Tag: putin

Kyiv has angrily dismissed the claims by the Russian leader, which come more than two years after Moscow invaded Ukraine…reports Asian Lite news

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused Russia’s Vladimir Putin of seeking to “shift the blame” onto Kyiv for the Moscow concert hall attack that killed 133 people.

“What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other scum are just trying to blame it on someone else,” Zelensky announced, after Putin said the suspects had been fleeing towards Ukraine. “They always have the same methods,” Zelensky added.

In a televised address earlier Saturday, President Putin said the four gunmen arrested for the deadly attack were “travelling towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border”.

Kyiv has angrily dismissed the claims by the Russian leader, which come more than two years after Moscow invaded Ukraine. “Putin, instead of dealing with his Russian citizens, addressing them, was silent for a day, thinking about how to bring it to Ukraine,” Zelensky said.

“Everything is absolutely predictable.” The Moscow attack has been claimed by Daesh. It was the deadliest attack in Russia for almost two decades and the deadliest in Europe to have been claimed by Daesh. Putin made no reference to the group’s claims of responsibility in his address.

‘Unacceptable, must end immediately’

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “in the strongest terms”, condemned the large-scale missile strikes by Russia on Ukraine, that have caused widespread destruction, and have reportedly killed and injured many civilians.

In an official statement, the Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq said the Secretary-General was “appalled by the continued killing and destruction”.

“The Secretary-General condemns in the strongest terms today’s large-scale missile and drone attacks by the Russian Federation on Ukrainian cities and towns across the country, including against civilians, energy and other critical infrastructure,” Haq quoted Guterres as saying.

The strikes have inflicted severe damage, including on the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant in the Zaporizhzhia region.

“The Secretary-General is appalled by the continued killing and destruction and once again underlines that attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure violate international humanitarian law. They are unacceptable and must end immediately,” the statement read.

“The attacks reportedly killed and injured many civilians and caused major damage, including to the Dnipro Hydroelectric Power Plant in the Zaporizhzhia region, leaving more than one million Ukrainians without access to electricity and water in Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, and Zaporizhzhia,” it added.

Russia plundered Kyiv with a barrage of missiles on Thursday, injuring at least 13 people and damaging several residential buildings and industrial facilities, in what was the biggest assault on the Ukrainian capital in weeks, the New York Times reported, citing local officials.

The Ukrainian Air Force said its air defence systems had intercepted all 31 of the Russian missiles that targeted Kyiv. But, still, the debris from the downed missiles fell in various parts of the city, causing injuries and damage.

No deaths have been reported so far.

“Such terror continues every day and night,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post to which he tagged a video purportedly showing firefighters dousing burning buildings with water.

The attack took place in the early hours of the day, with loud blasts jolting residents awake around 5 am (local time) as air defence systems went into action. Many people rushed to take shelter in subway stations.

Several orange fireballs lit up the sky, apparently the result of missile interceptions. Air-raid alerts ended at 6:10 am (locKyiv Mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said that missile debris had caused fires in at least three residential buildings and in parking lots.

He said on Telegram that emergency responders had been deployed to help victims. Four people were hospitalised, the city’s military administration said.al time) just as the sun rose, revealing the damage.

Thursday’s assault came at a difficult time for Ukraine’s military, with Russian forces pressing ahead with ground attacks at several locations along the front line of more than 600 miles, the New York Times reported.

Faced with a shortfall of troops and ammunition, Ukraine has struggled to contain Russian assaults in its east and south.

Ukrainian officials have vowed to launch a counteroffensive this year, but experts say the military has yet to receive the kinds of weapons that would let it regain the initiative on the battlefield, with American aid held up in Congress.

ALSO READ: 60 Killed, Over 100 Injured in Moscow Terror Attack

Putin has frequently highlighted the dangers of nuclear warfare but asserted that he has never deemed it necessary to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine…reports Asian Lite News

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned the Western powers that any direct conflict between Russia and the NATO alliance, led by the US, would mean the world will be “one step away” from a full-scale World War III, TASS reported.

However, he also said that it is “unlikely” that anyone is interested in this.

The Russia-Ukraine war has sparked the most severe strain in Moscow’s relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Putin has frequently highlighted the dangers of nuclear warfare but asserted that he has never deemed it necessary to employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to TASS.

Speaking to reporters, after emerging victorious in the post-Soviet Russian history, Putin said that in the future, a direct conflict between Russia and NATO cannot be ruled out, although no one is interested in this.

