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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov today strongly condemned the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian group Hamas, in a drone strike on his residence in Tehran, saying it undermines prospects of ending the conflict in Gaza. At a press briefing in Moscow, Peskov stated that the attack was detrimental to peace efforts in the region and risked destabilising the situation. “We strongly condemn this attack, which resulted in Mr. Haniyeh’s death. Such actions undermine attempts to establish peace in the region and could significantly destabilise an already tense situation,” he emphasised. In a separate...

Russian police have put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list, according to the Russian Interior Ministry's database. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kallas was wanted for the "desecration of historical memory". Russian state agency TASS said the Baltic officials were accused of "destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers", acts that are punishable by a 5-year prison term under the Russian criminal code. -snip- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: "This is only the beginning." "Crimes against the memory of the world's liberators from Nazism and fascism must...

President Vladimir Putin will hold his annual press conference and field questions from the public on Dec. 14 -snip- "On the 14th December, Vladimir Putin will sum up the results of the year," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "It will be a programme, a project of the TV channels as before, and it will be a combined format of the Direct Line (live question and answer session with the public) and the President's end of year press conference," said Peskov. -snip- Only Josef Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953, has been in...

The successor of sitting Russian President Vladimir Putin will be very similar to him politically, the Kremlin suggests. -snip- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a university student-run channel operated by the Moscow State Institute of International Relations that Putin's eventual successor will be "the same. Or different, but the same," according to the Moscow Times. -snip- Peskov told news outlets in October that there is no competition against Putin ahead of the next presidential election next year. "We have repeatedly said that President Putin is undoubtedly the number-one politician and statesman in our country," said Peskov. "In my personal opinion...

Pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting extremism, said on Sunday he wanted to run for president even though he understood the March election would be "sham" with the winner already clear. Girkin, who is also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, has repeatedly said Russia faces revolution and even civil war unless President Vladimir Putin's military top brass fight the war in Ukraine more effectively. A former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia to annex Crimea in 2014 and then to organise pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine, Girkin said before his...

Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, hosted routine talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Astana on November 9. At the customary, post-meeting press conference, Tokayev said little that was new, yet his delivery marked a notable departure from the past. He opened his remarks in Kazakh, not Russian. Tokayev’s rhetoric included the usual platitudes concerning the strength of bilateral relations, which he said were underpinned by “unshakable values of mutual respect and trust.” He went on to “confirm Kazakhstan is committed to the strategic direction of further strengthening comprehensive cooperation with Russia.” But in making top Russian officials in attendance, including...

The Kremlin, asked about President Vladimir Putin's political ambitions, said on Tuesday that the campaign for next year's presidential election in Russia had not yet begun and that there could be a varying number of candidates in the contest. -snip- When asked when the 71-year-old Russian leader would officially announce his candidacy for next year's presidential race, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "There is no first candidate yet, there will be a first candidate after they are registered. There may be a varying number of candidates. "Our constitution stipulates who can stand for the post of president. Many people fulfil...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday that U.S. bank JPMorgan had this week stopped processing payments for the Russian Agricultural Bank as Moscow demanded action, not promises, from Washington to help Russian grain and fertilizer reach global markets.Moscow has a list of demands it wants met before it will return to a deal, which it quit on July 17, that had allowed the safe Black Sea exports of Ukraine grain for the past year. Under a related pact - also brokered in July 2022 - U.N. officials agreed to help facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports."As soon as...

Vladimir Putin’s presidential plane left Moscow early Saturday, sparking rumors that he had fled the Russian capital as the Wagner Group’s mercenary forces advanced on the city. The president’s aircraft was spotted on flight radar flying northwest from Moscow to the St Petersburg area — but then disappeared from the system near the city of Tver, the BBC reported, where Putin owns a large rural retreat. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that his boss had turned tail amid the crisis, telling news agency TASS that he was “working in the Kremlin.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov argued on Thursday that Russia's latest attacks against Ukraine's power grid weren't aimed at the civilian population, urging Kiev to "end the suffering" of its people by accepting Moscow's terms to end the war. Russia's requests for ending the attacks include Ukraine proclaiming political and military neutrality, recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and granting independence to Donetsk and Lugansk.Despite millions of Ukrainians currently without power across the country, Peskov told reporters that Russia's military pays "special attention to avoid striking social targets... As for targets that are directly or indirectly related to military potential, they are...

