Wanderlust

Tag: Moscow

  • Ukraine-Russia sea conflict: Merkel regulations out military solution

    Angela Merkel speaking at a business conference on 29 November 2018 Image copyright motion press/REX/Shutterstock Image caption Angela Merkel mentioned handiest “smart dialogue” could clear up the drawback

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed there is “no military solution”, after Ukraine’s chief instructed Nato to ship ships to the sea of Azov.

    Petro Poroshenko’s request got here following a naval confrontation with Russia in waters off Crimea.

    On Sunday, Russia opened fire on three Ukrainian ships and seized their crews within the Kerch Strait.

    Mrs Merkel stated the hindrance was “fully the doing of the Russian president”.

    However, she stated that “issues like these can simplest be solved through smart discussion”.

    ‘Hardly likely’

    Analysis via Jonathan Marcus, diplomatic and defence correspondent

    the call for Nato to deploy warships to the ocean of Azov increases a wide range of diplomatic and practical issues.

    In strict legal phrases, Russia and Ukraine percentage get admission to to its waters below a 2003 treaty. This regardless that specifically states that warships from third nations can simplest enter the ocean or make port visits there with the explicit permission of the other birthday party.

    Russia is hardly ever likely to supply such permission. In sensible terms it might simply block the Kerch Strait as it did earlier this week through putting a merchant vessel around the channel.

    Nato in any case would possibly see this type of consult with as extra prone to inflame tensions.

    It Is more likely that Nato might are trying to find to spice up its naval deployments to the Black Sea where its contributors – Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey – are uneasy approximately Russia’s extra assertive behaviour.

    Indeed the alliance says that its vessels have already spent some 120 days on patrol or workout routines within the Black Sea this yr, in comparison with EIGHTY in 2017.

    What did Mrs Merkel say?

    Speaking alongside Ukrainian High Minister Volodymyr Groysman at a business forum in Berlin, Mrs Merkel promised to hold talks with Mr Putin at the forthcoming G20 summit.

    Symbol copyright AFP/UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE Symbol caption Petro Poroshenko requested: “What Is Going To Putin do next if we don’t stop him?”

    “i need the Ukrainian infantrymen released,” she stated. “We must do the whole thing to assist places like Mariupol, which depends on get right of entry to to the sea.

    “we cannot permit this town to just be cut off, thus not directly separating further parts of Ukraine.

    “The Ukrainian aspect has asked us to behave properly… there may be no military option to those issues, we have now to emphasize that.”

    What happened off Crimea?

    A Minimum Of 3 Ukrainian sailors were wounded while Russian FSB border guards opened fire on two Ukrainian gunboats and a tug off Crimea.

    The peninsula was annexed by way of Russia in 2014, but officially continues to be a part of Ukraine.

    The naval boats had been sailing from Odessa to Mariupol, a Ukrainian port at the Azov sea, once they had been confronted through the FSB vessels.

    Who controls the waters?

    Ukraine says Russia is intentionally blockading Mariupol and any other port, Berdyansk, combating ships from getting during the Kerch Strait.

    The 24 captured Ukrainian sailors have now been given two months in pre-trial detention by a courtroom in Crimea.

    What is Russia’s argument?

    Mr Putin called the sea conflict “a provocation” organised by Ukraine’s authorities “within the run-as much as the Ukrainian presidential election in March 2019”.

    Mr Poroshenko has low reputation rankings. Up To Date polls suggest that most effective approximately 10% of the citizens plans to vote for him next year, with nearly 50% announcing they’d no longer vote for him beneath any instances, the Kyiv Put Up newspaper mentioned.

    Media playback is unsupported in your device

    Media captionWhy tensions between Russia and Ukraine are so top

    Mr Putin added that the Ukrainian president’s resolution to impose martial law after an insignificant “border incident” was once extreme, because martial legislation was once now not even imposed on the peak of the warfare with professional-Russian separatists in jap Ukraine in 2014.

