NOT PUTIN'S WEEK

Putin tells Modi he'll 'stop' the Ukraine invasion he ordered 'as soon as possible' after the Indian leader criticized Russia's war to his face

John Haltiwanger
Fri, September 16, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan September 16, 2022.Sergey Bobylev/Reuters

Modi explicitly criticized Russia's war in Ukraine while meeting with Putin on Friday.

"Today's era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this," Modi said.

"I know about your concerns. We want all of this to end as soon as possible," Putin told Modi.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday criticized Russia's war in Ukraine while meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin face-to-face while both were in Uzbekistan for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

"I know that today's era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this," Modi told Putin, according to Reuters.

Putin told the Indian leader, "I know about your position on the conflict in Ukraine, and I know about your concerns. We want all of this to end as soon as possible."

The Russian president's remarks to his Indian counterpart echoed comments on Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine that he made to Chinese leader Xi Jinping the day prior. "We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends when it comes to the Ukraine crisis," Putin said to Xi at the summit in Uzbekistan.

"We understand your questions and concerns in this regard," Putin added. "During today's meeting, of course, we will explain in detail our position on this issue, although we have spoken about this before."

China and India have close ties with Moscow — and have continued to buy its oil, gas and coal as Western nations moved to cut their purchases — but foreign policy experts and Russia watchers say that the war in Ukraine appears to be driving a major wedge in relations.

"Having been thrashed on battlefield, Putin is getting thrashed at conference table, too. Doesn't take much clairvoyance to see that Xi, Modi, and others are deeply annoyed by fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine. Stunning erosion of Russia's — and Putin's — diplomatic position," Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, said in a tweet.

"Nobody likes losers, and he's losing now in Ukraine," Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, said in an appearance on MSNBC on Thursday.

Putin's phrase, "as soon as possible," could merely be rhetoric to placate a trade partner. Putin has tried to justify the invasion as a war of necessity, and has alluded to it as a conquest of territory that is rightfully Russian amid fitful attempts at a diplomatic resolution that Western diplomats have viewed as window dressing. Inside Russia, authorities are accosting those who protest or even describe the effort as a war — Putin made it illegal to spread "fake news" about the military — despite a casualty toll the US estimates to be as high as 80,000 troops.

Russia has suffered devastating troop losses in Ukraine, and its forces were recently pushed into retreat as a result of a blistering Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country's east, and as a wider effort to recapture territory in the south gains momentum. Meanwhile, Russia has been widely accused of war crimes, as it faces crippling economic sanctions over the war. The war has led to an energy crisis and contributed to rising inflation worldwide.

"I think what you're hearing from China, from India, is reflective of concerns around the world about the effects of Russia's aggression on Ukraine, not just on the people of Ukraine," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday, per Al Jazeera, adding, "I think it increases the pressure on Russia to end the aggression."

Narendra Modi’s admonishment for Vladimir Putin: ‘I told you this was not an era for war’

Nataliya Vasilyeva
Fri, September 16, 2022


Vladimir Putin meets with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit -

 SERGEI BOBYLEV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Vladimir Putin was publicly upbraided on Friday over his invasion of Ukraine by India's prime minister, who told him now "is not an era for war".

In a rare moment of confrontation for the Russian president, Narendra Modi said he had "spoken to you on the phone" about the need to end the war as the two met in Uzbekistan's capital, Samarkand.

“I know that today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this,” Mr Modi told Mr Putin in televised remarks on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that brought together strongmen leaders from across Asia.


Hearing the remarks, Mr Putin pursed his lips, glanced at the Indian prime minister then looked down at his notes.

In reply, he told Mr Modi he "understood" his concerns and wished to end the war as soon as possible. He said Ukraine had rejected negotiations.

Diplomatic relations with Delhi are increasingly important for Russia, as India has become the second biggest buyer of Russian oil, behind China.
Putin 'understood' China's war concerns

The Russian leader has been forced onto the backfoot at the SCO summit, where he was hoping to rally support from nations who have not joined the West's sanction regime.

On Thursday, he told Xi Jinping, China's president, that he understood his "concerns" about the war in Ukraine, which has killed thousands and upended global markets.

Observers have noted that Mr Putin has lacked his typical aura at the summit.

On Thursday, he was forced to stand and wait for the president of Kyrgyzstan to arrive for their televised meeting, and he faced a repeat on Friday as the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left him standing listlessly in front of the cameras for several minutes.

Mr Erdogan, who has made several attempts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine and hosted cease-fire talks in March, was expected to try to persuade the Russian president to sit down with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, for peace talks.

Mr Putin told Russian reporters at the end of his visit to Uzbekistan on Friday that no such discussion was had.

Instead, the Russian president throughout the press conference with Kremlin-approved reporters sought to portray Moscow as an innocent victim of Western machinations.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi told Vladimir Putin about the need to end the war - AP

“They just won’t do it,” he said of Ukrainians’ stance on peace talks. “Mr Zelensky has said publicly… that he’s not ready and he won’t talk with Russia. So he’s not ready? Oh well!”

