Russia

The Kremlin has signalled that Russia’s position on potential peace talks with Ukraine remains unchanged, despite a planned meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were still no conditions for formal Ukraine peace talks to begin, while insisting that Moscow remained open to negotiations.

His comments came ahead of the Rubio Lavrov meeting, which is expected to provide an opportunity for Washington and Moscow to discuss the prospects for ending the war.

However, Peskov said there were no concrete plans for further high level meetings involving either the United States or Ukraine to discuss a potential peace agreement.

Moscow Maintains Its Position

The Kremlin also said there had been no change in its position regarding a possible direct meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Peskov reiterated that Zelenskiy could travel to Moscow for such a meeting and said Russia would provide the necessary security guarantees.

He also said the Ukrainian president was aware of the decisions that Moscow believes would be necessary before meaningful progress could be made.

The comments underline the continuing gap between the two sides over the conditions for direct negotiations.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the possibility of holding talks in Moscow and has instead proposed a neutral location for any direct meeting between the two presidents.

US Diplomacy Faces a Difficult Path

The Rubio Lavrov meeting comes as Washington continues to engage both Moscow and Kyiv over the possibility of a diplomatic settlement.

The meeting itself does not necessarily indicate that formal peace negotiations are imminent. Russia continues to say that the conditions for talks have not been established, while Ukraine has maintained its own requirements for any negotiations with Moscow.

That leaves the United States attempting to maintain communication with both sides while the basic framework for potential negotiations remains unresolved.

The disagreement over the location of a Putin Zelenskiy meeting is also significant because it reflects broader differences over the political conditions surrounding any future negotiations.

For Moscow, the latest statements reinforce its existing position that Ukraine must address Russian demands before a presidential meeting can produce meaningful progress. Kyiv, meanwhile, has rejected Moscow’s proposed setting and continues to favour a neutral venue.

What Comes Next

The Rubio Lavrov meeting could provide an indication of whether Washington and Moscow can narrow some of their differences, but the Kremlin’s latest statements suggest that Russia is not currently changing its stated position on the conditions for peace talks.

The immediate diplomatic focus will therefore be on whether the US Russian dialogue can establish enough common ground for further discussions involving Ukraine.

Until the disagreement over the conditions and format of negotiations is addressed, the prospect of a direct Putin Zelenskiy meeting remains uncertain. The New York meeting may keep diplomatic channels open, but it does not by itself resolve the fundamental differences separating Moscow and Kyiv.

With information from Reuters.

Reporting from Washington — FBI Director James B. Comey said Wednesday he has suffered anguish but does not regret his decision to inform Congress in late October that the bureau would reopen its inquiry into whether Hillary Clinton had mishandled classified emails, a disclosure that roiled the presidential race in its final days.

In his most detailed public comments on the explosive episode, the FBI director told the Senate Judiciary Committee that his decision to disclose the preliminary investigation into newly discovered Clinton emails 11 days before the election was “one of the world’s most painful experiences,” but that he would do it again.

“It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn’t change the decision,” Comey said.

“I’ve gotten all kinds of rocks thrown at me, and this has been really hard, but I think I’ve done the right thing at every turn,” he added.

Comey testified a day after the unsuccessful Democratic presidential nominee said that she believed Comey’s unusual letter to Congress on Oct. 28 had essentially tilted the close race to her rival, Donald Trump.

“If the election had been on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” Clinton said in a CNN interview at a women’s conference in New York. She blamed her loss on Comey’s disclosure, Russian hacking of Democratic Party emails and her own flaws as a candidate.

In response, President Trump said on Twitter that Comey “was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!”

“The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election,” Trump tweeted.

Comey repeatedly rebuffed questions Wednesday about the ongoing FBI counterintelligence investigation into whether any of Trump’s current or former aides cooperated with Russian intelligence agencies during the presidential race.

Comey only disclosed that investigation to a House hearing in March and said it had begun last July, during the heat of the campaign. After the election, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had deliberately sought to interfere in the race to aid Trump and to undermine Clinton.

On Wednesday, Comey said he did not think he was inconsistent last fall when he disclosed that the FBI had obtained new evidence that might lead it to reopen its investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of State — but did not disclose a separate FBI investigation into whether members of Trump’s inner circle colluded with a foreign intelligence service.

He said he only announced the Clinton email inquiry, which the FBI had code named Midyear Exam, when it was formally closed in July. He said he felt obliged to inform Congress in October when new Clinton emails were found in an unrelated investigation.

Comey sent a follow-up letter two days before the election to say the additional emails did not change his earlier conclusion that charges against Clinton were not warranted.

Comey’s many critics say his news conference in July — when he called Clinton’s handling of classified material “extremely careless” but said that she would not be charged — and then his disclosures to Congress at the end of a bitter national election campaign were improper since the FBI is not supposed to discuss cases unless charges are filed.

In January, the Justice Department’s inspector general said he would investigate whether Comey violated department guidelines in his handling of the case.

Comey said Wednesday that he welcomes the internal inquiry. “If I did something wrong, I want to hear that,” he said.

He specifically declined to say whether the White House is cooperating with the Russia investigation, or whether the FBI has sought to examine Trump’s tax returns for evidence of ties to Russia. Trump has refused to release his tax returns to the public.

The FBI chief said Russia is still interested in trying to affect U.S. politics, and he believes it “a certainty” that Moscow will try to influence the elections in 2018 and 2020.

