Tag Archives: Politics

Putin Minister Accidentally Hints At Daunting Ukraine War Stat Which Kremlin Has Tried To Keep Secret

Posted on by
Reply

Vladimir Putin’s deputy defence minister may have accidentally revealed Moscow’s estimate of its losses in Ukraine.

Until now, the exact number of those Russian deaths or casualties have been kept firmly under wraps.

Ana Tsivilyova, who is also the daughter of Putin’s cousin, told a meeting with lawmakers that the Kremlin had tens of thousands of appeals from relatives who are searching for missing or dead soldiers.

Speaking in a video published by the independent Astra Telegram channel, she said: “The ministry of internal affairs takes [DNA samples] absolutely free of charge at its own expense, and enters into its database for all the relatives who have applied to us. I’ve already said 48,000.”

Shortly after she let this detail slip, Russia’s defence committee chief Andrei Kartapolov cut in and told viewers: “I earnestly ask you not to use these figures anywhere.

“This is such sensitive, closed information. And when we draw up the final documents, we should not include these figures anywhere.”

Tsivilyova replied: “I didn’t give the numbers of missing people, but the number of requests to us. Many of them will be found. So this number is specifically requests, not data.”

The video was published by popular Telegram channel Astra and streamed at the time on the website for the parliament’s lower house, the Duma.

The exchange reportedly took place on 26 November. Reuters noted that it was not on the site on 4 December.

It remains unclear exactly how many troops have died in the war on either the Ukrainian or the Russian side.

Independent Russian news site Mesiazone and the BBC Russian service confirmed the names of 82,050 soldiers who had died in Ukraine as of 6 December

Meanwhile, Western intelligence estimates that Russian losses – dead or injured – exceed 700,000.

In fact, the UK’s Ministry of Defence reported that November was also the costliest month for the war, with casualties reaching 1,500 a day.

The Kremlin is thought to be reluctant about revealing the true extent of the losses so the Russian public remain unaware of the real wartime impact.

Putin is also pushing ahead at Russia’s fastest rate of the war yet to gain as much land as possible as US president-elect Donald Trump is expected to push for a peace deal once in office.

Speaking to US journalist Tucker Carlson – who interviewed the Russian president in February – Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia will use “any means” to prevent defeat by the West this week.

Lavrov said the West must take Russia’s “red lines” seriously – although he also admitted Russia and the US were not at war right now, despite the aggressive rhetoric from Putin.

He said: “And in any case, this (war) is not what we want. We would like to have normal relations with all our neighbours, of course… especially with a great country like the United States.”

He also said Donald Trump was a “very strong person, a person who wants results”.

The US president-elect has promised to end the war on his first full day back in the White House, but has not explained how he would do so, sparking fears he could pressure Ukraine to cede land to Russia.

Lavrov told Carlson any potential peace deal has to acknowledge the realities on the ground – as Russia controls 20% of Ukraine – and exclude any chance of Ukraine joining Nato.

Share Button

Liz Truss Left ‘Deep And Painful Scar’ On Conservative Party’s Reputation, Mel Stride Says

Posted on by
Reply

Liz Truss and her mini-Budget left a “very deep and painful scar” on the Conservative Party, Mel Stride said.

The shadow Tory chancellor, who did not serve in the Truss government, made the admission during a lunch with Westminster journalists.

Asked by reporters if the Tories needed to publicly distance themselves from the mini-Budget by apologising and promising it will never happen again, Stride just admitted Truss’s £45bn of unfunded tax cuts severely damaged the party’s reputation.

The MP for Central Devon said: “I think it’s fair to say the-called mini-Budget – on which I had a lot to say at the time – as I was chair of the Treasury select and I was very vocal about what was going on during and after that event – it is a very deep and painful scar on the Conservative Party.”

He said: “At a stroke, it severely damaged that mantle of economic fiscal competence that our party has always [had].”

He added fiscal responsibility has to be at the centre of Conservatives’ plan to move forward.

Truss was ousted from government after serving just 49 days as the prime minister due to the chaos her mini-Budget caused.

She was also kicked out of her seat in the July general election when her majority of 26,195 was wiped out and Labour’s candidate Terry Jermy took her South West Norfolk constituency by 630 votes.

Stride actually managed to hang onto his own seat, although his majority dropped from 16,831 to just 61 votes.

July’s general election led to a historic defeat for the Tories who took just 121 seats in parliament, their worst defeat in terms of constituencies in history.

Asked if the Tories deserved to lose, Stride said: “If the question is – did we do everything right? And really did we deserve to win? Then I don’t think anybody could argue that we did everything right; a very, very long way from it.”

But he claimed Covid, Ukraine and inflation had all impacted the Tory reputation.

The Tory frontbencher added: “We’ve been around for 14 years. And what being around 14 years does is it deprives you the ability to readily recast yourself as an agent of change and so forth.”

