As Ukraine war ends first month, Putin hits back at sanctions with oil payment changes

A Ukrainian firefighter stands in the ruins of a house destroyed by bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP)
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Updated 24 March 2022
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As Ukraine war ends first month, Putin hits back at sanctions with oil payment changes

  • Chubais was Putin’s boss in the future president’s first Kremlin job
  • He later ran big state businesses under Putin and held political jobs, lately serving as Kremlin special envoy to international organizations

LVIV: Russian forces bombed areas of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday, a month into their assault, while Western leaders gathered in Brussels to plan more measures to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt his campaign.
Putin, responding to a welter of Western sanctions that have hit Russia’s economy hard and frozen its assets, said Moscow planned to switch its gas sales to “unfriendly” countries to rubles — a move that alarmed international markets.
And in a sign of cracks in Moscow’s ranks, a veteran aide to Putin, Anatoly Chubais, resigned over the Ukraine war and has left Russia with no intention to return, two sources said. He was first senior official to break with the Kremlin since Putin launched his invasion on Feb. 24.
Although the invasion force has stalled in some areas and fierce Ukrainian resistance has thwarted its hopes for a swift victory, Russian artillery and air strikes maintained their bombardments on several cities, while civilians who have been unable or unwilling to flee sheltered underground.
“I have never seen such cruelty before,” said Kateryna Mytkevich, 38, who reached the Polish border transit hub of Przemysl with her child after fleeing the eastern city of Chernihiv. The city was “fully destroyed,” she said.
US President Joe Biden was flying to Europe for an emergency summit on Ukraine with NATO and European leaders at the Western military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
The leaders are expected to roll out additional sanctions against Russia. They would also agree to bolster forces on the alliance’s eastern flank, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference ahead of the summit.
However, he said NATO would not send troops into Ukraine.
“It is extremely important to provide support to Ukraine and we are stepping up. But at the same time it is also extremely important to prevent this conflict becoming a full-fledged war between NATO and Russia,” he said.

“Unfriendly countries”

Putin’s message was clear: If you want our gas, buy our currency. It remained unclear whether Russia has the power to unilaterally change existing contracts agreed upon in euros.
The ruble briefly leapt after the shock announcement to a three-week high past 95 against the dollar. It pared gains but stayed well below 100, closing at 97.7 against the dollar, down more than 22 percent since Feb. 24.
Some European wholesale gas prices up to 30 percent higher on Wednesday. British and Dutch wholesale gas prices jumped.
Putin’s announcement that Russia would switch certain gas sales to rubles sent European futures soaring on concerns the switch would exacerbate the region’s energy crunch and jam up deals that run to hundreds of millions of dollars every day.
Russian gas accounts for some 40 percent of Europe’s total gas consumption.
Moscow has drawn up a list of “unfriendly” countries, which corresponds to those that imposed sanctions. Deals with companies and individuals from those countries must be approved by a government commission.

The countries include the US, European Union member states, Britain, Japan, Canada, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and Ukraine. Some, including the US and Norway, do not purchase Russian gas.
“Russia will continue, of course, to supply natural gas in accordance with volumes and prices...fixed in previously concluded contracts,” Putin said at a televised meeting with government ministers.
“The changes will only affect the currency of payment, which will be changed to Russian roubles,” he said.
Western sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions have ostracized it from the world economy.
Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 on what he terms a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” the country. The West says it is a war of aggression aimed at reasserting Russia’s sway over the former Soviet Republic.
But after a month of bloodshed, Russian forces have failed to capture a single major city.
Although the Kremlin says the operation is going to plan, they have taken heavy losses, been frozen in place on most fronts, and face supply problems and fierce resistance. They have turned to siege tactics and bombardment, causing massive destruction and many civilian deaths.
The conflict has also driven a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, told reporters on Wednesday that 264 civilians in the city had been killed by Russian attacks. The noise of bombs falling could be heard in background as he spoke. But Ukrainian forces had retaken the nearby towns of Makariv and Irpin from Russian control, he said.
Klitschko said later that one person was killed and two seriously wounded on Wednesday when shells hit a shopping center parking lot in a northern part of Kyiv. “The enemy continues to fire at the capital,” Klitschko said in an online post.
Russia denies targeting civilians.

