Tag: Russia-Ukraine crisis

G7 pledges security deals with Ukraine as its NATO membership remains elusive

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed fresh commitments of weapons and ammunition to fight Russia’s invasion even as he expressed disappointment over the lack of a clear path for his country to join NATO as the alliance wrapped up its annual summit on Wednesday.

“The Ukrainian delegation is bringing home a significant security victory for the Ukraine, for our country, for our people, for our children,” he said while flanked by U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders from the Group of Seven most powerful democratic nations.

A joint declaration issued by the G-7 lays the groundwork for each nation to negotiate agreements to help Ukraine bolster its military over the long term. Mr. Zelenskyy described the initiative as a bridge toward eventual NATO membership and a deterrent against Russia.

“Our support will last long into the future,” Mr. Biden said. “We’re going to help Ukraine build a strong, capable defense.”

The announcement came as NATO leaders launched a new forum for deepening ties with Ukraine, known as the NATO-Ukraine Council. It’s intended to serve as a permanent body where the alliance’s 31 members and Ukraine can hold consultations and call for meetings in emergency situations.

The setting is part of NATO’s effort to bring Ukraine as close as possible to the military alliance without actually joining it. On Tuesday, the leaders said in their communique summarising the summit’s conclusions that Ukraine can join “when allies agree and conditions are met.”

“Today we meet as equals,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday at a news conference with Mr. Zelenskyy. “I look forward to the day we meet as allies.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Wednesday it had shot down 11 Russian drones overnight in a second consecutive night of attacks on the capital Kyiv. The statement did not say if other drones were shot down in other parts of Ukraine.

Norway said on Wednesday it would supply ultra-light drones and components for air defence missile systems to Ukraine, specifying details for a military aid package announced this week.

On Tuesday Norway announced it was increasing the size of its military aid to Ukraine this year, adding an additional 2.5 billion kroner ($240 million).

The ambiguous plan for Ukraine’s future membership reflects the challenges of reaching consensus among the alliance’s current members while the war continues, and has frustrated Mr. Zelenskyy even as he expressed appreciation for military hardware being promised by Group of Seven industrial nations.

“The results of the summit are good, but if there were an invitation, that would be ideal,” Mr. Zelenskyy said, through a translator. He added that joining NATO would be “a serious motivating factor for Ukrainian society” at it resists Russia.

Despite his disappointment, the Ukrainian leader was more conciliatory on Wednesday than the previous day, when he harshly criticised the lack of a timeline for membership as “unprecedented and absurd.”

“NATO needs us just as we need NATO,” he said alongside Mr. Stoltenberg.

Ukraine’s future membership was the most divisive and emotionally charged issue at this year’s summit. In essence, Western countries are willing to keep sending weapons to help Ukraine do the job that NATO was designed to do — hold the line against a Russian invasion — but not allow Ukraine to join its ranks and benefit from its security during the war.

“We have to stay outside of this war but be able to support Ukraine. We managed that very delicate balancing act for the last 17 months. It’s to the benefit of everyone that we maintain that balancing act,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said Wednesday.

Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins, whose country lies on NATO’s eastern flank and has a long, troubled history with Russia, said he would have preferred more for Ukraine.

“There will always be a difference of flavor of how fast you would want to go,” he said. However, Karins added, “at the end of it, what everyone gets, including Ukraine, and what Moscow sees is we are all very united.”

Amanda Sloat, senior director of European affairs for the U.S. National Security Council, defended the summit’s decisions.

“I would agree that the communique is unprecedented, but I see that in a positive way,” she told reporters on Wednesday.

Ms. Sloat noted that Ukraine will not need to submit a “membership action plan” as it seeks to join NATO, although she said “there are still governance and security sector reforms that are going to be required.” The action plan is usually a key step in the process that involves advice and assistance for countries seeking to join.

Symbols of support for Ukraine are common around Vilnius, where the country’s blue-and-yellow flags hang from buildings and are pasted inside windows. One sign cursed Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another urged NATO leaders to “hurry up” their assistance for Ukraine.

However, there’s been more caution inside the summit itself, especially from Biden, who has explicitly said he doesn’t think Ukraine is ready to join NATO. There are concerns that the country’s democracy is unstable and its corruption remains too deeply rooted.

Under Article 5 of the NATO charter, members are obligated to defend each other from attack, which could swiftly draw the U.S. and other nations into direct fighting with Russia.

Defining an end to hostilities is no easy task. Officials have declined to define the goal, which could suggest a negotiated ceasefire or Ukraine reclaiming all occupied territory. Either way, Putin would essentially have veto power over Ukraine’s NATO membership by prolonging the conflict.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned on Wednesday of bubbling frustration over Mr. Zelenskyy’s demands, adding that “people want to see gratitude” for Western military support. Wallace also said he’s heard “grumbles” from some U.S. lawmakers that “we’re not Amazon.”

“I mean, that’s true,” Mr. Wallace said, according to multiple British media outlets. He recalled telling the Ukrainians the same thing when he visited the country last year and was presented with a list of weapon requests. “I’m not Amazon.”

At the same time, the new G-7 framework would include long-term commitments to Ukraine’s security.

The British Foreign Ministry said the G-7 would “set out how allies will support Ukraine over the coming years to end the war and deter and respond to any future attack.” The ministry added that the framework marks the first time that this many countries have agreed to a “comprehensive long-term security arrangement of this kind with another country.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement that supporting Ukraine “will send a strong signal to President Putin and return peace to Europe.”

Moscow reacted harshly to the G7 plan.

“We consider this extremely ill-judged and potentially very dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He added that “by providing security guarantees to Ukraine, they’re infringing on Russia’s security.”

Ukraine has been let down by security guarantees in the past. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the U.S. and U.K agreed that “none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense” in exchange for Kyiv transferring its Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia.

But in 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and seized swathes of territory in the south and east. In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion in an attempt to topple Kyiv, leading to the current bloody conflict.

Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters that the Budapest Memorandum was no help without NATO membership and its mutual defense agreement.

“In fact, Ukraine was left with that document and defended itself alone,” he said.

Although international summits are often tightly scripted, this one in Vilnius has seesawed between conflict and compromise.

At first leaders appeared to be deadlocked over Sweden’s bid for membership in the alliance. However, Turkey unexpectedly agreed to drop its objections on Monday, the night before the summit formally began. The deal led to boasts of success from leaders who were eager for a display of solidarity in Vilnius.

“This summit is already historic before it has started,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.

Mr. Erdogan has not commented publicly on the deal, over Sweden’s membership, even during a Tuesday meeting with Mr. Biden where Mr. Biden referenced “the agreement you reached yesterday.”

However, Mr. Erdogan appeared eager to develop his relationship with Mr. Biden.

The Turkish President has been seeking advanced American fighter jets and a path toward membership in the European Union. The White House has expressed support for both, but publicly insisted that the issues were not related to Sweden’s membership in NATO.

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Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of widespread flooding

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The wall of a major dam in a part of southern Ukraine that Moscow controls collapsed on June 6 after a reported explosion, sending water gushing downriver and prompting dire warnings of ecological damage as officials from both sides in the war ordered residents to evacuate.

Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam and hydroelectric power station, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area.

The fallout could have far-reaching consequences: flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe’s largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed.

The dam break added a stunning new dimension to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month. Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of frontline in the east and south of Ukraine.

