Latest news with #GuyFaulconbridge
The Star
3 days ago
- Business
- The Star
WhatsApp says Russia is trying to block it
FILE PHOTO: Whatsapp logo is seen in this illustration taken, August 22, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo MOSCOW (Reuters) -WhatsApp said Russia was trying to block its services because the social media messaging app owned by Meta Platforms offered people's right to secure communication, and vowed to continue trying to make encrypted services available in Russia. Russia has started restricting some Telegram and WhatsApp calls, accusing the foreign-owned platforms of failing to share information with law enforcement in fraud and terrorism cases. "WhatsApp is private, end-to-end encrypted, and defies government attempts to violate people's right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people," WhatsApp said in a statement. "We will keep doing all we can to make end-to-end encrypted communication available to people everywhere, including in Russia." (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
How much territory does Russia control in Ukraine?
By Guy Faulconbridge How much territory does Russia control in Ukraine? LONDON, - U.S. President Donald Trump has said that both Kyiv and Moscow will have to cede territory to end the war in Ukraine, so how much territory does Russia control in Ukraine? Russia controls nearly 114,500 square km , or 19%, of Ukraine, including Crimea, and a major chunk of territory in the east and south-east of the country, according to open source maps of the battlefield. Ukraine does not control any internationally recognised Russian territory. Russia says Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - which were recognised by Moscow as part of Ukraine as the Soviet Union collapsed - are now parts of Russia. Ukraine has repeatedly said it will never recognise Russian occupation of its land, and most countries recognise Ukraine's territory within its 1991 borders. Following are details on the territory, Russian claims and Ukraine's position. CRIMEA Russian forces in 2014 took control of Crimea, which juts out into the Black Sea off southern Ukraine, and after a disputed referendum on joining Russia, Moscow absorbed the region into Russia. Its area is about 27,000 square km. Russia says Crimea is legally part of Russia. Ukraine's position is that Crimea is part of Ukraine, though privately some Ukrainian officials admit that it would be very hard to return Crimea to Ukrainian control by force. Crimea was absorbed into the Russian empire by Catherine the Great in the 18th century. Russia's Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol was founded soon afterwards. In 1921, Crimea became part of Russia within the Soviet Union until 1954, when it was handed to Ukraine, also then a Soviet republic, by Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev, an ethnic Ukrainian. DONBAS Russia controls about 46,570 square km, or 88%, of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, including all of the Luhansk region and 75% of the Donetsk region. About 6,600 square km is still controlled by Ukraine but Russia has been focusing most of its energy along the front in Donetsk, pushing towards the last remaining major cities. Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions broke away from Ukrainian government control in 2014 and proclaimed themselves independent "people's republics". Putin in 2022 recognised them as independent states just days before the invasion of Ukraine. ZORIZHZHIA AND KHERSON Russian forces control about 74% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of southeastern Ukraine, or about 41,176 square km. Ukraine controls about 14,500 square km across the two regions. Putin in 2024 said that he would be willing to agree peace if Ukraine withdrew from all regions claimed but not fully controlled by Russia - an area currently of about 21,000 square km - and officially renounced its ambitions to join NATO. Reuters reported in 2024 that Putin was open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Trump but ruled out making any major territorial concessions and insisted that Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO. Two sources said Putin might be willing to withdraw from the relatively small patches of territory it holds in other areas of Ukraine. Putin's conditions for peace include a legally binding pledge that NATO will not expand eastwards, Ukrainian neutrality and limits on its armed forces, protection for Russian speakers who live there, and acceptance of Russia's territorial gains, sources told Reuters earlier this year. KHARKIV, SUMY AND DNIPROPETROVSK Russia also controls small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine. Across the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Russia controls about 400 square km of territory. In Dnipropetrovsk, Russia has a tiny area near the border. Russia has said it is carving out a buffer zone in Sumy to protect its Kursk region from Ukrainian attack. LEGAL STATUS OF THE TERRITORIES Russia classes the Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Luhansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic, and the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson as subjects of the Russian Federation. Ukraine says the territories are part of Ukraine. Most countries do not recognise the areas as part of Russia but some do. Crimea has been recognised by Syria, North Korea and Nicaragua. The United Nations General Assembly declared in 2014 the annexation illegal and recognised Crimea as part of Ukraine. The resolution was opposed by 11 countries. Putin has repeatedly compared the fate of Kosovo and Crimea. He has accused the West of having double standards for recognising Kosovo as an independent country in 2008 against the wishes of Serbia but opposing the recognition of Crimea. Russia opposed the independence of Kosovo. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
The Star
21-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Major Ukrainian drone attacks sow chaos at Moscow's airports