    Mr Putin insisted that Russia’s army reaction was once suitable because the Ukrainians had “trespassed” into Russia’s territorial waters.

    However, Ukrainian officers published a map on Wednesday, striking all 3 Ukrainian boats just outside Crimea’s territorial waters on the time they had been seized.

    (more…)

  • Russian cybercrime suspect arrested in Bulgaria on U.S. hacking charges

    Bulgarian police have arrested a Russian citizen wanted by U.S. authorities in connection with a federal cybercrime case, spurring a new custody dispute between Moscow and Washington.

    Bulgarian police have arrested a Russian citizen wanted by U.S. authorities in connection with a federal cybercrime case, spurring a new custody dispute between Moscow and Washington.

    Identified by Russian media as Alexander Zh., 38, the suspected hacker is being held pending extradition to the U.S., where he has been charged with counts of computer fraud and conspiracy to commit computer fraud, the District Court of Varna, Bulgaria, said Thursday in a statement.

    The U.S. Department of Justice, as a matter of policy, “does not comment on extradition-related matters until a defendant is in the United States,” a DOJ spokesperson told The Washington Times Friday, adding: “There is nothing public at this time.”

    “We learnt about the arrest of the Russian citizen by the Bulgarian authorities from his wife,” said Vladimir Klimanov, Russia’s consular general in Varna, Bulgaria’s third largest city.

    “We haven’t received any official information,” Mr. Klimanov said Friday, Russian state media reported. “Under the circumstances, the Consulate General will take all the necessary measures.”

    Bulgarian authorities reported that the Russian is wanted in connection with allegedly causing at least $7 million in damages, and that he risks a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment if extradited to the U.S. and convicted.

    Russia does not have an extradition agreement with the U.S., meaning Moscow will not voluntarily surrender any citizens sought by Washington. Agreements exist between U.S. and other countries, however, and the Justice Department has more than once relied on authorities in allied countries apprehending Russian suspects traveling aboard.

    Yevgeny Nikulin, a Russian national accused of hacking U.S. companies including LinkedIn, was arrested in Prague in 2016 and was subsequently held by Czech authorities for 18 months while Washington and Moscow fought for custody. He was ultimately sent to the U.S. in April.

  • Donald Trump threatens to pull out of Russia nuclear treaty

    Washington and Moscow returned to Cold War-style rhetoric Monday as President Trump ratcheted up his threat to unilaterally pull the U.S. out of a key agreement that has kept the nuclear arsenals of b

    Washington and Moscow returned to Cold War-style rhetoric Monday as President Trump ratcheted up his threat to unilaterally pull the U.S. out of a key agreement that has kept the nuclear arsenals of both sides in check since the Reagan era, as Russia demanded an explanation and analysts warned that the move could spur nuclear deployments around the globe.

    Mr. Trump revealed to reporters that he felt so strongly Russia was cheating on the deal that he didn’t bother to inform the Kremlin before making his decision.

    “Russia has not adhered to the agreement,” Mr. Trump said. “We have more money than anybody else by far. We’ll build it up until they come to their senses.”

    SEE ALSO: Trump promises nuclear buildup, warns Russia not to ‘play games’

    The high-stakes threats of a revived nuclear arms race were issued as White House National Security Adviser John R. Bolton prepares for a tense meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

    Both sides have publicly declared that they will begin ramping up their missile capabilities. The meeting was scheduled before Mr. Trump said last week that he intended to withdraw the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a deal designed to limit the U.S. and Russia from building or deploying any missiles and launch systems with an “intermediate” range of 300 to 3,400 miles.

    Signed in 1987 by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the INF cooled fears that a “limited” nuclear war short of an all-out exchange could erupt in Europe. Both sides dismantled huge caches of missiles as part of the agreement, which remained in place after the fall of the Soviet Union.

