| FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK TWITTER FLIPBOARD TELEGRAM |
President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia is ready for talks to end the war in Ukraine even as the country faced more attacks from Moscow — a clear sign that peace wasn’t imminent.
Putin said in a state television interview, excerpts of which were released on Sunday afternoon that Russia is “prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes with all the participants of this process.”
Russia’s permanent representative Crimea Georgy Muratov warned Greece not to transfer Russia-made anti-aircraft missile systems S-300 to Ukraine, saying it would be an ‘irrational display of hostility towards Russia’.
Speaking to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Muratov said: “Such a move by Athens would not only be an irrational display of hostility towards Russia, but also a dangerous step towards its own national interests, as the Greek public opinion is already resoundingly emphasising”.
Ukrainian forces have struck a headquarters of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group in eastern Ukraine, Luhansk’s Ukrainian governor has said.
Serhiy Haidai said a hotel where the group was based in Kadiivka, Luhansk region, was hit. He added there were major Russian losses.
Serbia’s prime minister said Friday the country’s leadership was close to demanding the deployment of their security troops to Kosovo, claiming lives of minority Serbs there were being threatened. The return of Belgrade’s troops to the former Serbian province could dramatically increase tensions in the Balkans.
Serbian officials claim a U.N. resolution that formally ended the country’s bloody crackdown against majority Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999 allows for some 1,000 Serb troops to return to Kosovo. NATO bombed Serbia to end the war and push its troops out of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.
A new onslaught of Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure on Wednesday caused power outages across the country — and in neighboring Moldova — further hobbling Ukraine’s battered electricity network and compounding civilians’ misery as winter advances.
Multiple regions reported attacks in quick succession and Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said that “the vast majority of electricity consumers were cut off.”