Tag: Yevgeny Prigozhin
POLITICO Europe’s most-read stories of 2023 – POLITICO
Well, here we are folks, at the end of another turbulent year.
When we put this list together at the end of 2022, its contents largely covered something many of us thought we would not see again in our lifetime: a major war in Europe. Now, we are grappling with two wars in our immediate neighborhood, as the slaughter drags on in Ukraine, and conflict rages between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
In Ukraine, the long-awaited counteroffensive against Russia, which
How I Lost the Russia That Never Was
The lack of respect for the dead surprised even a soldier with the Wagner Group, Russia’s mercenary legion of former convicts that fought some of the bloodiest battles in the invasion of Ukraine. He looked at an ugly heap of wooden crosses and flower wreaths that had been pushed aside and cursed the authorities.
“What are you doing? They died for Russia, and you are razing their graves to the ground. You are rolling over them,” he said in
The secret, slipshod evidence the EU uses to sanction Russian oligarchs – POLITICO
BRUSSELS
BY LEONIE KIJEWSKI
IT WAS AN UNUSUAL APOLOGY: from the office of the president of the European Council to a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
In a confidential evidence packet used by the European Union to justify freezing his assets, Viatsheslav Moshe Kantor’s nationality had been listed as “Jewish/Russian.”
A 70-year-old billionaire who once headed the Russian fertilizer giant Acron, Kantor stepped down as president of the European Jewish Congress after being sanctioned by the EU and the United Kingdom
Putin’s world is shrinking – POLITICO
Fredrik Wesslau is a distinguished policy fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and a board member of The Reckoning Project.
BRICS leaders will be meeting in South Africa for their annual summit later this month. Absent, however, will be Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
After months of insisting he would attend the annual gathering for the member countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, Putin finally decided against traveling, as the South African government couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t
Nuclear weapons on the table if Ukraine counteroffensive succeeds: Russia’s Medvedev – POLITICO
If Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Moscow’s invasion captures Russian territory, there would be no alternative to using strategic nuclear weapons, Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev warned on Sunday.
“There would simply be no other way out” of using nuclear weapons if the Ukrainian offensive succeeded in taking Russian territory, Medvedev, former Russian president and current National Security Council deputy chairman, said in a post on social media.
“Just imagine that the NATO-supported ukrobanderovtsy’s offensive turned out successful, and they took away
EU suspends Niger financial support, security cooperation after coup – POLITICO
The EU suspended security cooperation and financial support for Niger and declared that it will not recognize the leaders of a “putsch” that ousted the democratically elected president.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, called for President Mohamed Bazoum’s “unconditional” release from detention.
“This unacceptable attack on the integrity of Niger’s republican institutions will not remain without consequences for the partnership and cooperation,” Borrell said, confirming an “immediate cessation of budget support” and the suspension of “cooperation actions in
Europe’s plan to stabilize West Africa erupts — again – POLITICO
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BRUSSELS/PARIS — Europe’s hope it could buoy an island of stability in West Africa is drowning as Niger slips under military rule.
The EU — and France particularly — bet big on Niger, with Paris sending resources and troops to the country and the EU committing €40 million to help train and equip the Nigerien military. The goal was to arrest Russia’s seeping influence in the region, eradicate burgeoning
Wagner boss Prigozhin spotted at Russia-Africa summit – POLITICO
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has been photographed at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, appearing on the sidelines of the event hosted by President Vladimir Putin just a month after launching a failed mutiny.
In two pictures circulated on social media Thursday, Prigozhin is shown wearing casual jeans and a white shirt, smiling as he presses the flesh with visiting officials.
In the first picture, posted to Facebook by an Africa-based aide, Prigozhin shakes hands with a suited-up African delegate.
Putin rules out rejoining Black Sea grain deal, despite famine fears – POLITICO
Russia will not rejoin a U.N.-brokered pact designed to prevent famines across the developing world as a result of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
Speaking at the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in St. Petersburg, Putin again said his government would “refuse to extend” the Black Sea grain deal, which has allowed 32.9 million tons of agricultural products to leave Ukraine’s blockaded ports and reach the global market.
Putin, who accused Western nations of receiving
It’s wishful to think Putin’s system is falling apart – POLITICO
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
There was understandable glee in Kyiv when news broke that the Kremlin was turning on the self-styled Club of Angry Patriots — the ultranationalists who, for months, have been decrying Russia’s war effort as too soft and castigating the country’s top generals for ineptness.
But given the bigger picture, the excitement may prove premature.
Among the ultranationalists, the sinister Igor Girkin was the first to be targeted. A former Federal Security Service