Russia launches Ukraine invasion

I have to say Biden's comment was pretty fuking stupid. Putin will be looking for every excuse he can lay hands on to bolster his position in the eyes of his people and having the "enemy" saying they want the head of state out just plays into his hands - staggering ineptitude.


Why did the White House intervene after Biden's speech?

"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power", US President Joe Biden said about his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin during a speech in Poland's capital Warsaw on Saturday.

This was quickly followed by the White House saying Biden wasn't calling for regime change, but was instead making a point about Putin not being allowed to exercise power over his neighbours.

This was clearly an attempt at rolling back - the concern is that this is going to put more pressure on Putin and make him more uneasy.

Given that he is the head of a country that is struggling militarily, and is in control of a nuclear arsenal, the concern on the Americans' part is that they don't want to back Putin into a corner.

Calling out for regime change directly could cause instability and increase unpredictability.

And the last thing you want in these circumstances is unpredictability.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60890199

^Depends how well orchestrated it was by the US media. Biden giving a voice to what most sentient posters think anyway.
Puti has already proved that he is very thick skinned, or downright stupid to think he can be allowed to get away with his invasion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Switch

Depends how well orchestrated it was by the US media. Biden giving a voice to what most sentient posters think anyway.

---

It wasn't orchestrated if you listened to his speech, he has a history of getting carried away once he's got a bit revved up. You are missing the point, its not what Putin will think, its how he'll use the ill advised comments on the home font, he'll have loved it.

Russia is bringing more forces on rotation and may attempt further advances, Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko said on Sunday.

In a televised address, Mr Denysenko said Russia has started destroying Ukrainian fuel and food storage depots, meaning the government will have to disperse the stocks of both in the near future.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” while another missile attack left the western city of Lviv covered in plumes of smoke on Saturday.

Four missiles hit the outskirts of Lviv, just 60km from the Polish border, local officials said, damaging the infrastructure but no deaths were reported.

As Ukraine continues to fight Russia for over a month now since the invasion began on 24 February, a visibly irritated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again demanded Western nations send military hardware and asked whether they were intimidated by Moscow.

“We’ve already been waiting 31 days. Who is in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it really still Moscow, because of intimidation?”

Russia bringing more forces on rotation and may attempt further advances, Ukraine says (msn.com)

Quote:

---

Who is in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community?

---

Well it certainly isn't you, clown boy.

Russian generals are getting killed at an extraordinary rate

The war in Ukraine is proving extraordinarily lethal for Russian generals, the gray men bedecked in service medals, who are being aggressively targeted by Ukrainian forces and killed at a rate not seen since World War II.


Ukrainian officials say their forces have killed seven generals on the battlefield, felled by snipers, close combat and bombings.

If true, the deaths of so many generals, alongside more senior Russian army and naval commanders — in just four weeks of combat — exceeds the attrition rate seen in the worst months of fighting in the bloody nine-year war fought by Russia in Chechnya, as well as Russian and Soviet-era campaigns in Afghanistan, Georgia and Syria.


“It is highly unusual,” said a senior Western official, briefing reporters on the topic, who confirmed the names, ranks and “killed in action” status of the seven.


In all, at least 15 senior Russian commanders have been killed in the field, said Markiyan Lubkivsky, a spokesperson for the Ukraine Ministry of Defense.

NATO officials estimated earlier this week that as many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in four weeks of war, a very high number. Russia has offered a far lower figure, reporting Friday that only 1,351 of its fighters had died.


The Russian government has not confirmed the deaths of its generals.


If the numbers of senior commanders killed proves accurate, the Russian generals have been either extremely unlucky or successfully targeted — or both.


Shooting generals is a legitimate tactic of war — and it has been openly embraced by Ukrainian officials, who say their forces have been focused on slowing Russian advances by concentrating fire on Russian command-and-control units near the front lines.


