Tag Archives: Russia

Bizarre Russian Press Speculation About The UK’s Sanctions Awkwardly Undermined By Labour Move

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One Russian newspaper claimed today that the UK could lift sanctions against the state, only for the Foreign Office to issue a new crackdown hours later.

The British embassy in Russia reportedly told national newspaper Izvestia that the UK is considering watering down sanctions, introduced due to the Ukraine war, against Moscow.

Izvestia (in which the state-owned company Gazopram has a controlling share) did acknowledge that the House of Lords has warned the UK will stay in step with the US and not lift sanctions – but still suggested such measures cannot be lifted if they do not serve a purpose.

This claim was then reported by the Russian state agency TASS, too.

The UK has imposed sanctions on almost 2,000 Russians, including government officials, and more than 300 companies.

Although there have been concerns the sanctions are not having the desired effect, those fears centre around the measures not being hard enough.

Plus, any rowing back on these measures would be a major shift in the UK’s long-term support for Ukraine, which is highly unlikely.

However, the Labour government appeared to have already inadvertently quashed such claims via the foreign secretary David Lammy’s latest announcement.

The UK declared new and significant measures against Iran and Russia on Tuesday.

It came after Iran sent new ballistic missiles to Moscow for use on the battlefield against Ukraine.

Iran has sent hundreds of drones to Russia since the war began, and is one of the country’s primary military backers.

So the UK and the US have announced co-ordinated sanctions against the two countries, while the UK, France and Germany also issued a joint statement and cancelled bilateral arrangements with Iran.

Russian cargo ships have been sanctioned for their role in transporting military supplies from Iran into the country, too.

UK parliament is also looking to strengthen trade sanctions on Iran this week in a further blow to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Lammy said: “Iran supplying Russia with ballistic missiles to fuel its illegal invasion of Ukraine is a significant and dangerous escalation.

“We have been clear in that any transfer of ballistic missiles by Iran would face a significant response. Today, alongside our international partners, we are calling out this behaviour and its attempts to undermine global security.

“Iran must stop supporting Putin’s unprovoked, premeditated and barbaric attack against a sovereign democratic state. The UK will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Meanwhile transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “We will continue to use every lever at our disposal to put pressure on Iran to end its support for Putin’s illegal invasion.”

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Now Trump Has Decided He Is ‘Very Offended’ By Putin’s Endorsement Of Kamala Harris

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Donald Trump has spoken out, yet again, about Vladimir Putin’s endorsement of Kamala Harris.

The Russian president seemed pretty sarcastic on Thursday when encouraged his supporters to back her, bizarrely praising how the Democratic nominee and current vice president “laughs so expressively and infectiously”.

It’s widely expected that a second Trump administration would be much softer on Putin and his brutal invasion of Ukraine than another term of the Democrats, so it’s unlikely the Russian authoritarian meant what he said.

But the ex-US president, who has often spoken very highly of Putin’s “genius”, did not seem to see it that way.

On Friday, he seemed unsure about how to react, telling his fans in New York: “I don’t know exactly what to say about that. I don’t know if I’m insulted or he did me a favour?”

But, by Saturday, he was telling a rally in Wisconsin that he was “very offended” by Putin’s endorsement of Harris.

He said: “I knew Putin. I knew him well. And you know, he endorsed, I don’t know if you saw the other day, he endorsed Kamala. He endorsed Kamala. I was very offended by that.

“I wonder why he endorsed Kamala. Now, he’s a chess player.

“Should I be upset about that? Was it done with a smile? I think it was done maybe with a smile. Who the hell knows.

“No one is going to figure it out. They’re about 19 steps ahead of us, this whole Russia thing. Nobody was tougher on Russia in history than Trump.

“And the person who knows that better than anyone was Vladimir Putin.”

But, the Republican nominee still found time to defend Russia as a whole.

He dismissed new concerns from the US’s Justice Department that Russia is trying to interfere with the upcoming election, just as it did in 2016.

Trump told the crowd, “the whole world laughed at it this time” when the new fears were revealed earlier this week.

“Oh no, it’s Russia, Russia, Russia, all over again,” he said, according to The Hill. “But they don’t look at China and they don’t look at Iran. I don’t know what it is with poor Russia.”

“Russia would never have happened if I was president, attacking Ukraine, it would never have happened,” he claimed, and promised: “I will have that war finished, settled, before I get to the White House, as president-elect I will get that done.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed he can resolve the Ukraine war but has not explained how he intends to do so, sparking worries that he will allow Russia to formally seize the Ukrainian territory it is already occupying.

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Putin’s Top Ally Lukashenko Seems To Hint There’s A 1% Chance He Could Turn Against Russia

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The president of Belarus and loyal ally to Vladimir Putin claimed this week he could not accept 99% of the proposals for him to turn against Russia.

Alexander Lukashenko alleged that “some from the outside” are encouraging him to turn against Moscow and start backing Ukraine.

In an address on Tuesday – shared on both the official Belarus government website and Russian state news agency TASS – he said: “Some from the outside are giving us advice, throwing in ideas and urging us to back down here and give something up there.

“The idea is that we should forget about Russia and turn away from Russia.

″‘Go fight against Russia together with Ukraine,’ they say, ‘and we will deploy NATO forces close to [the Russian city of] Smolensk.’

“This is how far it gets. I’m receiving proposals from all sides, and 99% of them we cannot accept,” he said – suggesting he could be persuaded to accept that narrow 1% of the proposals being pitched to him.

At the meeting of Belarus’s teachers’ Council, he suggested he wanted Belarusians to understand the situation they are in.

He then said: “Do your thing and I will do mine together with my colleagues in the government and other senior officials.”

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Lukashenko complained that the West is trying to persuade him to fight with NATO against Russia.

He also added that he receives \"proposals from all sides that I, 99%, cannot accept.\"
Did he mean Russia and NATO by \"all sides\"? pic.twitter.com/DVa7NZ1nql

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 27, 2024

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Lukashenko complained that the West is trying to persuade him to fight with NATO against Russia.

He also added that he receives “proposals from all sides that I, 99%, cannot accept.”
Did he mean Russia and NATO by “all sides”? pic.twitter.com/DVa7NZ1nql

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 27, 2024

The suggestion Lukashenko could be wavering, even just in that 1%, over his loyalty to Putin is eye-catching, especially as Belarus agreed to host nuclear weaponry on Moscow’s behalf.

Russia has been pretty isolated on the world stage since invading Ukraine in 2022, with many nations in the West condemning the war as a land grab.

Lukashenko, though, has publicly advocated for Putin, claiming only in January that Russia “bears the greatest burden in the world” and suffers “more than anyone else”.

Like Putin, he is known for his authoritarian rule and eliminating the political opposition – making the two leaders natural allies.

However, when mercenaries from the now-dissolved Wagner group attempted to stage a coup last year, it was Lukashenko who managed to stop it in its tracks.

According to specialists from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) at the time, this pulled Putin and Lukashenko into a bit of a “power play”.

A year later it seems as though the Russian president is still on top – but, crucially, Belarus is still not actually at war with Ukraine.

Troops are building up the border between the two countries, but, as the ISW claimed on August 26, Lukashenko is still not going to risk combat with Ukraine which “could weaken his regime or drastically increase Belarusian discontent.”

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