In a detailed, at times emotional explanation of his actions, Comey laid out the sequence of events that he said led to his July 5 news conference, his Oct. 28 letter to Congress and a follow-up letter three days before the election.

Comey said he decided the Justice Department was too compromised in July to publicly explain why Clinton would not be charged without “grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system.”

A big reason, he said, was because Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch had met privately with former President Clinton in June in what both later described as a social visit because they were both at the same airport.

Under heavy criticism for meeting the former president while his wife was under an FBI investigation, Lynch recused herself from a direct role in the case. That gave Comey the authority to hold the politically sensitive news conference on his own, he said.

He said he sent the Oct. 28 letter after FBI agents found emails from Hillary Clinton on a laptop computer used by former Rep. Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and thought they might include what he called “golden missing emails” from Clinton’s first months at the State Department. The FBI had seized Weiner’s laptop in an investigation of sexual texts he had exchanged with a teenage girl.

Agents found evidence that Abedin had passed classified emails to Weiner, who would print out emails for her to read, Comey said. But no charges were filed because the FBI could not “prove any sort of criminal intent,” he said.

Comey said he and his top staff debated whether to go public, mindful of long-standing Justice Department policies that seek to avoid actions that could sway elections.

Breaking that policy would be “really bad,” Comey said. But he said the only other choice, “concealment,” would have been “catastrophic.”

“We’ve got to walk into the world of really bad,” he said he concluded. “We’ve got to tell Congress we are restarting this.”

He said he made the decision even though a deputy said that might help elect Trump. Comey said he couldn’t consider that when making the call.

“Down that path lies the death of the FBI as an independent institution in America,” he said.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @jtanfani

A member of Donald Trump’s political party has issued a rare call for a congressional investigation into the foreign dealings of the United States president’s eldest son.

US Senator John Curtis, a Republican from the state of Utah, on Tuesday said “questions have arisen” about Donald Trump Jr’s relationships with foreign business figures and acceptance of “significant gifts”, alleging he may have personally benefited from his relationship with the president.

In a letter to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Curtis referenced a ProPublica report that found Trump Jr’s Bahamian wedding party in May was funded by a Russian oligarch.

“These reports raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such relationships can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment,” Curtis wrote. “They also may create expectations of a returned favor that would not be in the best interests of the American people or our allies, and could even create national security vulnerabilities.”

The letter comes as a small but slowly growing number of Republicans have spoken out against Trump, who has largely avoided criticism from members of his own party. But record-low approval ratings sparked by the war in Iran and concerns over the cost of living in the US have forced some Republicans to reconsider that support as they face growing prospects of major losses in the congressional midterm elections.

If Democrats retake one, or both, chambers of the US Congress in November, investigations into Trump, including his family’s dealings, are likely. But those probes are less likely under Republicans wary of the president’s wrath.

A spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is under Republican control, told the Associated Press that it had received Curtis’s letter but did not say whether there would be an investigation.

Trump vs Biden

Curtis, who isn’t up for re-election until 2030, also called on the chamber’s panel to subpoena Trump Jr, as well as the son of former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president,” Curtis wrote, referencing the scrutiny and investigation Biden’s son Hunter faced from Republicans.

Hunter Biden responded to Curtis’s letter in a post on social media, calling for the Senate committee to “bring it on” as he vehemently denied any foreign business dealings while his father was president.

“I’ll sit next to Don Jr. and testify any time, any place,” Biden wrote on X as he called for the president’s youngest son, Eric, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who serves as a US envoy, to testify as well. “No need for a subpoena. Let’s all do it tomorrow.”

After the ProPublica report, Trump Jr and his wife, Bettina, released a joint statement on social media saying the Russian oligarch, Umar Kremlev, was a “dear friend” who “very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us AFTER our wedding”.

The president, who did not attend the wedding, said his son had reimbursed Kremlev.

“It’s totally allowed, and a lot of people give parties and things like that — but it’s totally allowed,” Trump said. “But as I understand it, he paid him back. He didn’t want it.”

US Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that while Biden’s son “has already given a sworn deposition to Congress”, Trump Jr “has not”.

“For the committee to ignore this matter is to run the risk of being complicit in a coverup,” Durbin said. “I will join in supporting Senator Curtis’ request of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Curtis’s office did not immediately reply when asked by Al Jazeera what prompted the senator’s letter and whether any fellow Republicans have indicated if they would support an investigation into the president’s family.

Germany – a fellow Nato ally – pledged to permanently station a combat-ready brigade in Lithuania in 2023 as a response to the changing security situation in Europe.

It is expected to be operational by 2027 and to number about 5,000 soldiers and civilian employees, though it has failed to recruit enough personnel voluntarily and is now turning to compulsory assignments to fill some positions.

The majority of troops will be based in Rūdninkai, near the Suwałki Gap – a line that borders Lithuania and Poland and also links Belarus with Russia’s Kaliningrad.

Nato said that as of December last year it had more than 5,000 troops stationed in Lithuania.

The origins of last week’s drone incident over Lithuania have not been confirmed, however Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas told Newshour that it had come from the direction of Belarus.

UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said: “Thanks to the swift and professional actions of Lithuanian and Italian forces, Nato once again demonstrated our readiness to protect our airspace.

“We stand united, around the clock, in defence of every inch of Nato territory.”

Moscow did not comment on the incident.