It was not immediately clear whether either side benefits from the damage to the dam, since both Russian-controlled and Ukrainian-held lands are at risk of flooding. The damage could also potentially hinder Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south, while at the same time Russia depends on the dam to supply water to the Crimea region it annexed illegally in 2014.

A general view of the Nova Kakhovka dam that was breached in Kherson region, on Ukraine June 6, 2023 in this screen grab taken from a video obtained by Reuters.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Amid official outrage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he convened an urgent meeting of the National Security Council. He alleged that Russian forces set off a blast inside the dam structure at 2.50 a.m. (2350 GMT) and said some 80 settlements were in danger.

Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom said in a Telegram statement that the damage to the dam “could have negative consequences” for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is Europe’s biggest, but wrote that for now the situation is “controllable.”

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement there was “no immediate risk to the safety of the plant,” which requires water for its cooling system.

It said that IAEA staff on site have been told the dam level is falling by 5 centimeters (2 inches) an hour. At that rate, the supply from the reservoir should last a few days, it said.

The plant also has alternative sources of water, including a large cooling pond than can provide water “for some months,” the statement said.

Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the dam’s failure could unleash 18 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live.

The World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, estimated that nearly 100 villages and towns would be flooded. It also reckoned that the water level would start dropping only after five-seven days.

A total collapse in the dam would wash away much of the broad river’s left bank, according to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, an organization of environmental activists and experts documenting the war’s environmental effects.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that “a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours.”

Villages ordered to evacuate

Videos posted online began testifying to the spillover. One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway; another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry called for residents of 10 villages on the Dnipro’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances, and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.

The Russian-installed mayor of occupied Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said it was being evacuated as water poured into the city.

Damaged buildings are seen as the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached in Kherson region, Ukraine on June 6, 2023 in this screen grab taken from a video obtained by Reuters

Damaged buildings are seen as the Nova Kakhovka dam was breached in Kherson region, Ukraine on June 6, 2023 in this screen grab taken from a video obtained by Reuters
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. that “the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror,” and warned that water will reach “critical levels” within five hours.

Ukraine’s state hydro power generating company wrote in a statement that “The station cannot be restored.” Ukrhydroenergo also claimed that Russia blew up the station from inside the engine room.

Leontyev, the Russian-appointed mayor, said Tuesday that numerous Ukrainian strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant destroyed its valves, and “water from the Kakhovka reservoir began to uncontrollably flow downstream.” Leontyev added that damage to the station was beyond repair, and it would have to be rebuilt.

Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Mr. Zelensky predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.

Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through — and over — the Kakhovka dam.

In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.

By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.



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Russia claims Ukraine is launching major attacks; Kyiv accuses Moscow of misinformation

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Ukrainian forces were making a major effort to punch through Russian defensive lines in southeast Ukraine for a second day, a Moscow-installed official claimed on June 5 as Russia’s Defence Ministry asserted it had foiled an assault in another illegally annexed region of the invaded country.

Kyiv authorities suggested the attack reports were a Russian misinformation ruse as the Ukrainian military prepares for a widely anticipated counteroffensive.

Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russia-backed administration of Ukraine’s partly occupied Zaporizhzhia province, claimed fighting resumed there early on June 5 after Russian defences beat back a Ukrainian advance the previous day.

“The enemy threw an even bigger force into the attack than yesterday,” and the new attempt to break through the front line was “more large-scale and organised,” Mr. Rogov said, adding: “A battle is underway.”

Mr. Rogov interpreted the Ukraine military movements as part of an effort by Kyiv to reach the Sea of Azov coast and cut the land corridor to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Analysts have long viewed that strategy as likely because it would cut the Russian forces in two and severely strain supplies to Crimea, which has served as a key Russian military hub in the war that started in February 2022.

Also Read | Ukraine shelling continues in Russia’s Belgorod as thousands relocated: governor

Mr. Rogov’s comments came after Moscow also claimed to have thwarted large Ukrainian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, another of the four provinces that President Vladimir Putin claimed as Russian territory last fall and partially controls.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed it had pushed back a “large-scale” assault on June 4 at five points in Donetsk province.

The claims could not be independently verified, and Ukrainian officials did not confirm any assaults, but the reports fuelled speculation that a major Ukrainian ground operation could be underway as part of the anticipated counteroffensive.

A video published by the Ukrainian Defence Ministry showed soldiers putting a finger to their lips in a sign to keep quiet. “Plans love silence,” it said on the screen. “There will be no announcement of the start.”

The Center for Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram that Russian forces were “stepping up their information and psychological operations.”

“In order to demoralise Ukrainians and mislead the community (including their own population), Russian propagandists will spread false information about the counteroffensive, its directions and the losses of the Ukrainian Army. Even if there is no counteroffensive,” a statement on Telegram read.

Ukrainian officials have kept Russia guessing about when and where it might launch a counteroffensive, or even whether it had already started. A possible counteroffensive, using advanced weapons supplied by Western allies, could provide a major morale boost for Ukrainians 15 months after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Recent military activity, including drone attacks on Moscow, cross-border raids into Russia and sabotage and drone attacks on infrastructure behind Russian lines, has unnerved Russians. Analysts say those actions may represent the start of the counteroffensive.

The Russian military on June 5 claimed to have repelled the latest Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Belgorod region, on the border in Ukraine. Russians who purport to be fighting alongside Ukrainian forces said they attacked on Sunday. They were driven back by air strikes and artillery fire, according to the Russian Defence Ministry.

Driving out the Kremlin’s forces is a daunting challenge for Kyiv’s planners. Russia has built extensive defensive lines, including trenches, minefields and anti-tank obstacles.

Ukraine could launch simultaneous pushes in different areas of the front line that stretches for some 1,100 kilometres, analysts say.

Michael Clark, the former head of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said the “increased tempo” of activity in recent weeks probably marked the start of the counteroffensive and that June is likely to see the start of Ukraine’s ground operation.

“There’s something going on,” he told the BBC.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that 250 Ukrainian personnel were killed in the fighting in Donetsk province, and 16 Ukrainian tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured combat vehicles were destroyed.

“The enemy’s goal was to break through our defences in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front,” Mr. Konashenkov said. “The enemy did not achieve its tasks. It had no success.”

The Russian Defence Ministry said the alleged Donetsk attack started on June 4 morning. It was unclear why it waited until early on June 5 to announce it.

Ukraine often waits until the completion of its military operations to confirm its actions, imposing news blackouts in the interim.

For months, Ukrainian officials have spoken of plans to launch a counteroffensive to reclaim territory Russia has occupied since invading the country on February 24, 2022, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.

At least two factors have been at play in the timing: better ground conditions for the movement of troops and equipment after the winter, and the deployment of more advanced Western weapons and training of Ukrainian troops to use them.

Ukraine’s Western allies have sent the country more than 65 billion euros ($70 billion) in military aid to help it fight Russia.

The Russian Defence Ministry spokesman said Ukraine used six mechanized and two tank battalions in the Donetsk attacks. The Ministry released a video claiming to show destruction of some of the equipment in a field.

In a rare specific mention of the presence of Russia’s top military leaders in battlefield operations, Mr. Konashenkov said the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, “was at one of the forward command posts.”

Announcing Gerasimov’s direct involvement could be a response to criticism by some Russian military bloggers and by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, that Russia’s military brass hasn’t been visible enough at the front or taken sufficient control or responsibility for their country’s military operations in Ukraine.

