Vladimir Putin - The African Mirror

Feb

2024

Navalny’s widow Yulia calls on Russians to fight Putin for freedom

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said that she would press on with her husband's fight for a free Russia and called on supporters to battle President Vladimir Putin with greater fury than ever. Navalny's death robs Russia's disparate opposition of its most charismatic and courageous leader as Putin prepares for an election that will keep him in power until at least 2030. In a nine-minute video message laced with rage, Navalnaya, 47, said Putin had killed her husband and in doing so had robbed her of a husband and her two children of a father.…

Feb

2024

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE and MAXIM RODIONOV

‘I love you,’ Navalny’s widow Yulia says beside a picture of them together

WORLD

"I love you," the widow of Alexei Navalny said in a post on social media beside a picture of them together, two days after President Vladimir Putin's most prominent domestic foe died in a Russian jail. Yulia Navalnaya's post on Instagram, the first since her husband died, showed a picture of the two together, their heads touching as they watched a performance. It brought a personal note to the loss she expressed more formally on a public stage just hours after her husband's death was announced by the Russian prison service. Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk…

Feb

2024

By The African Mirror

Russian emigres gather across Europe to mourn Navalny, denounce Putin

WORLD

HUNDREDS of protesters, many of them Russian emigres, gathered in cities across Europe and beyond to express their outrage over the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Often gathering outside Russian embassies, they chanted slogans critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they blamed for the activist's death, holding up signs calling him a "killer" and demanding accountability. Putin's most formidable domestic opponent, Navalny fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk at the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade sentence, prison authorities said. In Berlin, a crowd of 500 to 600 people, according to police estimates,…

Feb

2024

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE and FELIX LIGHT

Putin foe Alexei Navalny dies in jail, West holds Russia responsible

WORLD

Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most formidable domestic opponent, fell unconscious and died after a walk at the "Polar Wolf" Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade sentence, authorities said. The death of Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, robs the disparate Russian opposition of its most courageous leader as Putin prepares for an election which will keep the former KGB spy in power until at least 2030. There are now no opposition leaders of such prominence left in Russia. For some young urban Russians, Navalny offered hope of an alternative future to Putin, who has served as Russia's…

Feb

2024

By The African Mirror

Russia warns the West: we will be very tough if you ‘steal’ our assets

WORLD

RUSSIA warned the West that Moscow would be very tough if the United States and European Union seized hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian assets. After President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, the United States and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and finance ministry, blocking around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West. The EU on Monday adopted a law to set aside windfall profits made on frozen Russian central bank assets, it said on Monday, in a first concrete step towards the bloc's aim of using the money to finance the reconstruction of…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Putin, Sisi mark new phase of Egypt’s Russian-built nuclear plant

NEWS

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin and Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated the construction of a new unit at Egypt's Dabaa nuclear power plant via video link, as Moscow moves ahead with its global nuclear ambitions. The power plant is being built by the Russian state corporation Rosatom at a reported cost of $30 billion and will consist of four power units with a combined capacity of 4.8 gigawatts. The two presidents were opening the construction of the fourth and final unit, according to Egyptian state media. "The cooperation between our two countries continues and is developing. Egypt is a close friend…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Putin meets Chad junta leader as Russia competes with France in Africa

NEWS

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin met Chadian leader Mahamat Idriss Deby in the Kremlin, courting a country that had previously maintained a pro-Western policy and spurned Russia's recent outreach in Africa's Sahel region. Russia has been moving to edge out the influence of France, the former colonial power in West Africa and the Sahel, and build ties with countries that have been roiled by a wave of coups since 2020. Deby has led Chad since 2021, when he took power in a coup shortly after his father, long-serving president Idriss Deby, was killed in battle fighting anti-government rebels. The junta initially…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

West stands to lose at least $288 bln in assets if Russian assets seized -RIA

WORLD

RUSSIA'S state RIA news agency said that it had calculated that the West stood to lose assets and investments worth at least $288 billion if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine and Moscow then retaliated. After President Vladimir Putin sent forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. and its allies prohibited transactions with Russia's central bank and finance ministry, blocking around $300 billion of sovereign Russian assets in the West. U.S. and British officials have worked in recent months to jumpstart efforts to confiscate Russian assets immobilized in Belgium and other European cities to help reconstruction…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Putin says Ukraine’s statehood at risk if pattern of war continues

WORLD

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine's statehood could suffer an "irreparable blow" if the pattern of the war continued, and Russia would never be forced to abandon the gains it had made. Putin made his televised comments a day after Switzerland agreed to host a global summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Putin dismissed "so-called peace formulas" being discussed in the West and Ukraine and what he called the "prohibitive demands" they entailed. "Well, if they don't want (to negotiate), then don't!" he said. "Now it is quite obvious, not only (Ukraine's) counter-offensive failed, but the…

Dec

2023

By MARK TREVELYAN

Yekaterina Duntsova barred from running against Putin in election

WORLD

FORMER TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova was disqualified from running against President Vladimir Putin in an election next March because of alleged flaws in her application to register as a candidate. Video from a meeting of the central electoral commission showed members voting unanimously to reject the candidacy of Duntsova, who had wanted to run on a platform to end the war in Ukraine and release political prisoners. Her disqualification was seized on by Putin's critics as proof that no one with genuine opposition views would be allowed to stand against him in the first presidential election since the start of…