Tag Archives: Russia

Ukraine cuts power to pro-Russia separatist region

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine cut electricity to parts of an eastern region controlled by pro-Russian separatists on Tuesday, citing unpaid debt – a step the Kremlin said amounted to a rejection by Kiev of breakaway territories.

Three years after Moscow annexed the Crimean region, tensions between Ukraine and separatists in the Russian-held eastern part of the country remain high and a 2015 ceasefire is violated regularly.

“This night, the power supply to the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk region was completely halted,” Vsevolod Kovalchuk, head of the state power distributor Ukrenergo, said on Facebook.

Local media quoted a separatist official as saying the rebel-held territory, which borders Russia, had been prepared for the suspension and would connect to other sources.

Boris Gryzlov, Moscow’s envoy to the long-running Ukraine peace talks, criticised the move as politically motivated and said Russia would provide power to the affected territory.

Luhansk residents told Reuters by phone that electricity supplies appeared to be working as normal.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision to cut power to the territory was “another step by Ukraine on the road to rejecting territory,” which has been under separatist control since 2014.

Ukraine cut gas supplies to Luhansk in 2015, also blaming unpaid debts, and imposed a trade blockade on the occupied regions in March.

Kiev has accused the area of accumulating 2.6 billion hryvnias ($97.67 million) in unpaid electricity charges.

An American paramedic working for European security watchdog OSCE’s monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine was killed and two others injured on Sunday when their vehicle struck a mine near small village of Pryshyb, closed to Luhansk.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, Editing by Andrew Heavens and Richard Lough)

Top U.S. general in Afghanistan sees Russia sending weapons to Taliban

U.S. Army General John Nicholson (L), commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, and U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (R) hold a news conference at Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan

By Idrees Ali

KABUL (Reuters) – The head of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said on Monday he was “not refuting” reports that Russia was providing support, including weapons, to the Taliban.

General John Nicholson was speaking in Kabul during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

For some time, American officials have complained of what Nicholson once called “malign influence” by Russia in Afghanistan, but Monday’s comments are among the strongest suggestions yet that Moscow is providing arms to the Taliban.

Asked about reports that Russia was providing a range of help, including weapons, to the Taliban, who control large areas of Afghanistan, Nicholson replied: “Oh no, I am not refuting that.”

Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s.

Russia has previously denied providing any material or financial aid to the insurgent group, but has said it maintains ties with Taliban officials in order to push for peace negotiations.

A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that intelligence showed that Russia was providing monetary and weapons support to the Taliban, specifically weapons such as machine guns.

The supply of weapons has accelerated in the past 18 months, the official said.

Mattis, visiting Afghanistan for the first time as President Donald Trump’s defense secretary, said that “any weapons being funneled here from a foreign country would be a violation of international law.”

As recently as late last month, on a visit to London, Mattis had declined to say whether Russian aid had included weapons.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Ralph Boulton and Ian Geoghegan)

Russia complains to U.S. over exclusion from Syria chemical probe

A crater is seen at the site of an airstrike, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has told the United States it regrets Washington’s opposition to letting its inspectors take part in an investigation into a chemical weapons attack in Syria earlier this month, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

It said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the two sides agreed to consider one more time an “objective investigation into the incident” under the aegis of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The U.S. State Department said that during the call Tillerson reiterated to Lavrov his support for the OPCW’s existing investigative mechanism. They also discussed a range of issues, including those covered during Tillerson’s April 11-12 visit to Moscow, the department said in a statement.

The United States accused the Syrian army of carrying out the April 4 attack in which scores of people died from poison gas, and it responded by launching cruise missiles against a Syrian air base.

Russia has defended its ally Damascus and blamed the incident on rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The episode added to a long list of disputes between the two countries and has dashed Russian hopes that ties might improve with Donald Trump in the White House. Trump said last week that relations with Moscow “may be at an all-time low.”

Referring to another irritant in the relationship, the Russian ministry said Lavrov called on Tillerson to hand back “Russian diplomatic property in the USA unlawfully confiscated by the Barack Obama administration.”

Former President Obama expelled 35 suspected Russian spies in December and ordered the Russians to depart two countryside vacation retreats outside Washington and New York that he said were linked to espionage..

The ministry said the parties had agreed to launch a working group soon “to seek ways to get rid of irritants in bilateral relations.”

