About: Putin Archives

A Ukrainian opposition leader jokingly said yesterday (29 August) that by staging a trade war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin “deserved a medal” for boosting Kyiv's chances of signing its Association Agreement with the EU in November.

Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to clinch a concrete energy deal on a rare trip to Azerbaijan yesterday (13 August), dashing Moscow's hopes to challenge the dominance of Western energy majors in the former Soviet republic.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to five years in jail for theft yesterday (18 July), an unexpectedly tough punishment which supporters said proved President Vladimir Putin was a dictator ruling by repression.

Russian President Vladimir Putin faced further isolation on the second day of a G8 summit today (18 June) as world leaders lined up to pressure him into toning down his support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on 17-18 June, said his country would not follow the mistakes of Europe that led to the eurozone crisis. In a wide-ranging interview he blamed the EU’s "mentality” for endangering the economy and the “moral basics of society”.

EU and Russian leaders appeared sharply divided over civil liberties in Russia and ways to resolve the Syrian crisis during a two-day summit that ended on Tuesday (4 June).

The 31st EU-Russia summit will be held today (3 June) in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg. No breakthroughs or surprises are anticipated, but EU representatives are expected to warn President Vladimir Putin about “repressive tendencies” in Russia.

Russia’s export monopoly Gazprom and the Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell have signed a tentative deal to develop hydrocarbons in the Russian Arctic, Russian and Dutch media reported.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who is meeting Commission President José Manuel Barroso in Moscow today (21 March), slammed the EU for behaving "like a bull in a china shop" on the proposed Cyprus bailout. Meanwhile, a prominent Russian opposition leader said the Kremlin was conducting an operation to save its “dirty money” in Cyprus.

Russian dirty money is influencing the European Union and corrupting its élite, Vladimir Ryzhkov, co-leader of the opposition Republican Party of Russia – People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS) told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview.

EU leaders concluded their two-day summit today (15 March) with an informal discussion on Russia, largely intended as a brainstorming session to prepare an EU visit to Moscow next week aimed at ‘exploring areas of mutual interest'. Much of the debate focused on energy, which EU leaders will discuss during a special summit on 24 May.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych hinted that he might be ready to cede some control of his country's gas pipeline system that transports Russian gas to Europe ahead of a meeting today (4 March) with his Russian counterpart.

Politically correct rhetoric of recent addresses from Russian President Vladimir Putin and his focus on problems in Russia and post-Soviet space may be attributed to the objective lack of foreign partners to form a global strategic agenda, writes Lidiya Smola.

For experts and analysts, the new year traditionally begins with the definition of the main trends of social, political and economic development. Actions in Ukraine show that some trends will have significant implications for the Ukrainian society, argues Lidiya Smola.

The EU-Russia summit ended today (21 December) with no major decisions, but Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a show for the press, telling Commission President José Manuel Barroso that he was “not right” in his interpretation of energy liberalisation rules.

The Eurasian Union is surely Russia’s most ambitious political programme since the end of the Soviet Union, writes Liana Fix. As Putin’s own brainchild, it is likely to become one of the top priorities of his presidency, she argues.

Ukraine's president pulled out of gas price talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at the last minute on Tuesday (18 December), raising concern about the reliability of supplies to Europe before a Russia-EU summit.

In the lead-up to the creation of a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), foreseen for 2015, the Customs Union (CU) and the Common Economic Space (CES) between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan represent two elements of the most ambitious regional integration projects launched in the post-Soviet space since 1991, write Steven Blockmans, Hrant Kostanyan and Ievgen Vorobiov.

The human rights situation in the EU has deteriorated with the economic crisis, a Russian envoy said yesterday (6 December), citing xenophobia, racism, violent nationalism, police abuse and neo-Nazism among others. “We believe that nobody should have the monopoly to assess the human rights situation in other countries,” the envoy insisted.

The EU's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton expressed concern yesterday (25 October) over Russia's recent adoption of a Cold War-style law, which could potentially imprison citizens in contact with foreigners for up to 20 years.

BP is ending a stormy relationship with Russian tycoons from a company known as AAR and is instead targeting a partnership with government-owned Rosneft. The deal, worth over $25 billion (€19.18 billion) could give the British oil company a stake of between 16% and 20% in the Russian oil giant. 

With a eurozone crisis and other challenges to deal with, why has German Chancellor Angela Merkel taken such an interest in tiny Moldova? One reason is that Moldova is sitting on the borders of the EU and the unresolved conflict there remains dangerous and unstable. Another is that Merkel wanted to use the frozen conflict in Transnistria as a test case for Berlin’s relations with the Kremlin, writes Judy Dempsey.

Russia officially joined the World Trade Organization today (22 August), ending a 19-year wait to become part of the global club.

Europe and the United States condemned Russia over the two-year prison sentences handed down to three members of the Pussy Riot punk band, while protestors took to the streets in 60 cities around the world after the verdict.