    But the U.S. and international partners such as NATO now say Moscow is in clear violation of the deal, and Mr. Trump on Monday offered a stern warning that Washington won’t allow it.

    The president also stressed that no other nation — including China, which isn’t bound by the treaty and has been building up its own arsenal as its economy modernizes — can compete with the U.S.

    “It’s a threat to whoever you want, and [that] includes China,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he left for a campaign trip to Texas. “It includes anybody else that wants to play that game. You can’t play that game on me.”

    The Kremlin said earlier Monday that if the INF collapses, then Russia will have no choice but to “restore balance” in the global power structure.

    “This is a question of strategic security. Such measures can make the world more dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

    “It means that the United States is not disguising, but is openly starting to develop these systems in the future, and if these systems are being developed, then actions are necessary from other countries, in this case Russia, to restore balance in this sphere,” he added.

    Breaking the deal

    Moscow denies that it violated the deal, but both the Obama and Trump administrations have accused Russia of breaking its promises. U.S. and international observers cite in particular the Russian 9M729 cruise missile system as their chief concern.

    The system — a U.S. assessment of which has not been made available publicly — is rumored to have a range of about 1,250 miles or more — clearly within the limits covered by the INF. The Obama administration first objected to the missile system in 2014 but opted to retain the treaty.

    NATO officials also have said the missile system violates the INF, and Russian aggression in Ukraine in recent years has spurred fears that Moscow once again could be eyeing the deployment of nuclear weapons into Eastern Europe.

    Russia has denied that the missile system violates the deal, but critics say the Kremlin has been unwilling to provide answers about the 9M729, what its purpose is and whether it’s fully operational. Some Russian military strategists have argued that the 1987 deal benefits the U.S. more than Russia because the U.S. faces no real strategic threat from its near neighbors, Canada and Mexico, the way Russia does all along its perimeter.

    “In the absence of any credible answer from Russia on this new missile, allies believe that the most plausible assessment would be that Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty,” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Monday.

    Key U.S. allies, while divided over Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the deal entirely, were united in urging Russia to provide more answers. They said the burden lies with Mr. Putin to cool international tensions.

    “We of course want to see this treaty continue to stand, but it does require two parties to be committed to it, and at the moment you have one party that is ignoring it,” U.K. Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson told The Guardian newspaper. “It is Russia that is in breach, and it is Russia that needs to get its house in order.”

    The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a more cautious stand, saying it regrets the U.S. decision while calling on Moscow to “dispel the serious doubts about its adherence to the treaty that had arisen as a result of a new type of Russian missile.”

    Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Mr. Trump’s move poses “difficult questions for us and for Europe.”

    European Union officials took a more measured approach, urging the U.S. and Russia to negotiate in the hopes of preserving the agreement.

    There is a six-month waiting period after notification before either party can formally exit the deal. Russian officials said Monday afternoon that they had not received formal notification, though that could come Tuesday when Mr. Bolton meets with Mr. Putin.

    Rising China

    While the INF applies only to the U.S. and Russia, Mr. Trump’s comments Monday made clear that the White House sees China as a key part of the equation.

    “China is not included in the agreement. They should be included in the agreement,” the president told reporters.

    Analysts and U.S. officials said there is good reason for questions about China in the context of the INF.

    As Beijing upgrades its military presence, particularly in the South China Sea, the administration fears that the U.S.-Russia deal is giving China a free pass, potentially allowing the rising superpower to get a leg up militarily.

    Retired Navy Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., formerly the head of U.S. forces in the Pacific and now the administration’s ambassador to South Korea, told lawmakers this year that the U.S. and Russia are limited by the deal, while China can essentially do whatever it wants.

    “Over 90 percent of China’s ground-based missiles would violate the treaty,” he told a House committee in February.

    Regional analysts say the Trump administration’s secondary motivation for scrapping the INF could be to give the Pentagon freedom to deploy missile systems to the Pacific to counter China.