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Zelensky to join G7 at Hiroshima summit as leaders prepare to unveil new Russia sanctions

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Leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies huddled Friday to discuss new ways to punish Russia for its 15-month invasion of Ukraine, days before President Volodymyr Zelensky joins the Group of Seven summit in person on Sunday.

Zelensky will be making his furthest trip from of his war-torn country as leaders are set to unveil new sanctions on Russia for its invasion. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, confirmed on national television that Zelensky would attend the summit.

“We were sure that our president would be where Ukraine needed him, in any part of the world, to solve the issue of stability of our country,” Danilov said Friday. “There will be very important matters decided there, so physical presence is a crucial thing to defend our interests”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats against Ukraine, along with North Korea’s months-long barrage of missile tests and China’s rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal, have resonated with Japan’s push to make nuclear disarmament a major part of the summit. World leaders on Friday visited a peace park dedicated to the tens of thousands who died in the world’s first wartime atomic bomb detonation.

Japanese leader Fumio Kishida said he invited Zelensky to the G7 Summit during his visit to Kyiv in March.

Zelensky is also set to appear virtually at a Friday meeting of G7 leaders, where they are to be updated on battlefield conditions and agree to toughen their efforts to constrain Moscow’s war effort.

Enforcing sanctions on Russia

After group photos near the city’s iconic bombed-out dome, a wreath-laying and a symbolic tree planting, a new round of sanctions were to be unveiled against Moscow, with a focus on redoubling efforts to enforce existing sanctions meant to stifle Russia’s war effort and hold accountable those behind it, a U.S. official said. Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, but there are questions about the effectiveness of the financial penalties.

The U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the U.S. component of the actions would blacklist about 70 Russian and third-country entities involved in Russia’s defence production, and sanction more than 300 individuals, entities, aircraft and vessels.

The official added that the other G7 nations would undertake similar steps to further isolate Russia and to undermine its ability to wage war in Ukraine. Details were to emerge over the course of the weekend summit.

The European Union was focused on closing the door on loopholes and plans to restrict trade in Russian diamonds, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, told reporters early Friday.

He said the G7 would also try to convey to leaders of countries that are non-member guests at the summit why it’s so important to enforce sanctions.

Nuclear disarmament

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in parliament, wants nuclear disarmament to be a major focus of discussions, and he formally started the summit at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. The visit by world leaders to a park dedicated to preserving reminders of Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, provided a striking backdrop to the start the summit. An estimated 1,40,000 people were killed in the attack, and a fast-dwindling number of now-elderly survivors have ensured that Hiroshima has become synonymous with anti-nuclear peace efforts.

“Honestly, I have big doubts if Mr. Kishida, who is pursuing a military buildup and seeking to revise the pacifist constitution, can really discuss nuclear disarmament,” Sueichi Kido, a 83-year-old “hibakusha” or survivor of the Nagasaki explosion, told The Associated Press. “But because they are meeting in Hiroshima I do have a sliver of hope that they will have positive talks and make a tiny step toward nuclear disarmament.”

On Thursday night, Kishida opened the global diplomacy by sitting down with President Joe Biden after Biden’s arrival at a nearby military base. Kishida also held talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before the three-day gathering of leaders opens.

The Japan-U.S. alliance is the “very foundation of peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kishida told Biden in opening remarks. Japan, facing threats from authoritarian China, Russia and North Korea, has been expanding its military but also relies on 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and U.S. military might.

“We very much welcome that the cooperation has evolved in leaps and bounds,” Kishida said.

Biden, who greeted U.S. and Japanese troops at nearby Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni before meeting with Kishida, said: “When our countries stand together, we stand stronger, and I believe the whole world is safer when we do.”

As G7 attendees made their way to Hiroshima, Moscow unleashed yet another aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital. Loud explosions thundered through Kyiv during the early hours, marking the ninth time this month that Russian air raids have targeted the city after weeks of relative quiet.

“Discussions about the battlefield”

“The crisis in Ukraine: I’m sure that’s what the conversation is going to start with,” said Matthew P. Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said there will be “discussions about the battlefield” in Ukraine and on the “state of play on sanctions and the steps that the G7 will collectively commit to on enforcement in particular.”

The United States has frozen Russian Central Bank funds, restricted banks’ access to SWIFT — the dominant system for global financial transactions — and sanctioned thousands of Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families.

The Group of Seven nations collectively imposed a $60 per-barrel price cap on Russian oil and diesel last year, which the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday defended in a new progress report, stating that the cap has been successful in suppressing Russian oil revenues. Treasury cites Russian Ministry of Finance data showing that the Kremlin’s oil revenues from January to March this year were more than 40% lower than last year.

The economic impact of sanctions depends largely on the extent to which a targeted country is able to circumvent them, according to a recent Congressional Research Service repor t. So for the past month, U.S. Treasury officials have traveled across Europe and Central Asia to press countries that still do business with the Kremlin to cut their financial ties.

“The challenge is to make sure the sanctions are painful against Russia, not against ourselves,” said Michel. “It’s very clear that each package is more difficult than the previous one and requires more political effort to make a decision.”

G7 leaders and invited guests from several other counties are also expected to discuss how to deal with China’s growing assertiveness and military buildup as concerns rise that it could could try to seize Taiwan by force, sparking a wider conflict. China claims the self-governing island as its own and its ships and warplanes regularly patrol near it.

Dueling diplomacy

Security was tight in Hiroshima, with thousands of police deployed throughout the city. A small group of protesters was considerably outnumbered by police as they gathered Wednesday evening beside the ruins of the Atomic Peace Dome memorial, holding signs including one which read “No G7 Imperialist Summit!”

In a bit of dueling diplomacy, Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting the leaders of the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a two-day summit in the Chinese city of Xi’an.

The leaders are due to discuss efforts to strengthen the global economy and address rising prices that are squeezing families and government budgets around the world, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The debate over raising the debt limit in the U.S., the world’s largest economy, has threatened to overshadow the G7 talks. Biden plans to hurry back to Washington after the summit for debt negotiations, scrapping planned meetings in Papua New Guinea and Australia.

The British prime minister arrived in Japan earlier Thursday and paid a visit to the JS Izumo, a ship that can carry helicopters and fighter jets able to take off and land vertically.

During their meeting Thursday, Sunak and Kishida announced a series of agreements on issues including defense; trade and investment; technology, and climate change, Sunak’s office said.

The G7 includes Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union.

A host of other countries have been invited to the summit in hopes of strengthening ties to non-G7 countries while shoring up support for efforts like isolating Russia.

Leaders from Australia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Korea are among the guests. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to join by video link.

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As Ukrainian attacks pick up inside Russia, the war is coming home for Putin

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For months after the Ukraine war began, which Russia still calls a “special military operation”, many ordinary Russians, particularly those whose families were spared from the mobilisation, saw the conflict as something that’s happening far away from home. Not any more: with drones attacking the Kremlin, the seat of power in the Russian capital, just a few days before the Second World War Victory Day celebrations, the war is coming home for Russians.

The drones were shot down by the Russian military at 2.30 a.m. on May 3, just over the Kremlin’s Senate Palace, which hosts the President’s office and apartment. It was inside the Palace, President Vladimir Putin received his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on March 21.

