Author: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was ready for talks “anytime” with US President-elect Donald Trump, who has touted his ability to strike a Ukraine peace deal within hours of coming to office. Trump, who will return to the White House in January, has stoked fears in Kyiv that he could force Ukraine to accept peace on terms favourable to Moscow. Holding his annual end-of-year press conference, the Kremlin leader said his troops held the upper hand across the battlefield, but was forced to admit he does not know when Russia will take back the western Kursk region where…

Russia’s defence ministry Wednesday claimed the capture of two new settlements in the Donetsk region of east Ukraine, the latest in a series of gains by Moscow’s troops. The ministry said in a daily briefing that its forces had “liberated” Stari Terny and Trudove, both located near the industrial town of Kurakhove, which Russia appears close to capturing. Moscow has been advancing in east Ukraine for months, pressing its advantage against overstretched and outgunned Ukrainian soldiers. Kurakhove is a strategic industrial town on the banks of a reservoir that Moscow is trying to encircle. Stari Terny is located on the…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets Wednesday with NATO chief Mark Rutte and key European leaders in Brussels to discuss “next steps” on Russia’s war as Donald Trump prepares to take office in the United States. The gathering due in the evening was set to bring together German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish leader Donald Tusk, Italian premier Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen and could also include French President Emmanuel Macron. British foreign minister David Lammy is also expected to attend, as are EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa. The huddle comes just over a month before Trump…

Russia has detained a suspect in the killing of the head of the army’s chemical weapons division, investigators said Wednesday, a day after the general and his aide were killed by a blast in Moscow. “A national of Uzbekistan, born in 1995, was arrested on suspicion of having committed the attack that cost the life of the commander of Russian radiological, chemical and biological defence forces, Igor Kirillov, and his assistant, Ilya Polikarpov”, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. The man said he had been “recruited by Ukrainian special forces”, it added. Kirillov and his assistant were killed on…

Russia’s army claimed Tuesday to have captured another village in eastern Ukraine, a day after President Vladimir Putin said his troops had the upper hand across the frontline. Russia’s defence ministry said it had “liberated” the village of Gannivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, around 10 kilometres (six miles) south of the resource-rich hub of Kurakhove, which Moscow is also on the brink of capturing.

The killing of a senior Russian military official, Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on Tuesday was a “special operation” by Ukraine’s SBU security service, a source inside the agency told AFP. Kirillov is the most senior Russian army official to be targeted on Russian territory, killed with his assistant when an explosive device attached to a scooter went off outside an apartment building in south-eastern Moscow. “The liquidation of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical and biological defence troops is a special operation by the SBU,” the source said. “Kirillov was a war criminal and…

Visiting French special envoy for Syria Jean-Francois Guillaume said his country was preparing to stand with Syrians during the transitional period after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster by rebels this month. “France is preparing to be with Syrians” during the transitional period “which we hope will be peaceful”, Guillaume told journalists, adding that his delegation had come to “make contact with the de facto authorities in Damascus”, while an AFP journalist saw the French flag raised in the embassy’s entrance hall for the first time since the mission was shuttered in 2012.

Germany on Monday urged Israel to “abandon” a plan to double the population living in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights at the southwestern edge of Syria. A foreign ministry spokesman said “it is perfectly clear under international law that this area controlled by Israel belongs to Syria and that Israel is therefore an occupying power”. The spokesman, Christian Wagner, added that Berlin therefore called on its ally Israel “to abandon this plan” announced Sunday by the Israeli government. As opposition forces swept Syrian regime leader Bashar al-Assad from power last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered troops to…

The fate of Russian military bases in Syria following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad was still unclear on Monday, the Kremlin admitted. The Tartus naval base and Hmeimim air base are Russia’s only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union and have been key to the Kremlin’s activities in Africa and the Middle East. The ousting of Moscow’s long-time ally Assad in a shock rebel offensive has brought their future into question. “There are no final decisions on this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. “We are in contact with representatives of the forces that now control the…

Qatar’s embassy to Syria is to resume operations on Tuesday, the Gulf emirate announced on Sunday as its diplomats visited the country and met with its transitional government following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad. “Qatar announces the resumption of the work of its embassy in the sisterly Syrian Arab Republic starting the day after tomorrow, Tuesday,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. It also name a new head of mission to Syria, Khalifa Abdullah Al Mahmoud Al-Sharif. Doha closed its embassy in Damascus and recalled its ambassador in July 2011, early in the uprising against the Assad government that…