Omnibus Russia Ukraine crisis

spaminator

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Putin supporters formally nominate him as independent candidate in Russian presidential election
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Published Dec 16, 2023 • 2 minute read

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘s supporters on Saturday formally nominated him to run in the 2024 presidential election as an independent candidate, state news agencies reported.


The nomination by a group of at least 500 supporters is mandatory under Russian election law for those not running on a party ticket. Independent candidates also need to gather at least 300,000 signatures in their support.


The group that nominated Putin included top officials from the ruling United Russia party, prominent Russian actors and singers, athletes and other public figures.

“Whoever is ready to support the candidacy of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for the post of president of Russia, please vote. Who’s in favour?” Mikhail Kuznetsov, head of the executive committee of the People’s Front, asked those gathered. The People’s Front is a political coalition, founded in 2011 by Putin.

After the vote, Kuznetsov announced that the group had voted unanimously to nominate Putin.


According to Russian election laws, candidates put forward by a party that isn’t represented in the State Duma or in at least a third of regional legislatures have to submit at least 100,000 signatures from 40 or more regions. Those running independently of any party would need a minimum of 300,000 signatures from 40 regions or more.

Those requirements apply to Putin as well, who has used different tactics over the years. He ran as an independent in 2018 and his campaign gathered signatures. In 2012, he ran as a nominee of the Kremlin’s United Russia party, so there was no need to gather signatures.

At least one party — A Just Russia, which has 27 seats in the 450-seat State Duma — was willing to nominate Putin as its candidate this year. But its leader, Sergei Mironov, was quoted by the state news agency RIA Novosti on Saturday as saying that Putin will be running as an independent and will be gathering signatures.


Last week, lawmakers in Russia set the country’s 2024 presidential election for March 17, moving Putin a step closer to a fifth term in office.

Under constitutional reforms he orchestrated, the 71-year-old Putin is eligible to seek two more six-year terms after his current term expires next year, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036.

The tight control over Russia’s political system that he has established during 24 years in power makes his reelection in March all but assured. Prominent critics who could challenge him on the ballot are either in jail or living abroad, and most independent media have been banned.
 

spaminator

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Man claiming to be a former Russian officer wants to give evidence to ICC about Ukraine crimes
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Mike Corder
Published Dec 19, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A Russian claiming to be a former officer with the Wagner Group has arrived in the Netherlands and says he wants to provide evidence to the International Criminal Court, which is investigating atrocities in the war in Ukraine.


Dutch news program EenVandaag reported Monday that Igor Salikov had flown into the Netherlands. The news show spoke to him via a videolink. He is believed to have applied for asylum and could not be reached for comment Tuesday.


Salikov said he was in eastern Ukraine in 2014 when conflict erupted there, and in 2022 when Russia invaded its neighbor.

“I know where the orders came from,” he told EenVandaag. His claims could not be independently verified.

The Wagner Group, a military contractor created by Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, deployed to eastern Ukraine when a Moscow-backed separatist rebellion erupted there in 2014. It also took part in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, spearheading the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut that was captured by Russian forces in May.


Prigozhin, who staged a brief mutiny in June when he sent Wagner mercenaries to march on Moscow demanding the ouster of top military leaders, was killed in an air crash in August.

The ICC issued an international arrest warrant in March for Russian President Vladimir Putin, alleging that he was responsible for the abduction of children from Ukraine. Information about the Russian chain of command could be crucial in building more cases against senior Russians involved in the war.

In a written response, the court’s prosecution office confirmed it received a written communication from Salikov but did not say whether investigators were talking with him.

“In line with the confidentiality of its activities, the office is unable to provide any further information with respect to ongoing investigations. In particular, the office is unable to confirm or deny whether an individual is being engaged with as a potential witness or in any other capacity,” the prosecution statement said.


Salikov also claims to have information about the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.

All 298 passengers and crew were killed when the plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, by a Russian missile system known as a Buk TELAR. A Dutch court convicted two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian rebel in November 2022 for their roles in downing the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight.

In February, the multinational Joint Investigation Team said it had uncovered “strong indications” that Putin approved the supply of heavy anti-aircraft weapons to Ukrainian separatists who shot down the plane.

However, the team said it had insufficient evidence to prosecute Putin or any other suspects, and it suspended its 8 1/2-year inquiry.


The investigative team is made up of police and judicial authorities from the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, Ukraine and Belgium — nations hard hit by the downing.

“The Joint Investigation Team that investigated the downing of MH17 follows with great interest the news that a Russian military (member) possibly wants to testify in the Netherlands at the ICC about Russian war crimes,” the team said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press.“If this person has specific and reliable inside information on the chain of command that authorized the Buk TELAR that shot down MH17, the JIT would be interested in receiving it.”

While the active investigation into the downing of the Boeing 777 was halted in February, “our door remains open for Russian insider witnesses. The JIT remains committed to the MH17 investigation,” the team’s statement said.
 

spaminator

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U.S. allies fear defeat as Ukraine aid stalls
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Natalia Drozdiak, Milda Seputyte and Peter Martin
Published Dec 19, 2023 • 6 minute read

The impasse over aid from the U.S. and Europe has Ukraine’s allies contemplating something they’ve refused to imagine since the earliest days of Russia’s invasion: that Vladimir Putin may win.