The incident which the Kremlin classified as a “planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt targeting the President ‘‘ was immediately deemed as a huge insult to Moscow, and Mr. Putin personally. Ukraine denied involvement — as it did on all similar occasions in recent months — and alleged that the Kremlin staged a “false-flag operation” to justify an escalation in the war and distract attention from Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive.

A view shows a part of a suicide drone Geran, which local authorities consider to be Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Shahed-131/136, shot down during a Russian overnight strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine May 4, 2023. The inscription on the part reads: ‘For Kremlin’.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

“In my opinion, the version that the attack was staged by Russia is out of question,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told  The Hindu. Given the technical aspect of the attack, he said he had been expecting something like this for a year now, and I think such attacks will continue. “As commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions are getting more and more common, which means a drone can be assembled in a garage, it will soon be available not only to state actors and such highly motivated groups as ISIS, but also to individuals,” Mr. Pukhov noted.

When asked whether Moscow’s air defence capabilities should be questioned, experts suggested that most air defence systems are developed to perform against aircraft and ballistic missiles, while cruise missiles and UAVs are more difficult to shoot down. “Debating whether the air defence was effective or not in this particular case is like reasoning whether the glass is half full or half empty. We just have to be prepared for the fact that such attacks will be numerous all over the world,” Mr. Pukhov added.

U.S. officials claimed that they had no foreknowledge about the drone attack and later called the Russian claim that the U.S. had directed Ukraine to carry out the attack “ridiculous”. Previously, the U.S., reacting to the killing of Daria Dugina, a 30-years-old journalist and a daughter of writer and political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who is known for his intellectual influence on President Putin, had voiced concerns that Ukrainian attacks inside Russia could widen the conflict. More recently, the  Washington Post reported, citing a classified report from the U.S. National Security Agency, that Ukraine’s plans to attack Moscow on February 24, the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion, were postponed “at Washington’s request”.

Drones and explosives

Ukraine’s strikes deep inside Russian territory intensified in the past few days, which many experts related to Kyiv’s upcoming counteroffensive.

The Russian flag flies on the dome of the Kremlin Senate building behind Spasskaya Tower, while the roof shows what appears to be marks from the recent drone incident, in central Moscow, Russia, May 4, 2023.

The Russian flag flies on the dome of the Kremlin Senate building behind Spasskaya Tower, while the roof shows what appears to be marks from the recent drone incident, in central Moscow, Russia, May 4, 2023.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

On April 29, a fuel depot in the port city of Sevastopol, the capital of Crimea, caught fire after a drone attack. On May 1, a power line pole was blown up in the Gatchina region near St. Petersburg. On May 2, in the Bryansk region, railway tracks were damaged by detonation of an explosive device, derailing freight trains, in two separate incidents. On the same day, an aeroplane-type drone with explosives (VOG-17) attempted to attack the electrical substation in Belgorod region. Later that day, several other UAVs dropped explosives in various parts of the region, injuring one person. On May 3, a drone attacked a petroleum storage tank in the village of Volna in the Krasnodar region, and the following night, two oil refineries were attacked in Krasnodar and Rostov regions.

In December, Ukraine carried out a successful attack on Engels military airbase, near the city of Saratov, about 730 km southeast of Moscow. Residents of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine have also been witnessing artillery shelling and sabotage attacks on critical infrastructure almost on a daily basis after Russian troops were ousted from the Northern Kharkiv region in September last year.

In March, a car carrying three children was shot at by pro-Ukrainian activists in Bryansk, killing two adults and injuring a 10-year old boy who, despite being wounded, led two minor girls to safety in the forest.

Ukraine hasn’t officially taken responsibility for any of these attacks. However, in January, the adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mikhail Podolyak, said in an interview with Russian opposition journalist Michael Naki that “escalation in the Russian domestic market will be inevitable” and that “in particular, cities that are “pampered” and “lazy” and thought they lived in a different reality, will be affected. Such cities as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg”.

The killings of Daria Dugina in Moscow and Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin), a military blogger and writer, in the centre of St. Petersburg proved Ukraine’s intentions. Tatarsky was killed by an explosive mounted into a statuette gifted to him by Daria Trepova (she was arrested the following day and is currently under trial), who is believed to have been recruited by Ukrainians. Over 30 people were injured in the attack.

No retaliation different from a new missile attack on Ukraine, and no large public outcry followed — despite rising casualties. While Western media was focusing rather on Tatarsky’s ambiguous biography than the scale of the attack, Russian media, too, didn’t follow up on the story for long — except a few local outlets that interviewed other victims.

Similarly, the Kremlin attack was also downplayed at home. Some TV channels covered the incident without playing the video of the drone being shot over the Kremlin. The next day’s front pages, too, didn’t carry the images of the drones over the Kremlin. The stories about the attack were buried deep inside.

From red to maroon

The humiliating footage of a drone crashing over the dome of the Senate Palace of the Kremlin raised questions of Moscow’s red lines, yet again.

Russian military bloggers and public figures actively supporting Russia’s “special operation” have noted, sarcastically, that the Kremlin attack was “a mockery” of its red lines, compared to the shelling of Russia-controlled Donbass region, leading to deaths and injuries on a daily basis, or the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline and the Crimean bridge, or the assassination of Russian journalists inside Russia.

Reacting to the attack, prominent politicians such as Mikhail Sheremet, State Duma deputy from Crimea, and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s ex-President and Prime Minister who is currently Deputy Chairman of the Security Council, called for a strike on the residence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. The speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, called for recognising Ukraine “a terrorist state” (the initiative is already being discussed by legislators with no outcome so far) and demanded the use of weapons “that can stop and destroy the Kyiv regime”.

Dmitry Solonnikov, director of the St. Petersburg-based Institute of Modern State Development, in a conversation with  The Hindu, criticised Russian politicians and public speakers for “intimidating with strikes of retaliation”, saying such comments only harm Russia’s reputation both outside the country and in the eyes of society. “Russia hasn’t practically responded to such provocations before, and the only response to crossing all the “red lines” would be a complete victory in the “special military operation”, with the fulfilment of the tasks set by the President of Russia,” he said.

Speaking about the limited reaction by the public to the ongoing attacks, Mr. Solonnikov pointed out that the Kremlin initially made a mistake in positioning the Ukraine conflict to Russian society. “Painting the conflict as some limited military operation, and attempting to show that life hasn’t changed, with large concerts and celebrations being held in Moscow, was a mistake. The awareness should have been created, that this is a life-and-death struggle,” he said.

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Morning Digest: May 2, 2023

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India leads five countries named as the “Laundromat” countries that buy Russian oil and sell processed products to European countries, thus sidestepping European sanctions against Russia, says a Helsinki-based group. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

India leads ‘Laundromat’ countries buying Russian crude and selling oil products to Europe: report

India leads five countries named as the “Laundromat” countries that buy Russian oil and sell processed products to European countries, thus sidestepping European sanctions against Russia, says a Helsinki-based group that cited the latest figures for the first quarter of 2023. The report accused Indian sellers and European buyers of possibly “circumventing sanctions” by selling crude products from a refinery in Gujarat that is co-owned by Russian oil company Rosneft.

Yellen says U.S. could hit debt ceiling as soon as June 1

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress on May 1 that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit as early as June 1, if the body does not raise or suspend the debt limit before then. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains a burden on U.S. economic growth, Treasury officials say the debate over the debt ceiling poses the greatest risk to the U.S. financial position.

