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Heinous crime that at least 139 people dead should not be allowed to detract from efforts to find peace – or at least a truce – between Russia and Ukraine.
Putin’s re-election is positive for the increasingly close alliance with Beijing, but China’s diplomatic efforts require striking a fine balance ahead of Xi’s proposed trip to Europe.
Observers say Ukraine will be high on the agenda when Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to France, Serbia and Hungary next month, while the West will be watching Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s visit to China for signs Beijing is supporting Moscow’s war efforts.
Ukraine sidelines US-provided Abrams M1A1 battle tanks for now, in part because Russian drone warfare has made it too difficult for them to operate without detection or coming under attack, US officials said.
China-US ties are more stable but still at risk if ‘red lines’ are crossed, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday.
Purpose is to enlist China’s help in ending the companies’ activities that allegedly violate sanctions on supplying products with military applications to Moscow.
But American treasury secretary says the policy option is something Washington ‘would be prepared to use if necessary’.
Trip would be the long-time leader’s first abroad since his re-election, amid Western claims that China is propping up Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
Europe must not become a vassal of the US, he said, as he outlined his vision for a more assertive EU on the global stage.
Sanctions have made it harder to access Western cultural products such as films and music, so younger Russians are turning to countries like South Korea and Japan for entertainment.
Moscow vetoed a resolution to prevent an orbital arms race, prompting the US to ask if Russia was hiding something.
The weapons, with double the striking distance, were used for the first time to bomb a Russian airfield in Crimea and Russian forces in another occupied area.
Trade, Ukraine among topics on the agenda, with Blinken expected to pressure China to urge its firms to stop supplying dual-use goods to Russia or face more punitive measures.
It is the Russia’s highest-profile corruption case since President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022
The US Congress gave final approval to a long-delayed US$61 billion aid package for Ukraine on Tuesday. Ukraine hopes to quickly get fresh supplies to the war zone as Russia makes battlefield gains.
America’s top diplomat pledges to keep raising atrocities with responsible governments days before he is expected to meet senior officials in Beijing.
Ukraine says its soldiers will benefit from the aid package as Western leaders laud the US move, noting it will help ‘make us all safer’.
The Russian president ‘frightens people, he keeps them in fear’, said Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the dissident who died in a Siberian prison camp in February, in an interview.
A long-delayed US$61 billion in funding for Kyiv’s forces has cleared the House but still needs a vote in the Senate.
Special envoy Li Hui’s latest mission to Europe was met with scepticism, and could be seen as ‘signalling’ to the Global South that China is a responsible power.
The Ukrainian president is seeking more air defence systems from Western allies after a drone of fatal drone and missile attacks from Russia.
Ukraine said that, for the first time since Russia’s invasion, it had downed a Russian long-range bomber used to fire cruise missiles at its cities.
At a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy, a US official said China is ‘contributing to Russia’s ability to prosecute’ the Ukraine war in ways that threaten all of Europe.
Poland’s National Prosecutor said the man, arrested on Wednesday, was accused of being prepared to pass airport security information to Russian agents.
Legislation comes amid alarm in Washington over volume of material moving from Beijing to Moscow and said to be turning up on battlefields in Ukraine.
Washington should offer ‘alternatives to what our competitors are offering’, says Foreign Relations committee chair, referring to Beijing’s advances.
President Zelensky called on Kyiv’s allies to rush in air defence support after the city, which had a pre-war population of 300,000, became the latest target of an intensifying Russian air strike campaign.
The BBC found that more than 27,300 Russian soldiers died during the second year of the war, a 25-percent increase on the first year.
The Ukraine president says China could play a role in securing an end to the war, as he seeks Beijing’s backing for a peace summit in Switzerland.