Russia's failure in Ukraine imbue Pentagon with newfound confidence


Jeffrey Edmonds, former director for Russia on the National Security Council and now a senior analyst at the CNA think tank in Washington, said Ukrainian forces appear to be targeting “anyone with gray hair standing near a bunch of antennas,” a signal they may be senior officers.


Some experts suggest the Russian military has struggled to keep its communications secure and that Ukraine intelligence units have found their targets through Russian carelessness, with Russian forces reduced to using unencrypted devices. There have been reports of Russian soldiers using mobile phones.


Pentagon and other Western officials say that Russian generals generally serve closer to the front lines than their NATO counterparts. By design, the Russian army is top heavy with senior officers, which makes them numerous, though not expendable.


Military analysts and Western intelligence officials say the Russian generals in Ukraine may be more exposed and serving closer to the front because their side is struggling — and that senior officers are deployed closer to the action to cut through the chaos.


One Western official suggested that Russian generals were also needed to push “frightened” Russian troops, including raw conscripts, forward. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Defense Ministry to withdraw conscripts from combat, having publicly pledged that they would not be deployed.


Pentagon, NATO and Western officials say the Russian army in Ukraine is struggling with poor morale.


Russian soldiers attacked and injured their commanding officer after their brigade suffered heavy losses in the fighting outside the capital, Kyiv, according to a Western official and a Ukrainian journalist.


Russia begins to mobilize military reinforcements for Ukraine as casualties mount


Troops with the 37th Motor Rifle Brigade ran a tank into Col. Yuri Medvedev, injuring both his legs, after their unit lost almost half its men, according to a Facebook post by Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk. The post said the colonel had been hospitalized.

A senior Western official said he believed Medvedev had been killed, “as a consequence of the scale of the losses taken by his own brigade.”


Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, told The Washington Post the Ukraine army has focused its efforts on “slowing the pace” of the Russian invasion, in part by “beheading” forward command posts, meaning killing, not literally beheading.


Killing senior officers can slow down the Russian advances by “three or four or five days” before new command structures can be put in place, Arestovych said.


He attributed successful targeting to both “excellent intelligence” and numerous Russian vulnerabilities.


Arestovych claimed that in addition to slowing Russian momentum, killing their generals undermines Russian morale, while bolstering Ukrainian resolve.


“The death of such commanders quickly becomes public knowledge and it is very difficult to hide,” he said. “Unlike the death of an ordinary soldier, it makes an outsized impression.”


Ukrainian officials and Western officials have named seven Russian generals killed in action: Magomed Tushayev, Andrei Sukhovetsky, Vitaly Gerasimov, Andrey Kolesnikov, Oleg Mityaev, Yakov Rezanstev and Andrei Mordvichev.


Russian officials and Russian media have confirmed the death of only one general.


Sukhovetsky, a deputy commander of Russia’s 41st army, was killed by a sniper at the beginning of the war, Ukrainian officials said. At his burial in Novorossiysk, a port city on the Black Sea, a deputy mayor said Sukhovetsky “died heroically during a combat mission during a special operation in Ukraine.”


Christo Grozev, director of open-source investigative group Bellingcat, said he confirmed the death of Gerasimov, which was first announced by Ukrainian intelligence. The Bellingcat investigator also reported on a March 7 phone call from a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer, reporting the death to his superior, a call captured by Ukrainian intelligence and shared with reporters.


One of the first commanders that Ukraine claimed to have killed, in late February, was Tushayev, a right-hand man to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.


Kadyrov denied the claim on his Telegram channel and Chechen Information Minister Akhmed Dudayev posted an audio message purportedly from Tushayev, which he said proved he was alive.


The deaths of senior officers are celebrated on Ukrainian social media — but kept out of Russian news.


Killing Russian generals “feels consequential to Ukraine,” especially in “the David versus Goliath narrative they are living through,” said Margarita Konaev, an expert on Russian military innovation at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.


She said the nature of the fighting — at close quarters in urban environments — will likely add to the body count on both sides, for civilians, ordinary soldiers and commanders.