    “Should Trump follow through on his threat to leave the INF, it would also open the door to potential nuclear build-up in East Asia, as Washington looks to counter growing Chinese presence. A deployment of missiles to Guam or allies Japan and Australia would not be out of the question, with uncertain consequences for the region,” David A. Wemer, an assistant director at the Atlantic Council, wrote Monday.

    The China state-controlled Global Times wrote a stinging editorial Monday condemning Mr. Trump’s INF decision, which it said was clearly made with Beijing in mind.

    “Although China has exercised restraint in developing strategic weaponry with no intention of nuclear power competition, the U.S. still fixes its eyes on China doubtfully …,” the editorial argued. “Military might and strategic nuclear power have never played an outstanding role in China’s foreign relations. But as the U.S. grows more skeptical about China, we face growing strategic risks and have become the main target of U.S. hegemony.”

    • Dave Boyer contributed to this report.

  • U.S., NATO consider preemptive action against Russian cruise missile program

    The United States and its NATO allies are threatening preemptive action against Russia’s ongoing effort to build a new cruise missile, an effort Washington and its Western European partners say is in

    The United States and its NATO allies are threatening preemptive action against Russia’s ongoing effort to build a new cruise missile, an effort Washington and its Western European partners say is in violation of standing treaties between Moscow and the alliance.

    Alliance officials say the nuclear-powered cruise missile under development would allow Moscow to launch a ballistic weapon on targets inside Western Europe at a moment’s notice. Building and fielding such a weapon is in clear violation of several Cold War-era treaties agreed to by Russia and the West, officials contend

    Russian diplomats and top military brass have repeatedly refuted such claims. But U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchinson said Tuesday that if Moscow continues down the path toward the new cruise missile, alliance members will have no other option than to respond with military force.

    “At that point, we would be looking at the capability to take out a [Russian] missile that could hit any of our countries,” she said during a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

    “Counter measures (by the United States) would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty,” she said, adding Russian officials “are on notice”

    The new, nuclear-powered cruise missile was one of several advanced weapons Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled during a March press conference, designed to showcase the former Soviet Union’s military prowess

    “I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country’s development: All what you wanted to impede with your policies have already happened,” the Russian leader said at the time.

    “You have failed to contain Russia,” he added.

    In May, Moscow claimed to have developed the first combat-ready hypersonic missile. The weapon’s speed and versatility has positioned hypersonic weapons technology viable alternative to nuclear weapons — which is the only other weapon in the American arsenal that can travel as far as fast as a hypersonic weapon.

    Russian military officials announced the first deployment of the Kinzhal or “Dagger” hypersonic missile aboard 10 MiG-31 fighter jets on “test combat duty,” Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said that month.

    “It is a cutting-edge weapon, namely a hypersonic long-range missile capable of overcoming air and missile defenses. It is invincible, having serious combat might and potential,” Mr. Borisov said, confirming the weapon’s deployment.

  • Moscow floods advanced anti-aircraft systems into Syria, days after shoot down of Russian aircraft

    Russian defense officials have ordered emergency deployments of its advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems into Syria, days after Moscow claimed Israeli forces prompted the shoot down of one of its surv

    Russian defense officials have ordered emergency deployments of its advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems into Syria, days after Moscow claimed Israeli forces prompted the shoot down of one of its surveillance aircraft, conducting intelligence operations in support of the Syrian regime.

    The S-300 air defense systems will be in the hands of Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad within the next two weeks, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a statement released Monday. The new air defense systems will be directly linked to Russian outposts scattered throughout Syria, to “guarantee that Russian aircraft are identified by Syrian air defenses,” he said.

    In addition, “Russia will jam satellite navigation, on-board radars and communication systems of combat aircraft, which attack targets in the Syrian territory, in the regions over waters of the Mediterranean Sea bordering with Syria,” he added in Monday’s statement. The new S-300 deployments come in addition to the reported S-400 long-range anti-aircraft and missile defense systems already in the field in Syria.

    Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday that there had been no communication between either the Pentagon or U.S. Central Command and their Russian counterparts on the decision to deploy the S-300 systems, prior to Monday’s announcement by Moscow.

    “Any additional weapons going in keeps [President Bashar Assad] in a position to threaten the region,” Mr. Mattis told reporters at the Defense Department. “Anything like this puts him in a position as an obstruction to peace” in the war-torn nation, the defense chief added.

    The shoot-down of the Russian I1-20 reconnaissance plane, which kicked off a chain of claims and counterclaims between Moscow, Damascus and Tel Aviv, took place late last week. The Assad regime’s bloody campaign to quash rebel forces in the country has been largely sustained by Russian air power and Iranian-backed paramilitary forces on the ground.

    Israeli commanders sent in four bombers into Syrian airspace to take out a nearby Syrian weapons facility, housing weapons that Israel argued argue would have ultimately been transferred to the terrorist group Hezbollah. During the bombing raid, Syrian forces launched anti-aircraft missiles to take out the Israeli fighters but apparently struck the Russian plane instead, downing it into the sea and killing everyone on board. Moscow immediately laid blame for the attack on Israel.

    “The Israeli pilots were using the Russian aircraft as a shield and pushed it into the line of fire of the Syrian defense,” said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov in a statement at the time.

    Israel Defense Forces blamed Mr. Assad and expressed “sorrow” for the Russians killed in the incident, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his regret for the incident, saying the deaths of the 15 crewmen underscored the need to bring the Syrian conflict to a peaceful resolution.

    On Monday, Mr. Mattis placed the blame for the ongoing violence in Syria’s civil war squarely on the shoulders of Moscow, adding the S-300 deployments only add fuel to that fire.

    “This tragedy … would have ended long ago” if not for Russian and Iranian interference in the conflict, he said.

  • Russia’s Vladimir Putin and wife Lyudmila divorce

    Image copyright AP Symbol caption The couple have been observed less ceaselessly in public in latest months

    The declaration got here after the couple had gone to peer the ballet Esmeralda at the Kremlin Palace – they left after the first act.

    The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says that Thursday’s announcement confirms what had been rumoured for years, that the Putins were having marital problems.

    But the scoop has nonetheless come as a shock to many Russians, who’re not used to their leaders getting divorced – despite the fact that Russia has one in all the top divorce charges in the global, our correspondent adds.

    The query already dominating the Russian blogosphere is, “will Russia’s president marry again?”, he says.

    The Putins’ marriage had been the topic of hypothesis before.

    In 2008, Mr Putin denied rumours that he had secretly divorced and used to be making plans to marry former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva.

    (more…)

  • Natalia Veselnitskaya: Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson ‘framed’ in production of Steele dossier

    A Russian lawyer who has employed Fusion GPS says co-founder Glenn Simpson was “framed” in the production of the infamous Christopher Steele dossier.

    A Russian lawyer who has employed Fusion GPS says co-founder Glenn Simpson was “framed” in the production of the infamous Christopher Steele dossier.

    Natalia Veselnitskaya provided the titillating assessment to The Associated Press in Moscow, where she also said Mr. Simpson’s most famous product, the anti-Trump dossier, is “absolute nonsense.”

    “She insisted that Glenn Simpson, whose firm Fusion GPS was hired to compile the dossier and who was questioned by the House Intelligence Committee in January, had been ‘framed,’ ” the AP story says.

    The story provides no context for who was doing the framing or why. Mr. Simpson’s attorney didn’t return a message seeking comment.

    The Veselnitskaya interview underscores the odd alliances of people in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, now nearly two years old.

    Ms. Veselnitskaya is most famous for being the Russian lawyer who met on June 9, 2016, in Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump campaign people.