He also expressed optimism about his party’s future, saying: “We have a long way to go in order to get back into political contention, but I believe we can do it, because I think that Labour victory last time round whilst wide is relatively shallow, and under 34% of the vote.

“We are in very volatile territory at the moment in which almost anything can happen in the future.”

Share Button

Bill Clinton Says He Wishes Joe Biden Didn’t Do This Thing Before Pardoning His Son

Posted on by
Reply

Bill Clinton said on Wednesday that you “can’t take the politics out of” presidential pardoning decisions as he weighed in on Joe Biden’s recent pardon of his son Hunter Biden.

“I wish he hadn’t said he wasn’t going to do it. I think it does weaken his case,” Clinton said of Joe Biden, who had vowed he wouldn’t pardon his son, who was found guilty in June of illegally owning a gun in 2018 and pleaded guilty in a tax case in September.

Clinton, in remarks to Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, said the president had “reason to believe” his son would likely face “far stronger, adverse consequences” than the average person.

On Sunday, Biden said in a statement that his son was “unfairly” and selectively prosecuted, adding that he was “singled out” due to his ties to his father. The move by the president has led to bipartisan condemnation in the days since.

Clinton dismissed comparisons of Biden’s pardon to his own 2001 pardon of his half-brother Roger Clinton Jr, who was convicted of cocaine possession and drug trafficking in 1985.

“The real question was, would he ever be able to vote again? Would he ever be able to have normal citizenship responsibilities?” said the former president, who noted that his half-brother had already served a 14-month sentence in federal prison at the time.

He continued, “And I’ve been sort of upset that there’s been almost no discussion about the larger problem, which is, does the pardon system we have work?”

Bill Clinton, who urged Americans to see Biden’s move in a “larger context,” then turned to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (Democrat, New York) call for the president to also pardon those “in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offences.”

He said that Biden is “almost certainly right” that his son received “completely different treatments” than he would have otherwise.

But the issue over the pardon, he said, isn’t “way high” on his “hierarchy of things” he’s supposed to be upset about.

Sorkin later asked Clinton if Biden should pardon President-elect Donald Trump in what could be seen as a “balanced” move prior to the change in administrations.

“Well, I do think we should stop trying to criminalise politics,” Clinton said.

He later continued, “Both of them. … And the people like it when they are not going along with it from right to left. On the other hand, you have to ask yourself, if you do this as a blanket thing, is there anything a president could do that he or she someday would get in trouble for?”

<div class="js-react-hydrator" data-component-name="YouTube" data-component-id="1951" data-component-props="{"itemType":"video","index":17,"contentIndexByType":1,"contentListType":"embed","code":"

