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President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the outlines of a draft peace plan discussed by the United States and Ukraine could become the basis of future deals to end the war in Ukraine, but that if not Russia would fight on.Diplomatic efforts to defuse Europe's deadliest and most devastating conflict since World War Two have been stepped up in recent weeks, with various peace plans emerging from different sides, including the United States and Europe."In general, we agree that this can be the basis for future agreements," Putin told a news conference in Kyrgyzstan, adding that the variant of the plan discussed by Washington and Kyiv in Geneva had been passed to Moscow.US and Ukrainian negotiators held talks on the latest US-backed peace plan in Geneva on Sunday.Putin said the United States was taking into account Russia's position, but that some things still needed to be discussed. If Europe wanted a pledge from Russia not to attack it, then Russia was willing to give such a pledge, he said.Russia, Putin noted, was being told that it should cease the fighting but needed Kyiv's forces to pull back before it could do so."Ukrainian troops must withdraw from the territories they hold, and then the fighting will cease. If they don't leave, then we shall achieve this by armed means. That's it," Putin said.Russian forces were advancing in Ukraine at a faster pace now, he added.With another winter approaching in the nearly four-year war, Russian forces control almost one-fifth of Ukraine — in its east and south — and are pushing forward while bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure.Putin said he considered the Ukrainian leadership to be illegitimate and so it was legally impossible to sign a deal with Kyiv.It was therefore important, he said, to ensure that any agreement was recognised by the international community — and that the international community recognised Russian gains in Ukraine."Therefore, broadly speaking, of course, we ultimately want to reach an agreement with Ukraine. But right now, this is practically impossible. Impossible legally," Putin said.He said that the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine and annexed in 2014, and Ukraine's eastern Donbas region should be a topic for discussions with Washington.Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to visit Moscow next week.Commenting on the leak of a recording of a call between top advisers to Trump and Putin, the Kremlin chief rejected the suggestion that Witkoff had shown himself to be biased towards Moscow in peace talks over Ukraine, describing it as nonsense.Bloomberg News published the transcript of an October 14 telephone call in which Witkoff advised Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov on how to pitch a Ukraine peace plan to Trump. 

An AI-powered robot danced for President Vladimir Putin Wednesday at an exhibition put on by Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, designed to showcase the company's technological advances. The performance, which was shown on state TV, showed the Kremlin chief standing opposite the humanoid robot as it explained to him what it was before dancing to what it said was its favourite track. "My name is Green.I am the first Russian humanoid robot with embedded artificial intelligence. This means that I am not just a programme on a screen, but a physical embodiment of technology," the robot told Putin. Sberbank says the robot's software will be constantly upgraded, that it has the potential to perform physical tasks, and that a pilot project will see it integrated into parts of its business.The unusual event was watched closely by Putin's bodyguards, one of whom stood between the robot and the Russian leader afterwards to make sure it moved away from him and did not get too close. Putin called the robot's performance "very beautiful" and thanked it before continuing his tour.The performance comes days after the Moscow presentation of another Russian robot purported to harness AI - called Aidol - went wrong after the robot fell flat on its face shortly after appearing on stage. Putin also inspected one of Sberbank's new generation smart cash machines which with the help of a camera can give customers a summary of their health based on 10 indicators such as pulse and blood pressure.Putin said at that event that he'd been through one of his regular health checkups recently and that everything was fine with him.

US President Donald Trump said he would like to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin only when a productive summit can be expected. Trump had previously announced that he had agreed with Putin to hold a new summit to discuss ending the war in Ukraine in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, following a phone call that lasted more than two hours and which he described as constructive. Trump did not comment on media reports Tuesday that the scheduled meeting with Putin had been postponed or suspended, but in response to a reporter's question about the upcoming summit and his position on the potential sale of long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, he said, "I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time, so I'll see what happens." He indicated that no decision had been made yet, and it was unclear whether he was referring to the potential meeting with Putin or to the issue of selling long-range missiles to Ukraine. During his recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump expressed reservations about supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, which are capable of striking deep into Russian territory. Several US media outlets previously reported growing doubts about the possibility of the planned meeting between Trump and Putin in Budapest.