(writing by Denis Pinchuk; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Cynthia Osterman)

Top U.S. officials to testify in Trump-Russia probe reboot

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), accompanied by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the committee, speaks at a news conference to discuss their probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Friday it had invited FBI, NSA and Obama administration officials to testify as it restarts its investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

After stalling over the committee chairman’s ties to President Donald Trump’s White House and disagreements over who should testify, the bipartisan committee said it sent a letter inviting James Comey, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, to appear behind closed doors on May 2.

A second letter invited three officials who left the government as President Barack Obama’s administration ended – former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates – to appear at a public hearing to be scheduled after May 2.

The planned hearings are the first the committee has announced since its chairman, Republican Representative Devin Nunes, recused himself from the Russia investigation on April 6 after receiving information at the White House about surveillance that swept up some information about members of Trump’s transition team.

Echoing Trump, Nunes suggested that Obama’s administration had handled that information incorrectly.

Nunes remains the committee’s chairman.

TIES TO TRUMP

Comey and Rogers testified in a public hearing on March 20. At that hearing, Comey confirmed for the first time that the FBI was investigating possible ties between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia as Moscow sought to influence the election.

Nunes was a supporter of Trump’s campaign and a member of his transition team. His decision two days after the public hearing to hold a press conference about the information and discuss it with Trump before disclosing it to Democrats raised questions about whether he could lead a credible investigation.

Committee Democrats also were angered when Nunes scrapped a scheduled public hearing with Brennan, Yates and Clapper. A planned closed hearing with Comey and Rogers also was put off.

The House panel is examining whether Russia tried to influence the election in Trump’s favor, mostly by hacking Democratic operatives’ emails and releasing embarrassing information, or possibly by colluding with Trump associates.

Russia denies the allegations, which Trump also dismisses.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is conducting a separate, similar investigation.

Senate investigators currently are interviewing analysts and intelligence agents who prepared public and classified reports in January that concluded that Russia had interfered in last year’s election on Trump’s behalf, an official familiar with the congressional activity said.

At this point they are a long way from scheduling interviews or hearings with any principal witnesses from either the Obama or Trump administrations, the official said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Mary Milliken)

Russian court bans Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremist

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Jehovah’s Witnesses were an “extremist” organization and must disband and hand over all property to the state, local media said.

The religious grouping confirmed the ruling about its “liquidation” in Russia.

“We are greatly disappointed by this development and deeply concerned about how this will affect our religious activity,” Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, said in emailed comments.

“We will appeal this decision, and we hope that our legal rights and protections as a peaceful religious group will be fully restored as soon as possible.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia have 30 days to submit their appeal for consideration by a three-person panel.

Religious life in Russia is dominated by the Orthodox Church, which exerts considerable political influence and enjoys the support of President Vladimir Putin. Some Orthodox scholars view Jehovah’s Witnesses as a ‘totalitarian sect’.

Interfax news agency quoted Sergei Cherepanov, a Jehovah’s Witnesses representative, as saying that the group will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

“We will do everything possible,” he said.

Russian authorities have put several of the group’s publications on a list of banned extremist literature and prosecutors have long cast it as an organization that destroys families, fosters hatred and threatens lives.

The group, a United States-based Christian denomination known for its door-to-door preaching and rejection of military service and blood transfusions, says this description is false.

The religious organization has expanded around the world and has about eight million active followers. It has faced court proceedings in several countries, mostly over its pacifism and rejection of blood transfusions, but Russia has been most outspoken in portraying it as an extremist cult.

The ruling was issued after the justice ministry applied for an order to shut down the group’s national headquarters near St Petersburg.

Its Russian branch, based near St Petersburg, has said a ban would directly affect around 400 of its groups and have an impact on all of its 2,277 religious groups in Russia, where it says it has 175,000 followers.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Ralph Boulton)

Gunman attacks regional Russian security service office, kills two: FSB

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Federal Security Service said on Friday that a gunman had burst into one of its regional offices in the far east of the country and opened fire, killing one of its employees and a visitor.

The incident happened at an FSB office in the Khabarovsk region, which is close to China, and another visitor was injured in the attack. The FSB, the successor organization to the Soviet KGB, said the attacker had been killed.

“An unknown person entered the reception of the FSB’s Khabarovsk regional branch and started shooting at people inside,” the FSB said in a statement.

The FSB said the gunman was a local resident, born in 1999, who belonged to an unnamed nationalist group, the TASS news agency reported, citing an FSB official.

The visitor who was killed and the one who was injured were from former Soviet states outside Russia, according to the security service.

