment on Reuters' reporting. Putin and Russian officials have repeatedly said any peace deal must address the "root causes" of the conflict — Russian shorthand for the issue of NATO enlargement and Western support for Ukraine.

Kyiv has repeatedly said that Russia should not be granted veto power over its aspirations to join the NATO alliance. Ukraine says it needs the West to give it a strong security guarantee with teeth to deter any future Russian attack.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's administration did not respond to a request for comment.

NATO has also in the past said that it will not change its "open door" policy just because Moscow demands it. A spokesperson for the 32-member alliance did not respond to Reuters' questions.

Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops.

Russia currently controls just under one fifth of the country. Though Russian advances have accelerated over the past year, the war is costing both Russia and Ukraine dearly in terms of casualties and military spending.

Reuters reported in January that Putin was growing concerned by the economic distortions in Russia's wartime economy, amid labor shortages and high interest rates imposed to curb inflation. The price of oil, the bedrock of Russia's economy, has declined steadily this year.

Trump, who prides himself on having friendly relations with Putin and has expressed his belief the Russian leader wants peace, has warned that Washington could impose further sanctions if Moscow delays efforts to find a settlement. Trump suggesting on social media on Sunday that Putin had "gone absolutely CRAZY" by unleashing a massive aerial attack on Ukraine last week.

The first source said that if Putin saw a tactical opportunity on the battlefield, he would push further into Ukraine — and that the Kremlin believed Russia could fight on for years no matter what sanctions and economic pain were imposed by the West.

A second source said that Putin was now less inclined to compromise on territory and was sticking to his public stance that he wanted the entirety of four regions in eastern Ukraine claimed by Russia.

"Putin has toughened his position," the second source said of the question of territory.

NATO enlargement

As Trump and Putin joust in public over the outlook for peace in Ukraine, Reuters could not determine whether the intensification of the war and the toughening of positions heralds determination to reach a deal or the collapse of talks.

In June last year, Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war: Ukraine must drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.

In addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, Russia currently controls almost all of Luhansk, more than 70% of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. It also occupies a sliver of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, and is threatening Dnipropetrovsk.

Former U.S. President Joe Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine cast the invasion as an imperial-style land grab and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.

Putin casts the war as a watershed moment in Moscow's relations with the West which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence.

At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. Ukraine in 2019 amended its constitution committing to the path of full membership of NATO and the European Union.

Trump has said that previous U.S. support for Ukraine's NATO membership bid was a cause of the war, and has indicated that Ukraine will not get membership. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Putin, who rose to the top Kremlin job in 1999, has repeatedly returned to the issue of NATO enlargement, including in his most detailed remarks about a possible peace in 2024.

In 2021, just two months before the Russian invasion, Moscow proposed a draft agreement with NATO members that, under Article 6, would bind NATO to "refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States." U.S. and NATO diplomats said at the time that Russia could not have a veto on expansion of the alliance.

Russia wants a pledge on NATO in writing because Putin thinks Moscow was misled by the United States after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastwards, two of the sources said.

There was such a verbal promise, former Central Intelligence Agency Director Director William J. Burns said in his memoires, but it was never formalized - and it was made at a time when the collapse of the Soviet Union had not occurred.

NATO, founded in 1949 to provide security against the Soviet Union, says it poses no challenge to Russia - though its 2022 assessment of peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area identified Russia as the most "significant and direct threat".

Russia's invasion of Ukraine that year prompted Finland to join NATO in 2023, followed by Sweden in 2024.

Western European leaders have repeatedly said that if Russia wins the Ukraine war, it could one day attack NATO itself - a step that would trigger a world war. Russia dismisses such claims as baseless scaremongering, but has also warned the war in Ukraine could escalate into a broader conflict.

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EU, Britain go ahead with new Russia sanctions without waiting for Trump

Reuters — Tue, 20 May 2025 16:00:25 GMT

BRUSSELS/LONDON — The EU and Britain announced new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday without waiting for the United States to join them, a day after President Donald Trump's phone call with Vladimir Putin failed to elicit a promise for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

London and Brussels said their new measures would zero in on Moscow's "shadow fleet" of oil tankers and financial companies that have helped it avoid the impact of other sanctions imposed over the war.

"Sanctions matter, and I am grateful to everyone who makes them more tangible for the perpetrators of the war," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.

The sanctions were unveiled without an immediate announcement of corresponding steps from Washington, despite intense public lobbying from leaders of European countries for the Trump administration to join them.

"We have repeatedly made it clear that we expect one thing from Russia - an immediate ceasefire without preconditions," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on the sidelines of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.

As Russia had not accepted a ceasefire, "we will have to react," he said. "We also expect our U.S. allies not to tolerate this."

Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he was deliberating over what actions to take, but gave no further detail.

"We're looking at a lot of things, but we'll see," Trump said as he left a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks in more than three years on Friday at Trump's behest, but failed to agree a truce after Moscow presented conditions that a member of the Ukrainian delegation called "non-starters."

Ukraine says it is ready for an immediate ceasefire proposed by Trump, while Russia says it wants talks first. The Europeans say this is proof that Putin, who started the war by invading his neighbor in 2022, is not prepared to end it.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she had spoken to Zelenskiy and that a further package of sanctions was being prepared.

"It's time to intensify the pressure on Russia to bring about the ceasefire," she wrote on X.

'No to ultimatums'

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters that Russia would never bow to what she called ultimatums.

Putin, after his call with Trump on Monday, said Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum about a future peace accord. "Now, accordingly, the ball is in Kyiv's court," Zakharova said.

Europeans have been working hard to persuade the Trump administration to join them in imposing sanctions. The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland jointly traveled to Kyiv earlier this month and were filmed speaking to Trump on speakerphone with Zelenskiy.

Several European leaders phoned Trump again on the eve of his call with Putin, urging him to join them in imposing new sanctions if Russia rejected a ceasefire.

Brussels and London both signaled they have not given up hope of persuading Washington to act.

"Let us push Vladimir Putin to put an end to his imperialist fantasy," France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

Britain's Foreign Minister David Lammy said "delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolve to help Ukraine to defend itself and use our sanctions to restrict Putin's war machine."

The latest sanctions are aimed mainly at cracking down on a shipping fleet that Russia uses to export oil, circumventing a $60 a barrel price cap imposed by the G7 group of industrialized countries to limit Russia's income.

Britain and the EU said they would also work to lower the cap, which imposes far less of a discount on Russian oil now that global prices have fallen this year.

Trump said on Monday that Russia and Ukraine were ready to start negotiations. Putin said the process would take time.

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Kremlin says 'let's see' if Trump victory will help end Ukraine war

Guy Faulconbridge, Andrew Osborn and Dmitry Antonov / Reuters — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 12:45:00 GMT

MOSCOW — The Kremlin reacted cautiously on Wednesday after Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, saying the U.S. was still a hostile state and that only time would tell if Trump's rhetoric on ending the Ukraine war translated into reality.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the Soviet Union and the U.S. came close to nuclear war.

Trump's re-election caps a remarkable comeback four years after the Republican was voted out of the White House and ushers in a new American leadership likely to test democratic institutions at home and relations abroad.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump had made some important statements about wanting to end the Ukraine war during his campaign, but only time would tell if they led to action.

"Let us not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country, which is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state" (in Ukraine)," Peskov told reporters.

Peskov said he was not aware of any plans by President Vladimir Putin to congratulate Trump on his victory and that relations with Washington were at an historic low.

"We have repeatedly said that the U.S. is able to contribute to the end of this conflict. This cannot be done overnight, but... the U.S. is capable of changing the trajectory of its foreign policy. Will this happen, and if so, how ... we will see after (the U.S. president's inauguration in) January."

Russian and U.S. diplomats say relations between the world's two largest nuclear powers have only been worse during the depths of the Cold War. Russian officials from Putin down said ahead of the election that it made no difference to Moscow who won the White House, even as Kremlin-guided state media coverage showed a preference for Trump.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow had no illusions about Trump, noting that there was what it called a bipartisan anti-Russian position among the U.S. ruling elite designed to try to contain Russia.

"Russia will work with the new administration when it 'takes up residence' in the White House, fiercely defending Russian national interests and focusing on achieving all the set objectives of the special military operation (in Ukraine)," the ministry said.

"Our conditions are unchanged and are well known in Washington."

Kirill Dmitriev, the influential head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, struck a softer note, saying a Trump victory could be a chance to repair ties.

"This opens up new opportunities for resetting relations between Russia and the United States," added Dmitriev, a former Goldman Sachs banker who has previously had contacts with the Trump team.

War in Ukraine

Trump, 78, has promised to swiftly end the war in Ukraine, though he has not explained exactly how he would do that.

Putin has said he is ready for talks, but that Russia's territorial gains and claims must be accepted, something that the Ukrainian leadership has rejected as an unacceptable capitulation.

Russian forces are advancing at the fastest pace in at least a year in Ukraine and control about one fifth of the country.

That includes Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of the Donbas - a coal-and-steel zone - and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that Trump's win would probably be bad news for Ukraine, which relies on Washington as its top military backer.

"Trump has one useful quality for us: as a businessman to the core, he mortally dislikes spending money on various hangers–on," said Medvedev, now a senior security official.