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — A current FBI special agent and a former bureau analyst who both served on Robert Mueller’s team testified that the special counsel’s office declined to investigate and never interviewed Charles Dolan, the Clinton-allied business associate of the main source for Christopher Steele, despite their urging. Supervisory special agent Amy Anderson and former FBI intelligence analyst Brittany Hertzog both testified Friday that, as members of Mueller’s team who were specifically tasked with scrutinizing the allegations within the Trump dossier, they believed the FBI should interview and further investigate Dolan, a longtime ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton, partly...

European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said deliberate disruption would meet the "strongest possible response". The EU has previously accused Russia of using gas supplies as a weapon against the West over its support for Ukraine. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed accusations of sabotage as "predictable, stupid and absurd The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he thought the leaks would "not have a significant impact on Europe's energy resilience". Neither pipeline is transporting gas at the moment, although they both contain gas. Mr Blinken did not directly accuse Russia - but said it would be in...

Russia’s State Duma stated that enacted "military" laws do not mean the announcement of a general mobilization. It was stated in "Parlament newspaper" by Andriy Kartapolov - Head of the State Duma Defense Committee and one of the authors of the amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation introducing the concepts of "mobilization," "martial law" and "wartime", informs Censor.NЕТ. "There will be no general mobilization. The president has said this more than once, and directly says it through the mouth of his press secretary Dmitry Peskov and many other politicians at the federal level. "The law" does not...

Raging Russian nationalists called on Sunday for President Vladimir Putin to make immediate changes to ensure victory in the Ukraine war after troops were forced to retreat amid a series of strong Ukrainian counterattacks. Ukraine's troops on Saturday stormed east out of second city Kharkiv, smashing through Russian lines and liberating huge swathes of territory, including the key strategic city of Izyum along with several key transport and logistics hubs supporting Putin's men in the Donbas. The news prompted Chechen leader and Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov to publish an 11-minute-long rant on the Telegram messaging app, declaring that 'changes must...

The Kremlin has issued its sharpest comments about cutting off Russia's natural-gas flow to Europe via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Monday, saying supplies wwould not resume until the "collective West" lifts sanctions against Moscow. "Problems with gas supply arose because of the sanctions imposed on our country by Western states, including Germany and Britain," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov during a conference call, Reuters reported on Monday. "We see incessant attempts to shift responsibility and blame onto us. We categorically reject this and insist that the collective West – in this case, the EU, Canada, the UK...

Vladimir Putin has promoted his former personal bodyguard to be the Kremlin's new Emergencies Minister, months after his predecessor mysteriously fell to his death from a waterfall. Major-General Alexander Kurenkov, 49, nominated today by Putin, is the sixth bodyguard to the Russian president to be appointed to high government office. The last man to hold the post was Yevgeny Zinichev, also an ex-Putin guard, who died falling down a 90ft waterfall amid suspicions of murder. Nicknamed 'the man without a face', little is known about Kurenkov's past and background, with claims he had served in the FSB counterintelligence agency as...

MOSCOW. May 11 (Interfax) - Russia has always been committed to its gas contracts with Europe and will continue to be so, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "Russia has always fulfilled its contractual obligations in a reliable manner and intends to continue to do so. It is committed to its contractual obligations. The Ukrainian side has reported a certain force majeure situation. You and I have heard a statement from Gazprom, which said there had been no force majeure notices and explanations," Peskov said at a press briefing on Wednesday. Journalists asked Peskov whether Russia was planning to search for...

Russia would use nuclear weapons if it feels threatened, a Kremlin official said Tuesday. Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov was asked on CNN whether the idea of nuclear warfare was still on the table during the war with Ukraine. Peskov said that only an "existential" threat would be enough to justify the use of nuclear warfare.

BREAKING: Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov says Russia would use nuclear weapons if faced with "existential" threat. “…If it is an existential threat, a threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept."pic.twitter.com/X5Z6XBlSnq— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 22, 2022

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expelled eight members of Russia’s mission to the military alliance on Wednesday after determining the members were working as alleged spies. “We can confirm that we have withdrawn the accreditation of eight members of the Russian Mission to NATO, who were undeclared Russian intelligence officers,” a NATO official told the Associated Press under a customary condition of anonymity for the organization. In addition to expelling the eight suspected Russian intelligence officers, NATO also halved the size of Russia’s mission to the alliance, reducing the number of Russian mission members it will accredit from 20...