Russia was this month shaken by a suicide bombing of the St Petersburg metro, which killed 16 people. The suspected suicide bomber and his alleged accomplices were from Central Asia, something rights group feared might provoke a backlash.

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Russia metro bombing suspect says he was unwitting accomplice

People mourn next to a memorial site for the victims of a blast in St. Petersburg metro, at Tekhnologicheskiy institut metro station in St. Petersburg, Russia, April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov

By Polina Nikolskaya and Hulkar Isamova

MOSCOW/JALAL-ABAD, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) – The man Russian investigators say orchestrated a suicide bombing on the St Petersburg metro told a court on Tuesday he was an unwitting accomplice in the attack, in which 14 people were killed and scores injured.

Russian investigators said that before the April 3 attack, the suspected suicide bomber, Akbarzhon Jalilov, had spoken by telephone with Abror Azimov, who the investigators said was helping mastermind the attack from a Moscow suburb.

At a preliminary court hearing in Moscow, the suspect, Azimov, said he had participated in the preparation of the attack but only indirectly.

“I did not realize that I was helping with this act,” he said, referring to the April 3 blast. “I was being given instructions.” Dressed in a black jacket and checked shirt, he spoke from a metal cage in the courtroom.

Earlier in the court hearing, a state investigator told the court that Azimov had confessed to having taking part in preparations for the attack, but the suspect said he had not confessed to that.

Since the attack, Russian authorities have detained nine people suspected of involvement. All are originally from Central Asia, a region of five mainly Muslim states that border Afghanistan, Iran and China.

Abror Azimov is originally from the city of Jalal-Abad, in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan. His wife said on Tuesday that Azimov and his brother, Akrom, had been working in a sushi restaurant in the Moscow region. He had been due to return home to Kyrgyzstan in April, but did not make the trip.

ISLAMIST TRAINING CAMP?

Her husband was “calm and well-adjusted”, the wife, her head covered by a scarf, told Reuters in Jalal-Abad.

She said his brother Akrom had returned home from Moscow because he was sick, adding that he had been taken from hospital for questioning by Kyrgyz state security.

Russia’s Ren TV broadcaster, citing law enforcement agencies, reported that Azimov, along with the St Petersburg suicide bomber, had attended a radical Islamist training camp. It did not say where the camp was located.

Azimov’s wife and another brother, Bilol, told Reuters he had traveled to Turkey but was only in transit there on his way home after an abortive attempt to find work in South Korea. The family, though Muslims, rarely went to the mosque, Bilol said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on a day that Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting St Petersburg, his native city.

If it is proven that the bombing was carried out by radical Islamists, that could pose a test for Putin’s policy of military intervention in Syria. The Islamic State group has threatened to take revenge for Russian air attacks on Syria by shedding blood on Russian soil.

(Reporting by Polina Nikolskaya; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin and Gareth Jones)

Trump aide McMaster: Time for tough talks with Russia

Newly appointed National Security Adviser Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster listens as U.S. President Donald Trump makes the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida U.S. February 20, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House national security adviser H. R. McMaster said on Sunday it was time for tough talks with Russia over its support for Syria’s government and its “subversive” actions in Europe.

Speaking on ABC News’ “This Week” program, McMaster said Russia’s backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has perpetuated a civil war and created a crisis that has bled over into Iraq, neighboring countries and Europe.

“So Russia’s support for that kind of horrible regime, that is a party to that kind of a conflict, is something that has to be drawn into question as well as Russia’s subversive actions in Europe,” McMaster said. “And so I think it’s time though, now, to have those tough discussions Russia.”

The United States early this month bombed a Syrian air base in reaction to what Washington said was a nerve gas attack by the Assad government that killed at least 70 people in rebel-held territory.

Syria denies it carried out the attack and Russia has warned that the cruise missile strikes could have “extremely serious” consequences. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Moscow last week as tensions grew.

“Well, when relations are at the lowest point, there’s nowhere to go but up. So I think the secretary’s visit to Russia was perfectly timed,” McMaster said.

A January U.S. intelligence report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election said that Russia also has sought to influence elections across Europe.

Current and former U.S. official and analysts say Moscow has targeted elections in France, Germany and elsewhere through a combination of propaganda, cyber hacking, funding of candidates and other means with the overall goal of weakening the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the trans-Atlantic alliance.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani and Warren Strobel; Editing by Richard Chang)