Connect with us

Published

on

MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday vowed to continue with his countrys year-long war in Ukraine and accused the United States-led Nato military alliance of fanning the flames of the conflict in the mistaken belief that it could defeat Moscow in a global confrontation.

He updated Russias political and military elite on the war nearly one year to the day since ordering the invasion that has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the depths of the Cold War.

He said the events leading to Moscows special military operation on Feb 24, 2022, were forced upon Russia.

We did everything possible, genuinely everything possible, in order to solve this problem (in Ukraine) by peaceful means. We were patient, we were negotiating a peaceful way out of this difficult conflict, but a completely different scenario was being prepared behind our backs, he said from Russias Parliament.

Flanked by four Russian tricolour flags, Mr Putin said Russia would carefully and consistently resolve the tasks facing us.

Mr Putin said Western countries, led by the US, were seeking unlimited power in world affairs and that Kyiv was speaking to the West about weapon supplies even before the beginning of the invasion.

The President added that Russia had done everything it could to avoid war, but that Western-backed Ukraine had been planning to attack Russian-controlled Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.

The West, he said, had let the genie out of the bottle in a host of regions across the world by sowing chaos and war.

The people of Ukraine have become the hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western overlords, who have effectively occupied this country in the political, military and economic sense, Mr Putin said.

They intend to translate the local conflict into a global confrontation, we understand it this way and will react accordingly.

Defeating Russia, the 70-year-old said, was impossible.

Mr Putin said Russia would never yield to Western attempts to divide its society, adding that a majority of Russians supported the war.

He warned the West may incite a backlash over money flows to the war that were not diminishing.

Mr Putin said: The more long-range Western systems are being delivered to Ukraine, the farther we will be forced to move the threat from our borders. Russian National Guard officers patrol on Red Square prior to Mr Putin’s annual state address, in central Moscow, on Feb 21. PHOTO: AFP When he spoke about the annexation of four Ukrainian territories in 2022, he got a standing ovation at the Gostiny Dvor exhibition centre, just a few steps from the Kremlin.

Towards the end of the speech, Mr Putin said Russia was suspending its participation in the New Start treaty with the US that limits the two sides strategic nuclear arsenals.

Together, Russia and the US hold around 90 per cent of the worlds nuclear warheads enough to destroy the planet many times over.

Mr Putin asked the audience, which included lawmakers, soldiers, spy chiefs and state company bosses, to stand to remember those who had lost their lives in the war.

He promised a special fund for the families of those killed in the war.

He said the West was supporting traitors who opposed Russias actions, and thanked Russians for their courage and resolution in supporting Moscows operation in Ukraine.

Mr Putin said he understood how difficult it was for relatives of Russian soldiers who had died fighting in Ukraine. Mr Vladimir Putin arrives to deliver his annual address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow, on Feb 21, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS We all understand, I understand how unbearably hard it is now for the wives, sons, daughters of fallen soldiers, their parents, who raised worthy defenders of the Fatherland, he said.

The Ukraine conflict is by far the biggest bet by a Kremlin chief since at least the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and a gamble Western leaders such as US President Joe Biden say Mr Putin must lose.

Russian forces have suffered three major battlefield reversals since the war began, but still control around one-fifth of Ukraine.

Tens of thousands of men have been killed, and Mr Putin has said Russia is locked in an existential battle with an arrogant West, which he says wants to carve up Russia and steal its vast natural resources.

The West and Ukraine reject that narrative, and say Nato expansion eastwards is no justification for what they say is an imperial-style land grab doomed to failure.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan described Mr Putins accusations that Russia had been threatened by the West as justification for invading Ukraine as absurdity.

Nobody is attacking Russia. Theres a kind of absurdity in the notion that Russia was under some form of military threat from Ukraine or anyone else, he told reporters. People gather for Mr Vladimir Putins address to the Federal Assembly at the Gostiny Dvor conference centre in Moscow, on Feb 21. PHOTO: EPA-EFE More On This Topic US slams 'absurdity' of Putin's anti-West speech Putin set for major Ukraine war speech after Biden walks streets of Kyiv Speaking hours ahead of Mr Biden delivering his own speech in Warsaw to mark the anniversary of the war, Mr Sullivan said the Kremlin leader was the aggressor.

This was a war of choice. Putin chose to fight it. He could have chosen not to. And he can choose even now to end it, to go home, he added.

Russia stops fighting the war in Ukraine and goes home, the war ends. Ukraine stops fighting and the United States and the coalition stops helping them fight then Ukraine disappears from the map.

Mr Putin, who frequently decries Western gender and sexual freedoms as an existential danger, said on Tuesday that paedophilia had become the norm in the West.

