Biden and Putin meet in Geneva for summit

President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged from their summit with the Russian leader deeming it “constructive” and the U.S. president calling it “positive.” But back-to-back news conferences made clear that the two sides remain at odds over human rights, cyberattacks and Ukraine. Biden said he raised the case of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny as well as two “wrongly imprisoned” Americans held in Russia. “The bottom line is I told President Putin that we need to have some basic rules of the road that we can all abide by,” Biden told reporters after his first face-to-face meeting as president with Putin.

 

Russian Police Arrest More Than 1,000 in Moscow Protest

Russian police forcibly detained over 1,000 people attending a protest in Moscow to demand free elections, including prominent activist Lyubov Sobol, after authorities warned the demonstration was illegal. Russian police cracked down fiercely Saturday on demonstrators in central Moscow, beating some people and arresting more than 1,000 who were protesting the exclusion of opposition candidates from the ballot for Moscow city council. Police also stormed into a TV station broadcasting the protest. Police wrestled with protesters around the mayor’s office, sometimes charging into the crowd with their batons raised. State news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti cited police as saying 1,074 were arrested over the course of the protests, which lasted more than seven hours.

Along with the arrests of the mostly young demonstrators, several opposition activists who wanted to run for the council were arrested throughout the city before the protest. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail for calling an unauthorized protest. The protesters, who police said numbered about 3,500, shouted slogans including “Russia will be free!” and “Who are you beating?” One young woman was seen bleeding heavily after being struck on the head.

Russia’s Putin attends Vostok 2018 military exercises in Transbaikal

Russian President Vladimir Putin and First Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov visited the Tsugol range to observe the main stage of the Vostok 2018 military exercises held jointly by the Russian Armed Forces and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in Transbaikal Territory, Russia on September 13, 2018.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thousands protest in Russia against plans to hike pension age

Russian police detained more than 800 people protesting against planned increases to the pension age, a rights group said, disrupting demonstrations held in more than 80 towns and cities against an unpopular change that has hurt President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating. Russian police have broken up protests across the country against a planned increase in the retirement age. More than 800 protesters were detained and some beaten with batons, the rights monitoring group OVD-info says. The rallies were called by the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has capitalised on widespread anger against the reforms.

 The protests coincide with elections for 26 heads of Russia’s 85 regions, including in Moscow, which are being held on Sunday. OVD-Info says 839 people were detained in 19 cities. The largest number was in St Petersburg, where 354 were held, the group said. Another 129 were detained in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals, while Moscow saw 36 arrests. From 2019, the retirement age for men and women will start being increased gradually. By 2036 it will have risen from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 60 for women. Mr Putin softened the initial plan to raise women’s retirement age to 63. Russian men have a life expectancy of 66 while for women it is 77, the World Health Organization says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Russia Displays Military Power at International Military Expo

Russia shows off tanks, anti-aircraft missile launchers, artillery systems, drones, tanks, robotics and other weaponry at the large-scale international military expo “Army-2018” in Moscow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trump meets Putin in Helsinki

The 2018 Russia–United States summit was a summit meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin (hence also known as the Trump–Putin summit). It took place on July 16, 2018, in Helsinki, Finland. The Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially titled the summit as the #HELSINKI2018 Meeting. It was hosted by the President of Finland Sauli Niinistö. The summit focused on improving bilateral ties between the two countries which had been degrading since the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and due to the U.S. Intelligence Community’s assessment that Russia tried to meddle with the results of the 2016 U.S. elections.

 

The summit took place in the Presidential Palace. The event marked the first official meeting between the world leaders after previous unofficial talks between Trump and Putin at the G20 Hamburg and APEC Vietnam summits held in 2017. President Trump will also meet the Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in the Presidential Palace. Topics President Trump announced to be discussed at the summit included the situations in Syria and Ukraine. The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet his Russian and Finnish counterparts Sergey Lavrov and Timo Soini.

According to the office of the president of Finland, President Niinistö is supposed to hold bilateral meetings with both presidents on the day. On Monday morning, President Niinistö and Mrs. Jenni Haukio welcomed President Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump at their official residence in Mäntyniemi. During the presidents’ meeting, Mrs. Haukio and Mrs. Trump are scheduled to gather for a joint breakfast.

The Helsinki 2018 meeting began at the Presidential Palace after midday (at approximately 1 pm) with President Niinistö officially welcoming President Putin, followed by President Trump. The bilateral discussions between the Russian and American presidents took place in the Presidential Palace’s Gothic Hall; Trump and Putin met with only interpreters present. Their meeting was followed by a wider working lunch in the Hall of Mirrors.

