Latest news from Russia and the war in Ukraine
Gorbachev died shocked and bewildered by Ukraine conflict, his interpreter says
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev during French President Francois Mitterrand’s visit to the Soviet Union. Moscow, Russia, 6th December 1989.
Wojtek Laski | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was shocked and bewildered by the Ukraine conflict in the months before he died and psychologically crushed in recent years by Moscow’s worsening ties with Kyiv, his interpreter said on Thursday.
Pavel Palazhchenko, who worked with the late Soviet president for 37 years and was at his side at numerous U.S.-Soviet summits, spoke to Gorbachev a few weeks ago by phone and said he and others had been struck by how traumatized he was by events in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is to miss the funeral of the last Soviet leader and will deny the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the full state honors.
— Reuters
FBI, NYPD search alleged properties of Russian oligarch in New York and Florida
Viktor Vekselberg, billionaire and co-founder of Renova Group, pauses during a panel session on day three of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, June 4, 2021.
Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Federal agents were seen on Thursday morning searching an apartment in a Manhattan high-rise and an estate in the Hamptons that authorities allege are connected to a Russian oligarch who recently had his yacht seized, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Homeland Security Investigations and FBI agents along with NYPD detectives were seen carrying boxes during a search of 19 Duck Pond Lane in Southampton, N.Y., and the search of 515 Park Ave. in Manhattan.
Records show those properties are linked to sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and close ally of President Vladimir Putin who heads the Moscow-based Renova Group, a conglomerate with interests in the metals, mining, and tech industries, according to U.S. Treasury Department documents.
The U.S. seizure of Vekselberg’s $900 million superyacht off the coast in early April marked the first under newly imposed Western sanctions targeting assets of Russian elites in response to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Vekselberg is one of numerous Russian oligarchs to face sanctions since the start of the war.
Read more here.
— NBC NEWS
Macron vows to prevent Russia from winning war in Ukraine
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to keep up France’s humanitarian, economic and military support to Ukraine and to bolster European unity as a way to pile pressure on Russia and prevent it from winning its war in that country.
“We cannot let Russia militarily win the war,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee presidential palace.
He set the goal of enabling Ukraine to either win militarily or be put in a strong position to achieve “a negotiated peace.”
“We must get prepared for a long war,” Macron said, adding that this would involve tensions escalating over Ukraine’s nuclear plants.
Macron said France strongly supported the mission…
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