    Russian contacts told Mr. Trump Jr. she wanted to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton. But the story provided by Mr. Trump Jr. and others is that she had no such information. Her gambit was to talk about removing U.S. economic sanctions on Russian oligarchs and businesses.

    At the time, Ms. Veselnitskaya was paying Mr. Simpson, via the law firm Baker Hostetler, to do investigative work for her client, Prevezon Holdings. The Justice Department in 2017 would announce that Prevezon laundered stolen Russian tax dollars and was paying back nearly $6 million.

    Prevezon is led by Denis Katsyv, a wealthy Russian who wants to remove U.S. sanctions.

    On June 9, 2016, a hearing on the civil forfeiture case brought Ms. Veselnitskaya to New York.

    The same Mr. Simpson who had begun the task in June 2016 of trying to destroy the Trump campaign by linking him to shady Russians was himself also working on behalf of a suspect Russian firm, Prevezon.

    That month, Mr. Steele, a British ex-spy, began sending memos to Mr. Simpson that would make up the dossier. He accused Mr. Trump and his people of an “extensive conspiracy” to collude with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election by hacking Democratic Party computers. Mr. Steele’s sources: Moscow operatives.

    Mr. Steele was paid with money from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

    In congressional testimony, Mr. Simpson said the Baker Hostetler law firm described Mr. Katsyv as a “legitimate businessman He was presented to me as a successful real estate investor.”

    “You know, I don’t know the entire landscape of oligarchs in Russia, but these guys are obviously not significant oligarchs in Russia,” he testified. “That’s what we could tell. “

    Mr. Simpson said Prevezon’s troubles stemmed from a Russian crime family.

    “So Natalia is the one telling us this story because she is the lawyer for Prevezon and had apparently been involved in this extortion matter, and so she’s got all the information from the courts about this alleged shakedown,” he said. “And she was [introduced to me] as some kind of former government lawyer who’s the one who hired Baker.”

    The original charge against Prevezon came from human rights activist William Browder, owner of Hermitage Capital who was an investor in Moscow and then moved to Great Britain. He became a Fusion target, and news stories started appearing that bashed Mr. Browder.

    “We discovered, you know, many things about his activities in Russia and his general finances, his pattern of avoiding taxation, his use of offshore shell companies and tax haven jurisdictions, particularly in Cypress,” Mr. Simpson said.

    Mr. Simpson said he and Ms. Veselnitskaya never discussed the Trump Tower meeting when they met that day at a Prevezon court hearing or later at a dinner in Washington.

    There has been speculation that the Trump Tower session was a setup, but Mr. Simpson said he had nothing to do with the meeting which Democrats portray as Trump-Russia collusion.

    Mr. Browder accused Prevezon in the theft of $230 million in a tax-scheme tied to corrupt, high-level Kremlin officials. He said the fraud was uncovered by his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Moscow prosecutors jailed Magnitsky, who ultimately was beaten to death in prison. He became a martyr for human rights and the name for U.S. Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russia and other abusers. The law is adamantly opposed by Prevezon and Ms. Veselnitskaya for whom Fusion GPS toiled.

    Mr. Browder portrayed Mr. Simpson as a tool of Russian President Vladimir Putin for repeating “old and false Russian government attacks on me and Sergei Magnitsky.”

    In the AP interview, Ms. Veselnitskaya said she still has not been approached by special counsel Robert Mueller.

    She sat down for an interview last March, she said, with investigators for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at a hotel in Berlin. She said she repeated her story that the Trump Tower meeting was about sanctions, not collusion.

    As for Mr. Simpson’s Russian client, Prevezon, the Justice Department in 2013 had alleged that a portion of $230 million stolen from the Russian treasury were laundered through shell companies into Prevezon Holdings.

    “Prevezon Holdings laundered these fraud proceeds into its real estate holdings, including investment in multiple units of high-end commercial space and luxury apartments in Manhattan, and created multiple other corporations, also subject to the forfeiture action, to hold these properties,” the complaint said.