Military drone incursions have become increasingly common across Europe since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale of invasion of Ukraine.

Residents in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius were also forced to take shelter in May after a drone alert was triggered, briefly grounding flights and rail travel.

Nato jets have scrambled multiple times to shoot down stray Ukrainian drones that have crossed into fellow Baltic countries Estonia and Latvia this year.

Ukraine has blamed the stray drones on Russian electronic warfare, technology designed to change the flight paths of Ukrainian drones.

Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia all joined Nato in 2004, becoming signatories to the Article 5 provision that states “an armed attack against one Nato member shall be considered an attack against all members”.

Overnight missile and drone attacks hit several Ukrainian regions as world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly.

Russian forces have launched widespread attacks targeting industrial sites and critical energy infrastructure across several regions of Ukraine, killing at least three people and knocking out power to nearly 100,000 residents, Ukrainian officials said.

The strikes overnight hit industrial facilities simultaneously in the Dnipropetrovsk region, including Dnipro, Pavlohrad and Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, regional Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram on Tuesday.

Three people were killed and six others were wounded in Dnipro, where missiles, drones and artillery heavily damaged business and warehouse premises, Hanzha said.

Ukraine’s air force said Moscow’s overnight barrage involved 212 drones, four cruise missiles, and an unspecified number of Oniks antiship and ballistic missiles.

The strikes also damaged energy infrastructure. An attack on a power facility left nearly 100,000 consumers without electricity in the northern region of Chernihiv, while in the Poltava region, Governor Vitalii Diakivnych said a “massive” Russian attack hit an industrial enterprise and a critical infrastructure facility.

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed its forces carried out major strikes, stating it hit industrial and military facilities, the fuel and energy sector, port infrastructure and sea vessels operating for the Ukrainian military.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s Samara region along the Volga River, killing one person and injuring four, according to the local governor. The region hosts critically important facilities, including oil refineries.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its air defence units intercepted and destroyed 297 Ukrainian drones across various regions overnight.

Diplomatic push in New York

The attacks come as Zelenskyy arrived in New York for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where talks on ending the war are set to be high on the agenda as nearly 130 heads of state gather.

The Ukrainian president wrote on X that a “drone deal” was ready to be signed to bolster air defence and secure funding for the war effort.

“Of course, Ukraine’s number one priority is bringing peace closer and protecting the lives of our people,” Zelenskyy posted. “There are concrete security proposals and de-escalation measures that could bring the end of the war closer. We are working to strengthen air defence and ensure sufficient financing for Ukraine.”

He said, “Around 20 meetings are planned, including with the US president, European leaders, US senators and members of the House of Representatives, heads of international organisations, leading American companies and think tanks.”

Zelenskyy met French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday and is likely to meet US President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

Earlier, Macron also met Trump, after which he said the two countries agreed to work together to secure a moratorium on strikes targeting energy networks and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Both Zelenskyy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are set to address the UNGA later this week.

Victory of United Russia party strengthens Putin’s hand even as the war with Ukraine grows more unpopular.

President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party has won a record supermajority in tightly orchestrated parliamentary polls that excluded virtually any genuine opposition, near complete official results show.

With over 58 percent of votes secured, United Russia, which has dominated Russian politics for 25 years, is on track to win more than three quarters of the seats in the lower house, the State Duma, according to the results announced on Monday after three days of voting that ended on Sunday.

The polls were the first parliamentary vote since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022 and the first to include residents of four Ukrainian regions that were seized and illegally annexed by Moscow later that year.

Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvedenko said the results, along with a high voter turnout of almost 60 percent, “is likely to be seen by Moscow as emboldening, as public support for what it is doing, especially for what it’s doing in Ukraine for the continuation of the war”.

Ella Pamfilova, chair of the Central Electoral Commission, said Yabloko, the only registered anti-war party in Russia, did not win any seats at the national level. It had been removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court and only had a few dozen candidates in single-seat races.

Yabloko did enter the regional parliament in western Russia’s Novgorod region. It said on social media that it received about 12,000 votes – just over six percent of votes and enough to enter the regional legislature.

Yabloko and the Communist Party, which has criticised some aspects of government policy but carefully avoided any criticism of Putin, said many of their observers were turned away from polling stations.

The Communists made it into parliament with 13.8 percent of the vote, securing 40 Duma seats. The nationalist LDPR party won 25 seats and the New People party 20.

Russia did not invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which the Foreign Ministry has accused of “double standards” for its criticism of the country. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons said the decision to exclude observers violated Russia’s commitments as a member.

‘Surprise to nobody’

Many Russians appeared unsurprised by the poll results.

“In the morning, I saw that ⁠⁠United Russia was winning. It probably comes as a surprise to nobody,” said Moscow resident Tatyana.

Asked what she would like to change, she said: “Well, I guess everyone knows the most acute thing – the conflict in Ukraine. I’d like to see it end sooner, with peaceful methods if possible”.

The continuation of the war risks entrenching policies, which are increasingly affecting average Russians and the parliamentary supermajority may struggle to change the dynamic.

“Putin, of course, will interpret United Russia’s results as confirmation of the (public) support of the war, even though it is not the case: The overall demand for ending the war is growing,” said Tatyana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in an online commentary.

“The main question is: What now? There are great concerns about mobilisation, new repressions, harsher measures and escalation,” she wrote.

Western criticism

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas dismissed Russia’s “so-called” election.