Inaugural ASEAN-India maritime exercise in South China Sea from May 2-8

In a further step, in the expanding India-ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) military cooperation, the maiden ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise (AIME) is set to begin on May 2 with war games in South China Sea.  Navy Chief Adm. R. Hari Kumar is in Singapore for the exercise as well as to take part in the International Maritime Defence Exhibition (IMDEX-23) and International Maritime Security Conference (IMSC) being hosted by Singapore.

U.P. urban local body polls: India’s border with Nepal to be sealed Tuesday

India’s border with Nepal will be sealed on May 2, 48-hours before urban local body polls here, to prevent anti-social elements from crossing the boundary and vitiating the election atmosphere, officials said. Urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in two phases — on Thursday (May 4) and May 11. The votes will be counted on May 13. Maharajganj will go to the polls during the first phase of elections on Thursday.

Centre bans 14 apps in J&K citing use by terror organisations

The Union Government instructed service providers to ban 14 applications in Jammu and Kashmir, following recommendations by the Ministry of Home Affairs, officials said. Most of the apps are communication platforms that allow encrypted messaging, which the government said has been used by terror organisations in the region. The list of apps was determined after authorities examined phones used by detained operatives, an official said.

Can hang me but don’t stop wrestling activities: Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh

Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said on May 1 that ever since the top wrestlers of the country began protesting, all sports related activities had come to a standstill. Speaking to the media, Mr. Singh said, “Wrestling activities have come to a standstill since the last four months, I say hang me, but don’t stop wrestling activities and don’t play with the children’s future. Cadet nationals should be allowed to take place, whoever is organising it, either Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, but don’t stop the wrestling activities.”

May Day: World’s workers rally, France sees pension anger

People squeezed by inflation and demanding economic justice took to streets across Asia and Europe to mark May Day on May 1, in an outpouring of worker discontent from Tokyo to Pakistan to France not seen since before the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns. While May Day is marked around the world as a celebration of labour rights, this year’s rallies tapped into broader frustrations

Ludhiana gas leak: Night-long efforts undertaken to decontaminate affected area, says official

A portion of the Giaspura locality in Punjab’s Ludhiana where 11 people died allegedly after inhaling toxic gas remained cordoned off on May 1 while the district authorities said the affected area underwent a night-long decontamination process. Eleven people, including three children, died after allegedly inhaling toxic gas in the city’s thickly populated Giaspura locality on Sunday, with high levels of Hydrogen sulphide detected in the air and authorities suspecting that it emanated from a sewer.

Japan to train 1,000 Indian engineers before transfer of bullet train tech

Up to 1,000 Indian engineers will be trained by Japanese experts before starting work on the High-Speed Rail Track system for Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Rail corridor (MAHSR). “Up to 20 Japanese experts will impart intensive training to the Indian engineers, supervisors and technicians and certify their skills. This will also help in ‘Transfer of Technology’ of Japanese HSR track system,” said Rajendra Prasad, MD, NHSRCL.

Despite truce, Sudan near ‘breaking point’, says UN

Gun battles and explosions again rocked Sudan’s capital on May 1 despite the latest truce formally agreed between the warring parties as the UN warned the humanitarian crisis had brought the country near its “breaking point”. More than 500 people have been reported killed since fighting erupted on April 15 between Sudan’s Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Russia missile attack on Ukraine injures 34, damages homes

Russia launched its second large salvo of missiles at Ukraine in recent days early May 1, damaging buildings and wounding at least 34 people in the eastern city of Pavlohrad but failing to hit Kyiv, officials said. Eighteen cruise missiles were fired in total from the Murmansk region and the Caspian region, and 15 of them were intercepted, said Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

LSG vs RCB: Bangalore beats Lucknow by 18 runs in low-scoring encounter

Aided by KL Rahul’s injury early in the match, Royal Challengers Bangalore did just enough to eke out an 18-run win over Lucknow Super Giants in a low-scoring Indian Premier League game in Lucknow on May 1. LSG skipper Rahul pulled his right thigh muscle in the second over of RCB innings while trying to stop a boundary and came out to bat only towards the end, which acted in favour of the visitors.

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Russian missile and drone attack in Ukraine kills 22 people

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Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine early on April 28, killing at least 22 people, almost all of them when two missiles slammed into an apartment building in a terrifying nighttime attack, officials said. Three children were among the dead.

The missile attacks included the first one against Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in nearly two months, although there were no reports of any targets hit.

The city government said Ukraine’s air force intercepted 11 cruise missiles and two unmanned aerial vehicles over Kyiv.

The strikes on the nine-story residential building in central Ukraine occurred in Uman, a city located around 215 kilometers (134 miles) south of Kyiv. Twenty people died in that attack, according to the Interior Ministry. They included two 10-year-old children and a toddler.

Also read: Zelenskyy slams ‘barbaric’ Russian strike on museum

Another of the victims was a 75-year-old woman who lived in a neighbouring building and suffered internal bleeding from the huge blast’s shock wave, according to emergency personnel at the scene.

The Ukrainian national police said 17 people were wounded and three children were rescued from the rubble. Nine were hospitalised.

The bombardment was nowhere near the war’s sprawling front lines or active combat zones in eastern Ukraine, where a grinding war of attrition has taken hold. Moscow has frequently launched long-range missile attacks during the 14-month war, often indiscriminately hitting civilian areas.

Ukrainian officials and analysts have alleged such strikes are part of a deliberate intimidation strategy by the Kremlin.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the long-range cruise missiles launched overnight were aimed at places where Ukrainian military reserve units were staying before their deployment to the battlefield.

“The strike has achieved its goal. All the designated facilities have been hit,” Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry’s spokesperson, said. He didn’t mention any specific areas or residential buildings getting hit.

Survivors of the Uman strikes recounted terrifying moments as the missiles hit when it still was dark outside.

Halyna, a building resident, said she and her husband were covered in glass by the blast. They saw flames outside their window and scrambled out, but first Halyna checked whether her friend in a neighbouring apartment was OK.

“I was calling, calling her (on the phone), but she didn’t pick up. I even rang the doorbell, but still no answer,” she told The Associated Press.

She used the spare keys from her friend’s apartment and went inside to check on her.

She found her lying dead on her apartment floor.

Halyna refused to provide her last name out of security concerns.

Another building resident, Olha Turina, told the AP that glass from the explosion flew everywhere.

Turina, whose husband is fighting on the front lines, said one of her child’s classmates was missing.

“I don’t know where they are, I don’t know if they are alive,” she said. “I don’t know why we have to go through all this. We never bothered anyone.”

Three body bags lay next to the building as smoke continued to billow hours after the attack.

Soldiers, civilians and emergency crews searched through the rubble outside for more victims, while residents dragged belongings out of the damaged building.

One woman, crying in shock, was taken away by rescue crews for help.

Yulia Norovkova, spokeswoman for emergency rescue crews on the scene, said local volunteers were helping nearly 150 emergency personnel. Two aid stations, including psychologists, were operating, she said.

A 31-year-old woman and her 2-year-old daughter were also killed in the eastern city of Dnipro in another attack, regional Governor Serhii Lysak said. Four people were wounded, and a private home and business were damaged.

The attacks came days after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a “long and meaningful” phone call where Xi said his government will send a peace envoy to Ukraine and other nations.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Friday’s bombardment showed the Kremlin isn’t interested in a peace deal.