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Russia behind abuse claims targeting Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. intelligence officials say

Mary Murphy — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 21:52:38 GMT

ST. PAUL — “Manufactured” sexual assault allegations against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were the product of Russian election interference and artificial intelligence tools, national intelligence officials said Monday, Oct. 21.

The allegations stemmed from a “statement” posted on Oct. 14 by an anonymous account on X, formerly Twitter. The statement, which the post claimed was written by an ex-student of Gov. Tim Walz, accuses Walz of abuse in the mid-90s.

The X account behind the original post, “DocNetyoutube,” has now been deleted.

Later, a video posted by “TheWakeninq” claimed to show a video testimonial of a former student named Matthew Metro detailing how he was groped after class by Walz. X later labeled the posts with this video as AI-manipulated.

No known evidence has surfaced supporting the claims.

In a video submitted to the Washington Post, the actual Metro says the viral X video is “obviously” not him. Metro says he has a different accent, teeth and nose than the manipulated video.

Metro has not made any public statements but told the Post that he was never taught by Walz and said he was frustrated his name was being used in these claims.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an election security update and held a briefing on Monday, Oct. 21, addressing the allegations and pointing to international interference as the source.

“The IC assesses that Russian influence actors manufactured and amplified inauthentic content claiming illegal activity committed by the Democratic vice-presidential candidate during his earlier career,” ODNI said in the election security update posted on its website. “The IC reviewed electronic media associated with this effort and in doing so revealed several indicators of manipulation that are consistent with the influence efforts and tactics Russian actors have used this cycle.”

U.S. Intelligence also warned during Monday’s briefing that these efforts from foreign actors could increase in the days leading up to the election.

“Foreign actors — particularly Russia, Iran, and China — remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests, even as their tactics continue to evolve,” ODNI said in their brief. “The IC expects foreign influence efforts will intensify in the lead-up to Election Day, especially through social media posts — some of which are likely to be AI-generated or (enhanced.)”

“Putin wants Donald Trump to win," Walz said on Wednesday, Oct. 23, when asked about the situation outside of a polling station in Ramsey County, according to pool reports from the Star Tribune.

Walz's team has not come out with an official statement on the situation.

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When a communist leader from Minnesota ran for president -- over and over

Jimmy Lovrien — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 12:31:00 GMT

CHERRY, Minn. — Minnesotans running for president haven’t had much luck.

Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, both Democrats, lost the general elections in 1968 and 1984 to Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, respectively.

But no Minnesotan has run for president in the general election as often — and earned as few votes — as Cherry, Minnesota, native Gus Hall.

As general secretary of the Communist Party USA, Hall ran for president four times — 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 — but never earned even a tenth of a percent of the popular vote. He earned the most votes in 1976, when he and his running mate, Jarvis Tyner, earned fewer than 59,000 votes.

Born in Cherry in 1910 as Arvo Kusta Halberg to Finnish immigrants (he changed his name to Gus Hall in the 1930s while organizing steelworkers in Ohio), Hall grew up in a large, poor family with “the best library,” according to a Nov. 2, 1980, article in the Duluth News Tribune.

The article, detailing a campaign stop in Virginia, said Hall went to work in the lumber camps around Cotton and Lake Vermilion at age 15, which, on top of a communist upbringing, became an experience that only solidified his political views.

“Working in lumber camps in those days would make a communist out of anybody,” Hall said, according to a Boston Globe article published in the News Tribune on Jan. 24, 1993.

His working-class upbringing was central to his communist origin story.

But it wasn’t always accurate, according to Tuomas Savonen, who spent 15 years studying Hall, the subject of his 2020 doctoral dissertation.

For example, the poor conditions in lumber camps were likely depicted as worse than they were. His dissertation describes a Hall claim to Newsweek in 1984 as “close to unbelievable.” Hall claimed that when he and other lumberjacks slept two to a bunk, his bunkmate died and Hall had to keep sleeping in the bunk with the corpse for days.

Hall also claimed maggots were regularly in the lumber camp beef, which Savonen wrote resembled a scene in the classic Soviet film “Battleship Potemkin.”

“You could really see that he was exaggerating quite a lot. … He wanted to have a proper life story to become a real communist leader,” Savonen, a reporter for the Finnish News Agency covering politics in Helsinki, Finland, told the News Tribune. He also published a book in Finnish about Hall.

The book, "Moskovan mies vakoilun verkossa" ("Moscow's Man Entangled in Espionage"), was released in 2023. Savonen is looking for a publishing house in the U.S. to translate and release an English version of the book.

Later, as leader of the American communist party, Hall’s life was far from a class struggle, largely thanks to millions of dollars in financial assistance from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to Communist Party USA.