“The Kremlin silenced dissent, barred the only registered party that opposed its war in Ukraine and shut out international election monitors. The veneer of democracy is all that remains in Russia,” Kallas said.

In a joint statement, five countries, including Australia, Britain and Canada, condemned Russia’s “sham” parliamentary elections in areas of occupied Ukraine, branding them “part of a wider system of occupation”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast the vote as a test of support for his ongoing war in Ukraine.

Polls have closed in Russia’s first wartime parliamentary elections, with the ruling United Russia party on course to win the tightly controlled vote.

The Kremlin wants the elections, the first parliamentary vote since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to showcase popular support for the war and legitimise its action.

Russian government officials accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt voting after Kyiv launched hundreds of drones at Moscow and other regions in what the TASS state news agency said was the biggest attack of its kind since the war began.

The drone strikes on Sunday killed at least three people in the Moscow region and two more in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, including an election official, according to the region’s governor and the election commission.

Russian authorities also reported attacks on the country’s electronic voting systems and communication lines during the polls, but said the electoral process was mostly smooth.

Initial results showed the United Russia party comfortably ahead, and Russia’s Central Election Commission said turnout at the close of polls stood at 56.66 percent.

The first official results and turnout are expected on Monday morning.

Voting in Russian-held Ukrainian areas

The vote, which began on Friday for 111 million eligible voters, included residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began, but still doesn’t fully control, as well as those in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Authorities in Kyiv denounced the voting in the Russian-held areas as illegal and urged foreign governments not to recognise the result. The European Union on Friday called the action a “blatant violation of international law”.

Voters cast two separate ballots, filling half of the lower house’s 450 seats by selecting political parties listed on the ballot. The rest are contested in single-seat constituencies, with voters choosing individual candidates.

The main Kremlin party, United Russia, is widely expected to retain its overwhelming control of the State Duma. Several smaller parties of the “systemic opposition” that vote in sync with Putin’s views on all key issues are also expected to maintain their presence.

A massive state media campaign and tight control over the elections in the absence of genuine opposition all but assure the Kremlin will keep tight control of Russian politics amid mounting economic costs and increasing Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside the country.

The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to publicly criticise the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court. It only has a few dozen candidates in the single-constituency races.

Additionally, some anti-war politicians were imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.

Russia didn’t invite election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the body of “double standards” for its criticism of Russia.

Moscow mayor reports intercepting 1,600 drones during ‘unprecedented’ attack, accusing Ukraine of election interference.

At least two people have been killed and a major refinery has been damaged as hundreds of drones targeted the Russian capital, Moscow, and its surrounding region on the final day of the country’s parliamentary elections.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Sunday that more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted and shot down, 450 of which were heading for Moscow.

He also accused Ukraine of attempting to interfere with a tightly controlled three-day election that is set to tighten President Vladimir Putin’s 26-year grip on power.

“The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed,” he said on Telegram.

Moscow regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov said on social media that a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man were killed in two separate locations.

A fire triggered by a drone crashing into a 21-storey building forced the evacuation of 400 people, Vorobyov said.

The strikes come as Kyiv has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russia, particularly targeting energy infrastructure to cut off a vital source of Kremlin revenue used to fund its war effort, now in its fifth year.

“A facility on the territory of the Moscow Oil Refinery has been damaged,” Sobyanin added, saying that no casualties were reported so far and emergency services were on the scene.

The major refinery has already been hit by Ukrainian strikes in recent months.

The latest strike follows claims by US President Donald Trump on Monday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities.

It also comes as Russians vote in the country’s first parliamentary elections since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, igniting a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Moscow has also organised voting in parts of Ukraine that it has seized in the four-and-a-half-year war.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported that Russia launched 138 drones of various types across the country overnight, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

It added that air defences managed to shoot down or neutralise 101 of them.

Russia’s parliamentary elections offer an excellent opportunity for a new round in the information war between the West and Russia. Western politicians, experts and journalists have been given yet another convenient occasion to tell their target audiences that democracy has long ceased to exist in Russia; that the federal parliament, like any other representative body, in practice determines nothing in Russian life; and that all genuinely important decisions for the country are made not even by the government but exclusively in the Kremlin, by an extremely narrow circle of individuals accountable to no one.

Therefore, in the view of many critics of the Russian authorities, elections in Russia need not have been held at all: their outcome was predetermined by Kremlin political strategists and, in any event, will have no significant impact on the country’s future.

And yet even the most biased outside observer could hardly fail to notice the obvious: the Russian authorities made consistent and persistent efforts to ensure that these elections attracted the highest possible participation and were conducted successfully under current electoral law. For at least the past several months, the country had experienced heightened political activity.

Leading politicians and state officials constantly reminded the electorate of the importance of the coming elections. Governors of politically “problematic” regions were urgently allocated additional subsidies. Payments to certain categories of public-sector employees and pensioners were hastily indexed. And inevitable but unpopular or painful decisions for the public – for example, the forthcoming significant nationwide increase in housing and utility tariffs – were postponed until after the elections.

Even possible shifts in Russia’s position on the conflict with Ukraine and future relations with the West were often linked in public and political discussions to the results of the September elections, which were supposedly meant to “untie the hands” of the Russian leadership, although there were very different, sometimes diametrically opposed, views about how exactly the leadership would use these “untied hands”. In any case, it must be acknowledged that the Kremlin did not take the easy path of its opponents in Kyiv, who simply postponed the 2024 Ukrainian presidential election until better, “postwar” times, despite clear discontent and muted grumbling from part of Ukraine’s political class.