 

A group of top Senate Democrats are urging Trump to not meet with Putin one-on-one. Eight Senate Democrats including Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Minority Whip Dick Durbin and the top Democrats on the Senate Intelligence (Mark Warner), Foreign Relations (Bob Menendez), Judiciary (Dianne Feinstein), Armed Services (Jack Reed), Appropriations and Banking committees sent a letter to Trump on Saturday making the demand.

President Trump announced on Twitter on July 16 that the relationship between Russia and the USA had ‘never been worse’.  He blamed this is on ‘foolishness and stupidity’ on the part of the USA and referenced the ongoing Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, calling it a ‘witchhunt’. He also defended Russia over claims of interference in US elections, from accusations by the FBI amongst other intelligence agencies, saying “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” During an interview on the eve of the summit with news broadcaster CBS, Trump called the EU the biggest foe of the United States. Russia was a ‘foe in certain aspects’.

 

 

 

 

Remembering Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and wreckage of the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border. The shoot-down occurred in the War in Donbass, during the Battle of Shakhtarsk, in an area controlled by the Donetsk People’s Republic. The crash was Malaysia Airlines’ second aircraft loss during 2014 after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March. The governments of the Netherlands and Australia hold Russia responsible for “its part in the downing of flight”.

 

The responsibility for investigation fell to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT), who have concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade of the Russian Federation, and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area, and the launcher returned to Russia after it was used to shoot down MH17. The JIT say they have established the identities of approximately 100 people, witnesses or suspects, who were linked to the transporting of the Buk, but said that their evidence “must stand before a court”.

The DSB and JIT findings confirmed earlier claims by American and German intelligence sources as to the missile type and launch area. In 2014, the US intelligence had also said that Russia had supplied the Buk missile to pro-Russian insurgents, and that the insurgents most plausibly shot down MH17 in error, misidentifying it as a military aircraft.  Also in 2014, German intelligence sources reported that they believed insurgents had stolen the missile from the Ukrainian military.

The Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk laid the blame on professional soldiers that he said came from Russia, stating that “it wasn’t drunken militants with Ukrainian passports [who shot down the Malaysian plane], it was done by Russian professionals and coordinated from Russia”, adding that “the whole world has learned about the Russian lies and Russian propaganda.”  As of May 2018, the Russian government rejects claims that Russia bears any responsibility for the crash, and denies any involvement. For example, the Russian defense ministry claimed that it had never deployed anti-aircraft missile systems in Ukraine. Several theories about the crash have since appeared in Russian media, including that the aircraft was being followed by a Ukrainian military jet. The Russian Government holds Ukraine responsible since the crash had happened in the Ukrainian flight information region.

 

The Ukrainian Air Force was used extensively in operations against the rebels, and several UAF aircraft had been shot down over the rebel-controlled territory, both before and after the MH17 incident. Immediately after the crash, a post appeared on the VKontakte social media profile attributed to Igor Girkin, leader of the Donbass separatist militia, claiming responsibility for shooting down a Ukrainian An-26 military transporter near Torez. This post was removed later the same day, and the separatists then denied shooting down any aircraft. In late July 2014, communications intercepts were made public in which, it is claimed, separatists are heard discussing an aircraft that they had downed.  A video from the crash site, recorded by the rebels and obtained by the News Corp Australia, shows the first rebel soldiers to arrive at the crash site. At first they assumed that the downed aircraft was a Ukrainian military jet, and were dismayed when they started to realise that it was a civilian airliner.

 

 

 

 

Russian opposition leader calls for boycott of Russian election

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained, and later released, after appearing at a Moscow rally to boycott the upcoming presidential election. Protesters gathered across Russia on Sunday to support opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s call to boycott the March presidential election, and Navalny himself was arrested while walking to the Moscow demonstration. Many of the crowds that turned out in generally frigid weather skewed sharply young, apparently reflecting growing discontent among Russians who have lived most or all of their lives under President Vladimir Putin, who came to power on New Year’s Eve 1999.

 “As long as I’ve been alive, Putin has always been in. I’m tired of nothing being changed,” said 19-year-old Vlad Ivanov, one of about 1,500 protesters who assembled in St. Petersburg. Navalny, Putin’s most prominent foe, organized the protests to urge a boycott of Russia’s March 18 presidential election, in which Putin is sure to win a fourth term. He was wrestled to the ground and forced into a police bus as he walked toward the demonstration on Moscow’s Pushkin Square.