“He loved his fancy suits … and he had the fine Arabian racehorses shipped back to Cherry to his sister to raise,” said Aaron Brown, an Iron Range historian and author, who interviewed Hall in 1999 as a 19-year-old reporter working on a series about famous people from the Cherry area. “And he was a man who liked the finer things, and yet he was also purporting to be a man of the people and, of course, the communist message.”

Hall, who died in 2000 at age 90, lived in a nice house in Yonkers, New York, and commuted to the Communist Party USA headquarters in Manhattan every day. Savonen said he had a chauffeur, traveled first class and preferred to stay in four- and five-star hotels rather than at the homes of party comrades.

All the while, some of his friends in Communist Party USA were feeding information to the FBI about Hall and the party's activity, according to FBI files now publicly available.

Savonen said that although the Soviet Union didn’t believe Hall was very efficient — despite all the money he received, he couldn’t grow the party — they appreciated his loyalty.

That Soviet loyalty began in the early 1930s when Hall studied at Moscow’s International Lenin ��.

“After coming back from the Soviet Union, he spoke very highly of the Soviet Union, he was like, ‘Oh, it’s such a perfect society,’ which, of course, it was not,” Savonen said. “Especially then in the early 30s, the whole society was a complete mess. And it was the worst years of Stalin’s dictatorship.”

According to Savonen’s dissertation, Hall returned to the U.S. and settled in late 1932 or early 1933 in Minneapolis, where he was a district organizer for the Young Communist League, part of Communist Party USA. There, he participated in the Teamsters 1934 strike, and, according to another organizer, took part in some of the street fights.

He would then move to Ohio, where he changed his name from Arvo Halberg to Gus Hall so he could work at a steel mill with the intent of organizing its workers. He would become a leader in the 1937 Little Steel Strike, which saw thousands of steelworkers walk off at several steel companies’ mills in a violent strike that left 17 strikers and strike supporters dead. The Chicago Police Department shot and killed 10 demonstrators in what became known as the Memorial Day Massacre.

Hall and other organizers also used violent means, though no one died as a result of their actions. Savonen wrote in his dissertation that Hall “extolled” the strikers who shot at Republic Steel airplanes, and later, Hall was charged for allegedly being the ring leader in a series of bombings during the strike. But after his trial was repeatedly delayed, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was fined $500.

Hall’s attitude toward violence mellowed after the birth of his daughter in 1938, Savonen said.

“After that, he became more peaceful in his ways of doing things,” Savonen told the News Tribune. “He was not that violence-prone anymore.”

Hall would go on to serve in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theater in the final months of WWII.

Back in the U.S., Hall faced more legal issues.

In 1951, he was among the communists facing five years in prison under the Smith Act for advocating or teaching the overthrow of the U.S. government. He served the sentence after initially fleeing to Mexico, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned convictions under the Smith Act in 1957.

By 1959, he took his post as general secretary of the Communist Party USA, and his devotion to the Soviet Union continued even after it fell in 1991. However, the Communist Party USA, which he led until his death, was never a powerful political force in the country; its membership remained small.

That became his legacy, overshadowing his role in unionizing steelworkers in the 1930s as an organizer for the Steelworkers Organizing Committee, a precursor to the United Steelworkers, which today represents employees at every operating taconite mine in Minnesota and steel mills across the country.

“You can take and say he was ineffective and too wedded to the Soviets later in life, but in his young organizing days, he played a very crucial role in building industrial unions in the United States,” Brown said. “And so, he’s a mixed bag of historical value.”

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Gunmen kill more than 60 in concert attack near Moscow, Islamic State claims responsibility

Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew Osborn / Reuters — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 01:30:00 GMT

MOSCOW - Camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire at concertgoers with automatic weapons on Friday, killing at least 60 people and injuring 145 more in an attack claimed by Islamic State militants.

In the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege, gunmen sprayed civilians with bullets just before Soviet-era rock group "Picnic" was to perform to a full house at the 6,200-seat Crocus City Hall just west of Moscow.

Verified video showed people taking their seats in the hall, then rushing for the exits as repeated gunfire echoed above screams. Other video showed men shooting at groups of people. Some victims lay motionless in pools of blood.

"Suddenly there were bangs behind us - shots. A burst of firing - I do not know what," one witness, who asked not to be identified by name, told Reuters.

"A stampede began. Everyone ran to the escalator," the witness said. "Everyone was screaming; everyone was running."

Russian investigators said the death toll was more than 60. Health officials said about 145 people were wounded, of which about 60 were in critical condition.

In the 2004 Beslan school siege, Islamist militants took more than 1,000 people, including hundreds of children, hostage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was being updated by security chiefs about the situation, including from Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Kremlin said.

Russian investigators published pictures of a Kalashnikov automatic weapon, vests with multiple spare magazines and bags of spent bullet casings.