The urban dimension is especially deadly, she said.


Mason Clark, a senior analyst and expert on the Russian military at the Institute for the Study of War, said Ukrainian reports suggest that radio communications across the Russian forces are vulnerable to interception and location.


Before the war with Russia began, Clark said Ukraine forces learned how to use communications to “target and pinpoint” the sources of artillery fire in the separatist enclaves in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.


“They’ve used this training at scale,” Clark said.


Ruth Deyermond, an expert in post-Soviet security in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said it was unknown how the loss of senior officers in Ukraine might shape thinking in the Kremlin.


As Putin’s circle has shrunk, and decision-making become more opaque, she said, “you don’t even know what Putin is being told about the losses” by his own military.


The reported high attrition rate for Russian commanders in Ukraine underscores the problem of invading the country on a false set of assumptions, expecting to swiftly topple Ukraine’s government and install a puppet regime to bring it back into Moscow’s orbit. A military operation forecast by Russia to take a few days has entered its second month.


Russia is highly sensitive about military casualties, in particular involving senior officers.


Calling the invasion a “special military operation” to liberate Ukraine from “neo-Nazis,” Russian authorities have banned journalists from using the term “war” and have criminalized criticism of the military or the release of any information that could damage its standing.


After Russia’s initial failures, Putin has simply doubled down on the war effort, with the Kremlin dampening hopes of an off-ramp through peace talks. Russian authorities appear to be preparing for a long, bloody campaign, drumming up domestic unity through a propaganda blitz, as the military intensifies its pressure on Ukraine.


MSN

Turkey and other nations must still talk to Russia to help end the war in Ukraine, Turkey's presidential spokesman said on Sunday, adding that Kyiv needed more support to defend itself.

NATO member Turkey has good relations with both Russia and Ukraine and has sought to mediate in the month-long conflict.

"If everybody burns bridges with Russia then who is going to talk to them at the end of the day," Ibrahim Kalin told the Doha international forum.

"Ukrainians need to be supported by every means possible so they can defend themselves ... but the Russian case must be heard, one way or the other," so that its grievances could be understood if not justified, Kalin added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the West to give his country tanks, planes and missiles to fend off Russian forces. The West has responded to Russia's invasion by slapping sweeping economic sanctions on Moscow.

Ankara says Russia's invasion is unacceptable but opposes the Western sanctions on principle and has not joined them.

Turkey's economy, already strained by a December currency crisis, relies heavily on Russian energy, trade and tourism, and since the war began on Feb. 24 thousands of Russians have arrived in Turkey, seeing it as a safe haven from the sanctions.

Ahmet Burak Daglioglu, head of Turkey's investment office, told the forum separately that some Russian companies were relocating operations to Turkey.

Asked on a panel about Turkey doing business with any people which could be of benefit to President Vladimir Putin, he said: "We are not targeting, we are not chasing, we are not pursuing any investment or capital that has a question mark on it."

Two superyachts linked to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich have docked in Turkish resorts.

Western governments have targeted Abramovich and several other Russian oligarchs with sanctions as they seek to isolate Putin and his allies over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Turkey says world cannot 'burn bridges' with Moscow (msn.com)

Well, sure they do. I think the real question is where do they intend the borders to be?

Ukraine says Russia wants to split nation (msn.com)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sabang

Well, sure they do. I think the real question is where do they intend the borders to be?

Ukraine says Russia wants to split nation (msn.com)

---

If Putin has his way, he will gobble up bits until he has the entirety of what is now the Ukraine.

This will be followed by another "special operation" in another former Soviet nation.

No secret what Putin is up to. The fall of the Berlin wall and his self proclaimed "worst tragedy of his life" as a 37-year-old KGB lieutenant colonel stationed in the East German city of Dresden.

He has but one long term goal and as long as he has the power, he will reach it.

The restoration of the former Soviet Union!

I don't do walls of text but here is some light reading for those who can be bothered.