Look at what they do to their own people: the destruction of families, of cultural and national identities and the perversion that is child abuse all the way up to paedophilia are advertised as the norm… and priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages, he said. Mr Vladimir Putin is seen on screens of a shopping mall as he delivers his annual address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow, on Feb 21. PHOTO: REUTERS Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said that Mr Putins speech showed he has lost touch with reality.

He is in a completely different reality, where there is no opportunity to conduct a dialogue about justice and international law, said the adviser to Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky. Tilt to Asia?

Mr Putin, who was handed the presidency in 1999 by Boris Yeltsin, said the West had failed to destroy the Russian economy with the severest sanctions in modern history.

They want to make the people suffer… but their calculation did not materialise. The Russian economy and the management turned out to be much stronger than they thought, he added.

Russias US$2.1 trillion (S$2.8 trillion) economy is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to grow 0.3 per cent this year, far below China and Indias growth rates but a much better result than was forecast when the war began.

Russia was turning to major Asian powers, e said, and will expand ties and build economic cooperation with countries such as India, Iran and Pakistan. REUTERS More On This Topic Beijing hopes peace between Russia and Ukraine can be Made in China Zelensky: Its obvious Ukraine wont be Putins last stop

Continue Reading

Politics

Can Streeting stop the doctors strikes?

Published

on

By

Can Streeting stop the doctors strikes?

👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈 

After yesterday’s royal welcome from the King, French President Emmanuel Macron will get down to business today, meeting Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for lunch, after PMQs.

But, as Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy discuss on this episode, away from the pomp, Sir Keir’s in-tray doesn’t look any less challenging.

It includes a headache for Health Secretary Wes Streeting as resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, announce a new strike – and there is as a punchy warning from the OBR on making financial promises to the public.

Also today, the welfare bill returns to the House of Commons, with reports of another rebellion brewing.

Continue Reading

World

Why do so many from around the world try to cross the English Channel?

Published

on

By

Why do so many from around the world try to cross the English Channel?

While the politicians talk, so many people come from around the world to try to get across the Channel on small boats. But why?

Why make such a perilous crossing to try to get to a country that seems to be getting increasingly hostile to asylum seekers?

As the British and French leaders meet, with small boats at the forefront of their agenda, we came to northern France to get some answers.

It is not a new question, but it is peppered with fresh relevance.

Over the course of a morning spent around a migrant camp in Dunkirk, we meet migrants from Gaza, Iraq, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and beyond.

Some are fearful, waving us away; some are happy to talk. Very few are comfortable to be filmed.

All but one man – who says he’s come to the wrong place and actually wants to claim asylum in Paris – are intent on reaching Britain.

They see the calm seas, feel the light winds – perfect conditions for small boat crossings.

John has come here from South Sudan. He tells me he’s now 18 years old. He left his war-torn home nation just before his 16th birthday. He feels that reaching Britain is his destiny.

“England is my dream country,” he says. “It has been my dream since I was at school. It’s the country that colonised us and when I get there, I will feel like I am home.

“In England, they can give me an opportunity to succeed or to do whatever I need to do in my life. I feel like I am an English child, who was born in Africa.”

John, a migrant from South Sudan, speaks to Sky News Adam Parsons
Image:
‘England is my dream country,’ John tells Adam Parsons

He says he would like to make a career in England, either as a journalist or in human resources, and, like many others we meet, is at pains to insist he will work hard.

The boat crossing is waved away as little more than an inconvenience – a trifle compared with the previous hardships of his journey towards Britain.

We meet a group of men who have all travelled from Gaza, intent on starting new lives in Britain and then bringing their families over to join them.

One man, who left Gaza two years ago, tells me that his son has since been shot in the leg “but there is no hospital for him to go to”.

Next to him, a man called Abdullah says he entered Europe through Greece and stayed there for months on end, but was told the Greek authorities would never allow him to bring over his family.

Britain, he thinks, will be more accommodating. “Gaza is being destroyed – we need help,” he says.

Abdullah, a migrant from Gaza, speaking to Sky's Adam Parsons
Image:
Abdullah says ‘Gaza is being destroyed – we need help’

A man from Eritrea tells us he is escaping a failing country and has friends in Britain – he plans to become a bicycle courier in either London or Manchester.

He can’t stay in France, he says, because he doesn’t speak French. The English language is presented as a huge draw for many of the people we talk to, just as it had been during similar conversations over the course of many years.

I ask many of these people why they don’t want to stay in France, or another safe European country.

Some repeat that they cannot speak the language and feel ostracised. Another says that he tried, and failed, to get a residency permit in both France and Belgium.

