China's yuan is the most traded foreign currency in Russia, but its availability in the heavily sanctioned country may soon dry up."The situation may change after Oct. 12," a source told Reuters. "An abrupt shortage of yuan or a complete refusal to accept payments from Russia by Chinese banks is possible."
That's because all conversion operations, including for Chinese banks' subsidiaries, will stop, and all open foreign exchange positions via the Moscow Exchange will be closed, the report added.
"Accordingly, the situation with the supply of yuan liquidity will become even more difficult," the source told Reuters
Lawmakers have proposed a ban on “propaganda of conscious refusal to bear children,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a post on Telegram on Tuesday.It’s not clear how exactly this legislation would be enforced if enacted, and what exactly would constitute a violation, but it comes amid an already unprecedented crackdown on dissent more than 2 1/2 years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation has announced that its divers are inspecting the K-27 nuclear submarine, which sank in the Kara Sea 42 years ago.
Chinese and Russian long-range bombers patrolled together near Alaska for the first time last month. Days earlier, the countries held live-fire naval drills in the hotly contested South China Sea for the first time in eight years. And they have more frequently buzzed the skies and sailed the waters together near Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, where America has strategic interests.
China has been frustrated by American trade restrictions and Washington’s building of security alliances in Asia. It has pushed back by trying to court European countries with trade and building its influence among poorer countries with investments.
To Washington, the exercises sow doubts about whether the United States could prevail in a war in Asia against the combined forces of China and Russia. While American war planners have long considered scenarios with China and Russia individually, they have paid less attention to the prospect of the two nuclear-armed states fighting together because it had long seemed so unlikely.
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate hearing this year that American officials needed to consider how Russia might help if China decided to invade Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing that the United States is widely expected to defend.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is advocating a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear that peace talks can only happen after Ukraine essentially surrenders.
The big talking point though - experts say - will be how the incresingly isolated nations can deepen their military ties, as Putin looks to shore up his supply of weapons and munitions for his war in Ukraine.The visit follows Hanoi avoiding a Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland last weekend, while sending its deputy foreign minister to a BRICS meeting in Russia earlier last week.
That he sounds increasingly confident and determined not to back down. He seems to believe that in the current standoff between Russia and the West, it is the West that will blink first.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to halt the war in Ukraine with a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines, four Russian sources told Reuters, saying he is prepared to fight on if Kyiv and the West do not respond.Three of the sources, familiar with discussions in Putin's entourage, said the veteran Russian leader had expressed frustration to a small group of advisers about what he views as Western-backed attempts to stymie negotiations and Zelenskiy's decision to rule out talks.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on X that the Russian leader was trying to derail a Ukrainian-initiated peace summit in Switzerland next month by using his entourage to send out "phony signals" about his alleged readiness to halt the war.
Biden's departure was the second recent unpleasant surprise for Russia in Western politics — following the unexpected defeat in the French parliamentary elections of the far-right party Moscow has backed as a political ally, National Rally.'If Kamala Harris wins the election, it will be a huge disappointment for the Kremlin,' said Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of R.Politik, a Russian political consultancy now based in France. 'Not because they expect some concrete anti-Russian steps but because the nature of American politics will become, from their point of view, irrational and unpragmatic and self-destructive.'
China and Russia's naval forces on Sunday kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine.The exercise, which began in Guangdong province on Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally, state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, adding it would include anti-missile exercises, sea strikes and air defense.
Armenia determined to quit Russia-led CSTO military alliance
Russia has lost more than 70,000 troops in the past two months, British military intelligence said on Friday.The update by the Ministry of Defence added that the heavy losses would likely continue as Russia looked to make gains across the front lines in Ukraine.
But despite its losses, Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month - roughly as many as are exiting the battlefield, U.S. officials said.
Russia's ethnic minorities disproportionately die in the war in Ukraine
In Russia's far east, the funerals are all too common. The widows are so distraught, they have to be carried by an honor guard. And the cemeteries are filled with soldiers, many of their graves freshly dug.
Russia promises release of Indians fighting in its army - At least four Indians have been killed in the fighting.
For the Kremlin, the National Rally — whose stances on Russia are friendlier than those of President Macron, a staunch supporter of Ukraine — might have been the preferred winners of the French snap legislative elections, and Moscow likely tried to help boost their results on Sunday.
The group, which was established by China and Russia in 2001 with the Central Asian countries Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, has expanded in recent years to include Pakistan, India and Iran.
A bigger setback for Beijing is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India is skipping the summit this year. Mr. Modi plans to visit Moscow next week to hold his own discussions with Mr. Putin and is instead sending his minister of external affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, to the summit in Astana.
Russia wants to maintain access to Central Asian markets to circumvent Western sanctions. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has obtained billions of dollars’ worth of Western goods by using Central Asian intermediaries. These include consumer goods like luxury cars, as well as electronic components that have been used in military production.
Throughout the Cold War, the great powers employed direct forces in only a handful of instances. Korea was the only conventional engagement from either bloc. The Soviets conducted limited actions within the Eastern bloc, most notably in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. intervention in Vietnam were both distinctly unconventional wars. American operations in Grenada and Panama, like Soviet deployments throughout Africa
The exercises were the clearest warning yet from Russia that it might use nuclear weapons in the course of its war against Ukraine.
Victory Park was originally built to commemorate the Russian defeat of Napoleon. It also displays military equipment from the Second World War.The big draw when the students were visiting, however, were the NATO tanks captured in Ukraine. Many, including the Abrams, were seized in February, when Avdiivka, a longtime Ukrainian military stronghold, fell to the Russians.
Throughout the Cold War, the great powers employed direct forces in only a handful of instances. Korea was the only conventional engagement from either bloc. The Soviets conducted limited actions within the Eastern bloc, most notably in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. intervention in Vietnam were both distinctly unconventional wars. American operations in Grenada and Panama, like Soviet deployments throughout Africa
The exercises were the clearest warning yet from Russia that it might use nuclear weapons in the course of its war against Ukraine.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Officials say Kyiv won’t get membership negotiations at the coming NATO summit, but the alliance will announce a structure to coordinate aid over the longer term.The Biden administration and NATO officials came up with the idea as a way to give something solid to Kyiv at the summit even as they maintain the time is not right for Ukraine to join.
In the second 12 months on the front line - as Moscow pushed its so-called meat grinder strategy - we found the body count was nearly 25% higher than in the first year.