Islamic State

Islamic State, the militant group that once sought control over swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack, the group's Amaq agency said on Telegram.

A grainy picture was published by some Russian media of two of the alleged attackers in a white car.

The fate of the attackers was unclear as firefighters battled a massive blaze and emergency services evacuated hundreds of people while parts of the venue's roof collapsed.

Islamic State said its fighters attacked on the outskirts of Moscow, "killing and wounding hundreds and causing great destruction to the place before they withdrew to their bases safely." The statement gave no further detail.

The United States has intelligence confirming Islamic State's claim of responsibility for the shooting, a U.S. official said on Friday. The official said Washington had warned Moscow in recent weeks of the possibility of an attack.

"We did warn the Russians appropriately," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, without providing any additional details.

Russia has yet to say who it thinks is responsible.

The attack on Crocus City Hall, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Kremlin, comes just two weeks after the U.S. embassy in Russia warned that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow.

Hours before the embassy warning, the FSB said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K, and seeks a caliphate across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran.

Putin changed the course of the Syrian civil war by intervening in 2015, supporting President Bashar al-Assad against the opposition and Islamic State.

"ISIS-K has been fixated on Russia for the past two years, frequently criticizing Putin in its propaganda," said Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center.

The broader Islamic State group has claimed deadly attacks across the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Europe, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was a "bloody terrorist attack" that the entire world should condemn.

The United States, European and Arab powers and many former Soviet republics expressed shock and sent their condolences. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak denied any Ukrainian involvement.

The United Nations Security Council condemned what it called a "heinous and cowardly terrorist attack."

Security tightened

Russia tightened security at airports, transport hubs and across the capital - a vast urban area of over 21 million people. All large-scale public events were canceled across the country.

Putin, who was on Sunday re-elected for a new six-year term, sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 and has repeatedly warned that various powers - including countries in the West - are seeking to sow chaos inside Russia.

Putin was informed in the first minutes of the attack and is regularly being updated, the Kremlin said.

"The president constantly receives information about what is happening and about the measures being taken through all relevant services. The head of state gave all the necessary instructions," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

At Crocus City Hall, flames leaped into the sky, and plumes of black smoke rose above the venue as hundreds of blue lights from emergency vehicles flashed in the night.

Helicopters sought to douse flames that engulfed the large building. The roof of the venue was collapsing, state news agency RIA said.

"A terrible tragedy occurred in the shopping center Crocus City today," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. "I am sorry for the loved ones of the victims."

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Russia fires North Korean missiles at Ukraine for first time, Kyiv says

Reuters — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 17:57:56 GMT

Russia has hit Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time during its invasion, a senior Kyiv official said on Friday, corroborating an earlier assertion by the U.S. White House.

The statement on social media platform X came after the governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv said that his region had been struck by missiles fired by Russia that were not Russian-made.

"There is no longer any disguise ... as part of its outright genocidal war, the Russian Federation for the first time struck at the territory of Ukraine with missiles received from ... North Korea," the senior Kyiv official, Mykhailo Podolyak, said.

He did not provide evidence for the missiles being North Korean. In its statement on Thursday, Washington cited declassified intelligence.

"(Russia) is attacking Ukrainians with missiles received from a state where citizens are tortured in concentration camps for having an unregistered radio, talking to a tourist, watching TV shows," Podolyak said.

The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment on the U.S. assertion that Russia had fired North Korean-supplied short-range ballistic missiles at Ukraine.

Earlier on Friday, the Kharkiv regional governor said missiles produced outside Russia had been fired into the province at the end of December and the beginning of January.

A Reuters video operator filmed the aftermath of a Russian air strike on the regional capital of Kharkiv on Jan. 2, in which a missile landed close to the city center, leaving behind a deep crater and missile debris.

Shown the Reuters footage for review, Joost Oliemans, a Dutch researcher and expert on North Korea's military, said the missile remnants looked like they were from North Korea.

"It (the footage) appears to show the main body as well as the engine section of a missile that is pretty much a dead match for a North Korean type of missile that we've actually seen pretty clear photos of in the past few years," he said.

Kharkiv regional prosecutors said they were conducting an investigation into the country of origin of three missiles used by Russia to hit the provincial capital on Tuesday. Their statement did not name North Korea.

That attack on Kharkiv city killed two people and wounded 62, the prosecutor's office said.

Ukraine's air force said earlier on Friday it could not yet confirm the country of manufacture of the missiles in question.

While the United States would not say specifically what type of missiles Pyongyang had sent to Russia, U.S. spokesman John Kirby said they had a range of about 900 km (550 miles). He released a graphic that appeared to show KN-23 and KN-25 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs).

