MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin was joking when he said Moscow was supporting Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in November’s US presidential election, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Sky News Arabia.
Putin said earlier this month that Russia wanted Harris to win the contest in a teasing comment that cited her “infectious” laugh as a reason to prefer her over Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump. The Russian leader’s remark prompted the White House to say Putin should stop commenting on the Nov. 5 election.
“It was a joke,” Lavrov said, when asked how much the change in US president would affect Russia’s foreign policy. “President Putin has a good sense of humor. He often jokes during his statements and interviews.
“I see no long-term differences in our attitude to the current or previous elections in the United States, because it is ruled by the notorious ‘deep state’,” Lavrov said, without giving evidence for that assertion.
Lavrov’s comments were published on the foreign ministry website on Friday.
Putin was joking about support for Harris in US election, says foreign minister
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Putin was joking about support for Harris in US election, says foreign minister
Pakistani PM condemns India’s ‘cowardly act of war’
- Shehbaz Sharif convenes meeting of National Security Committee after Indian strikes kill 26
- Indian authorities accused of ‘once again igniting an inferno in the region’
NEW YORK CITY: Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has condemned India for an “unprovoked, cowardly and unlawful act of war,” following overnight strikes that targeted locations across his country.
He convened the National Security Committee, Pakistan’s top security body, on Wednesday in the wake of the Indian strikes, which were part of a military action codenamed Operation Sindoor.
India launched a series of “coordinated missile, air and drone strikes on multiple locations within Pakistan’s sovereign territory,” the prime minister’s office said after the security meeting. The death toll from the strikes stood at 26, with 46 people injured.
Pakistan claimed to have shot down five Indian jets in retaliation, as Sharif on Wednesday authorized his nation’s military to take “corresponding actions” in response to the strikes.
The dramatic escalation follows weeks of mounting tensions between India and Pakistan following a terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22. The two nuclear-armed powers each administer parts of Kashmir but claim the region in full.
The statement by the prime minister’s office condemned the overnight strikes as “unprovoked and unjustified attacks” that “deliberately targeted civilian areas.”
India attacked Pakistan “on the false pretext of presence of imaginary terrorist camps, resulting in the martyrdom of innocent men, women and children, and causing damage to the civilian infrastructure, including mosques,” it added.
Pakistan accused India of “causing grave danger” to commercial airliners as a result of the attacks, “endangering the lives of thousands of onboard passengers.” The country also accused India of “deliberately targeting” the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, “in violation of international conventions.”
The statement repeated the government’s rejection of Indian allegations regarding the presence of terrorist camps on Pakistani territory.
In the aftermath of the terror attack in Pahalgam on April 22, “Pakistan made a sincere offer for a credible, transparent and neutral investigation, which unfortunately was not accepted,” it added.
“The Indian leadership, bereft of any morality, has now gone to the extent of attacking innocent civilians in order to satiate its delusional thoughts and short-sighted political objectives.”
Pakistan’s National Security Committee condemned the Indian strikes as “blatant violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which manifestly constituted acts of war under international law.”
The country accused its rival of acting “against all sanity and rationality” and “once again igniting an inferno in the region.” Responsibility for the soaring tensions and outbreak of violence “lies squarely with India,” it added.
Citing Article 51 of the UN Charter, which addresses the right to individual or collective self-defense, Pakistan said it reserves the right to respond to the Indian attacks “at a time, place and manner of its choosing.”
It added: “Deeply anguished by India’s naked aggression, the entire Pakistani nation greatly appreciates and admires the bravery and courage of the armed forces and their timely action in the defense of their motherland.
“The nation stands galvanized and resolute in the face of any further aggression.”
The Pakistani statement urged the international community to recognize India’s “unprovoked illegal actions” and hold the country accountable.
“Pakistan remains committed to peace, with dignity and honor, and reiterates that it shall never allow any violation of its sovereignty, territorial integrity or permit any harm to its proud people,” it added.
Six Bulgarians face long UK jail terms for spying for Russia
- The group launched operations in the UK as well as Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro
- The group also kept the US military base Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, under surveillance
LONDON: Six Bulgarians, members of a sophisticated spy network dubbed “The Minions,” were before court Wednesday for sentencing, facing up to 14 years in prison for spying for Russia.