“Missile strikes killing innocent Ukrainians in their sleep, including a 2-year-old child, is Russia’s response to all peace initiatives,” he tweeted

“The way to peace is to kick Russia out of Ukraine.”

Czech President Petr Pavel, on a visit to Ukraine, was unconvinced by the Kremlin’s past denials of responsibility for such bloodshed.

“The number of attacks on civilian targets leads to an only conclusion that it is intentional,” Mr. Pavel told Czech media. “It’s a clear plan intended to cause chaos, horrors among the civilian population.”

Shortly after Moscow unleashed the barrage, the Russian Defense Ministry posted a photo on Telegram showing a missile launch and saying, “Right on target.”

The message triggered outrage among Ukrainians on social media and some officials, who viewed it as gloating over the casualties.

“The Ministry of Homicide of the Russian Federation is happy that it hit a residential building with a rocket and killed civilians,” said Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office.

In Kyiv, fragments from intercepted missiles or drones damaged power lines and a road in one neighbourhood. No casualties were reported.

In Ukrainka, a town about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of Kyiv, debris from shot down missiles or drones left holes in the walls of some apartment buildings, and a smashed pink stroller in the street.

“It feels like this nightmare has been going on for two years, but I still can’t wake up,” local resident Olena, 62, said. She asked for her surname not to be used, saying her son lived in a sensitive military area.

Ukraine officials said last week that they had taken delivery of American-made Patriot missiles, providing Kyiv with a long-sought new shield against Russian airstrikes, but there was no word on whether the system was used Friday.

The city’s anti-aircraft system was activated, according to the Kyiv City Administration. Air raid sirens started at about 4 am, and the alert ended about two hours later.

The missile attack was the first on the capital since March 9. Air defenses have thwarted Russian drone attacks more recently.

The missiles were fired from aircraft operating in the Caspian Sea region, according to Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander in Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Overall, he said, Ukraine intercepted 21 of 23 Kh-101 and Kh-555 type cruise missiles launched, as well as the two drones.

The war largely ground to a halt over the winter, becoming a war of attrition as each side has shelled the other’s positions from a distance.

Ukraine has been building up its mechanized brigades with armour supplied by its Western allies, who have also been training Ukrainian troops and sending ammunition, as Kyiv eyes a possible counteroffensive.

Meanwhile, the Moscow-appointed mayor of the Russia-held city of Donetsk, Alexei Kulemzin, said a Ukrainian rocket killed seven civilians in the center of the city Friday. He said the victims died when a minibus was hit.

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As the Ukraine war grinds on, Russia, India seek ways to keep defence trade afloat

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A year after the Ukraine war began, there are growing speculations about the ability of Russia, hit by heavy western sanctions and faced with dwindling exports, to continue tosupply defence systems to India, one of its most important defence customers. Such concerns are largely rooted in payment problems that India and Russia are yet to resolve, according to sources in the Russian government, defence, and banking sectors. However, experts believe the setbacks that Russian defence exports face due to sanctions could be outweighed by advantages Moscow may have once the war is over. 

There were media reports last month that India may not get the delivery of the two remaining S-400 Triumf missile defence systems that it had ordered in 2018 for around $5.4 billion. The reports cited the 34th Report of the Standing Committee on Defence (2022-23), presented in the Lok Sabha on March 21, where a representative of the Air Force suggested that the sharp decline in the budget estimate for the fiscal year was related to “some of our deliveries not taking place”. 

Also read | Russian arms supplies to India worth $13 billion in past 5 year: Reports

Russian officials refuted the media reports. “Russian-Indian defence cooperation is developing steadily in accordance with previously reached agreements and signed documents,” said the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS), which oversees military-technical cooperation with foreign countries.

When  The Hindu approached, the FSVTS, state-owned defence manufacturer Rostec, its agency for exports and imports of defence-related items Rosoboronexport and Concern VKO Almaz-Antey, the maker of S-400 systems, all refused to provide any additional comments and referred to the March statement. The Russian embassy in New Delhi, too, said there is nothing more to add at this point.

Money first

Off the record, however, officials admit payment remains an issue when it comes to trade with India.

File photo of the Russian S-400 missile air defence systems.

File photo of the Russian S-400 missile air defence systems.
| Photo Credit:
Reuters

Russia is currently fulfilling several major contracts previously signed with India, including, the S-400 systems and two Project 11356 frigates. There are more deals on the plate, including procurement of additional and modernisation of existing Sukhoi Su-30 MKI and upgrade of MIG-29s, where no final terms have been achieved. Several commenters suggested that such contracts will not be signed till the Ukraine conflict is over.

A source in the Russian defence industry said payments remain the key issue for the aircraft deals being negotiated. He noted that while India “doesn’t have many options” when it comes to fighter jets and helicopters, given both the budgets available and urgency in bringing Air Force strength to sanctioned 42 squadrons, the country’s push for increasing indigenous manufacturing is something Russian original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) account for.

Also read | Customised defence deals offered to offset sanctions impact, says senior Russian military official

India’s total imports from Russia rose by five times from $8.5 billion in April 2022 to $41.6 billion in February 2023, driven mainly by oil supplies. A source in the banking industry with direct knowledge of negotiations on payments said almost the entire amount of this $41 billion has now accumulated in the vostro accounts opened by Russian banks with authorised dealer banks in India.

Russian authorities have not yet decided on how to use this money, the person added. There are several options and mechanisms being worked out, including investments within India as well as converting into third countries’ currency. But the most preferable way for Russia to get further payments would be roubles — something that India is not able to do, unlike some other countries. The person did not specify which countries pay Russia directly in roubles.

Aleksei Zakharov, research fellow at the School of International Affairs, Higher School of Economics, pointed out two key impediments in rouble payment: first, the concerns of the Indian financial sector which is overall slowly adopting new mechanisms, and second, lack of trust on the Russian rouble.

“India is hesitant about the rouble after it experienced a serious shock last year, and there is an understanding that it is almost impossible to evaluate it correctly. Therefore, the Indian side has no particular interest in trading in the Russian currency and Delhi tried to rely on payments in the rupees. But then, the question Russia faces is whether it needs such an overabundance in the rupees. There is a discussion about what to do with this overabundance and how to adapt to this currency; it turns out that it is not possible to take the profit out, instead it can only be reinvested”.

Agreed Alexey Kupriyanov, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Moscow. “Indian banks that are afraid to take risks and process the payments are simply losing money. If these excessive fears are overcome, it will greatly help to streamline the cooperation between countries.”

“If there was something that Russia could buy from India for $40 billion, there would be no problems — in that case, the existing rupee-rouble mechanism would be enough. But there is nothing that Russia can import at such a scale,” the banking source quoted above said.

This issue is likely to be discussed on April 17-18, when a delegation from Russia travels to New Delhi for a meeting of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). The Commission will meet in person for the first time after a five-year break — the last session, the 23rd (the first meeting took place in 1994) was held in 2018 in Moscow.

“The two sides agreed to work together to unlock the full potential of India-Russia bilateral trade and economic relations, including through addressing the trade deficit and market access issues,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs stated back in March after Minister S. Jaishankar held a virtual meeting with Denis Manturov, Russia’s Deputy PM and Minister of Trade and Industry.

Trade diversification was the focus of the business forum organised by the Russian side in New Delhi on March 29-30. However, defence is the mainstay of the trade between the countries and Russia’s defence industry is facing renewed challenges in recent years.

