
Azerbaijan says energy cooperation with Ukraine won't be derailed by Russian strikes
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy by phone.
"During the conversation, both sides condemned the deliberate airstrikes by Russia on an oil storage facility owned by Azerbaijan's SOCAR in Ukraine, as well as other Azerbaijani facilities and a gas compressor station transporting Azerbaijani gas to Ukraine," Aliyev's press service said in a statement.
"They emphasized their confidence that these attacks would not hinder energy cooperation between Azerbaijan and Ukraine."
Earlier this week, Russia struck an oil depot owned by SOCAR and a gas pumping station used to import liquefied natural gas from the U.S. and Azerbaijan in Ukraine's southern Odesa region, according to sources and Ukrainian officials.
In July, Ukraine pumped a test volume of Azerbaijani gas through the Transbalkan route for the first time and announced plans to significantly increase gas imports from Azerbaijan.
Ukraine's infrastructure and energy facilities are frequently targeted by Russian forces, which have stepped up their drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns in recent months.
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Spectator
30 minutes ago
- Spectator
Trump's Alaska meeting is a gift for Putin
From the Kremlin's point of view, holding a US-Russia summit in Anchorage, Alaska is an idea of fiendish brilliance. The venue itself determines the agenda. Literally half a world away from the petty concerns of the European continent, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin can flex the vastness of their respective countries. Anchorage is an eight-hour flight from Washington D.C. and roughly the same distance from Moscow, flying over no other country but Russia for most of the way. By travelling to the point where their countries almost touch in the North Pacific, both leaders can feel justified in prioritising issues that concern just the two of them, from arms control treaties to space cooperation to Arctic mineral rights. Seen from Anchorage, Ukraine seems a very distant and very local problem. The summit is the brainchild of Yuri Ushakov, a veteran diplomat who joined the USSR's foreign ministry in 1970. Ushakov is a wily old attack dog who learned the ways of Washington during a decade-long stint as Russian ambassador from 1998 to 2008. And in suggesting Alaska as a meeting point, Ushakov clearly knows how to flatter not only Trump's ego but also his own President's obsession with history. For Putin, Russia's conquest of north-east Asia and much of the coast of America's Pacific north-west is the founding myth of his country's modern greatness. In the 16th century Muscovy and Spain had both defeated Muslim occupiers and began expanding into rich new worlds east and west – in Spain's case, gold-rich America; in Muscovy's, fur-rich Siberia. Spanish conquistadors and Russian Cossacks reached the Pacific from different sides and started settling colonies along the coasts. In 1776, the Spanish Crown ordered the foundation of San Francisco – in the form of a Franciscan Mission and garrisoned Presidio – in direct response to news that Catherine the Great had started assembling a major Russian fleet to grab the unclaimed territory of northern California. In the event, Catherine's fleet was redeployed to fight a war with the Swedes, leaving most of California to the Spanish. Who was to say who was the more logical ruler of America's north-west coast, distant Madrid or distant St Petersburg? From 1816 until 1842 the southernmost frontier of the Russian empire was 70 miles north of San Francisco at Fort Ross on the Russian River (hence the name). For a brief period in the early 19th century Russia had a colony on Kaua'i island in Hawaii. And until 1867 the modern state of Alaska with its 6,500-mile coastline was known as Russian America and was a possession of the Tsar's. In the wake of the Crimean War, during which a Royal Navy force bombarded and briefly occupied the port of Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, Tsar Alexander II realised he lacked the naval power to maintain control of his American colonies. He first offered Russian America to the British prime minister Lord Palmerston for the eminently logical reason that the territory was contiguous with British Columbia. Palmerston, however, was uninterested in acquiring half a million square miles of mostly unexplored North American wilderness. The only other plausible buyer was the US. But it took two years, and the distribution of tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to congressmen, for the Russians to persuade a reluctant secretary of state, William Seward, to write a cheque for $7.2 million for the Alaska Purchase – mocked at the time as 'Seward's Folly'. Even today, Alaska still bears the stamp of its century and a half as part of the Russian empire. A third of Alaska's population is Native American (by far the largest proportion of any US state) and most of the Aleut and Tlingit peoples still adhere to the Russian Orthodox faith. The major feature of every coastal town from Sitka to Kodiak is a distinctively Russian church, and there are communities of black-robed monks on out-lying islands – though most are Americans and their services are in English. Colonial echoes of Britain, France and Spain are commonplace in other countries, whether Anglican worshippers in Simla, French baguettes in Saigon or Spanish missions in California. Living echoes of a vanished Russian empire are much rarer and exist mostly in Alaska. It is clearly flattering and heartwarming for Putin to meet his American counterpart on what was once Russian territory. Some more excitable western commentators have claimed that hosting a summit in Anchorage encourages Putin's neo-imperial ambitions – including, supposedly, reclaiming the American lands sold by Alexander II. But the idea that 'Alaska Nash' (Alaska is Ours) is anything other than a Russian pub joke is absurd. A roadside billboard bearing that slogan and featuring a map of Russia including all of Alaska has been doing the rounds of Twitter as supposed evidence of Putin's revanchism. In fact it's just a jokey advertisement for a real estate company called Alaska. Rather than dog-whistling Russian imperialism, the location allows Putin to appeal to a bygone age of Russian-American cooperation where the two nations divided up large swaths of the world. The most recent example is, to Putin's mind, the Yalta conference of February 1945 where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill pored over maps and divided spheres of influence in the crumbling Nazi empire. A similar carve-up of Ukrainian territory is exactly what Volodymyr Zelensky fears and he has spent the week since the summit was announced gathering European support to insist that no deal can be done over the heads of the Ukrainians. Unfortunately for Kyiv, and for the Europeans, they're not invited. It's also highly likely that even if Putin and Trump reach some kind of a deal on a ceasefire, it will be largely on Russia's terms. But it's also possible that Moscow and Washington could agree on other, non-Ukraine related issues, such as getting Putin back on board with the New START treaty limiting the number of deployed nuclear weapons – the kind of deal that nuclear superpowers make between each other. And there is nothing that both Putin and Trump enjoy more than playing the role of imperial presidents.