How the Soviet Union's Fall Pushed Putin to Try and Recapture Russia's Global Importance - HISTORY

Why won't India condemn Putin's invasion of Ukraine?

---

India is snapping up cheap Russian oil, and China could be next

Attachment 84681
Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Minister of External Affairs of India Subrahmanyam Jaishankar pose for a photo during Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Moscow, Russia on September 10, 2020.


Key Points

• Since the beginning of March, five cargoes of Russian oil, or about 6 million barrels, have been loaded and are bound for India – set to be discharged in early April, said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler.
• “This is about half the entire volume discharged last year — a significant uptick,” he told CNBC.
• If China also buys oil from Russia – also widely expected to be discounted – it could have some impact on crude prices, analysts said.
• “Urals crude from Russia is being offered at record discounts,” the International Energy Agency said on March 17.

Russia-India: India buys cheap Russian oil; China could be next

Bet they're not paying in rubles either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sabang

Bet they're not paying in rubles either.

---

But they are...

Quote:

---

India is expected to announce a payment arrangement that would allow trade with Russia to continue, the president of an Indian exporters' association told CNBC's "Street Signs" on Wednesday. The so-called rupee-ruble trade mechanism could come as early as next week, according to A Sakthivel, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).

---

FIEO: India rupee-ruble trade mechanism with Russia may be ready soon

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sabang

Turkey and other nations must still talk to Russia

---

That's fine, but they don't have to be nice to Puffy Putin. He is a murderous, thieving dictator and should be treated as one.

Ukraine cites Russian 'provocations' for pausing evacuations of civilians

Ukraine said Monday it was pausing evacuations of civilians from war-scarred regions of the country because intelligence reports suggested invading Russian troops were planning attacks on humanitarian routes.


"Our intelligence has reported possible provocations by the occupiers on routes of humanitarian corridors. Therefore, for reasons of public safety, we are not opening humanitarian corridors today," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a statement on social media.

With its aspirations for a quick victory dashed by a stiff Ukrainian resistance, Russia has increasingly focused on grinding down Ukraine’s military in the east in the hope of forcing Kyiv into surrendering part of the country’s territory to possibly end the war.

The bulk of the Ukrainian army is concentrated in eastern Ukraine, where it has been locked up in fighting with Moscow-backed separatists in a nearly eight-year conflict. If Russia succeeds in encircling and destroying the Ukrainian forces in the country’s industrial heartland called Donbas, it could try to dictate its terms to Kyiv and, possibly, attempt to split the country in two.

The mayor of Mariupol said on Monday all civilians must be evacuated from the encircled Ukrainian city to allow them to escape a humanitarian catastrophe.

Mayor Vadym Boichenko said 160,000 civilians were still trapped in the southern port city on the Sea of Azov without heat and power after weeks of Russian bombardment.


He said 26 buses were waiting to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, which normally has a population of about 400,000 people, but Russian forces had not agreed to give them safe passage. He did not say where they were waiting.


"The situation in the city remains difficult. People are beyond the line of humanitarian catastrophe," Boichenko said on national television. "We need to completely evacuate Mariupol."


He added: "The Russian Federation is playing with us. We are in the hands of the invaders."


Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, denies targeting civilians and blames Ukraine for the repeated failure to agree on safe corridors for trapped civilians. President Vladimir Putin says Russian forces are on a special operation to demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine.


Mariupol is widely seen as a strategic prize for the Russian invaders to create a bridge between Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, and two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine cites Russian 'provocations' for pausing evacuations of civilians, World News | wionews.com

Paying for Russian gas in roubles would be unacceptable, Group of Seven (G7) countries have reiterated, with German Economy Minister Robert Habeck saying this recent demand showed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s back was “against the wall”.

“All G7 [energy] ministers agreed that this is a unilateral and clear breach of the existing agreements,” said Habeck, whose country holds the presidency of the G7 most industrialised nations.