Asked about staggering Russian losses in the south of Ukraine in recent weeks, Mr Putin insisted that the Russian conquest was proceeding as planned.

“Our main goal is to liberate all of the Donbas,” he said. “This work is continuing.”

He made no mention, however, of the areas Russia occupied in Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that just weeks before the Ukrainian counter-offensive were poised for a Russian “referendum” on a possible annexation.

Mr Putin also ominously threatened to target more of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure if Ukraine keeps on attacking military targets in the south of Russia.

He claimed that Russian intelligence managed to foil “terrorist plots” to hit areas near nuclear power stations in Russia but did not add further details.

“Our response will be even stronger if the situation continues to develop the way it has been going,” he said, referring to Russia’s recent retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure including a dam in Mr Zelensky’s hometown.
Ukrainian officials mock Putin's summit isolation

Ukrainian officials on Friday mocked Mr Putin’s perceived isolation at the summit in Uzbekistan and made fun of his claims to seek peace after unleashing a brutal war on Ukraine seven months earlier.

“This is the last autumn for Russian autocrats,” Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Zelensky, tweeted.

“The ‘solution to the conflict’ is very simple: an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from all of Ukraine.”

In separate comments at the Samarkand summit, Mr Xi said the world had entered a period of turmoil and that his fellow leaders should join together to suppress "colour revolutions", a term used to describe pro-democracy movements including Hong Kong's.

"We should support each other's efforts to safeguard security and development interests, prevent external forces from staging colour revolutions, and jointly oppose interference in the internal affairs of other countries under any pretext," Mr Xi said.

Mr Xi stayed away from a dinner attended by 11 heads of states in line with his delegation's Covid policy, a source in the Uzbek government told Reuters on Friday. He was also absent from a group photo of the world leaders and another image taken of Mr Putin chatting with Belarus's president, Alexander Lukashenko, and Mr Erdogan on leather sofas in a break from the high-level diplomacy

Russian council faces dissolution after it called for Putin's removal from office

Tue, September 13, 2022
By Mark Trevelyan

(Reuters) - A group of St Petersburg local politicians who called for President Vladimir Putin to be sacked over the war in Ukraine faces the likely dissolution of their district council following a judge's ruling on Tuesday, one of the deputies saidNikita Yuferev said the judge decided that a series of past council meetings had been invalid, paving the way for it to be broken up by the regional governor.

Another council member, Dmitry Palyuga, said the same court then fined him 47,000 roubles ($780) for "discrediting" the authorities by calling for Putin's removal. Court officials could not be reached by telephone for comment.

Four more members of the Smolninskoye local council are due to appear in court in the next two days.




Last week, a group of deputies from the council appealed to the State Duma to bring charges of state treason against Putin and strip him of power, citing a series of reasons including Russia's military losses in Ukraine and the damage to its economy from Western sanctions.

Another local deputy said 65 municipal representatives from St Petersburg, Moscow and several other regions had signed a petition she published on Monday calling for Putin's resignation.

While posing no current threat to Putin's grip on power, the moves mark rare expressions of dissent by elected representatives at a time when Russians risk heavy prison sentences for "discrediting" the armed forces or spreading "deliberately false information" about them.

Palyuga told Reuters before Tuesday's hearing that the group's appeals were aimed not only at liberal Russians but also at "people loyal to the authorities who are starting to have doubts when they see the lack of success of the Russian army".

He said he expected the numbers of such people to increase after last week's lightning counter-offensive in which Ukraine drove Russian forces out of dozens of towns and recaptured a large swathe of territory in its northeast Kharkiv region.

"Of course, what is happening now has successfully coincided with our agenda. Many people who liked Putin are starting to feel betrayed. I think the more successfully the Ukrainian army operates, the more such people will become," he said.

'VERY, VERY THIN' LINE

Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said the greater risk to the Kremlin lay not in the councillors' protest itself but in the danger of responding too harshly to it.

"The reaction, or overreaction, may cause more political damage to the regime than this petition. But I have no doubts that all those who signed the petition will (come) under political pressure," said Stanovaya, founder of the independent analysis project R.Politik.

Thousands of legal cases have been launched against people accused of discrediting the army, usually leading to fines for first-time offences, but a Moscow district councillor was jailed for seven years in July after being convicted of spreading false information. Several other journalists and opposition figures have been charged and face potential prison terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that critical points of view were tolerated, within the limits of the law. "As long as they remain within the law, this is pluralism, but the line is very, very thin, one must be very careful here," he said.

Ksenia Thorstrom, a St Petersburg local councillor who published Monday's petition calling for Putin's resignation, said it was too early to say how the campaign would turn out.

"To call for a politician to resign is absolutely normal. There can be nothing criminal about it," she told Reuters.