With more than $110 billion in assistance mired in political disputes in Washington and Brussels, how long Kyiv will be able to hold back Russian forces and defend Ukraine’s cities, power plants and ports against missile attacks is increasingly in question.


Beyond the potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine, some European allies have begun to quietly consider the impact of a failure for North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II. They’re reassessing the risks an emboldened Russia would pose to alliance members in the east, according to people familiar with the internal conversations who asked for anonymity to discuss matters that aren’t public.

The ripple effects would be felt around the world, the people said, as U.S. partners and allies questioned just how reliable Washington’s promises of defence would be. The impact of such a strategic setback would be far deeper than that caused by the spectacle of the botched U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in 2021, they said. And that’s leaving aside the prospect that Donald Trump might win next year’s presidential election and realize his public pledges to pull back from major alliances, including NATO, and make a deal with Putin over Ukraine.


The growing sense of alarm has slipped into leaders’ public statements. They’ve taken on an increasingly shrill tone as backers of the aid exhort their opponents not to hold the vital assistance hostage to domestic political priorities, something which rarely happened in previous debates.

“If Ukraine doesn’t have support from the EU and the U.S., then Putin will win,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said last week at the European Union summit, where leaders failed to overcome growing opposition to next year’s €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package and only barely managed to approve the largely symbolic gesture of opening the way to membership for Ukraine sometime in the future.

Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, Zelenskiy denied that Ukraine is starting to lose the war, pointing to the advances his forces have made since the early days of the invasion and the support he has received from Ukraine’s allies. “We have challenges,” he said, mentioning the delays with foreign aid and shortages of artillery shells.


All the same, U.S. President Joe Biden last week pledged to back Ukraine for “as long as we can,” a rhetorical shift from previous vows to do so for “as long as it takes.” Hardline Republicans in Congress have refused to approve $61 billion of support for next year until Biden gives in to their demands for tougher policies on the U.S. southern border. So far, efforts to reach a deal have failed. Monday, the Pentagon warned that the money for new weapons for Ukraine will run out Dec. 30 if legislators don’t act.

In addition to growing public skepticism about the cost of support for Ukraine, the disappointing results of Kyiv’s counteroffensive this summer — its troops made only modest gains against Russia’s heavily entrenched forces — have fueled questions about whether Ukraine’s publicly declared goal of retaking all the territory occupied by Putin is realistic. Lately, allied officials have sought to highlight Kyiv’s more recent military successes, including its successful strikes on the Russian navy in the Black Sea, rather than the sweeping advances on the ground seen in the first year of war.


“There is increasing concern about lack of movement on aid for Ukraine on both sides of the Atlantic and frustration that there is this stagnation with dire battlefield consequences,” said Kristine Berzina, managing director at the German Marshall Fund in Washington. “The possibility of Ukraine losing additional territory and even its sovereignty — that is still on the table.”

Russia is likely to push to take more territory and destroy more infrastructure if Ukraine doesn’t get the weapons it needs to defend itself, according to European officials. Unable to defend itself, Ukraine might be forced to accept a cease-fire deal on Russia’s terms, they said.

Ukraine’s backers in both the EU and U.S. contend aid is likely to be approved in some form early next year. But that’s unlikely to yield a major breakthrough on the battlefield, officials said. Beyond that, the outlook is increasingly murky, even as the stalemate on the ground makes it increasingly clear that the fight could go on for years to come.


In the Baltic states, officials are already telling the public to be ready for the next war because Putin’s forces aren’t going to be destroyed in Ukraine. The discussion has moved from ‘if’ Russia might attack to a focus on concrete preparations for that once-unthinkable prospect. Despite Biden’s public assurances, questions about whether the U.S. and other allies would actually put their troops at risk to defend tiny countries that were once part of the Soviet Union are growing.

“Russia is not scared of NATO,” Estonia’s military chief Martin Herem said in an interview with a local TV station last week, estimating that the Russian military could be ready to attack NATO within a year once the conflict in Ukraine — not a member of the alliance — was over. Other western officials said it would likely take Putin at least several years to make up for the tremendous losses his military has taken in Ukraine, let alone threaten NATO’s much more capable forces.


But the earlier confidence that the invasion would be a ‘strategic defeat’ for the Russian leader has faded, replaced in some quarters by a growing sense that Putin’s bet that he can outlast the US and its allies may prove right.

Finland, which joined NATO this year amid the growing threat from Russia, has stepped up its own defence buildup and is seeking to lock in security ties with the US. Putin Sunday warned that Russia plans to deploy more troops along its border, the longest between Russia and a NATO member. “There were no problems,” he said. “Now there will be.”

One western official described how a Russian victory would trigger an outpouring of refugees heading for the EU, piling pressure on services in those countries and exacerbating tensions between members. At the same time, the official said, the Ukrainian resistance would switch to guerrilla tactics meaning that the fighting would continue at a lower lever, perpetuating the instability on the EU’s eastern border.