","type":"video","meta":{"author":"New York Times Events","author_url":"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtZNqEGzfQ6jO4SXWz51bRw","cache_age":86400,"description":"Bill Clinton joins Andrew Ross Sorkin at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit to discuss the state of democracy and the role each of us can play in shaping it. \n\nInterviewer: Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder and editor at large of DealBook\n\nGuest: Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States and author of “Citizen: My Life After the White House”","options":{"_cc_load_policy":{"label":"Closed captions","value":false},"_end":{"label":"End on","placeholder":"ex.: 11, 1m10s","value":""},"_start":{"label":"Start from","placeholder":"ex.: 11, 1m10s","value":""},"click_to_play":{"label":"Hold load & play until clicked","value":false}},"provider_name":"YouTube","thumbnail_height":720,"thumbnail_url":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QSYf0JmCb7k/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_width":1280,"title":"Citizenship: A Conversation With Bill Clinton on America’s Future","type":"video","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSYf0JmCb7k","version":"1.0"},"flags":[],"enhancements":{},"fullBleed":false,"options":{"theme":"news","device":"desktop","editionInfo":{"id":"uk","name":"U.K.","link":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk","locale":"en_GB"},"originalEdition":"uk","isMapi":false,"isAmp":false,"isVideoEntry":false,"isEntry":true,"isMt":false,"entryId":"6751cc2ae4b0a7189dd89201","entryPermalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bill-clinton-says-he-wishes-joe-biden-didnt-do-this-1-thing-before-pardoning-his-son_uk_6751cc2ae4b0a7189dd89201","entryTagsList":"us-news,joe-biden,bill-clinton,hunter-biden,andrew-ross-sorkin,@us_huffpost_now,@widget-imported","sectionSlug":"politics","deptSlug":null,"sectionRedirectUrl":null,"subcategories":"","isWide":false,"headerOverride":null,"noVideoAds":false,"disableFloat":false,"isNative":false,"commercialVideo":{"provider":"custom","site_and_category":"uk.politics","package":null},"isHighline":false,"vidibleConfigValues":{"cid":"60afc140cf94592c45d7390c","disabledWithMapiEntries":false,"overrides":{"all":"60b8e525cdd90620331baaf4"},"whitelisted":["56c5f12ee4b03a39c93c9439","56c6056ee4b01f2b7e1b5f35","59bfee7f9e451049f87f550b","5acccbaac269d609ef44c529","570278d2e4b070ff77b98217","57027b4be4b070ff77b98d5c","56fe95c4e4b0041c4242016b","570279cfe4b06d08e3629954","5ba9e8821c2e65639162ccf1","5bcd9904821576674bc55ced","5d076ca127f25f504327c72e","5b35266b158f855373e28256","5ebac2e8abddfb04f877dff2","60b8e525cdd90620331baaf4","60b64354b171b7444beaff4d","60d0d8e09340d7032ad0fb1a","60d0d90f9340d7032ad0fbeb","60d0d9949340d7032ad0fed3","60d0d9f99340d7032ad10113","60d0daa69340d7032ad104cf","60d0de02b627221e9d819408"],"playlists":{"default":"57bc306888d2ff1a7f6b5579","news":"56c6dbcee4b04edee8beb49c","politics":"56c6dbcee4b04edee8beb49c","entertainment":"56c6e7f2e4b0983aa64c60fc","tech":"56c6f70ae4b043c5bdcaebf9","parents":"56cc65c2e4b0239099455b42","lifestyle":"56cc66a9e4b01f81ef94e98c"},"playerUpdates":{"56c6056ee4b01f2b7e1b5f35":"60b8e525cdd90620331baaf4","56c5f12ee4b03a39c93c9439":"60d0d8e09340d7032ad0fb1a","59bfee7f9e451049f87f550b":"60d0d90f9340d7032ad0fbeb","5acccbaac269d609ef44c529":"60d0d9949340d7032ad0fed3","5bcd9904821576674bc55ced":"60d0d9f99340d7032ad10113","5d076ca127f25f504327c72e":"60d0daa69340d7032ad104cf","5ebac2e8abddfb04f877dff2":"60d0de02b627221e9d819408"}},"connatixConfigValues":{"defaultPlayer":"8b034f64-513c-4987-b16f-42d6008f7feb","clickToPlayPlayer":"5a777b9b-81fe-41a6-8302-59e9953ee8a2","videoPagePlayer":"19654b65-409c-4b38-90db-80cbdea02cf4"},"topConnatixThumnbailSrc":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=","customAmpComponents":[],"ampAssetsUrl":"https://amp.assets.huffpost.com","videoTraits":null,"positionInUnitCounts":{"buzz_head":{"count":0},"buzz_body":{"count":0},"buzz_bottom":{"count":0}},"positionInSubUnitCounts":{"article_body":{"count":10},"blog_summary":{"count":0},"before_you_go_content":{"count":0}},"connatixCountsHelper":{"count":0},"buzzfeedTracking":{"context_page_id":"6751cc2ae4b0a7189dd89201","context_page_type":"buzz","destination":"huffpost","mode":"desktop","page_edition":"en-uk"},"tags":[{"name":"us news","slug":"us-news","links":{"relativeLink":"news/us-news","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/us-news","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/us-news"},"relegenceSubjectId":981465,"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/us-news/"},{"name":"Joe Biden ","slug":"joe-biden","links":{"relativeLink":"news/joe-biden","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/joe-biden","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/joe-biden"},"relegenceId":3519431,"section":{"title":"News","slug":"news"},"topic":{"title":"2020 US Election","slug":"2020-us-election","overridesSectionLabel":false},"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/2020-us-election/"},{"name":"Bill Clinton","slug":"bill-clinton","links":{"relativeLink":"news/bill-clinton","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/bill-clinton","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/bill-clinton"},"relegenceId":3448200,"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/bill-clinton/"},{"name":"Hunter Biden","slug":"hunter-biden","links":{"relativeLink":"news/hunter-biden","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/hunter-biden","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/hunter-biden"},"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/hunter-biden/"},{"name":"Andrew Ross Sorkin","slug":"andrew-ross-sorkin","links":{"relativeLink":"news/andrew-ross-sorkin","permalink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/andrew-ross-sorkin","mobileWebLink":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/andrew-ross-sorkin"},"url":"https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/andrew-ross-sorkin/"}],"isLiveblogLive":null,"isLiveblog":false,"cetUnit":"buzz_body","bodyAds":["

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline-1\", \"entry_paragraph_1\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n","

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline\", \"entry_paragraph_2\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n","

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline-2\", \"entry_paragraph_3\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n","

\r\n\r\n HPGam.cmd.push(function(){\r\n\t\treturn HPGam.render(\"inline-infinite\", \"repeating_dynamic_display\", false, false);\r\n });\r\n\r\n"],"adCount":0},"isCollectionEmbed":false}”>

Share Button