    In May 2017, Justice announced a settlement. Prevezon agreed to pay nearly $6 million, more than triple the amount the department could directly trace to the company.

    The announcement told the tragic story of Mr. Magnitsky.

    “An independent Russian human rights council concluded that Magnitsky’s arrest and detention were illegal, that Magnitsky was denied necessary medical care in custody, that he was beaten by eight guards with rubber batons on the last day of his life, and that the ambulance crew that was called to treat him as he was dying was deliberately kept outside of his cell for more than an hour until he was dead.”

    Mr. Browder was a victim of the money launder scheme. Organized crime operatives stole his firm’s identities and filed for fraudulent tax refunds, Justice said.

  • Russia retaliates against sanctions, puts more Americans on its ‘blacklist’

    Moscow is striking back against new U.S. sanctions by expanding the number of Americans on its “blacklist,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday.

    Moscow is striking back against new U.S. sanctions by expanding the number of Americans on its “blacklist,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday.

    “Those [American] politicians are playing with fire by destroying Russian-American relationship because simultaneously they shake global stability,” Mr. Ryabkov said, according to a report by the new service RIA.

    It is the first retaliation for the Trump administration slapping new sanctions on Russian individuals and entities, including Russian spy agencies, for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and cyberattacks on the U.S.

    SEE ALSO: Russia will expel British diplomats in poisoning standoff

    Tension between the West and Russia reached the breaking point this month with a nerve-gas assassination attempt for a former double agent and his daughter in the U.K.

    U.S. national security officials cited the assassination attempt and cyberattacks, including a series of attacks on America’s power grid, nuclear power plants and aviation, as contributing to the sanction regime.

    Mr. Rybkov said adding more Americans to the “blacklist” would maintain Moscow’s policy of parity in sanctions.

    The Trump administration expanded sanctions against Russia by 19 individuals and five entities, Russian spy agency FSB and Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to easily win re-election Sunday, has denied his country was involved in election meddling.

    Moscow also denies involvement in the nerve-agent attack in Britain.

  • U.K. military aiding spy probe; Russia says it’s not to blame

    British police asked the military on Friday to help investigate the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy, as Russia’s foreign minister expressed resentment at suggestions Moscow was behind the attack

    LONDON (AP) — British police asked the military on Friday to help investigate the nerve-agent poisoning of a former spy, as Russia’s foreign minister expressed resentment at suggestions Moscow was behind the attack.

    The Metropolitan Police force said counterterrorism detectives had asked for military help “to remove a number of vehicles and objects from the scene” of Sunday’s attack in the city of Salisbury.

    Police said troops were being called in because “they have the necessary capability and expertise” and health advice remains the same – there is no broader risk to the public.

    British investigators are scrambling to trace the nerve agent that has left former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in critical condition.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was “ready to consider” lending a hand, “whether it’s poisoning of some British subjects, whether it’s rumors about interference in the U.S. election campaign.”

    “But in order to conduct such cases, it is necessary not to immediately run out on TV screens with unfounded allegations,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency Tass in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

    Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer, was convicted in 2006 of spying for Britain and released in 2010 as part of a spy swap.

    He had been living quietly in Salisbury, where he and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench Sunday. They are in critical but stable condition in a hospital in the city, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of London.

    A police officer who treated them at the scene is in serious condition, and a total of 21 people have received medical treatment.

    The U.K. has vowed to take strong action against whoever was responsible for the “brazen and reckless” attack.

    British authorities say it’s too soon to lay blame, but suspicions have fallen on Russia.

    Those branded enemies of the Russian state have sometimes died mysteriously abroad, and the Skripal case echoes the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent who was poisoned in London in 2006 with radioactive polonium-210.

    A British public inquiry found that Russia was responsible for Litvinenko’s killing, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably approved it.

    A former head of London’s Metropolitan Police called Friday for new investigations into the deaths of 14 Russians in the U.K. amid suggestions they were targeted by the Russian state.