The four men and two women either pled guilty or had been convicted of charges of conspiracy to spy at Russia’s behest with their sentences due to be handed down on Monday, after four days of hearings at London’s Old Bailey court.
Between 2020 to 2023, the six-person cell targeted journalists and a Kazakh former politician, and plotted to kidnap and honeytrap targets, tracking them across several European nations.
It was “industrial-scale espionage on behalf of Russia,” Metropolitan police counter-terrorism Chief Commander Dominic Murphy said in March.
Ringleader Orlin Roussev, 47, along with his second-in-command Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, and Ivan Stoyanov, 32, pled guilty to spying.
Barrister for the prosecution, Alison Morgan, on Wednesday laid out their roles in different operations, stressing they knew they were spying for Moscow.
London-based Katrin Ivanova, 33, Vanya Gaberova, 30, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, were convicted in March after a trial lasting more than three months at the Old Bailey court.
Two of the group were in court on Wednesday, with the rest appearing by video link from their detention centers.
They had dubbed themselves “The Minions” after the cartoon yellow characters in the film “Despicable Me” who work for the dastardly Gru. The six also worked for the GRU, the acronym for the Russian military intelligence service.
The group launched operations in the UK as well as Austria, Spain, Germany and Montenegro.
But UK police were able to retrace six operations thanks to more than 100,000 messages found on Roussev’s Telegram account, which led police to his seaside home in the eastern town of Great Yarmouth.
Roussev received his instructions from Jan Marsalek, an Austrian fugitive who reportedly fled to Russia in 2020 after becoming wanted for fraud in Germany.
Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of payments firm Wirecard, was acting as a proxy for Russian intelligence services.
One operation targeted investigative journalist Christo Grozev, from the Bellingcat website, who uncovered Russian links to the 2018 Novichok chemical weapon attack in the English town of Salisbury and the downing of a Malaysia Airlines aeroplane four years earlier.
The group had planned “disruptive activity” at the Kazakh embassy in 2022, discussing a plan to spray the building with fake pig’s blood.
Roussev received more than 200,000 euros ($227,000) to fund his activities.
After the gang was busted in February 2023, police found huge amounts of spyware equipment in his home, including cameras and microphones hidden in ties, a stone, even a cuddly toy and a fizzy drinks bottle.
In messages to Marsalek, Roussev claimed “he will find the resources” to “keep the Russians happy” such as by kidnapping someone, Morgan said.
“The defendants were deployed to gather information about prominent individuals whose activities were of obvious interest to the Russian state,” she added.
Murphy said in March that police had found “really sophisticated devices — the sort of thing you would really expect to see in a spy novel.”
Journalist and UK-based dissident Roman Dobrokhotov, and former Kazakh politician Bergey Ryskaliev, granted refugee status in Britain, were also among their targets.
The group also kept the US military base Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, under surveillance, believing Ukrainian soldiers were being trained there in using the Patriot air defense system.
Ties between Britain and Russia have been strained since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
British security minister Dan Jarvis warned the convictions should “send a clear warning to those who wish to do the UK harm.”
Denmark says to summon US ambassador over potential Greenland spying
- The article “raised a lot of concern, because friends don’t spy on each other,” Rasmussen said
- Trump has insisted he wants to seize the autonomous Danish territory
COPENHAGEN: Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Wednesday he would summon the US ambassador to Denmark after The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington would intensify spying on Greenland, the territory coveted by President Donald Trump.
The article “raised a lot of concern, because friends don’t spy on each other,” Rasmussen said in Warsaw. “This is very serious, so we will summon the ambassador for a meeting at the foreign ministry.”
The Journal report cited two people as saying the United States was stepping up its intelligence gathering on Greenland.
Trump has insisted he wants to seize the autonomous Danish territory, saying Washington needs control of the mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons.
Rasmussen said he hoped, “obviously, that this can be refuted” during the meeting with the US envoy, and “in any case the aim is to make clear Denmark’s position on this issue.”