North Korea has been under a United Nations arms embargo since it first tested a nuclear bomb in 2006.

U.N. Security Council resolutions - approved with Russian support - ban countries from trading weapons or other military equipment with North Korea.

In November, South Korean authorities said North Korea may have supplied SRBMs to Russia as part of a larger arms deal that also included anti-tank and anti-air missiles, artillery and mortar shells, and rifles.

Both Moscow and Pyongyang have previously denied conducting any arms deals, but vowed last year to deepen military relations.

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Russian lawmakers vote to scrap ratification of nuclear test ban treaty

Filipp Lebedev and Mark Trevelyan / Reuters — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:02:34 GMT

Russia's parliament moved swiftly to fulfill the wish of President Vladimir Putin by completing the passage of a bill that shifts Moscow's legal stance on nuclear testing at a time of acute tension with the West.

The lower house, the State Duma, on Wednesday passed the second and third readings of a bill that revokes Russia's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Both were passed unanimously by 415 votes to zero.

Putin urged the Duma on Oct. 5 to make the change in order to "mirror" the position of the United States, which has signed but never ratified the 1996 treaty.

Russia says it will not resume nuclear testing unless Washington does, but arms control experts are concerned it may be inching towards a test that the West would perceive as a threatening escalation in the context of the Ukraine war.

Ukraine said Russia was stepping up "nuclear blackmail."

In a statement, its foreign ministry said: "Ukraine condemns Russia's steps to withdraw ratification of the treaty and calls on the international community to respond accordingly to Moscow's provocations aimed at harming the object and purpose of the CTBT."

Since he invaded Ukraine last year, Putin has repeatedly reminded the West of Russia's nuclear might. On Wednesday state TV showed rare footage of him during a visit to Beijing being accompanied by naval officers carrying the so-called nuclear briefcase that can be used to order a nuclear strike.

Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said the treaty move was a justified response to Washington's "cheating and cynicism" and its longstanding failure to ratify the pact.

"We understand our responsibility to our citizens, we are protecting our country. What is happening in the world today is the exclusive fault of the United States," he said.

Russia originally ratified the CTBT in 2000. While it is revoking that step, it has so far said it will remain a signatory to the treaty and keep supplying data to the global monitoring system which alerts the world to any nuclear test.

But in introducing the bill on Tuesday, Volodin raised the possibility Moscow might withdraw altogether, and said it would keep Washington guessing about its intentions.

"And what we will do next - whether we remain a party to the treaty or not, we will not tell them," he said.

The law will now go to the upper house, and to Putin for signing.

Threat of new arms race

Putin said earlier this month he was aware of calls for Russia to resume nuclear testing but was not ready to say whether Moscow should do so or not.

Back in February, he said Russia must "make everything ready" to conduct a test in case Washington did so. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Russia's testing ground in the remote northern archipelago of Novaya Zemlya in August.

CNN published satellite images last month showing Russia, the United States and China have all built new facilities at their nuclear test sites in recent years.

Russia's shift on the CTBT follows its suspension earlier this year of New START, the last remaining bilateral nuclear treaty with the United States, which limits the number of strategic warheads each side can deploy.

Experts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said both steps may be intended by Putin "to generate alarm and uncertainty among states supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russia's illegal invasion."

They said the CTBT move "weakens international stability and diminishes humanity’s prospects of avoiding a new nuclear arms race."

But they added: "In this instance, it is difficult for the United States to go far in criticizing Putin’s announcement and Russia’s potential withdrawal from the CTBT since the USA has itself failed to ratify the treaty and become a party to it in the 27 years since first signing."

Post-Soviet Russia has never carried out a nuclear test. The Soviet Union last tested in 1990 and the United States in 1992.

Arms control experts are concerned that a test by either Russia or the United States could prompt the other to do the same, and China, India and Pakistan might then follow, triggering a new global arms race. All are currently observing test moratoriums, and only North Korea has conducted a test involving a nuclear explosion this century.

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Putin and North Korea's Kim discuss military matters, Ukraine war and satellites

Guy Faulconbridge and Soo-hyang Choi / Reuters — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 15:43:42 GMT

MOSCOW — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for a rare summit on Wednesday at which they discussed military matters, the war in Ukraine and possible Russian help for the secretive Communist state's satellite program.

Putin showed Kim around Russia's most advanced space rocket launch site in Russia's Far East and discussed the possibility of sending a North Korean cosmonaut into space. Kim, who arrived by train from North Korea, asked detailed questions about rockets as Putin showed him around the Vostochny Cosmodrome.

After the tour, Putin, 70, and Kim, 39, held talks for several hours with their ministers and then discussed world affairs and possible areas of cooperation one-on-one, followed by an opulent lunch of Russian "pelmeni" dumplings stuffed with Kamchatka crab and then sturgeon with mushrooms and potatoes.