The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Wednesday that laboratory analysis of smuggled biological samples found he was killed by poisoning while incarcerated at an Arctic prison in February 2024.Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s foremost critic for years, died in mysterious circumstances while serving a 19-year prison sentence on a string of charges widely seen as retribution for his opposition.The charismatic anti-corruption campaigner had rallied hundreds of thousands across Russia in anti-Kremlin protests as he exposed the alleged ill-gotten gains of Putin’s inner circle.His allies have always maintained he was murdered in prison, and Moscow has never fully explained the causes of his death, saying only that he fell ill while walking in the prison yard on February 16, 2024.In fresh allegations, his wife Yulia Navalnaya said that before her husband was buried in Moscow, his allies “were able to obtain and securely transfer biological samples of Alexei abroad”.“Laboratories in two countries came to the conclusion that Alexei was killed. Specifically: poisoned,” she said in a video posted on social media.She did not divulge details of what samples were obtained nor the results of the analysis, but she urged the labs to independently release their results and to specify which poison they believe was used. Navalnaya also published unverified photos she said were of his prison cell after his body was removed, showing a pool of vomit on the floor, and claimed that testimony from prison officials said he had been convulsing.Asked about the allegations in a daily briefing with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment.Navalny’s ally Maria Pevchikh, who also shared the pictures, said the unverified accounts from prison officials showed the opposition leader “had been lying here on the floor, vomiting, screaming in pain”.“The prison guards, instead of saving him, left him here, locked the bars and the door,” she said on X, without elaborating on the specific source for the allegation.In her video, Navalnaya acknowledged there were “inconsistencies” in the accounts they had obtained from five prison officials as to the circumstances of Navalny’s death. She did not say in what format or how the testimony was obtained.Navalny had been previously poisoned with a nerve agent of the Novichok type in 2020 while campaigning in Siberia and flown to Germany on an emergency evacuation flight, where he spent months recovering.Jailed upon his return to Russia in January 2021, he was convicted on a series of charges, including “extremism”.From behind bars, he continued to campaign against Putin and spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine.Russian authorities said he died suddenly after falling ill while walking outside after lunch in the prison colony.Following Navalny’s death, officials refused for days to release his body to his relatives, raising suspicions among his followers.Navalnaya has maintained that her husband was killed on Putin’s orders, an accusation she repeated Wednesday.“Vladimir Putin is guilty of the murder of my husband, Alexei Navalny,” she said.The Kremlin denies the claim.It escalated a crackdown against his allies and opponents even after his death, adding Navalnaya to a “terrorists and extremists” blacklist and sentencing his lawyers and journalists who followed his court cases to years in prison.Most of his family and key allies have long lived abroad. The Russian opposition, plagued by infighting, has struggled for relevance in exile following Navalny’s death.Public displays of opposition to Putin inside Russia have become exceptionally rare since his forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.The Kremlin introduced military censorship, ramped up its targeting of dissenters and effectively outlawed criticism both of the Kremlin and of the invasion.

While Donald Trump is hard to beat when it comes to stealing the global spotlight, Xi Jinping proved this week he can also put on a good show.In memorable scenes reminiscent of a family reunion, the Chinese leader embraced and riffed with some of the world’s preeminent strongmen including an impromptu conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un about organ transplants and immortality.But the most surprising image may have been a chummy three-way gathering between Xi, Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made his first visit to China in seven years. Beyond the symbolism of seeing them laugh and hold hands, as well as Modi riding in Putin’s limo, they also hold the biggest potential for real economic shifts that could offer the world an ability to withstand threats from Trump to impose financial pain for defying the US.For the moment, the ties that bind them centre primarily around energy. One of the big outcomes this week was Russia saying it has reached an agreement with China on the Power of Siberia 2, a vast pipeline that Beijing had sought to delay for years, as it neither needs the fuel nor wants the energy dependence on its neighbour. While key details over pricing are still unclear, the decision to move forward now served as a sign of deeper co-operation. At the same time, India signalled it would keep buying oil from Putin’s regime, something Trump has already targeted with punitive tariffs.