
King meets Putin during landmark state visit
Sultan Ibrahim arrived at the Kremlin around 3pm before proceeding to the St. George's Hall, a vast ceremonial chamber adorned with white marble columns and gilded décor, where Putin formally greeted His Majesty.
Following the ceremony, both leaders moved to the Green Room for an official meeting.
Accompanying the King were Defence Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, who is also Minister-in-Attendance, Foreign Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Amran Mohamad Zin and Malaysian Ambassador to Russia Datuk Cheong Loon Lai.
ALSO READ: Sultan Ibrahim arrives in Russia for maiden state visit
Putin was joined by senior Russian officials including Aide to the Russian President for international affairs Yury Ushakov, Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Pankin and Deputy Minister of Defence Alexander Fomin.- Bernama
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The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Trump says Ukraine, Russia will have to swap some land for peace
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press about deploying federal law enforcement agents in Washington to bolster the local police presence, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington D.C., U.S., August 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that both Ukraine and Russia would have to cede land to each other to end the war and that his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be aimed at taking the temperature on a possible deal. Trump told a White House press conference that his talks on Friday with Putin in Alaska would be a "feel-out meeting" to determine whether Putin was willing to make a deal. He said he could know within two minutes whether progress was possible. "So I'm going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I'm going to be telling him, you've got to end this war. You've got to end it," Trump told reporters. Trump also said a future meeting could include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and could end up being a three-way session including himself and Putin. He said he would speak to European leaders soon after his talks with Putin and that his goal was a speedy ceasefire in the bloody conflict. Trump has in the past talked about land swaps but neither Russia nor Ukraine have been interested in ceding land to each other as part of a peace deal. Europeans worry that major concessions to Russia could create security problems for the West in the future. Ukraine has sought to push back Russian invaders ever since the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War Two began in February 2022. Russia justifies the war on the grounds of what it calls threats to its security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab. Russia currently occupies about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, while Ukraine holds barely any Russian territory. Trump said: "There'll be some land swapping going on." "I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody, to the good of Ukraine," he said. He said Russia had occupied some "very prime territory" but that "we're going to try to get some of that territory back". (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Nandita Bose and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter)


The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Trump's India threats are hollow for crude market
THE crude oil market's rather sanguine reaction to the US threats to India over its continued purchases of Russian oil is effectively a bet that very little will actually happen. President Donald Trump cited India's imports of Russian crude when imposing an additional 25% tariff on imports from India on Aug 6, which is due to take effect on Aug 28. If the new tariff rate does come into place, it will take the rate for some Indian goods to as much as 50%, a level high enough to effectively end US imports from India, which totalled nearly US$87bil in 2024. As with everything related to Trump, it pays to be cautious given his track record of backflips and pivots. It's also not exactly clear what Trump is ultimately seeking, although it does seem that in the short term he wants to increase his leverage with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of their planned meeting in Alaska this week, and he's using India to achieve this. Whether Trump follows through on his additional tariffs on India remains uncertain, although the chances of a peace deal in Ukraine seem remote, which means the best path for India to avoid the tariffs would be to acquiesce and stop buying Russian oil. But this is an outcome that simply isn't being reflected in current crude oil prices. Global benchmark Brent futures have weakened since Trump's announcement of higher tariffs on India, dropping as low as US$65.81 a barrel in early Asian trade yesterday, the lowest level in two months. This is a price that entirely discounts any threat to global supplies, and assumes that India will either continue buying Russian crude at current volumes, or be able to easily source suitable replacements without tightening the global market. Are these reasonable assumptions? The track record of the crude oil market is somewhat remarkable in that it quickly adapts to new geopolitical realities and any price spikes tend to be shortlived. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sent crude prices hurtling toward US$150 a barrel as European and other Western countries pulled back from buying Russian crude. But within four months the price was back below where it was before Moscow's attack on its neighbour as the market simply re-routed the now discounted Russian oil to China and India. In other words, the flow of oil around the globe was shifted, but the volumes available for importers remained much the same. Different this time? But what Trump is proposing now is somewhat different. It appears he wants to cut Russian barrels out of the market in order to put financial pressure on Moscow to cut a deal over Ukraine. There are effectively only two major buyers for Russian crude, India and China. China, the world's biggest crude importer, has more leverage with Trump given US and Western reliance on its refined critical and other minerals, and therefore is less able to be coerced into ending its imports of Russian oil. India is in a less strong position, especially private refiners like Reliance Industries, which will want to keep business relationships and access to Western economies. India imported about 1.8 million barrels per day of Russian crude in the first half of the year, or about 37% of its total, according to data compiled by commodity analysts Kpler. About 90% of its Russian imports came from Russia's European ports and was mainly Urals grade. This is a medium sour crude and it would raise challenges for Indian refiners if they sought to replace all their Urals imports with similar grades from other suppliers. There are some Middle Eastern grades of similar quality, such as Saudi Arabia's Arab Light and Iraq's Basrah Light, but it would likely boost prices if India were to seek more of these crudes. If Chinese refiners were able to take the bulk of Russian crude given up by India, it may allow for a reshuffling of flows, but that would not appear to be what Trump wants. Trump and his advisers may believe there is enough spare crude production capacity in the United States and elsewhere to handle the loss of up to two million bpd of Russian supplies. But testing that theory may well lead to higher prices, especially for certain types of medium crudes which would be in short supply. It's simplistic to say that higher US output can supply India's refiners, as this would mean those refiners would have to be willing to accept a different mix of refined products, including producing less diesel, as US light crudes tend to make more products such as petrol. For now the crude oil market is assuming that the Trump/India/Russia situation will end as another Taco, the acronym for Trump always chickens out. But the reality is likely to be slightly more messy, as some Indian refiners pull back from importing from Russia, some Chinese refiners may buy more and once again the oil market goes on a geopolitical merry-go-round. — Reuters Clyde Russell is an Asia commodities and energy columnist at Reuters. The views expressed here are the writer's own.