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Major Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia sowed chaos at major airports serving Moscow on Monday, with thousands of passengers waiting in lines or sleeping on the floor after flights were cancelled or delayed, Russian media reported. Videos published by Russian media showed people sleeping on the floor of Sheremetyevo, Russia's busiest airport by passenger numbers, amid long queues. Russia's defence ministry said it had downed 117 drones overnight, including 30 over the Moscow region, after downing 172 drones, including 30 over the Moscow region, the previous day. Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, briefly imposed restrictions on flights overnight at Moscow's main airports - Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovskiy. Several thousand people were stranded in the far east of Russia due to the cancellation of flights in European Russia, while extra trains were put on to bring passengers back to Moscow from the northern Russian city of St Petersburg, Russian media said. Moscow and its surrounding region has a population of at least 21.5 million. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
Japan Today
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Putin quips that 'the whole of Ukraine is ours'- in theory
By Guy Faulconbridge and Vladimir Soldatkin Russian President Vladimir Putin quipped on Friday that in his view the whole of Ukraine was "ours" and cautioned that advancing Russian forces could take the Ukrainian city of Sumy as part of a bid to carve out a buffer zone along the border. Putin, who ordered troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, also said he was not seeking the capitulation of Ukraine or denying Ukraine's sovereignty, but that Ukraine had to be neutral. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, more than 99% of the Luhansk region, over 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and fragments of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Asked about fresh Russian advances, Putin told the St Petersburg International Economic Forum that he considered Russians and Ukrainians to be one people and "in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours". Kyiv and its Western allies say Moscow's claims to four Ukrainian regions and Crimea are illegal, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected the notion that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. He has also said that Putin's terms for peace are akin to capitulation. Putin said on Friday he was not questioning Ukraine's independence or its people's striving for sovereignty, but he underscored that when Ukraine declared independence as the Soviet Union fell in 1991 it had also declared its neutrality. Putin said Moscow wanted Ukraine to accept the reality on the ground if there was to be a chance of peace - Russia's shorthand for the reality of Russia's control over a chunk of Ukrainian territory bigger than the U.S. state of Virginia. "We have a saying, or a parable," Putin said. "Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours." Putin said Russian forces were carving out a buffer zone in Ukraine's Sumy region in order to protect Russian territory and said he did not rule out those same troops taking control of the regional capital of Sumy. The depth of the zone under Russian control in the Sumy region was 8-12 km, Putin said. "Next is the city of Sumy, the regional center. We don't have the task of taking it, but in principle I don't rule it out," he said. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Russia says it's ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran
By Guy Faulconbridge and Parisa Hafezi MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday it stood ready to remove highly enriched uranium from Iran and convert it into civilian reactor fuel as a potential way to help narrow U.S.-Iranian differences over the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. Tehran says it has the right to peaceful nuclear power, but its swiftly-advancing uranium enrichment programme has raised fears in the wider West and across the Gulf that it wants to develop a nuclear weapon. The United States is trying to broker a deal to get Iran to rein in its nuclear activities, but President Donald Trump said in an interview released on Wednesday he was less confident than a couple of months ago that Iran will agree to halt enrichment. Last week, the Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin had told Trump in a phone call that he was ready to use Russia's close partnership with Iran to help advance those negotiations. On Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who oversees arms control and U.S. relations, told Russian media that efforts to reach a solution should be redoubled and that Moscow was willing to help in practical ways. "We are ready to provide assistance to both Washington and Tehran, not only politically, not only in the form of ideas that could be of use in the negotiation process, but also practically: for example, through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors," Ryabkov said. He did not make clear whether the nuclear fuel would then be returned to Iran for use in its civil nuclear energy programme, which Moscow has helped develop. The United States wants all of Iran's highly enriched uranium (HEU) to be shipped out of the country. Tehran says it should only send out any excess amount above a ceiling that was agreed in a 2015 deal and cannot abandon enrichment altogether. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday confirmed Moscow's readiness to accept the uranium. "Here it is very important to say that if necessary, if the parties deem it necessary, Russia will be ready to provide such services," Peskov told reporters. Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power, does not want to see Iran acquire nuclear weapons, but believes it has every right to develop its own civilian nuclear programme - as a member of the 1970 global Non-Proliferation Treaty - and that any use of military force against it would be illegal. Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for its war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year. During his 2017-2021 term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a landmark 2015 deal between Iran and world powers, including Russia, that had placed strict limits on Tehran's nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After Trump pulled out in 2018 and reimposed tough U.S. economic sanctions, Iran breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal's limits on enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy programme.