Protests were reported in dozens of cities, from the Pacific Coast to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. Navalny’s web page showed a small group of protesters in remote Yakutsk, where it was –45 C. A crowd that police estimated at 1,000 people, but appeared larger, assembled in central Pushkin Square, brandishing placards reading “They’ve stolen the election from us” and “Elections without Navalny are fake.”

 

 

 

100 years since Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution was a pair of revolutions in Russia in 1917 which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire collapsed with the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time). Alongside it arose grassroots community assemblies (called ‘soviets’) which contended for authority. In the second revolution that October, the Provisional Government was toppled and all power was given to the soviets.

The February Revolution (March 1917) was a revolution focused around Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), the capital of Russia at that time. In the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament (the Duma) assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government which was heavily dominated by the interests of large capitalists and the noble aristocracy. The army leadership felt they did not have the means to suppress the revolution, resulting in Nicholas’s abdication. The soviets, which were dominated by soldiers and the urban industrial working class, initially permitted the Provisional Government to rule, but insisted on a prerogative to influence the government and control various militias. The February Revolution took place in the context of heavy military setbacks during the First World War (1914–18), which left much of the Russian Army in a state of mutiny.

A period of dual power ensued, during which the Provisional Government held state power while the national network of soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower classes and, increasingly, the left-leaning urban middle class. During this chaotic period there were frequent mutinies, protests and many strikes. Many socialist political organizations were engaged in daily struggle and vied for influence within the Duma and the soviets, central among which were the Bolsheviks (“Ones of the Majority”) led by Vladimir Lenin who campaigned for an immediate end to the war, land to the peasants, and bread to the workers. When the Provisional Government chose to continue fighting the war with Germany, the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions were able to exploit virtually universal disdain towards the war effort as justification to advance the revolution further. The Bolsheviks turned workers’ militias under their control into the Red Guards (later the Red Army) over which they exerted substantial control.

In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolsheviks led an armed insurrection by workers and soldiers in Petrograd that successfully overthrew the Provisional Government, transferring all its authority to the soviets with the capital being relocated to Moscow shortly thereafter. The Bolsheviks had secured a strong base of support within the soviets and, as the now supreme governing party, established a federal government dedicated to reorganizing the former empire into the world’s first socialist republic, practicing soviet democracy on a national and international scale. The promise to end Russia’s participation in the First World War was honored promptly with the Bolshevik leaders signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918. To further secure the new state, the Cheka was established which functioned as a revolutionary security service that sought to weed out and punish those considered to be “enemies of the people” in campaigns consciously modeled on similar events during the French Revolution.

Soon after, civil war erupted among the “Reds” (Bolsheviks), the “Whites” (counter-revolutionaries), the independence movements and the non-Bolshevik socialists. It continued for several years, during which the Bolsheviks defeated both the Whites and all rival socialists and thereafter reconstituted themselves as the Communist Party. In this way, the Revolution paved the way for the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and Petrograd, there was also a visible movement in cities throughout the state, among national minorities throughout the empire and in the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land.

Turkey signs deal to buy Russian S-400 missile systems

Turkey has signed a deal with Russia to buy S-400 missile defence systems in its first major weapons purchase from Moscow, Turkish newspapers quoted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as saying. The accord for the surface-to-air missile defence batteries is Ankara’s most significant pact with a non-Nato supplier. “Signatures have been made for the purchase of S-400s from Russia. A deposit has also been paid as far as I know,” Erdogan said in comments published in the Hurriyet Daily and other newspapers. “(Russian President Vladimir Putin) and myself are determined on this issue,” he told journalists.

The purchase of the missile systems from a non-Nato supplier will raise concerns in the West over their compatibility with the alliance’s equipment. The Pentagon has already sounded alarm, saying bluntly that “generally it’s a good idea” for Nato allies to buy interoperable equipment. Erdogan said Turkey was free to make military acquisitions based on its defence needs. “We make the decisions about our own independence ourselves, we are obliged to take safety and security measures in order to defend our country,” he said. Moscow also confirmed the accord, with Vladimir Kozhin, Putin’s adviser for military and technical cooperation, saying: “The contract has been signed and is being prepared for implementation.”

He said that the S-400 was one of the most complex systems, made up of a whole range of technical materials. “I can only guarantee that all decisions taken on this contract strictly comply with our strategic interests,” he was quoted as saying by Russian state-owned [TASS]2 news agency. “For this reason, we fully understand the reactions of several Western countries which are trying to put pressure on Turkey,” he added. Russia’s relations with Nato have been in crisis over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and for backing pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. Turkey, a Nato member since 1952, has currently troubled ties with the United States over a number of issues including Washington’s support of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) Syrian Kurd militia which Ankara considers a terror group.