Tag: Ukraine

White House to Keep Lines to China Open Despite Hack, Elaborates on Putin ‘Loss’

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white house —  The Biden administration is “concerned” about a recent Chinese hack targeting the websites of U.S. federal agencies but will “keep the lines of communication open,” John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said in an interview Thursday with VOA White House correspondent Paris Huang. Kirby also elaborated on President Joe Biden’s comment Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “lost the war” in Ukraine, and he voiced strong concerns about reports of a mass grave found in volatile Sudan. This interview has been edited for…

Kremlin denies China’s president urged Putin not to use nuclear arms in Ukraine

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The Kremlin has denied a report that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, had personally warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “No, I can’t confirm it,” Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday when asked about a Financial Times report that said Xi delivered the message when he visited Moscow in March. Peskov said the two countries had issued statements at the time on the content of their talks, calling all other reports about Xi’s state visit to Moscow “fiction”. Since the start of…

China, Myanmar and now Darfur … the horror of genocide is here again | Simon Tisdall

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It’s happening again. In Darfur, scene of a genocide that killed 300,000 people and displaced millions 20 years ago, armed militias are on the rampage once more. Now, as then, they are targeting ethnic African tribes, murdering, raping and stealing with impunity. “They” are nomadic, ethnic Arab raiders, the much-feared “devils on horseback” – except now they ride in trucks. They’re called the Janjaweed. And they’re back. How is it possible such horrors can be repeated? The world condemned the 2003 slaughter. The UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC)…

What Does Russia’s Wagner Rebellion Mean for China?

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Just three months ago, China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, was in Moscow clinking glasses with Vladimir V. Putin and expressing his confidence in the “firm support” the Russian president enjoyed among his people. That confidence is now in question, after the Wagner private military group waged an insurrection in Russia that has shaken Mr. Putin’s image of invulnerability. Close watchers of China say that the mutiny, short-lived as it was, could lead Mr. Xi to hedge a close relationship with Russia that had already exposed Beijing to global criticism and…

Trump says Putin is ‘somewhat weakened’ by aborted mutiny

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Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday that the Russian president has been “somewhat weakened” by an aborted mutiny and that the US should use this moment to negotiate a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine. “I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war,” Trump told Reuters in a telephone interview. On Ukraine, Trump did not rule out that the Kyiv government might have to concede some territory to Russia in order to stop the war, which began with Russian forces invading Ukraine 16…

Your Thursday Briefing: Who knew about the mutiny?

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Who knew about Russia’s mutiny? My colleagues in Washington reported that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was once Russia’s top commander in Ukraine, knew about the planned revolt. Yesterday, a Kremlin spokesman called The Times’s reporting, based on interviews with U.S. officials, “speculations” and “gossip,” but did not deny it. Other Russian generals and foreign intelligence agencies also appear to have gotten early signals of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans to use the Wagner mercenary group to stage a mutiny. Gen. Viktor Zolotov, the leader of Russia’s National Guard and President Vladimir Putin’s former bodyguard, said…

How Russia’s Allies May React to Prigozhin’s Mutiny Against Putin

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Even before President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia broke his public silence on Monday about the aborted mutiny that brought rogue troops to within 125 miles of Moscow, he was on the phone to the leaders of Iran, Qatar and other friendly countries, soaking up their expressions of support while presumably promising a return to stability. For Mr. Putin, who has cobbled together a surprisingly sturdy list of countries that either back his war on Ukraine or have stayed neutral, it was a much-needed display of mutual reassurance. Russia’s message,…

Xi weighs up support for Putin after rebellion

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As Vladimir Putin reels from the biggest threat to his grip on power in years, his counterpart in Beijing will be considering the impact on the balance sheet of his support for the Russian president. The Wagner group’s mutiny, in which troops led by Yevgeny Prigozhin came within a few hundred kilometres of Moscow, has exposed divisions in Russia’s armed forces and cracks that threaten to undermine the stability of China’s most powerful ally. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Xi Jinping, China’s president, has been unwavering in…

China downplays Wagner rebellion as Russia’s ‘internal affairs’

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Chinese officials have described an aborted rebellion by the Wagner group of mercenaries as Moscow’s “internal affairs”, while one state media mouthpiece dismissed the divisions in Russia as an “illusion” being exploited by the west. Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko held talks in Beijing on Sunday after the most serious challenge to president Vladimir Putin’s grip on power since he came to power in 2000. China’s foreign ministry initially said only that Rudenko had exchanged views with China’s foreign minister, Qin Gang, on Sino-Russian relations as well as “international…

Chinese Firm Sent Large Shipments of Gunpowder to Russian Munitions Factory

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Both state-owned and private Chinese companies have sold Russia products that could plausibly be used by either civilians or the military — including drones, semiconductors, hunting rifles, navigation equipment and airplane parts. China has remained officially unaligned in the war. Officials there argue Beijing is a neutral party and a peacemaker. In practice, however, China has become an important diplomatic, economic and security partner for Russia, after proclaiming a “no limits” partnership early last year. In a speech in April in Washington, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen called that partnership…