What is going on here? Why should the Kremlin invest so much energy and so many resources in what is often interpreted outside Russia as little more than an unconvincing simulation of genuine political competition? Why launch a new full electoral cycle while a large-scale military conflict has yet to end, when the normal boundaries of peacetime political democracy tend, one way or another, to narrow?

It is difficult to suppose that holding elections in Russia is driven solely by Kremlin strategists’ obsessive desire to impress, at all costs, either their external opponents or their partners abroad. As for the former, they would not change their views about the nature of the Russian political system, even in the hypothetical event that the elections ended in a complete triumph for the radical opposition and a crushing defeat for all pro-Kremlin candidates. Such a scenario would most likely lead to endless speculation about yet another “cunning Putin plan”, intended to mislead a credulous Western public and conceal the consistently authoritarian nature of Russia’s political regime.

As for the latter, it is hard to imagine that the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Belarus or China are seriously concerned about the state or future of Russian democracy. The political systems of their countries, like those of many other foreign friends and partners of Russia, to put it mildly, do not entirely conform to the classical standards of Western liberal democracies. It is doubtful that Kim Jong Un, Alexander Lukashenko or, say, Mohammed bin Salman, or even Donald Trump, would suddenly decide to offer Vladimir Putin wise advice on how to organise polling stations properly and count votes.

It is hardly likely that the Kremlin felt an urgent need to erect elaborate and expensive but not especially durable scenery on the Russian political stage when the reaction of the potential audience to the forthcoming theatrical production was known in advance. It seems more logical to assume that the Russian authorities need elections not as cosmetic decoration for the façade of their political system, designed to attract the indifferent gaze of an outside observer, but as a quite effective and, above all, much-needed mechanism for maintaining dialogue between the authorities and society in the difficult geopolitical and socio-economic conditions of autumn 2026.

First and foremost, the Russian authorities are fighting hard for a high turnout, creating the most comfortable possible conditions for their voters to cast their ballots. This is no accident. A high turnout is convincing evidence of the population’s continued political activity and of the fact that Russian society has not descended into political apathy and wholesale cynicism. The idea of active civic participation is far from an empty phrase for the country’s leadership. In this sense, even a vote against the main “party of power”, United Russia, is clearly preferable to the alternative of a significant part of the electorate conspicuously choosing not to participate in the elections.

No less important, the authorities need the election results as a barometer of current public preferences, something even the most accurate opinion polls or in-depth sociological research cannot replace. Contemporary Russia undoubtedly has its own, albeit relatively narrow, political spectrum of “systemic opposition” parties reflecting the differing interests and expectations of various social, economic, age and regional groups. The constantly changing balance of power between these parties must, one way or another, be taken into account by the authorities when determining the future priorities of their strategy.

For example, relative success for the Communist Party, A Just Russia and candidates from other left-wing parties would be a signal that the authorities should pay more attention to social programmes, the fight against economic inequality and social polarisation, and to countering the many remnants of “wild capitalism” left over from the 1990s. Conversely, a large number of votes cast for the New People party and other right-wing candidates would provide grounds for accelerating structural economic reforms and creating additional opportunities for the private sector, including small and medium-sized businesses. Strong electoral results for the Liberal Democratic Party would indicate growing nationalist tendencies in Russian society. The authorities may respond to such political signals in different ways, but they cannot ignore them and must therefore read shifts in public sentiment correctly.

Moreover, it can be assumed with a considerable degree of confidence that the State Duma elections will, one way or another, lead to substantial changes in the composition of not only the lower house of the Russian parliament but also Russia’s federal government. Following the elections, significant personnel changes are likely to take place in the executive branch – both at the federal level and at other levels. Such personnel changes, in turn, will make room for fresh ideas, innovative programmes, unconventional projects and proposals. There is a clear demand for renewal in Russian society today. Parliamentary elections are one way of responding convincingly to this demand without calling into question the stability of the state’s overall strategy or its senior leadership.

The Duma elections are the first parliamentary elections held during the special military operation, during which Russian society has changed considerably. In a sense, they can be called a large-scale political experiment whose outcome remains difficult to predict with precision. For example, it is still difficult to determine with confidence which political force will be supported by the majority of people who have participated in the special military operation or who remain on the line of contact. No less uncertainty remains regarding the likely political preferences of many residents of the new Russian regions, for whom the September elections will be their first State Duma election in their new status.

Such an experiment probably carries a degree of risk for the Russian leadership. Nevertheless, the leadership appears prepared to take that risk, not without reason viewing elections not only as an important but as an indispensable mechanism for public confirmation of its continuing political legitimacy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Acclaimed Russian film director who won 2026 Grand Prix award at Cannes, ⁠has been critical of the war in Ukraine.

The winner of a prestigious Cannes Film Festival award has been declared a foreign agent by Russian authorities for his criticism of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Acclaimed Russian film director ⁠Andrey Zvyagintsev was designated a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin on Friday, according to state news agency ⁠TASS.

Zvyagintsev won the 2026 Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for, Minotaur, a film depicting a Russian businessman who is forced to ‌decide which of his employees should be mobilised to go and fight in Ukraine.

“Millions of people on both sides of the front line dream of only one thing: for the massacres to stop,” Zvyagintsev said in his acceptance speech, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the ⁠only person capable of ending the ⁠war.