Declining share

Russian defence exports dropped by  46% in 2022 from the year before. “It is clear that a significant part of the weapons are produced for domestic consumption, for the needs of the armed forces, but even in these conditions, we have already sold $8 billion worth of weapons in the world markets,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said late last year. According to Dmity Shugaev, the head of the FSVTS, Russia exported weapons worth $14.6 billion in 2021. Russia exports weapons to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, India, China, Algeria and Kazakhstan.

According to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a Swedish think tank, Russian arms exports remained stable between 2008-12 and 2013–17, but fell by 31% between 2013–17 and 2018–22. The annual volumes of arms exports started reducing significantly after 2019, SPIRI noted.

This is both due to Western sanctions, particularly the U.S. defence sanctions expanded in 2017 through the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), aimed at restricting Russia’s ability to raise export revenues, as well as increasing pressure on Russian trade partners, experts note. As a result, Russia’s share of global arms exports fell from 22% in 2013-2017 to 16% in 2018-22, while that of the U.S. increased from 33% to 40% in the same period.

SIPRI data show Russia’s share of arms imports to India fell from 69% in 2012-17 to 46% in 2017-21, while Moscow still remained the key defence supplier to New Delhi. These figures, however, should be put in the context.

Grey zone

Apart from sanctions-related issues outlined above, experts point out that a large chunk of Russia’s defence exports are in a “grey zone” with no data available — and access to any trade data was restricted further by the Russian government since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion. Another important factor is that India’s requirement has changed, and there are certain specific systems that Russia is not able to supply.

Moreover, all foreign players in the Indian defence market were impacted by its policy shift under India’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat and Make In India initiatives, according to Mr. Kupriyanov of the IMEMO.

Also read: Explained | Strains on India-Russia defence cooperation

“India is striving to increase weapons exports and domestic production. The situation where India imports defence items worth billions is no longer valid. Therefore, all the players are looking for new ways and new opportunities in the Indian market — through joint ventures, through setting up such enterprises where R&D would be distributed between partners, or by including Indian domestic manufacturers into OEM’s global production chains,” he said.

Post-war possibilities

While he admitted the situation is not very favourable for Russia, sooner or later the conflict will end. “Russia is likely to emerge from the conflict having a range of weapons that are tested in combat and that are significantly improved and upgraded based on their real-time performance. This will give Russia a great advantage in terms of defence exports,” Mr. Kupriyanov added.

Rostec chief Sergey Chemezov, earlier this year, noted that some of the performing weapons during the Ukraine war, were T-90M tanks, Iskander missiles and various types of multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) as well as combat aircraft such as Ka-52 and Mi-28 helicopters, Su-35S and Su-57 fighters, Cube and Lancet drones. At Aero India in Bangalore, Rosoboronexport chief Alexander Mikheev said Russia has showcased its reconnaissance and strike drone Orlan and long-duration UAV Orion-E, which could be of interest to both military and civilian customers.

He noted that with the increased role of UAVs not just in the battlefield, but for securing critical infrastructure sites, the demand for both UAVs and radar complexes able to detect them could give a boost to Russia’s export portfolio.

But for the big business to take off, the conflict should come to an end first.

Ksenia Kondratieva is an independent journalist based in St. Petersburg, Russia.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t use Iraq as justification for Ukraine, says Tony Blair

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Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair is by turns pensive and defiant as he reflects on the upcoming anniversaries of two events that arguably defined the best and worst of his decade in power.

Monday marks 20 years since Mr. Blair joined U.S. president George W. Bush in launching an invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, without a UN mandate and in defiance of some of the biggest demonstrations ever seen in Britain.

For its many critics, the war was exposed as a reckless misadventure when no weapons of mass destruction were found, and hampered the West’s ability to stand up to the rise of autocrats in Russia and China.

But Mr. Blair rejects the notion that Russian President Vladimir Putin profited by defying a weakened West with his own aggression against Ukraine, starting in 2014 and extending to last year’s full invasion.

“If he didn’t use that excuse (Iraq), he’d use another excuse,” Britain’s most successful Labour leader, who is now 69, said in an interview with AFP and fellow European news agencies ANSA, DPA and EFE.

Saddam, Mr. Blair noted, had initiated two regional wars, defied multiple UN resolutions and launched a chemical attack on his own people.

Ukraine in contrast has a democratic government and posed no threat to its neighbours when Mr. Putin invaded.

“At least you could say we were removing a despot and trying to introduce democracy,” Blair said, speaking at the offices of his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in central London.

“Now you can argue about all the consequences and so on.

“His (Putin’s) intervention in the Middle East (in Syria) was to prop up a despot and refuse a democracy. So we should treat all that propaganda with the lack of respect it deserves.”

Northern Ireland

Fallout from the Iraq war arguably hampered Blair’s own efforts as an international envoy to negotiate peace between Israel and the Palestinians, after he left office in 2007.

Through his institute, Blair maintains offices in the region and says he is “still very passionate” about promoting peace in the Middle East, even if it appears “pretty distant right now”.

But while there can be no settlement in Ukraine until Russia recognises that “aggression is wrong”, he says the Palestinians could draw lessons from the undisputed high point of his tenure: peace in Northern Ireland.

Under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, pro-Irish militants agreed to lay down their arms and pro-UK unionists agreed to share power, after three decades of sectarian strife had left some 3,500 people dead.

Mr. Blair, then Irish premier Bertie Ahern and an envoy of US president Bill Clinton spent three days and nights negotiating the final stretch before the agreement was signed on April 10, 1998.

The territory is mired in renewed political gridlock today.

But a recent deal between Britain and the European Union to regulate post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland has cleared the way for US President Joe Biden to visit for the agreement’s 25th anniversary.

Reflecting on the shift in strategy by the pro-Irish militants, from the bullet to the ballot box, Blair said “it’s something I often say to the Palestinians: you should learn from what they did”.

“They shifted strategy and look at the result,” he added, denying he was biased towards Israel but merely recognising the reality of how to negotiate peace.

“There are lots of things contested and uncontested,” he added, dwelling on his tumultuous time in 10 Downing Street from 1997 to 2007.

“I suppose the one uncontested thing is probably the Good Friday Agreement.

“The thing had more or less collapsed when I came to Belfast and we had to rewrite it and agree it… it’s probably been the only really successful peace process of the last period of time, in the last 25 years.”

Tories could pull off shock election win

Tony Blair came to power as leader of Britain’s Labour party in the years after it suffered a paralysing defeat to the Conservatives that few saw coming.

While praising current Labour chief Keir Starmer, Mr. Blair says that in the next general election, a shock win cannot be ruled out for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tories — even if the party currently trails badly in the polls.

But on one thing regarding UK politics, the 69-year-old elder statesman is sure: Britain will not rejoin the European Union in the coming years.

“Whether and how the UK rejoins the EU will be for a future generation. I think that’s the reality,” Mr. Blair said.

The former prime minister vocally opposed Brexit in Britain’s 2016 referendum, even travelling to Northern Ireland with ex-Tory leader John Major to warn of its likely impact on the delicate peace there.

Following his surprise win over Labour in 1992, Major laid the foundations of peace talks with pro-Irish militants, which Blair went on to build into a landmark agreement in 1998.

Major’s election win accelerated Labour’s conversion from a flirtation with the far-left in the 1980s to electoral respectability, and Blair won a landslide five years later.