Smoke over the water 
Worst hit has been Mariupol, a southern port surrounded by Russian forces, where hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering since the war’s early days, under constant bombardment and with food, water and heating supplies cut.
Satellite photographs from commercial firm Maxar released overnight showed massive destruction of what was once a city of 400,000 people, with columns of smoke rising from residential apartment buildings in flames.
Despite its losses so far, Russia may still be hoping to make more gains on the battlefield, especially in the east, in territory including Mariupol that Moscow demands Ukraine cede to Russian-backed separatists.
British military intelligence said the entire battlefield across northern Ukraine — which includes armored columns that once threatened Kyiv — was now “static,” with the invaders apparently trying to reorganize.
But in the east, the Russians were trying to link troops at Mariupol with those near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, in the hope of encircling Ukrainian forces. In the southwest they were bypassing the city of Mykolayiv to try to advance on Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest port, the British report said.
Ukrainian officials described sporadic shelling in other cities overnight, with two civilians killed in the Mykolayiv region, a bridge destroyed in the Chernihiv region. Reuters could not immediately verify these incidents.

Economic reformer 
In Moscow, the Kremlin confirmed that Chubais, the senior official had resigned of his own accord.
Chubais was one of the principal architects of Boris Yeltsin’s economic reforms of the 1990s and was Putin’s boss in the future president’s first Kremlin job. He later ran big state businesses under Putin and held political jobs, lately serving as Kremlin special envoy to international organizations.
Chubais hung up the phone when contacted by Reuters. The sources did not say where he was.


Netherlands to send 175 million euros of military aid to Ukraine, expands drone cooperation

Updated 58 min 29 sec ago
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Netherlands to send 175 million euros of military aid to Ukraine, expands drone cooperation

THE HAGUE: The Netherlands will provide Ukraine with 100 drone-detection radars and 20 medical evacuation vehicles as part of a new 175 million euro ($202 million) aid package, Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said on Tuesday.
Delivery of the radars, which will help identify incoming drones and relay data to air defense systems, is expected to be completed by year-end.
In a statement on Friday, the Dutch Defense Ministry specified that 80 million euros of the package will go toward drone support through the international drone coalition.
The move on Tuesday follows a 500 million euro deal to produce 600,000 drones with the Ukrainian defense industry, Brekelmans said ahead of a NATO Summit in The Hague.
The Netherlands has pledged about 10 billion euros in military support for Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in early 2022.


Zelensky-Trump meeting planned Wednesday: Ukraine presidency

Updated 24 June 2025
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Zelensky-Trump meeting planned Wednesday: Ukraine presidency

KYIV: Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump are planning to meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in The Hague, a senior source in the Ukrainian presidency told AFP.
“The teams are finalizing the details,” the source told AFP, adding that the talks were scheduled for the “early afternoon” in the Netherlands and would focus on sanctions against Russia and arms procurement for Kyiv.


Myanmar woman arrested for Suu Kyi ‘happy birthday’ post: local media

Updated 24 June 2025
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Myanmar woman arrested for Suu Kyi ‘happy birthday’ post: local media

  • The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reported on Monday that Hinn Yin Phyu was an MRTV employee who had been arrested after posting a “happy birthday” message for Suu Kyi, citing sources close to the detained woman

