Section: South China Morning Post (China)
Mysterious rash of Russian deaths cast suspicion on Vladimir Putin
A former member of the Russian parliament is gunned down in broad daylight in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. A long-time Russian ambassador to the United Nations drops dead at work. A Russian-backed commander in the breakaway Ukrainian province of Donetsk is blown up in an elevator. A Russian media executive is found dead in his Washington hotel...
Merkel makes rare Russia visit as Putin backs warmer ties
German Chancellor Angela Merkel held talks on Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine and Syria in a signal of renewed dialogue despite profound rifts on her first visit to Russia since 2015. We cannot but use this visit to discuss bilateral relations President Vladimir Putin “We cannot but use this visit to discuss bilateral relations...
American OSCE monitor killed in rebel east Ukraine after vehicle hits landmine
An American monitor with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe died after a mission patrol vehicle hit a landmine in the Russian-backed separatist east, eliciting sharp words towards Moscow from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. It marked the first loss for the security body’s Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) since...
Singapore, Germany passports tie as most powerful passports in the world
The Republic’s passport takes top spot – in a tie with Germany – in a global ranking of the world’s passports. Singaporeans can travel to 159 countries visa-free, up from 158 last year after Ukraine included Singapore to its visa-on-arrival programme. According to the Global Passport Power Rank 2017 released on Monday (April 17),...
As Trumpomania wanes in Russia, Kremlin TV declares him scarier than Kim Jong-un
As Russian hopes of swift detente under US President Donald Trump have fizzled, state media, which hailed his election win, have made a U-turn. On Sunday, they even said he was scarier than North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Trump’s decision to launch a missile strike against Russian ally Syria, drop a giant bomb on Afghanistan, and stick...
US-led NATO battalion launched in Poland near tense border with Russia
Poland’s president on Thursday hailed the launch of a US-led NATO multinational battalion in an area of his country bordering Russia’s heavily militarised Kaliningrad exclave as an “historic moment”. The battalion is one of four NATO is deploying for the first time to Poland and the Baltic states as trip wires against Russian...
Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is registering himself as a foreign agent
US President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort will register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for lobbying work he did on behalf of political interests in Ukraine, led at the time by a pro-Russian political party, his spokesman said Wednesday. Manafort is the second Trump campaign adviser to have to...
NATO still butting heads with Russia over Ukraine
NATO still has “clear disagreements” with Russia over the Ukraine crisis and expects Moscow to do more to rein in armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces, the Atlantic alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. The West slapped sanctions on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula...
Russia prepares to pay off the last of its debt inherited from the old Soviet Union
A quarter of a century after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia is finally set to pay off all the foreign debt it inherited from the vanished communist empire. Keen to establish a reputation as a reliable borrower – despite Western financial sanctions over the Ukraine conflict – Moscow announced last week it would pay off US$125.2 million in...
On Tuesday, this Putin critic feared he would never be forgiven. On Thursday, he was shot in the head
Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian member of parliament and harsh critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had much to worry about. On Tuesday evening, he said in an interview that he feared for his life, citing anonymous threats against him and his wife, Maria Maksakova, a former member of the United Russia party founded by Putin, with whom...