Moscow has kept casualty numbers from the fighting in Ukraine heavily restricted and has not provided timely or complete public updates, but estimates of Russian soldiers killed in the four-year war range from anywhere from 200,000 to half a million.

Russia’s Ministry of Justice on Friday accused Zvyagintsev of disseminating “false information about decisions taken by the public authorities of the Russian Federation and the policies they pursue”.

“He interacted with foreign agents and resides outside the Russian Federation,” it said.

The 62-year-old director, who has lived outside Russia since the COVID pandemic, ⁠is known for a series of other films including, The Return, The Banishment, and, Leviathan, a bleak ⁠portrayal of life in rural Russia.

People listed ⁠as foreign agents are subjected to onerous bureaucratic requirements and restrictions on their income in Russia.

They are barred from holding public office and forced to register their activities with the authorities.

They also have to add warnings on everything they publish, including ‌on social media, that the content was produced by a foreign agent.

The label adds connotations of espionage to numerous people, including public figures, whom it deems ⁠to be engaging in anti-Russian activity with support from abroad.

Previously, writer Boris Akunin and rock musician Boris Grebenshchikov have been labelled as foreign agents by Moscow.

Kremlin calls UK’s support for Ukraine an endorsement of ‘terrorism’ after recent escalation of weapons supplies.

Russia has stepped up pressure on Ukraine’s allies, summoning Britain’s top diplomat in Moscow over arms shipments to Kyiv and seizing Russian assets of several Western firms.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Britain’s charge d’affairs, Danae Dholakia, on Friday, issuing a formal protest over the UK’s “further increase” in weapons to Ukraine.

“London is placing itself in the position of an accomplice to the bloody atrocities committed by the Kyiv regime, which can only be characterised as terrorism and war crimes,” the ministry said in a statement.

Britain has maintained its support for Ukraine and says it will stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Kyiv and will provide whatever military equipment it needs, saying just last month that it will share classified weapons information.

Moscow’s move comes the day after Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that Russia might be preparing to launch hybrid drone and missile strikes against countries that support Ukraine, including Poland. He said that such attacks would be framed as accidental, with the intention of weakening NATO states’ resolve to invoke collective defence provisions in the event of an attack on one of its countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that the threat posed by Russia’s shadow operations was growing across Europe and that Moscow had targeted ⁠⁠France with hybrid attacks in the past few ⁠⁠weeks.

“The Russian hybrid threat against Europeans and against France has intensified,” he said after a meeting with French political leaders.

France’s interior minister had met regional prefects to step up “vigilance in response to the Russian hybrid attacks”, Macron said, adding that he had ordered “the government to prepare a plan to protect our critical infrastructure” and the “most sensitive” defence industry and technology sites against drone and cyber-attacks.

Moscow seizes French, Swiss firms

As Russia steps up pressure on Ukraine’s political allies, it is also targeting Western companies.

Moscow has ordered the seizure of Russian businesses and assets of Swiss food giant Nestle and three French firms: retailer Auchan, DIY chain Lemana Pro (formerly Leroy Merlin) and logistics firm FM Logistics.

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree late on Thursday that changed the firms’ Russian operations to a new entity, LEV Management, which is managed by a Russian Ministry of Interior general, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe.

Nestle said it was still “assessing” the situation and its options but it remains “committed to taking all necessary steps to protect its rights”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that one of the reasons behind the decision was because Nestle and Auchan are companies from “unfriendly” countries.

Their assets are only under “temporary administration” and that no decisions have been taken as of yet, Peskov added.

Overnight Russian strikes hit multiple regions in Ukraine, sparking several fires across the country, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to host the inaugural Carpathian Eight summit of several European countries.

They include Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Serbia, with the European Union also set to discuss regional cooperation.

Hungary and Slovakia have refused to send Kyiv direct military assistance in the past, though Poland and Romania remain staunch allies.

Russians head to the polls from Friday to Sunday to elect members of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, in the first parliamentary election to be held since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The vote comes as Russians face a slowing economy as well as Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries and warehouses far from the front line.

United Russia, the governing party that backs President Vladimir Putin, is expected to keep its dominant position.

The authorities are presenting the election as a chance for voters to have their say. Critics argue that with no genuine opposition on the ballot, the result is largely settled in advance.

So why are the elections worth watching? Here is what you need to know:

How do Russia’s elections work?

Starting Friday and lasting through Sunday, Russians will elect members of the lower house, the State Duma.

They will also cast ballots in local elections.

Voters in 11 regions will elect their governors, and 39 regions will elect members of regional legislatures.

Voting is spread over three days to boost turnout among the 111 million eligible voters and includes areas Russia occupies in Ukraine. Electronic voting is allowed.

Half of the Duma’s 450 seats are filled by party lists and the other half are contested in single-ballot races.

What is United Russia?

Russia’s governing party, formed in 2001 from a merger of pro-Kremlin parties, has backed Putin and dominated the parliament ever since.

United Russia won more than two-thirds of the Duma’s seats in the 2021 election. It is again poised to dominate the body.

The party’s list is led by political heavyweights: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat for 22 years, and Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s powerful mayor.

In an apparent bid to add fresh faces to what is widely seen as a party of bureaucrats, its third-highest-ranking official is war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny, who was badly wounded by a Ukrainian drone.

