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President Donald Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” when Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the credibility of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership, adding that the comments were “not going in the right location.” Agence France-Presse reported that Putin on Friday called for a transitional government to be put in place in Ukraine, which could effectively push out Zelenskyy. “If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault,...

A Russian negotiator has warned that peace talks with the US on the war in Ukraine could drag into 2026. Grigory Karasin, who led talks with the US in Saudi Arabia on March 24, said on Friday that there may be no decisive results from talks with the US. “It would have been naive to expect any breakthroughs,” Karasin said to Russian state TV Channel Rossiya 24. -snip- It comes after Russia effectively rejected a 30-day pause in the fighting proposed by the US. It also asked for sanctions against food and fertiliser to be lifted - along with the...

Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday with a sophisticated combination of missiles and drones for the first time in 73 days, authorities reported, as the Pentagon said most of the North Korean troops sent to help Moscow's war effort were fighting to drive Ukraine's army off Russian soil in the Kursk border region. -snip- The air assault came as most of the more than 10,000 North Korean troops sent by Pyongyang to help Moscow in the war were engaged in fighting in Kursk, where a Ukrainian army incursion three months ago has succeeded in holding a broad area...

President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, the first phone conversation between the two men since Trump won the election, said several people familiar with the matter. During the call, which Trump took from his resort in Florida, he advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of Washington’s sizable military presence in Europe, said a person familiar with the call, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The two men discussed the goal of peace on the European...

Some 18 North Korean soldiers are believed to have deserted the Russian frontline, with Kremlin fighters reportedly searching for them. The troops were deployed in Russia's Kursk and Bryansk oblasts, about four miles from the border with Ukraine, when they deserted, the public broadcasting company of Ukraine, Suspilne, reported. Intelligence officials cited by the broadcaster said the Russian military is searching for the North Korean soldiers, while commanders are trying to conceal the desertion from their higher-ups. It comes after reports that Moscow was planning to assemble a battalion of troops sent over by Kim Jong Un to help push...

Amid ideological hurdles facing Russia in occupied regions in Ukraine, evangelical churches are targets for Russian soldiers to allegedly root out anti-Russian sentiment, if not levy allegations of American havens for "spies." "You don't run a church: You run a nest of American spies," Russian soldiers who stormed Melitopol's Church of God's Grace told its Baptist pastor Mykhailo Brytsyn during interrogation after an armed takeover The evangelical churches are being targeted because the ideology is not in line with Putin's favored Russian Orthodox Church as Putin attempts to turn contested regions into full-hearted Russian territories after his years long war...

So what changed the policy in Tehran? Mikhail Podolyak, the head of the Ukraine Presidential Office, blamed Iran for agreeing to be "directly complicit in the mass murder of Ukrainians." Why?, he asked: "Russia offered something important to Iran in exchange for killer drones and a ballistic missile contract. It is one of these options: uranium and other materials; nuclear technology; regional guarantees from the Russian Federation."

Sweden officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Thursday, a historic shift that highlights how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is transforming European security in ways he may not have foreseen. At a meeting in Washington, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson deposited the final paperwork with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the last step needed for the former militarily nonaligned nation to become NATO’s 32nd member. Sweden’s neighbor, Finland, joined last year. To justify his aggression in Ukraine, Putin cited the possibility of NATO expansion. Now, in one of the conflict’s many twists, his war has brought a...

"Russian officials and state-run and state-affiliated TV channels likely refrained from commenting on the two-year anniversary of the start of Russia's full-scale invasion to avoid drawing attention to Russia's failures to achieve its stated strategic goals in Ukraine and its more immediate goals of seizing all of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, while also suffering high personnel losses," the ISW said... The think tank said a recent opinion poll, conducted by independent Russian opposition polling organization Chronicles between January 23 and 29, suggests that "Russian sentiments about the war in Ukraine have largely remained unchanged in recent months and that most...

Aclose ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons on the U.S. if it fails in its invasion of Ukraine.In a Telegram post on Sunday, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, has claimed the Moscow would use nuclear weapons in the event that "Ukraine with its allies" managed to push Russia out of the war-torn country. make nuclear threats against key U.S. and European capital cities. "Against Kyiv, Berlin, London, Washington. Against all other beautiful historical places that have been long ago included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad,"...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday that he preferred Joe Biden to Donald Trump but was willing to work with any U.S. president. Putin was asked by interviewer Pavel Zarubin who was "better for us" out of Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican. Putin replied: "Biden. He is a more experienced, predictable person, a politician of the old school. But we will work with any U.S. president who the American people have confidence in.”