But this is also, clearly, a flawed survey. Last year, five times as many people sought asylum in France as in Britain.

And French critics have long insisted that Britain, a country without a European-style ID card system, makes itself attractive to migrants who can “disappear”.

Read more:
Channel crossings rise 50% in first six months of 2025
French police forced to watch on as migrants attempt crossing

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Migrant Channel crossings hit new record

A young man from Iraq, with absolutely perfect English, comes for a chat. He oozes confidence and a certain amount of mischief.

It has taken him only seven days to get from Iraq to Dunkirk; when I ask how he has made the trip so quickly, he shrugs. “Money talks”.

He looks around him. “Let me tell you – all of these people you see around you will be getting to Britain and the first job they get will be in the black market, so they won’t be paying any tax.

“Back in the day in Britain, they used to welcome immigrants very well, but these days I don’t think they want to, because there’s too many of them coming by boat. Every day it’s about seven or 800 people. That’s too many people.”

“But,” I ask, “if those people are a problem – then what makes you different? Aren’t you a problem too?”

He shakes his head emphatically. “I know that I’m a very good guy. And I won’t be a problem. I’ll only stay in Britain for a few years and then I’ll leave again.”

A young man from Iraq walks away from Sky's Adam Parsons

A man from Sri Lanka says he “will feel safe” when he gets to Britain; a tall, smiling man from Ethiopia echoes the sentiment: “We are not safe in our home country so we have come all this way,” he says. “We want to work, to be part of Britain.”

Emmanuel is another from South Sudan – thoughtful and eloquent. He left his country five years ago – “at the start of COVID” – and has not seen his children in all that time. His aim is to start a new life in Britain, and then to bring his family to join him.

He is a trained electrical engineer, but says he could also work as a lorry driver. He is adamant that Britain has a responsibility to the people of its former colony.

Follow The World
Follow The World

Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday

Tap to follow

“The British came to my country – colonising, killing, raping,” he said. “And we didn’t complain. We let it happen.

“I am not the problem. I won’t fight anyone; I want to work. And if I break the laws – if any immigrant breaks the laws – then fine, deport them.

“I know it won’t be easy – some people won’t like me, some people will. But England is my dream.”

Continue Reading

Science

Axiom 4 Mission Crew Settles Down at ISS, Begins Conducting Research

Published

on

By

Axiom 4 Mission Crew Settles Down at ISS, Begins Conducting Research

Axiom 4 mission’s crewmates began conducting biomedical research aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday. Expedition 73 and Ax-4 crews found electrical muscle stimulation and cellular immunity. The Cargo transfers and exercise gear maintenance take a day for orbital residents.

Takuya Onishi, Situation Commander from JAXA( Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), has begun the shift in continuation of his space biology studies. His blood and saliva samples are being collected for storage and processing. Further, he spun the specimens in a centrifuge and placed the blood samples in the freezer. After that, he stowed the samples in the incubator.

JAXA’s Takuya Onishi Leads Cellular Immunity Study with Blood and Saliva Analysis

According to a report from NASA, the samples will be analysed to determine the effect of microgravity on cellular immunity, observe stress-related immune reactions, and learn about how to treat symptoms of immunity. The flight engineers Johnny Kim, Anne McClain, and Nichole Ayers spent their day on orbital lab maintenance and further support activities of the crew. Kim focused mainly on orbital plumbing as he replaced and drained the Tranquillity module.

Ayers checked cables and power components in the Destiny laboratory module and deactivated and placed the microscope. McClain took the cognition test on the laptop and kept on supporting the Ax-4 crew at a time of a busy schedule.

Ax-4 Crew Explores Muscle Stimulation and Space Suit Fabric Efficiency in Microgravity

Veteran astronaut Peggy Whitson and her Ax-4 crewmates Shubhanshu Shukla, Tibor Kapu and UznaÅ„ski-WiÅ›niewski conducted numerous space investigations throughout the lab. The private scientists in their second full week on the station found out that the electrical muscle simulation escalates the space-related and muscle atrophy in space. Ax-4’s other experiments looked at suit fabrics promote thermal comfort with exercising the weightlessness, crew health and agriculture in space.

Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy worked together on the Zvezda service module, repairing and organising components on a treadmill, one of the two inside the space station, which included the COLBERT treadmill. Kirill Peskov started his day by going through the biological samples from the crewmates. At the end of his shift, he transfers water from Progress 92 cargo craft and unloads the stuffs of hardware and crew supplies.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who’sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.


Microsoft Fixes One Zero-Day Vulnerability, 136 Other Flaws With July 2025 Windows Security Update

Related Stories

Continue Reading

Trending