Members of United Russia have pledged to back the war effort and Putin’s maximalist goals in what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Who else is running in Russia’s elections?

Alongside United Russia, other “systemic opposition” parties that vote in sync with the government on key issues are also expected to remain.

The liberal Yabloko Party, the only registered political party that opposes the war, was initially on the ballot, but the Supreme Court ordered it removed in August.

It cited, among other reasons, that the antiwar stance was akin to seeking the violation of Russia’s territorial integrity. Yabloko now runs only single-ballot races.

The Communist Party has been a leading force in the Federal Assembly since the 1990s, led for more than three decades by 82-year-old Gennady Zyuganov, a former Soviet official.

Throughout Putin’s rule of more than a quarter-century, the Communists have criticised some aspects of government policy but carefully avoided any criticism of him. They steadfastly support the war in Ukraine.

Alexander Bratersky, a political analyst and independent journalist, told Al Jazeera that the race for second place is worth watching.

If the Communist Party nab second, it would “suggest voters are angry about economic hardship and falling living standards”.

The Liberal Democratic Party, an ultranationalist force that has been a significant presence in the legislature since the early 1990s, will also likely retain some influence in the Duma.

Like the Communists, it staunchly supports the war and boasts of having multiple veterans as members.

Other smaller parties round out the ballot.

The party known as A Just Russia has been on Russia’s political scene for 20 years. A social-democratic party, it competes with the Communists for older and middle-aged voters nostalgic for the Soviet past, and it supports the war in Ukraine.

The New People Party was founded shortly before the last parliamentary election in 2021, seeking to position itself as a liberal voice representing younger voters and technocrats. It won just more than 5 percent of the vote, allowing it to form a small faction.

Bratersky described the party as “a liberal-leaning party backed by some Kremlin people who are more technocratic and more pro-peace”.

He said it appeals to the “middle-class audience”, and after the Kremlin banned Yabloko, it has been viewed as its substitute.

“So, if they come third with a good number of votes, this is a sign that those who are antiwar used them as their legal avatar,” he said.

Other parties seeking seats include Communists of Russia, a small rival of the main Communist Party; the Party of Pensioners; the Green Party; the Party of Direct Democracy; and the Motherland Party.

Why do the elections matter to the Kremlin?

While these elections may seem routine, the fact that they are the first since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is what makes them important, Bratersky told Al Jazeera.

He said that Putin has linked the elections to support for the war: Endorsing United Russia at its party congress in August, Putin said the party’s duty was “to do everything for victory” in the war in Ukraine.

“This shows that the Kremlin is a bit worried since the elections are the only legal way to show disrespect for the Kremlin,” Bratersky said. “Even Putin’s core fans hate United Russia as a corrupt force.”

How have past elections gone?

Since Putin first came to power in 2000, United Russia has won every Duma election, usually by a wide margin.

The results have repeatedly been disputed.

In 2011, allegations of vote-rigging set off the largest street protests of Putin’s rule.

After the 2021 vote, independent monitors and statisticians said the party’s real support was far lower than the official count.

The authorities have rejected claims of widespread fraud. Opposition parties and critics of the war have increasingly been kept off the ballot.

Warsaw also says it has scrambled military planes in response to a Russian attack in western Ukraine, close to its border.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says that intelligence information suggests Russia plans to launch drone and missile attacks against countries supporting Ukraine.

Warsaw’s leader outlined the assessment during an address to parliament on Thursday, saying that the attacks will be meant to weaken NATO’s ability to act collectively in response.

“According to intelligence assessments, Russia’s plan … includes hybrid drone and missile strikes against countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland,” Tusk said.

European countries suspect Moscow of being behind a series of acts of sabotage in recent months to put pressure on the allies, especially Germany, helping Kyiv in its bid to resist Russia’s full-scale invasion – something the Kremlin has vigorously denied.

“These potential strikes would be quote-unquote ‘accidental’ in nature, intended to paralyse or at least weaken the resolve of NATO states to invoke the relevant NATO provisions in the event of aggression against a member country,” Tusk added.

He did not elaborate on which intelligence agencies had provided the warning.

He also said such attacks by Russia could coincide with “political changes in certain European countries granting power – or at least a powerful voice – to those who, increasingly invoking noble slogans of peace, pacifism and needless casualties, will call for peace – or rather, the total capitulation of Ukraine”.

Tusk appeared to be referring to the advance of more Russia-friendly parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD) and National Rally in France.

Air raid near border with Poland

Earlier on Thursday, Poland said it had scrambled military planes in response to a Russian attack in western Ukraine, close to the Polish border.

Airports in Rzeszow and Lublin were temporarily closed, and residents of two eastern regions of Poland received air raid warnings. Local media reported that sirens had sounded and that pupils in some schools had sought shelter.

“Very close to the Polish border, not far from Dorohusk, a petrol station was most likely attacked again,” Tusk said.

On Sunday, a Russian drone hit a passenger train in Ukraine, just two kilometres (1.6 miles) from the Polish border.

Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Poland was strengthening airspace protection.

“We have increased F-16 and helicopter activity, and are reinforcing our air defence and rapid response systems,” he wrote on X.

Tusk said he would visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday to discuss cooperation within the Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition, a group of European countries developing an air defence system with Ukraine as a cheaper alternative to the US-built Patriot.