YANGON: A Myanmar woman arrested by the junta for “spreading propaganda” is being detained over a Facebook post celebrating the 80th birthday of jailed democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, local media said.
Suu Kyi was the figurehead of Myanmar’s decade-long democratic thaw, becoming de facto leader as it opened up from military rule, but she has been incarcerated since February 2021 when the generals snatched back power in a coup.
She is serving a 27-year sentence on charges rights groups dismiss as fabricated and on Thursday marked her birthday behind bars while her son urged followers to publish messages declaring their support.
Myanmar’s junta said in a statement over the weekend it had arrested two Facebook users for “inciting and spreading propaganda on social media with the intention to destroy state stability.”
One of those detained — Hinn Yin Phyu — was arrested at accommodation for employees of state media station MRTV in the capital Naypyidaw on Saturday, the statement said, without providing details of her posts.
The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reported on Monday that Hinn Yin Phyu was an MRTV employee who had been arrested after posting a “happy birthday” message for Suu Kyi, citing sources close to the detained woman.
“May you live long and be free from illness, may you be free from the suffering caused by separation from your loved ones throughout your life, and may you only meet good people,” said the now-deleted post, according to DVB.
Despite being blocked in a digital crackdown accompanying the coup, Facebook remains Myanmar’s most popular social media platform.
State notices announcing arrests over social media use are commonplace but usually provide scant detail of alleged transgressions.
A spokesman for Myanmar’s junta could not be reached for comment on the arrest.
Suu Kyi won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize as she refused to enter exile to escape her first period of incarceration by Myanmar’s military.
As she guided the country through its democratic interlude her reputation was tarnished on the international stage after she defended the military for their crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority.
When the generals toppled her government it sparked a protest movement that security forces swiftly crushed in the streets.
Since then the country has descended into civil war as pro-democracy activists formed guerrilla units to fight back, alongside ethnic armed organizations that have been battling the military in Myanmar’s fringes for decades.


China plans to show off new equipment at parade marking 80th anniversary of Japan’s WWII surrender

Updated 24 June 2025
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China plans to show off new equipment at parade marking 80th anniversary of Japan’s WWII surrender

BEIJING: China plans to hold a military parade Sept. 3 marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s World War II surrender and featuring the People’s Liberation Army’s newest weaponry.
President and head of the military Xi Jinping will deliver a speech on the occasion, which will feature “new-type combat capabilities,” including hypersonic weapons and a range of electronic gear, said Wu Zeke, identified as a senor officer of the PLA, the ruling Communist Party’s military wing.
The force is the world’s largest standing military with more than 2 million members and an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of missiles, aircraft carriers and fighter aircraft.
Military parades are a favorite of Xi’s, held primarily to mark the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, Japan’s surrender and the anniversary of the PLA’s founding. Relentlessly drilled marching units, armored columns and aerial units all feature on such occasions.
Wu said inclusion of the latest generation weaponry demonstrates the PLA’s “strong ability to adapt to technological trends and evolving warfare, and to prevail in future wars, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Japan launched an invasion of China in 1937, seizing much of eastern China. Most of the fighting against Japan was carried out by the Nationalists, who later withdrew to the island of Taiwan after being driven out of the mainland by the Communists.
Much of China’s massive military upgrading has been aimed at conquering Taiwan, which China still considers part of its territory, as well as replacing the United States as the main military power in the Asia-Pacific.


China’s Xi urges Singapore leader to jointly resist ‘hegemony’

Updated 24 June 2025
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China’s Xi urges Singapore leader to jointly resist ‘hegemony’

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Singapore’s prime minister to join the fight against “hegemony” and protectionism in trade as they met in Beijing on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Lawrence Wong’s first official visit to China lasts until Thursday.
He met Xi on Tuesday morning at Beijing’s opulent Great Hall of the People, with the Chinese leader urging their two countries to work to “stand on the right side of history and on the side of fairness and justice,” according to state broadcaster CCTV.
He told Wong that “the world cannot return to hegemony or be dragged back to the law of the jungle,” a veiled swipe at the United States, after President Donald Trump launched a barrage of tariffs this year on countries including China and Singapore.
Wong, in turn, told Xi he believed the Singapore-China relationship was “more important than before” in a time of “global turbulence and uncertainty.”
“We can work together to establish closer ties and... continue to strengthen multilateralism and the rules-based global order for the benefit of all countries,” Wong said.
Wong, who succeeded Lee Hsien Loong, the son of founding premier Lee Kuan Yew, in 2024, has warned the trade-dependent city-state could be hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.
Although Trump imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on Singapore, the country is vulnerable to a global economic slowdown caused by the much higher levies on dozens of other countries because of its heavy reliance on international trade.
Following his meetings in Beijing, Wong will head to the northern Chinese city of Tianjin for a meeting of the World Economic Forum.