President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting with Russian Defence Ministry leadership, Kremlin, Moscow, August 5, 2026 The Russian President Vladimir Putin fired the political equivalent of Oroshnik hypersonic missile Wednesday to scatter the recent pot shots by hawkish factions at the Russian ‘power vertical’, never a unified construct actually, over the future directions of Ukraine …
Continue reading “Trump returns to peacemaking in Ukraine but war must mature first”
The Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal’s characterisation of the reports suggesting the US could impose a 100 percent tariff on countries such as India that import Russian oil as speculative cannot be taken as a statement of fact. “We don’t comment on speculation,” he told the media. On closer look, it is an evasive …
Continue reading “Graham sanctions bill has bite. Trump will use it to terrorise India”
The G7 foreign ministers meeting in Niagara, Canada, on November 11-12 turned out to be a significant event at a juncture when a pall of uncertainty had descended on the presidential dialogue between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. One may even sense the incipient signs of a new dawn breaking in the joint statement of …
Continue reading “US-Russia summit in Budapest is back on track”
A filling station of Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company, which has been put under sanctions by the Trump Administration (File photo) The US President Donald Trump has seemingly shifted gear in the US strategy to stop Russia on its tracks from creating new facts on the ground in Ukraine. Russian forces have the upper hand …
Continue reading “Trump may not follow through on Russian oil or Tomahawk”
A large-scale NATO military exercise earlier this year. Credit…Davide Monteleone for The New York Times Viewed through the Cold War prism, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s decision at its recent summit meeting at the Hague to boost the defence spending by member countries to 5 percent of national income may appear to a naive onlooker as …
Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) with French President Emmanuel Macron in talks in Kremlin early February 2022, Moscow France seeks a role in Iran situation On July 1, did you hear the crunching sound of ice cracking on the frozen lake of Russia-France ties? President Vladimir Putin’s decision to take a phone call on …
President Donald Trump: Bracing for a longer Ukraine war One of the mysteries of the Ukraine endgame is that President Donald Trump did not issue an executive order on January 20 withdrawing all support for Ukraine. That would have been the easiest way to end the war. The conditions were propitious — Candidate Trump didn’t mince …
Playing chess on phone: US President Donald Trump (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin in deep conversation (File photo) The mystique of engaging with the US President Donald Trump will remain a hot topic. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s sensational visit is the latest instance underscoring that it can be dangerous to get too close …
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump addressing a press conference, Mar-a-Lago, Florida, January 7, 2025 On Tuesday, at a press conference at his Florida mansion, President-elect Donald Trump took his gloves off, after showing monumental patience in the face of the shenanigans by the lame duck president Joe Biden and his inner circle to “do an Obama” …
Continue reading “Trump unveils the Greater America project”
A section of Bratstvo (“Brotherhood”) transit gas pipeline, in a forest near Mukachevo, western Ukraine (File photo) The dataset by the Brussels-based think tank Brugel aggregating the data on European natural gas import flows and storage levels puts in perspective Ukraine’s decision to halt the transit of Russian gas to Europe. The statistics reveal that …
Continue reading “Kiev plays games with Russian gas transit”
