Troops cross Dnipro River into Russian-held territory; Kyiv will receive US long-range missiles 'regularly’

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the nation will be receiving US long-range ATACMS missiles on a regular basis after President Volodymyr Zelensky this week said his military carried out strikes well behind Russian lines with the weaponry.

“We already have all types of weapons that we wanted at our disposal — now one can only speak about expanding the number, range, modifications, etc,” Dmytro Kuleba told broadcaster 1+1 TV. The Ukrainian leader said earlier the missiles, Army Tactical Missile System, had “proved themselves” after strikes on Russian airfields in occupied Luhansk in the east and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

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• EU curbs on Google help Russian rival it blames for Kremlin lies

EU’s Google feud aids Russian rival blamed for Kremlin lies 

The European Union’s crackdown on Google’s Android has led to an unintended consequence: boosting the popularity of Russia’s favourite search engine, accused by the bloc of spreading Kremlin propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine.

Yandex’s rise follows an EU antitrust order that led to Alphabet’s Google offering phone users a choice of rival apps for internet searches on handsets running its Android operating system.

Yandex appears in the “choice screen” — allowing Android smartphone users to select their preferred search engine — in 23 European countries. It has recently risen to Android’s top five options in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and Denmark, among others, according to Android’s website.

“The real concern is that Yandex, a search engine with clear ties with the Kremlin” is “still allowed to operate in our EU market,” said Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, a liberal member of the European Parliament. “The issue is not the choice screen, but the fact that Yandex is still one of the options to be considered.”

The firm has come under intense pressure both in Russia and abroad since President Vladimir Putin ordered the February 2022 invasion. Founder Arkady Volozh was hit by EU sanctions in June last year, with the EU citing Yandex support for Russian propaganda and the Kremlin’s narratives on the war.

In a September renewal of the EU’s sanctions list, the bloc accused the company of being “responsible for promoting state media and narratives in its search results, and deranking and removing content critical of the Kremlin, such as content related to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.

“We categorically deny accusations of promoting propaganda,” a Yandex spokesperson said in response to the EU’s accusations. “Yandex doesn’t tweak algorithms to any political side.”

Former chief Volozh, who lives in Israel, publicly condemned the war in August, calling it barbaric. Yandex announced last year it wants to divest the Russian business in exchange for cash and licences to develop four international projects. The talks with several potential Russian buyers haven’t yet resulted in a deal.

Yandex is domiciled in the Netherlands and was traded on the Nasdaq until its shares were frozen after the invasion. Registering abroad was a common strategy for Russian companies seeking foreign investors before the war in Ukraine caused a rupture in relations.

Germany still trades Russian gas as cancelling costs €10bn

Germany is still trading Russian liquefied natural gas, as cancelling the contract of a nationalised firm could cost billions of euros — creating a dilemma for Berlin and potentially benefiting Moscow.

SEFE  — a former unit of Gazprom — is shipping Russian LNG under the terms of a legacy contract that existed before Germany took over the company last year. The cargoes, which aren’t subject to international sanctions, are bound for India.

Still, the trade has become a headache for Germany, which has explicitly said it won’t use gas from Russia in the fallout of the war in Ukraine. Berlin is facing sharp criticism over concerns that a government-run company still has ties to Moscow, despite its political rhetoric.

However, breaching the contract could cost German taxpayers at least €10-billion — significantly more than the government’s bailout of SEFE and a price tag so high that it makes such a move unlikely, according to people familiar with the matter.

The figure is a rough estimate of damages and penalties if Russia were to successfully sue the firm in an international arbitration court, said the people, who declined to be named as the business is private. The economy ministry is still investigating the issue, they said.

Orbán’s Putin meeting raises security worries among Nato allies

Hungary’s Nato allies raised security concerns as they condemned Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for his meeting with Putin this week, laying bare widening divisions over Budapest’s ties with Moscow.

Ambassadors to Hungary from members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation convened a meeting in Budapest on Thursday to discuss the concerns after the Hungarian leader’s encounter with Putin in Beijing on Tuesday, according to a US embassy spokesman.

Orbán became the first European Union leader to meet the Russian president since an international arrest warrant was issued against him in March over alleged war crimes in Ukraine. The Hungarian premier has undermined Western unity by sealing energy deals with Russia, trying to limit aid to Ukraine, delaying Nato expansion and publicly calling on the EU to scrap economic sanctions imposed on Moscow.

“We consider Hungary an ally, but at the same time we see that Hungary is deepening its relationship with Russia despite its brutal war against Ukraine,” US Ambassador David Pressman told Radio Free Europe, which first reported the meeting. He added that Nato allies have “security concerns” about Hungary’s ties with Russia.

The meeting in Budapest was also attended by the ambassador of Sweden, the EU country whose accession to Nato Orbán has delayed, along with Turkey’s envoy.

Hungary has insisted that it will maintain ties with Russia, partly to keep lines of communication open with Moscow and work toward a “peaceful” solution for Ukraine, government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs said. He said the Orbán-Putin meeting took place in that context.

But the assessment of Nato leaders was in part scathing. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas called the exchange “very, very unpleasant,” particularly in the context of Hungarian history.

“How can you shake a criminal’s hand, who has waged the war of aggression, especially coming from a country that has a history like Hungary has?” Kallas told Reuters.

Xi backs Putin on security, wants progress on gas pipeline

President Xi Jinping reiterated that China supports Moscow’s efforts in safeguarding its national sovereignty, security and development interests, while seeking a breakthrough on a Sino-Russian gas pipeline.

Deepening ties between China and Russia was not an expedient but a long-term solution, Xi told Russian counterpart Putin during a meeting on Wednesday in Beijing, according to a statement from the Chinese government.

China was keen to work with Moscow to ensure grain and energy security, and wanted to see “substantial progress” on a natural gas pipeline between both countries and Mongolia as soon as possible, Xi added.

Xi’s comments reinforce the tight ties that have developed between China and Russia, especially since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Beijing has provided diplomatic and economic support to Moscow that has helped blunt the effects of Western sanctions on Russia.

Still, Beijing has also sought to cast itself as a neutral broker on the war after releasing a 12-point blueprint for bringing peace to Ukraine in February this year that included calls to respect sovereignty, facilitate grain exports and halt all hostilities.

The proposals were panned by the US and its allies and have gained little traction, though they won Xi credibility among Global South nations.

Read more: Xi’s diplomatic gamble on Putin leaves both with much to lose

The gas pipeline, known as Power of Siberia 2, is intended to deliver supply from Gazprom’s Yamal fields and western Siberia to China via Mongolia. For months, the Russian government has said talks with China are “in the final stages”, but concrete progress has been elusive.

The project, which would take years to build once approved, would help boost Russia’s total gas shipments to China as Moscow looks to its giant Asian neighbour to replace Europe as its major gas customer.

The two heads of state also had an “in-depth exchange of views” on the “conflict between Palestine and Israel”, according to China’s statement, which didn’t provide more details. DM