Section: San Francisco Chronicle (USA)
Ukraine ex-pilot blames lawmaker for ties to Maidan snipers
MOSCOW (AP) — A former military pilot who became famous in Ukraine after spending two years in a Russian prison accused Ukraine’s parliament speaker of being associated with snipers who fired on protesters during Ukraine’s 2014 uprising but retracted her statement hours later. Lawmaker Nadiya Savchenko told journalists that she saw...
Putin says he approved plan to shoot down plane in 2014
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has said in a new documentary that he approved of a plan to shoot down a hijacked passenger jet four years ago. A Ukrainian man tried to hijack a Turkey-bound flight and demanded that it go to Sochi as the Winter Olympics were about to start there in February 2014. The Sochi Games were Putin’s...
Putin’s Russia: From basket case to resurgent superpower
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin looks more invincible than at any other time in his 18 years in power. Since he was last elected in 2012, Russians have invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, blanket-bombed Syria and been accused of meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Putin has also claimed to have a scary new nuclear arsenal....
Putin on alleged US election interference: I don’t care
MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Putin says he doesn’t care about alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election because the actions weren’t connected to his government. In an interview with the US TV network NBC, the Russian president was asked if he condoned the interference by 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies...
Tillerson, Russia’s Lavrov circle each other in Africa
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — They could have run into each other sipping coffee in the lobby, perhaps at the bar at Ethiopia’s finest hotel. But U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov don’t appear destined to meet. The top American and Russian diplomats are warily circling each other in...
News of the day from across the globe, Dec. 9
1 Anticorruption protests: Protests in Ukraine focusing on endemic corruption are tapping a deep strain of discontent in a country prone to upheaval. Antigovernment protesters have set up a few dozen tents outside parliament in Kiev, a far smaller showing than during massive 2014 protests and the 2004 Orange Revolution that forced a rerun of a...
News of the day from across the globe, Dec. 9
1 Anticorruption protests: Protests in Ukraine focusing on endemic corruption are tapping a deep strain of discontent in a country prone to upheaval. Antigovernment protesters have set up a few dozen tents outside parliament in Kiev, a far smaller showing than during massive 2014 protests and the 2004 Orange Revolution that forced a rerun of a...
Ukraine arrests anti-corruption activist Saakashvili
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Mikheil Saakashvili, the adamant opposition leader who was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship four months ago, was arrested late Friday in Ukraine’s capital. Hundreds of his supporters gathered in a narrow street outside the police station where he was taken, shouting “Shame” and calling for others to...
Saakashvili calls for protest camp in Ukraine’s capital
MOSCOW (AP) — Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia who has emerged as an anti-corruption campaigner, urged Ukrainians Sunday to set up a protest camp in Kiev’s main square if parliament fails to adopt a law on presidential impeachment within a week. Saakashvili issued the call for an encampment at Kiev’s Independence...
News of the Day From Around the World, Nov. 22
1 Ukraine standoff: Dozens of armed men occupied the center of the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, blocking the entrances to several government buildings during a standoff between two top officials in the Russian-backed separatist enclave. The menacing deadlock in the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic began on Monday,...