“This is a significant and serious inflection point,” said Matthew Bartlett, a former State Department appointee under President Trump during his first term. “It really reveals how energy security is critical to national security in the 21st century.”The newfound bonhomie in China this week also raises a question of the business, economic and strategic implications if the three nations were to move closer together in other areas, even if that remains a remote possibility at the moment. The China-Russia nexus alone serves as a powerful counterweight to the US, prompting Trump and others in his administration to warn earlier this year about the dangers of their budding alliance.Adding India to the mix would make that an even more formidable partnership. The three nuclear powers collectively hold a third of the world’s population, vast natural resources and world-beating manufacturing power. Today, they account for roughly a quarter of global gross domestic product, up from about 5% at the turn of the century, and China has made steady strides in coming closer to catching up to the most cutting-edge US technology.In a post on his Truth Social platform Friday, Trump wrote: “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!”While the obstacles to more fulsome economic integration among the three nations are vast, Trump’s use of tariffs to inflict economic damage opens the door to imagine the possibilities. Beyond energy, that could include efforts to build up alternatives to the dollar, expand investment opportunities and explore other ways to withstand US sanctions and tariffs. In China this week, Xi and Modi pledged to resume direct flights between the nations.“The classic maxim of foreign policy is unite your friends and divide your adversaries,” former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said on Bloomberg Television’s Wall Street Week with David Westin. “We have pursued policies that have managed to unite our adversaries and divide our friends.”“This should be an occasion for some real soul-searching on the part of America’s national security thinkers,” said Summers, a Harvard University professor and paid contributor to Bloomberg TV.The idea of a strategic Eurasian triangle consisting of Russia, India and China dates to the late 1990s, when Moscow sought to diversify its foreign policy away from an over-reliance on the US and Europe. The group struggled to take flight, but eventually spawned the creation of the Brics grouping that also included Brazil and South Africa. That bloc has since expanded to include nations like Indonesia and several from the Middle East, and is set to hold a virtual call next week to discuss Trump’s trade policy.Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, China has served as Russia’s most important economic partner, even as it has been careful to appear like it’s not overtly supporting his war effort. Xi’s government has also become bolder in testing US sanctions: Last week, it took a single cargo of liquefied natural gas from Arctic LNG 2, a US-sanctioned project dear to Putin’s heart and energy ambitions.Under the previous administration, the US was quick to slap retaliatory sanctions on any vessel or company that appeared to be circumventing restrictions on Russian LNG. It isn’t clear how Trump will react, and the White House hasn’t commented on the trade.“Rigorous enforcement of US sanctions, including against Novatek and Arctic LNG 2, has been key to maintaining pressure on the Kremlin to reverse course and accept a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine,” said Geoffrey Pyatt, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and former US assistant secretary of state who helped craft Arctic LNG 2 sanctions under the Biden administration.It’s still unclear if China’s pipeline deal with Moscow is more signal than substance. China and Russia haven’t agreed on a price yet a key sticking point before the project can move forward. Beijing will likely only greenlight the pipeline if Moscow accepts a price close to what domestic Russian consumers pay, according to a report from Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.What’s more, if all the capacity is used, China would be taking more than 40% of its imported gas from Russia a dramatic shift for a country that has long sought to keep a diverse stable of suppliers as part of its energy security drive.China’s progress in renewable energy is also closing the window for the Russians to get more gas into the Chinese market, according to Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.“The Russians, in order to get there, will really need to accept the conditions that make China happy,” he said. “And so far, I think it seems that the conditions look like straight robbery.”The roadblocks to closer cooperation with India are also high. Modi’s trip to China is more a rebalancing away from the US orbit than an embrace of Beijing, according to an Indian official familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified. The trust deficit on both sides remains high after ties suffered following a 2020 border clash, and India is far away from easing restrictions on Chinese investment, the official said.While Modi attended the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin, he stayed away from Xi’s military parade in Beijing several days later. The Indian leader also stopped in Japan, a key US ally, ahead of the China visit.“Modi was going to send some signals that he’s going to maintain India’s strategic autonomy, and to show that he has options, and won’t be pushed around,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, former assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Biden administration. “But India is going to be careful and cautious. And I remain cautiously optimistic that because of the fundamental common interests that the US and India hold, that there’s an opportunity to bring things back together there as well.”Trump’s administration has kept up a steady barrage of verbal attacks on India in recent weeks, with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro accusing New Delhi of funding Russia’s campaign in Ukraine and even calling it “Modi’s war”. New Delhi and Moscow have deep ties dating back to the Soviet era, and Russia is India's biggest supplier of weapons.The US president also accused Xi, Putin and Kim of conspiring against the US during their meeting in China. On Wednesday, he said that US relations with all of the leaders who were in Beijing was “very good,” while warning that “you’ll see things happen” if Putin doesn’t meet