Then, the Conservatives were rebuilding after the political demise of Margaret Thatcher. Today, under Sunak, they are trying to rebuild after political and economic tumult under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Starmer’s Labour has a commanding lead in opinion polls, averaging 20 points, ahead of the next election likely to take place in 2024.

But Sunak personally polls better than his rival, drawing media comparisons to the 1992 contest between Major and his Labour opponent, Neil Kinnock, who voters decided was not ready to be prime minister.

‘Very sensible guy’

Asked if Sunak could pull off a repeat upset, Blair said: “In politics, you should never talk of certainties, because there aren’t any.”

Sunak, whose presentational style has been compared to Blair, was “repairing the damage that has been done” to the Conservative brand by Johnson and Truss, he said.

But however much Sunak improves the party’s standing, voters will still be taxed higher and receiving less in public services come the next election.

“And I also think that Keir is a very sensible guy. He’s someone who looks like he can lead the country,” Blair added.

“In the immortal words of Sir Rod Stewart, it’s time to give the other lot a go, or whatever he said.”

The British rock crooner, a lifelong Conservative, said in January that “I’ve never seen it so bad… change the bloody government” and let Labour in.

While both Blair and Starmer campaigned to keep Britain in the EU, the current Labour leader has ruled out rejoining the bloc’s single market as a compromise step after Brexit.

“I think right now, the debate in the UK is the degree to which we want to re-establish a strong relationship with Europe, which I think we should and which I believe Labour will also do,” Blair said.

Britain and the EU had much to talk about in energy and climate, science and research, and defence and security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said.

“I think there’s a strong case for trying to cooperate on technology,” Blair added.

“Because otherwise, Europe, including the UK, is going to be pinned between two technology giants in the US and China, and possibly a third in India.

“And so I think there’s a massive amount we can do together.”

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U.K. Treasury chief predicts no recession in Britain this year

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U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt staged a moment of high political theatre on March, unveiling his budget to a crowd of baying lawmakers as consumers demand more help with the high cost of living and workers press for higher wages with strikes at schools, hospitals and the offices of civil servants.

Even as Mr. Hunt plays his historically scripted role — emerging from his official residence with the spending plan in a battered red dispatch box, then carrying it to the House of Commons where he was greeted by jeers and cheers — the truth is he sought to be as boring as possible.

That’s because the last time the government staged a similar “fiscal event”, the mini-budget presented by Mr. Hunt’s predecessor last September, it set off an economic catastrophe by promising huge tax cuts without saying how it would pay for them. The value of the pound plunged, mortgage rates soared and the Central bank was forced to intervene to protect pension funds.

This time, strong and stable is the goal. He predicted the country will not enter technical recession this year and that the government will “take whatever steps are necessary for economic stability”.

“Today the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that because of changing international factors and the measures I take, the U.K. will not now enter a technical recession this year,’’ he told the House of Commons on Wednesday.

At one point, he even offered funding for the “curse” of potholes, handing over £200 million ($241 million) to local communities to get rid of them.


ALSO READ | Ukraine war is exacerbating fragilities in the global economy: G20 Ministers

He added that Britain’s independent budget watchdog “forecast we will meet the Prime Minister’s priorities to halve inflation, reduce debt and get the economy growing. We are following the plan and the plan is working. But that’s not all we’ve done.’’

There have been predictions that the country would dip into recession in part because of record inflation and rising energy prices due to the war in Ukraine.

Most of the big-ticket items in the budget — an extra £5 billion ($6.1 billion) of defence spending over the next two years, increased funding for child care and help for workers saving for retirement — have already been announced.

“We shouldn’t expect much in the way of rabbits or hats in this budget,” said Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at the investment adviser Hargreaves Lansdown. “Jeremy Hunt needs to remain boring and predictable to avoid unsettling the markets.”

Expected cost-of-living crisis

But even as Mr. Hunt delivers his remarks to Parliament, many people across the country are seething about a cost-of-living crisis that is eroding the spending power of workers as Russia’s war in Ukraine has helped fuel the highest inflation in four decades.

Government workers, teachers, subway drivers and the young doctors who staff the nation’s hospitals were walking the picket line Wednesday, furious that public-sector workers have borne the brunt of the budget austerity implemented by Mr. Hunt’s Conservative Party after it took power following the global financial crisis.

The British Medical Association, which represents the fully qualified physicians known in the U.K. as “junior doctors,” says first-year doctors have seen their pay fall by 26% over the past 15 years after accounting for inflation.

That means first-year doctors now earn as little as £14.09 an hour, compared with up to £14.10 an hour for baristas at Pret a Manger, a sandwich and coffee shop chain that just gave workers a third raise in less than 12 months, the group said.

Rebecca Lissman, 29, a trainee in obstetrics and gynecology, said junior doctors are just asking is to be “paid a wage that matches our skill set”.

“I want to be in work, looking after people, getting trained,” she said. “I don’t want to be out here striking, but I feel that I have to.”

The government says the medical association’s comparison to baristas is misleading because most doctors actually make more than the basic minimum salary and have much higher lifetime earning potential than shop workers.

Mr. Hunt and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are trying to hold the line on public-sector salaries because they say big pay increases will only fuel inflation.

Consumer prices rose 10.1% in the year through January, the fifth consecutive month of double-digit increases. To combat inflation, the Bank of England has approved 10 interest rate increases over the past 15 months, raising the cost of mortgages, consumer and business loans.

That is crimping economic growth, with the Central bank forecasting a recession that may last a year or more.

Mr. Hunt’s other major goal is rebuilding Britain’s reputation for fiscal responsibility by reducing the public debt built up during the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The government wants to cut borrowing to less than 3% of economic output and begin reducing debt as a percentage of output within five years.

As a result, Mr. Hunt has been cautious about increasing government spending or boosting salaries.

But higher-than-expected revenue and lower spending, combined with more optimistic forecasts for economic growth and interest rates, may mean the government has room to spend an additional £166 billion without endangering its targets, according to estimates from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, an independent think tank.

And several spending initiatives have been leaked ahead of the release of what is being called a “back-to-work budget”.

Those include increased child care payments to help young mothers return to work and more generous allowances for tax-free pension saving to entice early retirees back into the workforce.

Even before he got to his feet, Mr. Hunt on Wednesday morning announced that he was extending the government-subsidised energy price guarantee until the end of June, costing the government £3 billion. That program has helped shield consumers from the soaring cost of electricity and natural gas amid the war in Ukraine.


ALSO READ | U.K. shoppers cut back on spending as inflation takes its toll

During a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last weekend in San Diego, Mr. Sunak announced plans to boost defence spending to 2.5% of economic output amid increasing threats from Russia and China.

But back home, thousands of doctors, nurses and other workers are picketing in front of hospitals and other government buildings.

Outside St. Thomas’ Hospital in central London, Leah Sugarman, 33, joined other strikers as they chanted, ‘’What do we want? Fair pay! When do we want it? Now!”

The emergency medicine doctor, who has been on the job for nine years, said she can’t pay a mortgage and struggles to live a normal life.

“We’ve all lived through COVID-19, that was horrendous. Most of us have come out mentally scarred from that,” she said. “And every day that I leave work, I pretty much want to cry because I haven’t been able to do the job that I chose to go into this profession for.”

She added that she has been forced to drop her hours to less than 40 hours a week, “because I can’t mentally go to work full time anymore.”

“It is just a car crash,” she said. “So that’s why I’m here.”

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