The Independent
30 minutes ago
- The Independent
Germany and allies to send major military aid package to Ukraine using new NATO supply line
Germany announced on Wednesday that it will work with a group of Ukraine's Western backers to supply a package of military aid to the war-ravaged country worth up to $500 million using a new NATO supply line. Earlier this month, NATO started coordinating regular deliveries of large weapons packages to Ukraine after the Netherlands said that it would provide air defense equipment, ammunition and other military aid worth 500 million euros ($582 million). Sweden announced the following day that it would contribute $275 million to a joint effort along with its Nordic neighbors Denmark and Norway to provide $500 million worth of air defenses, anti-tank weapons, ammunition and spare parts. Germany's foreign and defense ministries said the support is focused on equipment like 'critical air defense capabilities. These are urgently needed to defend against Russia's ongoing air strikes, which are killing more and more civilians throughout Ukraine.' The United Nations has said that Russia's relentless pounding of urban areas behind the front line has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians. Two deliveries of equipment, most of it bought in the United States, were scheduled for this month, although the Nordic package was more likely to arrive in September. Germany did not name the group of countries it would be working with. The equipment is supplied based on Ukraine's priority needs on the battlefield. NATO allies then locate the weapons and ammunition and send them on. Germany has delivered or pledged military support to Ukraine worth around 40 billion euros ($47 billion) since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.


The Independent
30 minutes ago
- The Independent
Zelensky tells Trump that Putin is ‘bluffing' and does not want peace ahead of crunch Ukraine summit
Volodymyr Zelensky has warned Donald Trump and European leaders that Vladimir Putin is 'bluffing' over his intentions to end the war, ahead of a crucial summit between the US and Russia on Friday. The Ukrainian president reiterated that there can be no talk of territorial concessions without his country's involvement, as both he and European leaders are sidelined from the historic meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. Following a virtual conference with Zelensky, Trump, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French president Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer said a 'viable' chance of reaching a ceasefire in the Ukraine war now exists, but Britain stands ready to 'increase pressure' on Moscow if necessary. It comes as a report in The Times suggests Russia and the US have discussed the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as a potential model for a future settlement between Moscow and Kyiv. The plan, which is understood to be supported by Trump's peace envoy Steve Witkoff, would imitate Israel's rule over Palestinian territory since 1967, with Russia seizing military and economic control of the disputed regions. During Wednesday's meeting, Macron said that Trump had been 'very clear' in his objective to achieve a ceasefire, and had reiterated that "territorial issues relating to Ukraine will only be negotiated by the Ukrainian president." Meanwhile, Zelensky told Trump and European leaders that 'Putin is bluffing - he is trying to push forward along the whole front". "Putin is also bluffing saying he doesn't care about the sanctions and that they're not working,' he said. "In reality, the sanctions are very effective, and they're hurting the Russian military economy. Putin doesn't want peace - he wants to occupy our country". In recent days, Russian forces have been closing in on a key territorial grab around the city of Pokrovsk in the Donbas region, which could complicate Ukrainian supply lines to the Donetsk region , where the Kremlin have concentrated their military efforts. On Tuesday, Zelensky said that Putin has demanded Kyiv's forces withdraw from Donetsk as part of any potential ceasefire deal, a notion which he strongly rejected. Reiterating his stance that relinquishing the Donbas region would not be agreed by Ukraine, Zelensky told reporters: "Any questions concerning our country's territorial integrity cannot be discussed without regard for our people, for the will of our people and the Ukrainian constitution". Friedrich Merz convened the virtual meetings in an attempt to make sure European and Ukraine's leaders are heard ahead of the Trump-Putin summit on Friday. In a post to his Truth Social account ahead of the meeting, Trump said: 'Will be speaking to European Leaders in a short while. They are great people who want to see a deal done.' Merz said after the video conference that "important decisions" could be made in Anchorage, but stressed that "fundamental European and Ukrainian security interests must be protected" at the meeting. He added that the key principles that they made clear to Trump was that Ukraine must be at the table for any future meetings, a ceasefire must come ahead of the start of the negotiations and recognising Russian-occupied territory is not on the table. Other objectives included ensuring Ukrainian forces are to defend their country with the support of Europe, and wider negotiations must be part of a "transatlantic strategy". The summit on Friday has been described by the White House as a 'feel-out summit', with Trump looking to see if Putin is serious about ending the war, and to better understand his intentions. However, his comments that both Russia and Ukraine must concede territory and land swap has caused concern, with European leaders worried that any major concessions to Putin could cause security problems for the West in the future. A call among leaders of countries involved in the "coalition of the willing" — those who are prepared to help police any future peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, including the UK —also took place on Wednesday. Sir Keir said: 'This is a critical moment. We have to combine active diplomacy on the one hand with military support to Ukraine and pressure on Russia.' 'International borders cannot be, and must not be changed by force, and again that's a long-standing principle of this group. 'And alongside that, any talk about borders, diplomacy, ceasefire has to sit alongside a robust and credible security guarantee to ensure that any peace, if there is peace, is lasting peace and Ukraine can defend its territorial integrity as part of any deal.'