Latest news with #GuyFaulconbridge
Japan Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Japan Today
Putin quips that 'the whole of Ukraine is ours'- in theory
By Guy Faulconbridge and Vladimir Soldatkin Russian President Vladimir Putin quipped on Friday that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border. Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, also said he was not seeking the capitulation of Ukraine or denying Ukraine's sovereignty, but that Ukraine had to be neutral. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99% of the Luhansk region, over 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and fragments of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Asked about fresh Russian advances, Putin told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum that he considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people and "in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours". Kyiv and its Western allies say Moscow's claims to four Ukrainian regions and Crimea are illegal, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. He has also said that Putin's terms for peace are akin to capitulation. Putin said on Friday he was not questioning Ukraine's independence or its people's striving for sovereignty, but he underscored that when Ukraine declared independence as the Soviet Union fell in 1991 it had also declared its neutrality. Putin said Moscow wanted Ukraine to accept the reality on the ground if there was to be a chance of peace - Russia's shorthand for the reality of Russia's control over a chunk of Ukrainian territory bigger than the U.S. state of Virginia. "We have a saying, or a parable," Putin said. "Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours." Putin said Russian forces were carving out a buffer zone in Ukraine's Sumy region in order to protect Russian territory and said he did not rule out those same troops taking control of the regional capital of Sumy. The depth of the zone under Russian control in the Sumy region was 8-12 km, Putin said. "Next is the city of Sumy, the regional center. We don't have the task of taking it, but in principle I don't rule it out," he said. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Russia says it's ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran
By Guy Faulconbridge and Parisa Hafezi MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to help narrow U.S.-Iranian differences over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power, but its swiftly-advancing uranium enrichment programme has raised fears in the wider West and across the Gulf that it wants to develop a nuclear weapon. The United States is trying to broker a deal to get Iran to rein in its nuclear activities, but President Donald Trump said in an interview released on Wednesday he was less confident than a couple of months ago that Iran will agree to halt enrichment. Last week, the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had told Trump in a phone call that he was ready to use Russia's close partnership with Iran to help advance those negotiations. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and U.S. relations, told Russian media that efforts to reach a solution should be redoubled and that Moscow was willing to help in practical ways. "We are ready to provide assistance to both Washington and Tehran, not only politically, not only in the form of ideas that could be of use in the negotiation process, but also practically: for example, through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors," Ryabkov said. He did not make clear whether the nuclear fuel would then be returned to Iran for use in its civil nuclear energy programme, which Moscow has helped develop. The United States wants all of Iran's highly enriched uranium (HEU) to be shipped out of the country. Tehran says it should only send out any excess amount above a ceiling that was agreed in a 2015 deal and cannot abandon enrichment altogether. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday confirmed Moscow's readiness to accept the uranium. "Here it is very important to say that if necessary, if the parties deem it necessary, Russia will be ready to provide such services," Peskov told reporters. Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power, does not want to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons, but believes it has every right to develop its own civilian nuclear programme - as a member of the 1970 global Non-Proliferation Treaty - and that any use of military force against it would be illegal. Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for its war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year. During his 2017-2021 term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a landmark 2015 deal between Iran and world powers, including Russia, that had placed strict limits on Tehran's nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After Trump pulled out in 2018 and reimposed tough U.S. economic sanctions, Iran breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal's limits on enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy programme.
Irish Independent
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Frederick Forsyth, author of ‘The Day of the Jackal', dies aged 86
Former BBC reporter's 1971 thriller helped launch what turned out to be a celebrated career Guy Faulconbridge ©Reuters Novelist Frederick Forsyth, who authored best-selling thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War, has died aged 86. A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for Britain's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to write the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle.
The Star
08-06-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Russia sending bodies of Ukrainian soldiers to the border, general says
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Trains with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers will start moving to the border in an hour, TASS quoted Russia's Lieutenant General Alexander Zorin as saying on Sunday. He also said there were signals that the transfer of the bodies will be postponed until next week. On Saturday, Russia said that Ukraine had unexpectedly postponed exchanging prisoners of war and accepting the bodies of killed soldiers for an indefinite period. Kyiv said Russia's claims were untrue. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Irish Independent
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Russian armed forces advance deeper into Ukraine's Sumy region
Guy Faulconbridge ©Reuters Russian forces yesterday advanced further into Ukraine's northern region of Sumy, threatening the regional capital, after taking more than 150 sq km of the area in less than two weeks, according to Russian officials and Ukrainian open-source mapping. Despite the relaunch of peace talks, the war has been heating up and Russian forces, which already control just under a fifth of Ukraine, advanced in May at their fastest pace for at least six months, according to Ukraine's authoritative Deep State online map project.