Trump’s deadline for holding talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.Western officials familiar with the matter were impressed with Xi’s parade, calling it a military version of China’s 2008 Olympics that signals it will soon become a US peer. They also said the events in China made them believe that Xi viewed himself as the boss of both Putin and Kim, and will only cooperate with them on favourable terms to Beijing.A goal of the parade was to showcase China’s industrial prowess by featuring weaponry made with Chinese technology, according to Wang Yiwei, a professor of international relations at Renmin University and former diplomat seen as close to the government in Beijing.The aim, he said, “is to tell the world ‘there is no need to fight a war with China anymore. You won’t win anyway.’” Beijing often seeks to instil stability in its capital markets around major national events. Ahead of the parade, Chinese stocks jumped about 10% in August, but that rally is starting to cool.At the SCO summit, Xi also sought to extend China’s influence among more than 20 leaders in attendance by taking veiled shots at the US and emphasising that all countries should be treated equally. While the body is often dismissed as a bureaucratic talk shop in the West, the expansion of membership in recent years and shift to create a development bank helps provide a more stable partner to leaders roiled by Trump.Many of the leaders who went to Beijing aren’t necessarily trying to side with China or Russia against the US, but rather to look for space to manoeuvre between the world’s big powers and preserve flexibility.“They were hoping I was watching,” Trump said. “And I was watching.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that any Western troops deployed to Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Moscow to attack.Putin was speaking a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said 26 countries had pledged to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, including an international force on land, sea and in the air.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Kyiv Wednesday there was a chance to end the war in Ukraine via negotiations "if common sense prevails", an option he said he preferred, but that he was ready to end it by force if that was the only way.Speaking in Beijing at the end of a visit that resulted in an agreement on a new gas pipeline to China, Putin said he perceived "a certain light at the end of the tunnel", given what he said were sincere efforts by the United States to find a settlement to Europe's biggest land war since World War Two."It seems to me that if common sense prevails, it will be possible to agree on an acceptable solution to end this conflict. That is my assumption," Putin told reporters."Especially since we can see the mood of the current US administration under President (Donald) Trump, and we see not just their statements, but their sincere desire to find this solution... And I think there is a certain light at the end of the tunnel. Let's see how the situation develops," he said."If not, then we will have to resolve all the tasks before us by force of arms." However, Putin indicated no willingness to soften his long-standing demands, including that Kyiv abandon any idea of joining Nato and that it end what Moscow says is discrimination against Russian speakers.He said he was ready to hold talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy if the Ukrainian president came to Moscow, but that any such meeting had to be well prepared and lead to tangible results.Ukraine's foreign minister dismissed as "unacceptable" the suggestion of Moscow as a venue for such a meeting.FAR APARTZelenskiy has been pressing to meet Putin to discuss the terms of a possible deal even though the two sides remain far apart. He has urged Washington to impose further sanctions on Russia if Putin does not agree.Trump - who has been trying to broker a peace settlement - has also said he wants the two leaders to meet and has threatened, but not yet imposed, secondary sanctions on Russia.Putin, whose economy is showing signs of strain after being hit with sweeping Western sanctions, said he would prefer to end the war diplomatically, "by peaceful means", if possible.Russia claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions, a claim Kyiv and most Western countries reject as an illegal land grab backed by a colonial-style war of conquest.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met face-to-face in Alaska on Friday in a high-stakes meeting that could determine whether a ceasefire can be reached in the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two.Ahead of the summit, Trump greeted the Russian leader on a red carpet on the tarmac at a US Air Force base. The two shook hands warmly and touched each other on the arm before riding in Trump's limo to the summit site nearby.The two leaders sat silently with their respective delegations seated to the side in their first meeting since 2019. They were seated in front of a blue backdrop that had the words, "Pursuing Peace" printed on it.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was not invited to the talks, and his European allies fear Trump might sell out Ukraine by essentially freezing the conflict with Russia and recognising — if only informally — Russian control over one-fifth of Ukraine.Earlier, Trump sought to assuage such concerns as he boarded Air Force One, saying he would let Ukraine decide on any possible territorial swaps. "I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine, I'm here to get them at a table," he said.Asked what would make the meeting a success, he told reporters: "I want to see a ceasefire rapidly... I'm not going to be happy if it's not today... I want the killing to stop." Trump was joined in his meeting with Putin by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's special envoy to Russia, Steve Witkoff. Page 5