The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
Factbox-A recent history of Russian presidential visits to the US
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrive to hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo MOSCOW (Reuters) -Vladimir Putin is set to become the first Russian president to visit Alaska, a territory Moscow sold to the U.S. in 1867 for $7.2 million, assuming a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump goes ahead there on Friday as planned. It would be Putin's eighth trip to the U.S. as president, a post he has held since the end of 1999 apart from a four-year hiatus in 2008-2012 when close ally Dmitry Medvedev held the top Kremlin job. Here are details of Putin's previous visits to the United States as president, and a summary of those made by Medvedev and Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor. 2015 - The last time Putin was in the U.S. he visited New York for the United Nations General Assembly and held talks with then-President Barack Obama. The encounter was a frosty one with Obama sharply criticising Putin over the conflict in eastern Ukraine where Russia-backed forces were fighting government troops. The two leaders also clashed over Syria and the fate of then President Bashar al-Assad at a time when Moscow was poised to intervene militarily on Assad's side against rebel forces. 2007 - Putin travelled to the family home of Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, in Kennebunkport, Maine, at a time when ties were badly strained over Russia's opposition to a planned U.S. missile defence system in Eastern Europe, U.S. criticism over what is said was Putin's rollback of democracy, and disagreement over statehood for Kosovo. Bush and Putin held informal talks on nuclear security, Iran and North Korea. Bush later described how they spent a weekend fishing and discussing missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic which Putin was worried about. Some common ground was found, Bush noted, quipping that Putin was the only one to catch a fish. 2005 - Putin attended the 2005 World Summit in New York and later held White House talks with President Bush. Their meeting was partly overshadowed by Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans. Putin offered aid and words of support. Concerns about Iran and North Korea developing nuclear weapons loomed large. 2004 - Putin attended a G8 summit on Sea Island in Georgia, and was also in Washington at the funeral of late President Ronald Reagan. He held talks with President Bush who hailed the Russian leader as his friend. Iraq was in focus, a year after the U.S. invasion, with Putin helping Bush get a resolution through the U.N. which supported the interim Iraqi government. 2003 - Putin was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly and also held talks at Camp David in Maryland with President Bush. Putin expressed misgivings about the U.S. invasion of Iraq that same year, but the joint news conference was a friendly affair with Bush declaring Washington and Moscow allies in what he called "the war on terror." They spoke of expanding cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan and of broadening U.S.-Russia military cooperation. 2001 - Putin went on a state visit to the U.S. taking in Washington, New York as well as Texas two months after nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks. Putin, the first foreign leader to phone Bush to express solidarity after the attack, visited the site in New York where the World Trade Center once stood and wrote on a wall: "The great city and the great American nation will win!!!" The former KGB officer attended a restricted access CIA briefing, met U.S. Congress leaders, and held talks with President Bush, attending an informal dinner at Bush's ranch in Texas. 2000 - Putin flew to New York to attend the Millennium Summit and gave a speech to the U.N. Security Council of which Russia is a permanent member. In it, he urged a multilateral rather than unilateral approach to international affairs. He also held talks with then-President Bill Clinton with both agreeing to recommit to, and in some cases extend, various initiatives concerning arms control and nuclear non-proliferation. Dmitry Medvedev, who was president from 2008-2012, made five visits to the United States and cast himself at the time as a pro-Western moderniser. His most high-profile trip was in June 2010 when he met President Obama at a diner near Washington for a burger and fries amid an attempted "reset" in ties. Medvedev has since become one of Russia's most outspoken anti-Western hawks. Boris Yeltsin, who was Russia's first post-Soviet president, made four official trips to the U.S. after the 1991 Soviet collapse. Bill Clinton would reveal in an interview years later that on one of his trips to Washington in the mid-1990s, U.S. secret service agents found Yeltsin in the early hours wandering in the street in his underwear, drunk and craving pizza. (Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Aidan Lewis)