At the World Government Summit, Tucker Carlson told a gathering of world leaders that Moscow “was so much nicer than any city” in the United States. “It’s radicalizing for an American to go to Moscow,” Tucker went on. “I didn’t know that. I’ve learned it this week, to Singapore, to Tokyo, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, because these cities, no matter how we’re told they’re run and on what principles they’re run, are wonderful places to live -snip- If you’re wealthy, I imagine, Moscow is pretty great. This is true of most European cities. When you’re an American tourist, you...

Vladimir Putin has said that his alliance with Iran has turned the tide of the war in Ukraine, with Tehran’s support giving his forces momentum. Steady supplies of Iranian kamikaze drones, artillery shells and bullets have arrived in Russia since the invasion began, with Tehran quickly becoming one of the Kremlin’s closest military allies as both countries attempt to weather the impact of sanctions. “Our relations are developing very well. Please convey my best wishes to leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei,” Putin told Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president, in Tehran on Thursday. Thanks to the Iranian head of state, Putin said,...

More Programmes Live NewsWorldRussia Putin pardons Satanist killer after the criminal fought in Ukraine Putin, pictured here last year, has drawn criticism for the move By Saskia O'Donoghue with AFP Published on 22/11/2023 - 15:37 Share this article Comments Nikolai Ogolobyak was given the reprieve after fighting for the notorious Storm Z unit of the Russian army in their war against Ukraine. The Kremlin has announced it will maintain its policy of presidential pardons for prisoners who agree to fight in Ukraine. The news comes following reports by Russian press revealing that a man convicted of Satanist and cannibalistic murders...

A Russian cannibal in a Satanic cult that slaughtered four teenagers — beheading and partially eating two of them — has been pardoned by President Vladimir Putin after fighting against Ukraine in a notorious unit of convicts. Nikolai Ogolobyak, 33, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2010 for murder and desecrating corpses over a series of horrifying ritualistic murders that rocked the Yaroslavl region — where the then-teenager was known as “Count.” Ogolobyak and other Satan worshippers, including one nicknamed “Hitler,” beheaded two of their four victims — then cut out their hearts and tongues which they then...

The country's state energy giant Gazprom said in its latest report that gas production in the first half of 2023 was 179.45 billion cubic meters (bcm). Gazprom added that this represents a year-on-year decrease of nearly a quarter (24.7 percent), and a 26.5 percent drop in gas supplies to the domestic and foreign markets... The invasion also pushed Europe to cut purchases of Russian oil and gas drastically. The continent overcame an energy crunch last winter, in part by reducing energy consumption and finding other suppliers, such as sellers of seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG)... Independent Russian-language news outlet Agentstvo...

Russian occupiers tortured Ukrainians so brutally that some of their victims died, and forced families to listen as they raped women next door, members of a U.N.-mandated investigative body said on Monday, in their latest findings from the field. Erik Møse, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva his team had "collected further evidence indicating that the use of torture by Russian armed forces in areas under their control has been widespread and systematic". "In some cases, torture was inflicted with such brutality that it caused the death of the victim,"...

A key Russian general who Russian president Vladimir Putin promoted this week said that Moscow's invasion of Ukraine is a mere "stepping stone" to further conflict with Europe. Vladimir Putin promoted lieutenant general Andrey Mordvichev to the rank of colonel-general after he had already been serving in the role of commanding the central military district and Russian central grouping of forces in Ukraine. In an interview with Moscow's state-run Russia-1, Andrey Mordvichev said that he believes Vladimir Putin's war will last quite a long time and expand in the future. "I think there's still plenty of time to spend. It...

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un reportedly arrived in Russia Tuesday ahead of an expected meeting with President Vladimir Putin, officials said. The two leaders, flanked by their top military officials, are set to negotiate a potential arms deal to help resupply Moscow’s military drained by its war in Ukraine. North Korea may have tens of millions of artillery shells and rockets that could give a boost to the Russian army, analysts say. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency previously said Kim boarded his personal train Sunday afternoon en route to Russia, accompanied by unspecified members of the country’s ruling...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has set off for Russia aboard a special train, a South Korean source said, as Pyongyang and Moscow on Monday (Sep 11) confirmed a summit with President Vladimir Putin amid Russia's deepening isolation over the war in Ukraine. Kim will visit Russia in the coming days at the invitation of Putin, the Kremlin said, while North Korean state news agency KCNA said the two would "meet and have a talk", without elaborating. US officials have said the pair would discuss possible arms deals to aid Russia's war in Ukraine and provide North Korea with...