    Former Commissioner Ian Blair, who led the London force when Litvinenko was fatally poisoned, told the BBC it is important to find out “whether there is some pattern here.”

    A BuzzFeed News investigation claimed U.S. spy agencies have linked 14 deaths to Russia, but U.K. police shut down the cases.

    Russian media have mocked suggestions of Moscow involvement in the attack – but also noted that those who betray Russian seem to come to a bad end.

    One anchorman on a Russian state television news show began a report on Skripal’s poisoning with a warning to anyone considering becoming a double agent.

    Channel One anchorman Kirill Kleimenov said in the Wednesday broadcast that he didn’t wish death or suffering on anyone but wanted those “who dream of such a career” to know that traitors rarely live long.

    “Alcoholism, drug addiction, stress and depression are inevitable professional illnesses of a traitor resulting in heart attacks and even suicide,” Kleimenov said.

    __

    Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this story.

  • Moscow lawmaker: ‘Death penalty’ for anyone interfering in Russian election

    The outspoken deputy of Russia’s communist party said Monday that any foreign official — including from the United States — found guilty of “interfering” in Russia’s upcoming presidential election s

    The outspoken deputy of Russia’s communist party said Monday that any foreign official — including from the United States — found guilty of “interfering” in Russia’s upcoming presidential election should face the death penalty or up to 25 years in prison.

    “That’s the worst crime that there is, other than rape and murder,” said Leonid Kalashnikov, who’s also a key committee chief in Russia’s State Duma or lower house of parliament, according to news reports in Moscow.

    While the death penalty has been constitutionally banned in Russia since 1996, Mr. Kalashnikov suggested in an interview with the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that a “constitutional order” may be needed to restore it and deal with any foreign meddling in the election slated for March 18.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking a second consecutive — and fourth overall — term in the election, which will be the first of its kind in Russia since 2012.

    According to a report by The Moscow Times, Mr. Kalashnikov’s comments came as a top Russian diplomat claimed Monday to have evidence of ongoing U.S. attempts to undermine the electoral process.

    Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Rybakov made the assertion at a meeting of the Russian Federation Council or upper house of parliament, during which he claimed that Moscow is ramping up its efforts to identify and block the alleged “interference” by U.S.-backed operatives.

    “The Russian Foreign Ministry streamlined efforts to collect the relevant information,” Mr. Rybakov said according to the state-owned Tass news agency in Moscow. “That concerns both attempts to meddle in our affairs and broader detrimental efforts of this kind that the U.S. stoops to committing.”

    While few details were given on the actual nature or goals of the alleged U.S.-backed meddling, Mr. Rybakov claimed broadly that “opponents” of Russia are attempting to “sway young people and work in the regions.”

    “The focus of this struggle will center on the information space,” he said. “Information warfare will grow far bitterer, and that’s something we will have to live with during the upcoming period.”

    The Tass news agency claimed to have obtained an annual assessment Monday by an upper house “commission on the protection of state sovereignty” that exposed “numerous signs of interference from abroad” in Russia’s electoral process between 2011 and 2017.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, made international headlines Monday by asserting that the United States has a “rich tradition” of interfering in the internal affairs of Russia and other nations around the world.

    The flurry of allegations from Moscow come amid ongoing federal government investigations in Washington over accusations that Russian operatives engaged in an expansive hacking and digital propaganda campaign aimed at undermining the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

    Last month saw the U.S. Justice Department level indictments against 13 Russian citizens and two entities on charges their meddling activities amounted to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

    Mr. Putin said in an interview with NBC News that aired Sunday that Russia will “never” extradite the 13 individuals charged, even as he insisted they didn’t act on behalf of his government.

    The Associated Press noted that the United States has no extradition treaty with Moscow and can’t compel it to hand over citizens, and a provision in Russia’s constitution prohibits extraditing its citizens to foreign countries.