UK firms sent thousands of military munitions to Israel despite arms export ban, report finds
- ‘8,630 separate munitions’ sent to Israel in the category of ‘bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles’ since suspension of 30 arms-export licenses in September
- Analysis by campaign groups of Israel Tax Authority data also finds deliveries of F-35 components as recently as March
LONDON: UK firms continued to send thousands of arms and other military items to Israel despite an announcement by the British government in September that it was suspending about 30 arms-export licenses for the country, according to a report published on Wednesday.
Campaign groups — including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International, and Workers for a Free Palestine — analyzed data from the Israel Tax Authority and found that UK businesses were still sending shipments of military items, including munitions, arms and aircraft parts.
Their report states that F-35 fighter jet components were delivered to Israel as recently as March, more than five months after the UK government suspended the 30 arms-export licenses, including a ban on aircraft parts. Fighter aircraft, including F-35s and combat drones, have been a critical element of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since the war began in October 2023, carrying out airstrikes across the territory.
The report said that 8,630 separate munitions had been sent since the license suspensions in September 2024 in the category of “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and similar munitions of war and parts thereof.” UK firms also delivered four shipments of arms to Israel that included 146 items identified under a customs code as “tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, motorised, whether or not fitted with weapons, and parts of such vehicles.”
The authors of the report also found evidence that 150,000 bullets were shipped from the UK to Israel in October 2023, prior to the suspension of the licenses.
John McDonnell, a former Labour shadow chancellor, and MP Zarah Sultana have sent a letter to Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling for an investigation into the report’s findings.
Lammy told Parliament in October that much of the military equipment the UK sends to Israel “is defensive in nature. It is not what we describe routinely as arms.”
McDonnell and Sultana said it would be a resignation issue if it was discovered that he misled parliament and the public about the suspension of arms-export licenses to Israel.
They also called for an immediate halt to all arms exports to Israel and said the public “deserves to know the full scale of the UK’s complicity in crimes against humanity.”
Sultana said: “This explosive report shows the government has been lying to us about the arms it is supplying to Israel while it wages genocide in Gaza. Far from ‘helmets and goggles,’ the government has been sending thousands of arms and ammunition goods.”
McDonnell called on the government to “come clean in response to this extremely concerning evidence and halt all British arms exports to Israel to ensure no British-made weapons are used in Netanyahu’s new and terrifying plans to annex the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse the land.”
The Israeli military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since the start of the war in October 2023, following the deadly attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
The Israeli government faces an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice over its military actions in Gaza, which have led to a humanitarian crisis and mass killings. In addition, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for crimes against humanity and war crimes related to the war in Gaza.
In a statement to The Guardian newspaper, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “This government has suspended relevant licenses for the (Israeli army) that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.
“Of the remaining licenses for Israel, the vast majority are not for the Israeli Defense Forces but are for civilian purposes or reexport, and therefore are not used in the war in Gaza. The only exemption is the F-35 program due to its strategic role in NATO and wider implications for international peace and security.
“Any suggestion that the UK is licensing other weapons for use by Israel in the war in Gaza is misleading. The UK totally opposes an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. We urge all parties to return urgently to talks, implement the ceasefire agreement in full, secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas, and work towards a permanent peace.”
Serbian president’s flight halted in Baku en route to Moscow for WW2 parade
- It was unclear whether Vucic would be able to continue his trip beyond Azerbaijan
- Several regional states shut their airspace over Ukrainian drone strikes
BAKU: A plane carrying Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to Moscow for Russia’s parade marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany was halted in Baku on Wednesday due to ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Tanjug news agency reported.
It was unclear whether Vucic would be able to continue his trip beyond Azerbaijan after several regional states shut their airspace over a third day of Ukrainian drone strikes in Moscow, which forced most of the Russian capital’s airports to close.
Vucic was set to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 9, the day of the parade, the semi-official Serbian news agency reported, citing a Kremlin official.
European Union officials have urged presidents of nations aspiring to join the EU, including Vucic, to align their foreign policies with the bloc and avoid Moscow’s World War Two victory rites because of Russia’s three-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Last weekend, Vucic abruptly returned from the United States where he had expected to meet with President Donald Trump, citing health reasons. But his physicians said his condition had improved and he could return to work in mid-week.