“I think that everything is possible in the modern world. But <…> it will be one step away from a full-scale third world war. I think it’s unlikely Is anyone interested in this?” TASS quotes Putin as saying.

Before Russia’s March 15-17 elections, Ukraine had ramped up its attacks against Russia.

On Kyiv sending a large number of soldiers on the border zone, Putin said that “somewhere up to 5 thousand people” are present here.

The Russian Volunteer Corps (recognised as a terrorist organization in the Russian Federation) and similar groups include 2.5 thousand, who are now, “like meat… thrown into assaults,” in the latest attacks these “so so-called volunteers” lost approximately 800 people, according to TASS.

Securing a crushing victory in the Russian Presidential elections, Putin also said that he had agreed to a prisoner swap involving Alexei Navalny before the opposition leader’s sudden death in an Arctic prison in February.

Calling Navalny’s death a ‘sad event’, Putin said there were other cases of people in prisons passing away.

In his address at his election headquarters on Sunday, Putin said, “As for Mr. Navalny–yes, he passed away. It is always a sad event. And there were other cases when people in prisons passed away. Didn’t this happen in the United States? It did, and not once.”

Putin added that he was told of a proposal to exchange Navalny for prisoners held in Western nations days before the Opposition leader died in prison.

On February 16, jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died.

Putin won the presidential elections, receiving 87.17 per cent of the votes based on the result of processing 70 per cent of the electoral protocols, Russia-based TASS reported, citing data from the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation candidate Nikolai Kharitonov secured the second spot with 4.1 per cent of the votes while New People Party candidate Vladislav Davankov stood third with 4.8 per cent votes.

The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) candidate, Leonid Slutsky, received a mere 3.15 per cent of the votes counted. According to preliminary data as of 6 pm (Moscow time) on Sunday, the voter turnout in the presidential elections, which for the first time took place over three days from March 15-17, stood at 74.22 per cent. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Biden backs Senator, calls for fresh polls in Israel

Under Russia’s presidential election regulations, a candidate who receives more than 50 per cent of the votes will secure victory…reports Asian Lite News

 Russia’s incumbent President Vladimir Putin is projected to win his fifth term as head of state by a historic margin.

According to Russia’s CEC, almost 95 per cent of the votes have been counted as of 1 a.m. Moscow time and Putin is leading the race with an estimated 87.3 per cent.

Under Russia’s presidential election regulations, a candidate who receives more than 50 per cent of the votes will secure victory.

Communist Party candidate, Nikolay Kharitonov, who had also contested against Putin in 2004 and come second, is expected to come in second this time too, with 4.7 per cent, followed by Vladislav Davankov of the New People party with 3.6 per cent, and Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democrats at 2.5 per cent.

Exit polls, conducted across the country, earlier showed similar trends, with the incumbent head of state expected to win the election with 87.8 per cent.

These were the first polls since the 2020 constitutional amendment, which set a limit of two presidential terms – but not retrospectively, thus allowing Putin, who succeeded Boris Yeltsin as President in 1999, and won the polls in 2000 and 2004, and then again in 2012 and 2018 (with a stint as Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012) to contest this year, and even 2030.

This year’s election clocked a historic high voter turnout, which topped 74 per cent, according to data from the CEC.

More than 74 per cent of Russia’s 112.3 million voters had cast their ballots in the presidential elections by the time polling stations closed on Sunday, the Russian CEC reported, in a historic turnout for modern Russia.

Voting was held over three days, between March 15 and 17 in the first multi-day election. Voters in 29 out of 89 Russia’s regions, including Moscow – the nation’s most populous region, incorporating the capital city – also had an opportunity to vote online, in another first, and 90 per cent of the over 4.7 million people who applied, used this format.

The 2024 election is also the first in which voters in four “new Russian regions” – Kherson and Zaporozhye, as well as Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – exercised their franchise.

The highest turnout at polling stations was reported in the regions of Chechnya (96 per cent), Tuva (more than 94 per cent), Kemerovo Region (94 per cent) and Donetsk People’s Republic (88.17 per cent). Low turnouts were recorded in the Tomsk and Altai Regions as well as in Russia’s Republic of Karelia, where it was still above 51 per cent.

Some sporadic attempts at disrupting the work of the polling stations occurred, involving attempts to set ballot boxes on fire or to pour a dye into the box to destroy the votes in it, Russian media reported.

CEC head Ella Pamfilova also said that more than 280 hacking attacks on the online voting system had been repelled.

ALSO READ: Russia reports massive cyberattacks on voting system