Kim raised a toast with a glass of Russian wine to Putin's health, to the victory of "great Russia" and to Korean-Russian friendship, predicting victory for Moscow in its "sacred fight" with the West in the Ukraine war.

"I firmly believe that the heroic Russian army and people will brilliantly inherit their victories and traditions and vigorously demonstrate their noble dignity and honor on the two fronts of military operations and building a powerful nation," Kim told Putin.

"The Russian army and people will certainly win a great victory in the sacred struggle for the punishment of a great evil that claims hegemony and feeds an expansionist illusion," Kim added, raising his glass.

U.S. and South Korean officials have expressed concern that Kim could provide weapons and ammunition to Russia, which has expended vast stocks in more than 18 months of war in Ukraine. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied such intentions.

Putin gave numerous hints that military cooperation was discussed but disclosed few details. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu attended the talks. The Kremlin said sensitive discussions between neighbors were a private matter.

When asked by Russian media, who were given significant access at the summit, if Russia would help Kim build satellites, Putin said: "That's why we came here."

For Russia, the summit was an opportunity to needle the United States, the big power supporter of Ukraine, though it was unclear just how far Putin was prepared to go in fulfilling any North Korean wish lists for technology.

Putin said Kim now planned to visit military and civilian aviation factories in the Russian city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur and to inspect Russia's Pacific fleet in Vladivostok.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Pyongyang for more talks next month, the Kremlin said.

'Comrades'

Putin and Kim called each other "comrades" at lunch and Putin repeatedly reminded Kim that it was the Soviet Union that backed North Korea - and was first to recognize it just over 75 years to the day since it was established.

Amid the Ukraine war, which has become a grinding artillery war of attrition, the United States and Kyiv's other allies are watching to see if Kim's visit paves the way for a supply of artillery shells to Russia.

Britain on Wednesday urged North Korea to end arms talks with Russia and said Kim's visit showed how isolated Moscow has become on the world stage.

Russia has joined China in opposing new sanctions on North Korea, blocking a U.S.-led push and publicly splitting the U.N. Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006.

Asked about military cooperation, Putin said Russia complied with international rules but that there were opportunities to explore.

The choice to meet at Vostochny Cosmodrome - a symbol of Russia's ambitions as a space power - was notable, as North Korea has twice failed to launch reconnaissance satellites in the past four months.

After showing Kim around a building where the Angara, Russia's new 42.7-meter space launch rocket, is assembled, Putin said Kim had shown a "great interest in rocket engineering" during the visit.

Ahead of his meeting with Putin, Kim signed the visitor book in Korean: "The glory to Russia, which gave birth to the first space conquerors, will be immortal."

Ballistic missiles

As Kim was making his way through the forests of Russia by train, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles from an area near the capital, Pyongyang, into the sea off its east coast.

It was the first such launch by the North while Kim was abroad, analysts said, demonstrating an increased level of delegation and more refined control systems for the country's nuclear and missile programs.

Kim had previously made just seven trips abroad in his 12 years in power, all in 2018 and 2019. He also briefly stepped across the inter-Korean border twice.

The make-up of Kim's delegation to Russia, with the notable presence of Munitions Industry Department Director Jo Chun Ryong, suggested an agenda heavy on defense industry cooperation, analysts said.

"In Korea, there is a proverb: good clothes are those that are new, but old friends are best friends. And our people say: an old friend is better than two new ones," Putin told Kim.

"This folk wisdom is fully applicable to modern relations between our countries."

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Finland's NATO membership celebrated at FinnFest 2023

Jennifer Kotila — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 11:44:00 GMT

DULUTH — It was an overflow crowd for the keynote panel on Finland, the United States and European and American Security at last week's 40th annual FinnFest.

FinnFest attendees were aware that Finnish Ambassador to the U.S. Mikko Hautala and Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, a retired four-star general with the U.S. Air Force and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (2013-2016), were speakers on the panel and retired U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson was the moderator.

They did not know that the “member of United States Congress” on the panel was U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar until she walked onto the stage with the other panelists.

The main focus of the panel was what Finland’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty in April of 2023 meant for European and American security in relation to Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. The panel took place July 28 in the Lake Superior Ballroom at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.

FinnFest is an annual gathering of Finnish Americans and others interested in Finnish culture and heritage. It includes educational workshops on culture and history, musical performances, Finnish film presentations and the Tori marketplace and pop-up cafe featuring Finnish food.

Before becoming the Finnish ambassador to the U.S., Hautala was the Finnish ambassador to Russia from 2016-2020.

“His insight will not only be helpful for you today, but also helped all the Nordic countries and our country as we debated and dealt with the important issue of Finland and Sweden getting into NATO,” Klobuchar, D-Minn., said.

