Politics

BLOOMBERG A billionaire and “close” partner of oligarch Roman Abramovich has become the first person to challenge the UK’s Russian sanctions regime in a London court. Lawyers for Eugene Shvidler, who has long been associated with Abramovich, filed the claim last month, saying that the UK made “significant errors” in its assessment of Shvidler’s relationship with the former owner of ...

BLOOMBERG Germany has asked Switzerland if it can buy back some of the nation’s decommissioned Leopard 2 battle tanks as part of an effort to replace depleted stocks among Nato allies. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Economy Minister Robert Habeck made the request in a February 23 letter to Swiss Defense Minister Viola Amherd, a German defense ministry spokesman ...

BLOOMBERG China sent the most warplanes near Taiwan in nearly two months, a move that comes as the US approved the sale of $619 million worth of arms to the democratically run island. Some 17 J-10 and four J-16 fighter jets were detected in the southwestern part of the island’s air-defense identification zone in the 24 hours to early Thursday, ...

BLOOMBERG Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a brief encounter with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in India, their first in-person meeting since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago. The top US diplomat pressed Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to move towards a peace deal with Ukraine and advocated for US citizens detained ...

BLOOMBERG Vladimir Putin called an attack in a village near the border with Ukraine “a terrorist act,” hours after scrapping plans to travel to southern Russia on Thursday over the episode. “They crossed into the border zone and opened fire on civilians” who were in a vehicle, Putin said in comments at the start of a televised video conference with ...

BLOOMBERG The plan for greater US military access in the Philippines has drawn opposition from politicians who raised concerns the Southeast Asian nation might be embroiled if tensions with China over Taiwan escalate. Senator Imee Marcos, the president’s sister, said the move to allow American troops in more Philippine sites is geared at bolstering the US’ possible defense of Taiwan ...

BLOOMBERG Finland’s parliament ratified Nato’s treaties as the Nordic nation prepares to join the defense alliance, seeking to put momentum back in the bloc’s enlargement. Nine months after Finland submitted its application for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) simultaneously with neighbouring Sweden, lawmakers in Helsinki on Wednesday signed off on the paperwork, voting 184 in favour of ...

BLOOMBERG Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a close Russian ally, in talks watched closely for signs that Beijing is expanding coordination with Moscow and its supporters in their standoff with the West. Belarus “fully supports the initiative put forward by you,” Lukashenko told Xi in Beijing Wednesday, according to state-run news agency Belta. He was referring ...

BLOOMBERG Russia’s war in Ukraine is expected to dominate discussions at the Group of 20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi as the conflict enters its second year. A meeting of the grouping’s finance ministers and central bank heads over the weekend failed to reach a consensus on the language to describe Russia’s aggressions in Ukraine, forcing host India to ...

BLOOMBERG Russian critics of President Vladimir Putin have spent the past year pressing the US and its allies to impose sanctions on thousands of Kremlin officials and business tycoons. Now they want a clear way for those who come out against the war to get off the blacklists. Exiled businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent years in a Russian prison after ...