“Payment in roubles is not acceptable and … we call on the companies concerned not to comply with Putin’s demand,” he said on Monday.

Putin announced last week that Russia would only accept payments in roubles for natural gas deliveries to “unfriendly countries”, which includes all European Union members.

Economists said the move appeared designed to try to support the rouble, which has collapsed against other currencies since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and Western countries responded with far-reaching sanctions against Moscow. But some analysts expressed doubt that it would work.

Asked by reporters earlier on Monday if Russia could cut natural gas supplies to European customers if they reject the demand to pay in roubles, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call that “we clearly aren’t going to supply gas for free.”
“In our situation, it’s hardly possible and feasible to engage in charity for Europe,” Peskov said.

Putin’s ‘back against the wall’

The move comes as Moscow struggles to prop up its economy in the face of debilitating sanctions imposed by the West over his invasion of Ukraine.

“I think we must interpret this demand as Putin having his back against the wall,” Habeck told reporters following a virtual meeting with his G7 counterparts.

The G7 bloc consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday rejected Putin’s gas-for-roubles demand.

The Russian move “is not in line with what was signed, and I do not see why we would apply it,” Macron said.

Like other European countries, Germany is racing to reduce its heavy reliance on Russian energy imports in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Germany has to wean itself off Russian oil, gas and coal “in order not to strengthen the regime”, Habeck said, and because Moscow has revealed itself to be “an unreliable supplier”.

Berlin was quick to pull the plug on the massive Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia in protest over Putin’s aggression.

But the German government has so far resisted calls to impose an embargo on Russian energy imports, saying that to do so could plunge Europe’s biggest economy into chaos.

Paying for Russian gas in roubles is ‘unacceptable’, says G7 (msn.com)



G7 = Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Norton

If Putin has his way, he will gobble up bits until he has the entirety of what is now the Ukraine.

This will be followed by another "special operation" in another former Soviet nation.

No secret what Putin is up to. The fall of the Berlin wall and his self proclaimed "worst tragedy of his life" as a 37-year-old KGB lieutenant colonel stationed in the East German city of Dresden.

He has but one long term goal and as long as he has the power, he will reach it.

The restoration of the former Soviet Union!

I don't do walls of text but here is some light reading for those who can be bothered.

How the Soviet Union's Fall Pushed Putin to Try and Recapture Russia's Global Importance - HISTORY

---

An interesting g link Norts, thank you. The paucity of real information is probably more indicative of his secretive style. (Ex wife’s comments are most illuminating).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bsnub

rupee-ruble trade mechanism

---

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: A powerhouse Trade Mechanism

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sabang

Paying for Russian gas in roubles would be unacceptable, Group of Seven (G7) countries have reiterated, with German Economy Minister Robert Habeck saying this recent demand showed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s back was “against the wall”.

---

True . . . you can't just rejig trade deals and expect everything to be normal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by panama hat

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: A powerhouse Trade Mechanism





True . . . you can't just rejig trade deals and expect everything to be normal.

---

It’s just one of many giveaway indicators that not everything is going Putin’s way. Every day a new lie has to be created to support the rickety propaganda that keeps Russian people in the dark.
Tactical changes, Senior officers dying, reinforcements not available, equipment failures, troop deaths denied or figures massaged, heads roll back home because they cannot or will not tell Putin what he wants to hear.

Every day, a new lie to cover up the failures.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Switch

Every day, a new lie to cover up the failures.

---

All a bit like the good old days with Breshnev

The Russian rouble strengthened to a more than one-month high in Moscow trade on Tuesday, firming past 88 to the dollar, while stocks regained some ground in the fourth session since trading resumed after a near month-long suspension.

The Russian market is gradually reopening after a suspension caused by sweeping Western sanctions that followed the beginning of what Russia calls "a special operation" in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

By 0914 GMT, the rouble was up 2% against the dollar at 88.00, having earlier touched 87.40, its strongest since Feb. 28. It lost 0.3% to trade at 96.89 versus the euro after briefly clipping a one-month high.