Some European countries might seek to strengthen their ties with Moscow or Beijing to avoid having to rely too much on an unreliable U.S., other officials said.

With Russian forces potentially much closer to the borders of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, and Crimea giving the Kremlin a dominant position in the Black Sea, the U.S. would need to make a significant investment in its European forces to pose a credible deterrent, the Institute for the Study of War said in a report released last week.

The U.S. would have to deploy a “sizable portion” of its ground forces as well as a “large number” of stealth aircraft. Given the limitations of U.S. manufacturing, that could force the White House to choose between keeping sufficient forces in Asia to defend Taiwan against a potential strike by China or deterring a Russian attack on NATO.

“The entire undertaking will cost a fortune,” analysts led by Frederick W. Kagan said in the report. “The cost will last as long as the Russian threat continues — potentially indefinitely.”

— With assistance from Alberto Nardelli, Ott Tammik, Natalia Ojewska, Demetrios Pogkas and Aliaksandr Kudrytski.
 

spaminator

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Russian poet receives 7-year sentence for reciting verses against war in Ukraine
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Published Dec 29, 2023 • 1 minute read
Artyom Kamardin was given a 7-year prison sentence Thursday for reciting verses against Russia's war in Ukraine, a tough punishment that comes during a relentless Kremlin crackdown on dissent. Yegor Shtovba, who participated in the event and recited Kamardin's verses, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years on the same charges.
Artyom Kamardin was given a 7-year prison sentence Thursday for reciting verses against Russia's war in Ukraine, a tough punishment that comes during a relentless Kremlin crackdown on dissent. Yegor Shtovba, who participated in the event and recited Kamardin's verses, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years on the same charges.
A Russian poet was given a 7-year prison sentence Thursday for reciting verses against Russia’s war in Ukraine, a tough punishment that comes during a relentless Kremlin crackdown on dissent.


Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court convicted Artyom Kamardin on charges of making calls undermining national security and inciting hatred, which related to him reading his anti-war poems during a street performance in downtown Moscow in September 2022.


Yegor Shtovba, who participated in the event and recited Kamardin’s verses, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years on the same charges.

The gathering next to the monument to poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was held days after President Vladimir Putin ordered a mobilization of 300,000 reservists amid Moscow’s military setbacks in Ukraine. The widely unpopular move prompted hundreds of thousands to flee Russia to avoid being recruited into the military.

Police swiftly dispersed the performance and soon arrested Kamardin and several other participants.


Russian media quoted Kamardin’s friends and his lawyer as saying that police beat and raped him during the arrest. Soon after, he was shown apologizing for his action in a police video released by pro-Kremlin media, his face bruised.

Authorities have taken no action to investigate the alleged abuse by police.

During Thursday’s hearing, Kamardin’s wife, Alexandra Popova, was escorted out of the courtroom by bailiffs after she shouted “Shame!” following the verdict. Popova, who spoke to journalists after the hearing, and several other people were later detained on charges of holding an unsanctioned “rally” outside the court building.

Between late February 2022 and earlier this month, 19,847 people have been detained in Russia for speaking out or protesting against the war while 794 people have been implicated in criminal cases over their anti-war stance, according to the OVD-Info rights group, which tracks political arrests and provides legal assistance.

The crackdown has been carried out under a law Moscow adopted days after sending troops to Ukraine that effectively criminalized any public expression about the war deviating from the official narrative.
 

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Another Putin ally reportedly dies after mysterious fall from window
Author of the article:postmedia News
Published Dec 29, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 1 minute read

Another Russian political leader and close ally to President Vladimir Putin has died following reports of a mysterious fall.


Citing Russian state media, the New York Post reports Vladimir Egorov, 46, was found dead Wednesday outside a home in Tobolsk, about 2,400 km east of Moscow.


He allegedly fell from a third-floor window.

Russian Telegram channel Baza reported the body of Egorov was found in the front yard of the home with “no sign of criminal death.”

Russian officials continue their investigation into Egorov’s death, while autopsy results are pending, Baza reported.


Egorov was a member of Putin’s United Russia party.

He also served as Tobolsk City Duma deputy, but was forced out of the administration in 2016 following a corruption scandal. He wasn’t convicted of the charges.

According to Russia’s 72 news outlet, Egorov apparently suffered from heart problems before his death.

“One of the most likely reasons is heart problems,” said a source, according to the Post.


Heart issues is one of the main explanations given in Russia in relation to suspicious deaths of prominent people, especially since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Other notable Russia leaders and Putin allies, including Lukoil tycoon Ravil Maganov and Marina Yankina, have died in similar circumstances.

They were also said to have heart problems.
 

Dixie Cup

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If he invades he will go down in History as Hitler.. starting a war, invading nations..

Not to mention under Biden the USA went from 8000 barrels a day to 64,000 of Russian oil because the USA is no longer a net exporter of oil..

So expect oil prices to double..instability

uuum, good for Alberta 😉
Not if Trudeau has his way...