Tag • #russia

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Support for Ukraine at stake as Croatia votes in parliamentary election

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 17 April - 04:00

Polls suggest Croatian Democratic Union could lose majority to Social Democrat-led coalition headed by populist president

Croatian voters are going to the polls in a high-stakes parliamentary election that could significantly change the country’s pro-western stance on issues including European support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia.

Polls suggest the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of the prime minister, Andrej Plenković, could lose its majority to a Social Democrat-led coalition headed by the populist president, Zoran Milanović, who is not officially a candidate.

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German chancellor urges Xi Jinping to press Russia to end Ukraine war, saying ‘China’s word carries weight’

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Wednesday, 17 April - 00:48

Olaf Scholz says Chinese president agreed to back June peace talks that Russia is not attending while Xi says efforts for a resolution must involve both sides

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, says he has urged Xi Jinping to press Russia to end its “senseless” war in Ukraine and that the Chinese president has agreed to back a peace conference in Switzerland.

Scholz said after a meeting with Xi in Beijing on Tuesday that “China’s word carries weight in Russia”.

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Ukraine war briefing: Fraught path through US Congress for aid as Russia makes gains

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 16 April - 23:57

Invaders breaking out and making headway in absence of US help, says thinktank; Zelenskiy signs mobilisation law to boost Ukrainian ranks. What we know on day 784

Russia-Ukraine war: who will finance Ukraine’s defence?

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MPs in Georgia agree draft of ‘repressive’ foreign agents bill amid protests

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 16 April - 21:47

Legislation is seen as similar to an anti-democratic Russian law and Brussels has said it would undermine hopes of EU membership

Georgian lawmakers have agreed an early draft of a controversial “foreign influence” bill , sparking fresh street protests against the legislation criticised for mirroring a repressive Russian law.

The bill has sparked outrage in Georgia and concern in the west, with many arguing it undermines Georgia’s bid for European Union membership.

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Russia-Ukraine war: who will finance Ukraine’s defence?

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 16 April - 16:49

With US funding stalled in Congress, what are the other schemes to arm and fund Ukraine?

With Ukrainian officials warning the country lacks the arms to defend itself as Russia pushes its offensive, the US Congress has finally announced plans to bring a package on military aid for Ukraine – which has stalled for months due to Republican scepticism – to a vote in the House of Representatives.

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Vladimir Putin not welcome at ceremony for 80th anniversary of D-Day

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 16 April - 16:07

France says Russia can be represented but president will not be invited because of war in Ukraine

Russia will be invited to send representatives to the international ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-day – but not Vladimir Putin, the French organisers have announced.

The Elysée is reported to have accepted that the country be represented but that its leader is not welcome because of Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

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Russian space chief says new rocket will put Falcon 9 reuse to shame

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 16 April - 13:57

Enlarge / Vladimir Putin meets with Roscosmos Director General Yuri Borisov on June 30, 2023. (credit: The Kremlin)

Russia's once-vaunted launch industry has been much in decline due to a combination of factors, including an aging fleet of rockets, a reduction in government investment, and the country's war in Ukraine driving away Western customers.

However, it is has been difficult for the country's leaders to explain these difficult facts to the Russian people. Russians are justifiably proud of their country's heritage of space firsts and dominant position in spaceflight. So typically, officials bluster.

This is what Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov did recently during a lecture at the Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics. Located south of Moscow, this is the world's first museum devoted solely to spaceflight. Borisov heads the country's main space corporation, and thus is the leader of the country's space activities.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: world ‘dangerously close to a nuclear accident’ amid Zaporizhzhia attacks

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 16 April - 07:46

Head of IAEA issues warning as Ukraine and Russia trade accusations over Europe’s biggest nuclear plant

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz , has said he hoped Berlin and Beijing could help achieve a “just peace” in Ukraine, as he met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping , in the Chinese capital.

Meeting with Xi at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on Tuesday, Scholz told the China’s president that he hoped to discuss “how we can contribute more to a just peace in Ukraine”.

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Grace review – monumentally odd father-daughter odyssey via mobile cinema

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Tuesday, 16 April - 06:00 · 1 minute

Travelling across Russia in mostly silence, Ilya Povolotsky’s debut feature has a strange confidence in its own insistent dispiritedness

With long journeys in a red camper van, long unbroken shots of shattered Caucasian landscapes, and very long silences between its alienated father and daughter, Ilya Povolotsky’s debut feature has a strange confidence in its own monumental dispiritedness. “I want to know that you have a plan,” says the teenager. “And that we won’t get stuck somewhere outside Khabarovsk with a chicken and a sad librarian woman.” This being a Russian art film, you wouldn’t bet against it.

The two unnamed characters, played by Maria Lukyanova and Gela Chitava, are making their way across the country for unspecified reasons, other than her desire to see the sea. They run a small mobile cinema out of their van for wan residents of purgatorial steppe towns and flog snacks and porn by night at sketchy truck stops for the hauliers who aren’t with sex workers. The father has transient liaisons of his own, adding an accusatory edge to his daughter’s faraway gaze, frequently fixed on nothing. Things aren’t looking up when they reach the sea; local people are scooping dead fish off the foreshore. “Fish plague,” says a police officer. “You’d better leave now.”