"Of course there is a certain risk, but to show solidarity with our colleagues - independent politicians who still remain in Russia - is much more important."

(Additional reporting by Filipp Lebedev; Editing by Bill Berkrot)


Kremlin TV Airs Call for Russia to Admit ‘Serious Defeat’

Julia Davis
Tue, September 13, 2022

Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

Brutal realizations have been raining upon the Kremlin’s top propagandists—and when it rains, it pours. The same pundits who used to threaten NATO countries with nuclear strikes are begrudgingly acknowledging that Russia’s Armed Forces have suffered a series of humiliating setbacks in Ukraine.

Appearing on Russia’s NTV show The Meeting Place on Monday, policy analyst Viktor Olevich surmised: “Unfortunately, the situation is difficult. Can we say that the Russian forces moved closer to meeting the goals and carrying out the tasks set by the president at the beginning of the special operation—or did they get further away? Obviously, we’re now further away.”

Bogdan Bezpalko, member of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, was even more outspoken. “For two months, Ukrainian Armed Forces and military equipment have been massing in that area, all Telegram channels have been writing about it. Where was our damn reconnaissance? All of their heads should be laying on Putin’s desk, hacked off at the base... Of course, this is a tactical defeat. I hope it will be very sobering.”

On Monday’s broadcast of The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov likewise dispensed a large dose of brutal honesty. “I urge everyone not to panic in the face of a defeat we’ve suffered in the Kharkiv region, and we have to acknowledge it,” he said. “A defeat has some meaning when you acknowledge it and draw new conclusions. And if you don’t acknowledge it, all you get is another defeat, perhaps even more devastating. This is a very difficult situation and we have to recognize that we’re battling a very powerful adversary.”

Shakhnazarov, whose public calls to cease the hostilities made waves shortly after Russia initially invaded Ukraine, regressed to a diametrically opposite position. With the conviction of a fatalist, he asserted: “No one can stop this war, because it was historically necessary... Neither Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], nor Zelensky and not the West can end this war. This war can end only with the defeat of one of the sides. For us, this defeat may prove fatal. We should understand that it might lead to the disintegration of the country.”

Political scientist Sergey Mikheyev described recent developments in Kharkhiv as “a serious failure,” on the part of Russia. “Call it 'regrouping' or whatever else... This is our most serious defeat during the last six months, and the most significant success of our adversary... Perhaps this failure is beneficial, because being so obvious, now it’s impossible to pull the wool over our eyes, pretending that everything is wonderful,” he said.

Mikheyev argued that failures would likely prompt “serious people” to make some “radical decisions,” like striking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure—a move that is often praised on Russian state TV, with propagandists promoting the idea of causing a total blackout that would deprive all of Ukraine of roads, bridges, electricity and running water.

State TV pundits concur that such measures are necessary because Russia’s Armed Forces can’t keep up with the goals set by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Shakhnazarov noted: “All of us are aware of the problems experienced by our Armed Forces. In my opinion, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were obviously unprepared for the magnitude of this war. Ukraine’s Armed Forces were prepared, they’ve been training and getting ready for eight years.”

Solovyov was unwilling to concede Russia’s defeat to the Ukrainian troops and claimed that American and British soldiers were covertly fighting in their ranks. “In the process of preparing the battle-ready Ukrainian troops, it turns out they’ve been rapidly turning darker in color and becoming fluent English speakers. They’re becoming indistinguishable from the mercenaries... Some of them have a Southern drawl, others speak with a British accent. Stop pretending already,” he said. The idea of being defeated by NATO, as opposed to this smaller neighboring country, seems to sweeten the pot for many of the Kremlin’s cheerleaders.

Team Putin Admits Their Worst Case Scenario Is Coming True

Shakhnazarov complained that the patriotic mood in the country is being negatively undermined from within by a continued obsession with the Western lifestyle and entertainment: “It starts with small things. Why are they showing American movies on our television? Eff me! I just want to say, eff me, why are you doing that? It’s humiliating!”

The filmmaker urged for clarity in the “political solution of the Ukrainian question.” While no one argued with Shakhnazarov about Russia’s defeat, the existence of the Ukrainian ethnicity was too much to bear for some of the Kremlin’s mouthpieces. Political analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky asserted: “The recognition of the existence of the Ukrainian people is the biggest mistake in our Soviet history.” Shakhnazarov followed up: “So there are no Ukrainian people?” Drobnitsky replied: “The Ukrainian people do not exist. Any historian will tell you that they don’t exist... You’re offering me to recognize their existence. Thanks, but no thanks.”

After objecting to arguments about the supposed non-existence of the Ukrainian ethnicity and the Ukrainian language, the Germany-based pundit Alexander Sosnovsky became visibly unsettled by what he was hearing. In a scene that resembled a Mitchell and Webb sketch, in which two Nazi officers come to the realization that they are the ‘baddies’ in WWII, he bitterly concluded: “I don’t want to go any further, because this smells of nationalism.”