In offshore trade, the rouble was marginally weaker, hovering at 89.75 to the dollar on the EBS electronic platform.

Two powerful drivers - Russia switching to roubles for gas export payments and exporting firms being mandated to convert 80% of their foreign currency earnings into roubles - are supporting the Russian currency, said Iskander Lutsko, chief investment strategist at ITI Capital.

"The market now really depends on progress in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine," Lutsko said of the Russian stock market, as the two sides met for face-to-face talks in Turkey.

Full Article- Rouble hits one-month high vs dollar, Russian stocks regain ground (msn.com)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sabang

Rouble hits one-month high vs dollar, Russian stocks regain ground

---

:rofl:

Looking forward to this Friday

Nothing is quite as it seems: The illusion of Russia’s Potemkin markets

The exchange’s benchmark MOEX index was up 4.4 per cent on Thursday, down 3.7 per cent on Friday and then slipped another 2.15 per cent on Monday in thin trading. The volumes of shares traded since the exchange’s reopening have been a fraction of those before the invasion.

In Russia at present, of course, nothing is quite as it seems. With the foreign investors who hold about 80 per cent of the free float in the market not allowed to sell and Russia’s National Wellbeing Fund (its sovereign wealth fund) having pledged $US10 billion ($13.4 billion) to support the market, the trading was meaningless.

The exchange has banned short-selling but permitted short-covering, which also would have added some buy-side support for the market.

From Friday, when foreigners will be able to sell, it might become more meaningful, although the sellers won’t be able to shift any proceeds out of the country. Most foreign institutional investors have already written down their Russian holdings to zero.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of investors in the market can’t sell and there is a state buyer with explicit instructions to prop up the market means it isn’t a real market but an illusion of one.

It’s not just stocks where the trading is artificial and propped up by the state and the restrictions on foreign investors.

A week ago trading in Russia’s domestic bonds recommenced with heavy Bank of Russia interventions, with foreign investors effectively locked out of the market.

The value of Russia’s rouble crashed after the invasion and the impositions of the West’s financial sanctions – including the freezing of more than half Russia’s foreign exchange reserves -- but has stabilised, with the currency trading around 20 per cent lower than its pre-invasion levels.

With the Bank of Russia preventing foreigners from selling securities, restricting selling of roubles and effectively forcing buying – banks aren’t allowed to exchange roubles for foreign currency for six months, those with foreign currency accounts have had their withdrawals capped and Russian companies have been ordered to use 80 per cent of their foreign currency holdings to buy roubles -- there is no real market price for the currency.

If there was its value would be far lower than its current exchange rate of less than one US cent.

Maybe they might fool some domestic investors and create the illusion of normalcy. Russian markets are, however, going to be shunned by foreign investors for a very long time and its financial markets will shrink dramatically and be near-useless in attracting capital or providing the price signals central to a modern financial system and economy.


:doglol:

https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/...&o=f&l=f&f=pngIndia stands by trade with Russia as Lavrov set to visit


Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to fly to India this week, sources said, finding time to visit to one of the biggest buyers of Russian commodities since the international community began isolating Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

There is little sign that buying will slow down any time soon, as more deals get signed. One source said the two countries could discuss smoothening trade payments disrupted by Western sanctions on Russian banks. Media have said he could hold talks in the Indian capital on Friday.

It will only be Lavrov's third visit overseas since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, after a trip to Turkey for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart earlier this month and a scheduled meeting in China on Thursday.

Russia is India's main supplier of defence hardware but overall annual trade is small, averaging about $9 billion in the past few years, mainly fertiliser and some oil. By comparison, India's bilateral trade with China is more than $100 billion a year.

But given sharp discounts on Russian crude oil since the attack on Ukraine, India has bought at least 13 million barrels, compared with nearly 16 million barrels imported from the country for the whole of last year. Many European countries have also continued to buy Russian energy despite publicly criticising Moscow.