Sweden has not yet entered NATO, but Klobuchar said a vote is expected to take place this fall.

Breedlove spent much of his career in Europe and said he worked to forward NATO and Finland.

“I first stood on the inner-German border in 1983 as Captain Breedlove of the U.S. Army,” he said. “I served thereafter seven times in Europe, in the Air Forces of this nation and also all the nations of NATO as ... Supreme Commander. I cannot tell you how happy I am to see this great country joining our Alliance, and we’ve been growing stronger together.”

Klobuchar was introduced by Wilson as a bipartisan, results-oriented leader in Congress for the accession of Finland and Sweden to the North Atlantic Treaty, the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and many other foreign security and domestic issues.

Klobuchar informed the crowd that she woke up in Washington, D.C., that morning after voting the night of July 27 on the defense bill, which passed with bipartisan support in an 86-11 vote. The bill included funding for NATO and Ukraine.

Noting she had visited Ukraine in August 2022 and witnessed the “incredible resolve in the Ukrainian people,” Klobuchar said, “So much of (that resolve) was the leadership of our country and President Biden and both Democrats and Republicans, which is very key to all of this, standing together in Washington to this day, with that vote last night, and saying that we stand with democracies, we stand with Ukraine, and part of this was the importance of Finland and Sweden being part of NATO.”

Klobuchar also recalled the words of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing the world as he stood on the streets of Kiev on the night of the Russian invasion, saying three simple words, “We are here.”

“What you now have seen from America, from Finland, from our NATO allies, is a call that I also think (Russian President) Vladmir Putin did not expect,” she said. “We are here, too, and we are here with democracy.”

Hautala noted that he spent part of the day July 27 with the Ukrainian community in the Twin Cities, some of whom were refugees arriving in the U.S. last year after the invasion.

“The basic message I got from them, in those hours I spent with them, was an undefeated spirit to not only survive but also succeed and build a better Ukraine,” he said, noting a special connection between Finland and Ukraine based on their history with Russia. “We do realize what it means when Russia invades your country illegally, tries to subjugate you, tries to take your territories and there’s horrible violence involved.”

Finland’s history with Russian invasion includes the Winter War, which lasted from November 1939 to March 1940, with Finland losing 800 men a day during the peak of the fighting, according to Hautala. Finland’s population at the time was 4 million people.

“This is something that brings, mentally, the Finns and the Ukrainians together,” Hautala said. “They also seek strength from our story. They see that we survived, we managed to build a new Finland, and, after all those decades, we are part of NATO. But, not less meaningful, we are six times in a row the happiest nation on Earth.”

Finland’s accession to NATO

Hautala explained there were two triggers that drove Finland to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after decades of independence from a military alliance, the first of which was Putin’s demands to the U.S. in early December of 2021 that NATO not allow any additional countries to join the alliance.

“We concluded that, if this kind of an arrangement becomes a fact, it would permanently mean that we are left in a gray zone with the Russians, waiting on what their subsequent design could be,” he said. “That was impossible for us really to accept, because our principle has always been that we may join and we may apply, and Russians were trying to take that possibility away from us.”

While Finland and the U.S. have been strong partners for about three decades and Finland has worked closely with the alliance for about 20 years, according to Hautala, it was the “brutal attack” on Ukraine that finally drove Finland and Sweden to apply for "accession," the formal process to become a party to the treaty and a NATO member.

“(Finnish) President (Sauli) Niinisto said publicly the very morning of the attack that now the masks are off, we can only see the cold face of war,” Hautala said, noting it was a wakeup call for Finland’s population that it had to join the alliance soon.

“As the General knows, what happened with Ukraine kind of woke people up, not only from the pandemic malaise, but also just from this long slumber of not realizing how valuable it was to keep our friends close,” Klobuchar said.

The accession of Finland, and soon, Sweden is “bringing all the Nordics for the first time in history ... to the same alliance,” Hautala said. “This will have profound meaning, not only for Finland, but for all the Nordics, including NATO and defense of northern Europe — NATO’s northern flank.”

The U.S. Senate voted 95-1 to allow Finland to join, and Klobuchar told the story of receiving a thank-you note from President Niinisto for her speech on the Senate floor. She cast her vote following the only senator who voted no.

“What I said that day is still true today, that Finland is a stellar example of a country that looks beyond its borders, it has a commitment to peace and stability, it’s an economic powerhouse, it has a sophisticated reserve force of 900,000 strong,” she said, noting that she also addressed her “no vote” colleague, saying, “Perhaps the senator from Missouri has never visited the country of Finland. Perhaps he is not aware of all the technical advances and all the prowess that they would bring to NATO.”

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