Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) met Chairman of State Administrative Council & Prime Minister of Myanmar’s Provisional Government, Min Aung Hlaing, Naypyidaw, August 3, 2022 The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Myanmar on August 3 shows that the relationship is assuming a strategic character. The Foreign Ministry in a press release on August …
Ukraine war is losing its sparkle. Where’s the Lady with the Lamp?
Cargo ship Razoni carrying 26000 tonnes of maize sailing from Odessa Port toward Bosphorus, Aug 1, 2022 The Russian Defence Ministry announced yesterday that at around 9.20 a.m. Moscow time, Razoni, ship flying the flag of Sierra Leone, left Odessa port in Ukraine as part of the recent grain deal. Razoni is carrying a cargo of …
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China is still playing the long game on Taiwan
Mao Zedong (L) shakes hands with US President Richard Nixon on weeklong visit to China in Feb 1972 in a historic strategic overture The tame ending of the saga of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan leaves many intriguing loose ends, although the world is lucky that she didn’t choose to test the authenticity of the …
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Shouldn’t Biden be talking directly to Putin?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at latter’s request, Jul 29, 2022 No sooner than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned to Moscow after the SCO ministerial in Tashkent, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s pending request for a conversation was scheduled late Friday evening. This has …
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Lavrov is on Blinken’s list of people to call
Russian FM Sergey Lavrov rounded off a tour of African states in a blaze of media publicity despite US hopes to “isolate” him The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press availability at the State Department on Wednesday made the dramatic announcement that he intends to speak to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov …
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Russia’s Vostok 2022 has big messages
Russia’s massive Vostok 2018 manoeuvres, held four years ago was first of its kind after 1981 during Soviet era (File photo) The announcement by Russian Defence Ministry on Tuesday on Vostok-22 strategic command post exercises during August 30-September 5 gives a big message to the West in political and military terms. The announcement said, “In addition to …
Black Sea and three musketeers
A 1894 image of Alexander Dumas’ Three Musketeers by Maurice Leloir, the French illustrator, watercolourist and writer As the conflict in Ukraine slouches toward Odessa, the war gets elevated to the sphere of a romantic adventure. If Alexander Dumas was alive, the idea might have struck him to write a sequel to his Three Musketeers, …
Ukraine grain deal is a feel-good event. But road to peace is long and winding
Combines work on a wheat field near the village of Talniki in Siberia (File photo). For the first time since the days of the tsars, Russia has emerged in recent years as the world’s largest wheat exporter The agreements signed in Istanbul on Friday regarding the export of grain out of Ukraine and Russia catch …
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Russia teaches Europe ABC of gas trade
Gazprom’s Nord Stream gas pipeline, Lubmin, Germany. The unthinkable is happening for the second time in five months: Russian gas giant Gazprom writes to German gas companies announcing force majeure effective from June 14, exonerating it from any compensation for shortfalls since then. The first time shock and awe appeared in German-Russian relations this year …
Ukraine’s ‘Great Game’ surfaces in Transcaucasia
Presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan (clockwise from left) took part in the 6th Caspian Summit, Ashgabat, June 29, 2022 If the metaphor of the “Great Game” can be applied to the Ukrainian crisis, with the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at it core, it has begun causing reverberations across …
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