Full article= India stands by trade with Russia as Lavrov set to visit (msn.com)

https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/...&o=f&l=f&f=pngRussia steps up economic retaliation with Eurobond rouble buyback offer



Russia retaliated in what it has called an "economic war" with the West on Tuesday by offering to buy back its $2 billion Eurobonds maturing next month in roubles rather than dollars.

The finance ministry offer on Eurobonds maturing on April 4, Russia's biggest debt payment this year, follows Western moves to tighten sanctions against the country over its invasion of Ukraine and to freeze Moscow out of international finance.

Russia steps up economic retaliation with Eurobond rouble buyback offer (msn.com)

Russia hits near Kyiv, other city despite vows to scale back

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pounded areas around Kyiv and another Ukrainian city overnight, local officials said Wednesday, just hours after Moscow pledged to scale back military operations in those places. The shelling further tempered optimism about possible progress in talks aimed at ending the punishing war.


Russia did not spell out what exactly a reduction in activity would look like, and while the promise initially raised hopes that a path toward ending the bloody war of attrition was at hand, Ukraine’s president and others cautioned that the commitments could merely be bluster.


Moscow, meanwhile, reacted coolly Wednesday to Kyiv’s proposed framework for a peace deal, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying it was a “positive factor” that Ukraine has submitted its written proposals but adding that he saw no breakthrough.


The British Defense Ministry said heavy losses have forced some Russian units to return to Belarus and Russia to regroup but that Moscow would likely compensate for any reduction in ground maneuvers by using mass artillery and missile barrages. And the Russian military reported a new series of missile strikes on Ukrainian arsenals and fuel depots over the past 24 hours.

MORE Russia hits near Kyiv, other city despite vows to scale back | AP News

Ukraine to negotiators: Don’t eat or drink at Russia talks amid poison concern

LONDON — Ukraine warned its negotiators not to eat, drink or even touch anything as they headed into talks with Russia in Istanbul on Tuesday, following allegations that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and others may have been poisoned during previous talks.

“I advise anyone going for negotiations with Russia not to eat or drink anything, preferably avoid touching surfaces,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in an interview on national television channel, Ukrayina 24.


Abramovich — who also attended the peace talks in Istanbul, although Russian officials said he was not part of the official delegation — fell ill after meetings in early March, as did members of Ukraine’s negotiating delegation. They came to suspect that they were poisoned, an associate of Abramovich said Monday.


Tuesday’s talks did not result in any peace agreement, but Ukrainian negotiators outlined some proposals and Moscow said it would “drastically reduce” military activity near Kyiv and Chernihiv.

MORE MSN

Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces

President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday that the U.S. will send an additional $500 million in aid to the Ukrainian people.

Biden and Zelenskyy held a call on Wednesday in which the funds were discussed, according to a White House readout of the call.

The U.S. president said America "intends to provide the Ukrainian government with $500 million in direct budgetary aid."

Last week, the U.S. announced a package of new sanctions against Russia on more than 400 Russians and Russian entities, including the Duma and more than 300 of its members, along with more than 40 defense companies.

The White House also announced it would allow as many as 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to enter the U.S., with a focus on those who are most vulnerable. The administration is also prepared to offer more than $1 billion in additional funding toward humanitarian assistance and $11 billion over the next five years to address worldwide food security threats after the disruptions to the Russian and the Ukrainian agricultural industries.

The two leaders on Wednesday also discussed how the U.S. is working "around the clock" to fulfill the main security assistance requested by Ukraine, the critical effects those weapons have had on the conflict, and continued efforts by the U.S. with allies and partners to identify additional capabilities to help the Ukrainian military defend its country.

Zelenskyy tweeted shortly after the conversation ended, saying the leaders shared assessment of the situation on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.

And also, "talked about specific defensive support, a new package of enhanced sanctions, macro-financial and humanitarian aid," he continued.