Donald Trump Jr. has a lot more in common with his dad than just a name, sharing the president’s penchant for shady dealings and for kleptocratic Russians. Sometimes the two proclivities go together. That was the case in May, we learned this week from ProPublica, when Don Jr. married his second wife during a three-day Bahamian bacchanal bankrolled partly with hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Putin-allied oligarch the Trump scion met only recently.

I had to wonder — recalling Don Jr.’s response in 2016 on learning Russia helpfully wanted to dump dirt on Hillary Clinton — whether he replied in kind when his new Russian friend, Umar Kremlev, offered the wedding grift, er, gift: “If it’s what you say I love it.”

My second thought was that Don Jr. is just like his dad in wanting to spend other people’s money, even as the Trump family has accrued billions since President Trump has been back in office. (Cue the continued silence from the sleuths of Hunter Biden’s laptop.)

Just days before ProPublica’s exposé, at last week’s midterm Republican convention in Dallas, the elder Trump proffered a gift of $5,000 to every one of the roughly 270 million adult Americans. But the eponymous “Trump dividend” would come only if Republicans keep their House and Senate majorities after the November midterm elections.

The tab? More than $1 trillion, roughly $1.3 trillion. How generous Trump is with the U.S. Treasury, despite the news just last month that rattled bond markets and raised interest rates: The United States’ gross debt has exceeded $40 trillion. As Trump told CNBC in 2016: “I love debt. I love playing with it.” We can’t say he didn’t warn us. Even before his proposed 5K giveaway, Trump was on track to break his first-term record for adding to the unsustainable U.S. debt ($8.4 trillion).

Trump’s unprecedented offer of a post-election payout provoked predictable cries of “bribery” from Democrats and other critics. But legality aside, even the appearance of a bribe isn’t what bothers me most about the proposal.

For one thing, it won’t happen. No one will be receiving a $5,000 Trump dividend, just like no one received the DOGE dividend or $2,000 tariff refund he previously promised. Even if Republicans pull off a miracle and retain control of Congress, those in power show no zeal for his budget-buster, not after their complicity in adding trillions to the debt since last year with tax cuts, war costs and this, that and the other Trump pet project. And Congress indeed would have to act, under the Constitution, despite suggestions from the obsequious Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, that Trump could act alone. (But “I’m not ready to discuss it at present,” Bessent told a House committee on Tuesday.)

No, what bothers me most about Trump’s idea — what outrages me — is the damnable fiscal irresponsibility of it.

Trump has turned much of historical Republican orthodoxy on its head, including on immigration, trade and policy toward Russia. But his utter disregard for annual deficits — a record $2 trillion for this fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 — and his shameful profligacy with taxpayers’ money is something Americans haven’t seen in their lifetimes, in either party. Worse, Trump implies otherwise, that he is fiscally responsible, and he does it with lies that are so easily refuted, so often contradicted by his own words, that it’s a marvel that even such a chronic prevaricator as himself can utter them.

This week Trump is still claiming that the $5,000 dividend will be paid for because “we’re taking in trillions and trillions of dollars” in revenue from his inflationary tariffs on more than half of the goods imported into the country. The actual number isn’t even close to that, and he should know it: The data that nonpartisan analysts are crunching are from the government he supposedly runs.

In 2026, tariff revenue through August was just under $200 billion, but more than half of that already has been spent on refunds to big corporations including Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot, in keeping with a Supreme Court ruling against some of Trump’s tariffs. And as if Trump’s dividend proposal weren’t mendacious enough, in making it he seems to have forgotten his claim in his State of the Union address in February that he would use the tsunami of tariff revenue to abolish the federal income tax.

And one last thing: Even if each adult American got $5,000, subtract from that the nearly $2,000 that each household has paid, on average, because of higher tariffs since Trump took office, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

In this one dumb idea, in sum, the giveaway manifests just about all that is wrong with Trump as president: The lying, of course. Fiscal recklessness. The trashing of commendable Republican doctrines. The Trump bubble of sycophantic yay-sayers. And, in turn, the seat-of-his-pants policy idiocy, from war-making to White House demolishing.

The lack of any actual policy deliberation behind Trump’s $5,000 shocker was clear in his lackeys’ flailing and contradictory reactions — not just Bessent’s specious claim of presidential authority, but also Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s inane insistence the administration could somehow “earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out” and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett’s comment, contrary to Bessent’s, that the White House is indeed looking to Congress for funds.

The good news? Americans get it. Recent polls have the percentage approving of Trump’s handling of the economy as low as 28%. Significant majorities say they are worse off since he became president again.

Such numbers portend an election result that isn’t likely to be changed by a promise of $5,000. Especially from a serial promise-breaker.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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New Delhi says it has ‘made clear’ its determination to ‘protect its trade and economic interests’.

India has warned the United States that new measures to levy tariffs over the purchase of Russian oil could impact ⁠bilateral ties, hours after the US Congress approved a bill that would give President Donald Trump new abilities to punish buyers of Russian oil.

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a sweeping sanctions and tariff bill intended to increase economic pressure on Russia over its invasion of ⁠Ukraine.

The bill targets Russia’s energy and defence sectors, President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials, as well as Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to circumvent Western sanctions.

It also authorises President Donald Trump to impose stiff tariffs of up to 100 percent on countries, including India, to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas, and⁠ extend sanctions on Iran.

The bill has been sent to Trump to sign into law.

India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that it “remains firmly committed to ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people”.

The Indian foreign ministry said that it had noted the bill’s passage, adding that New Delhi had raised the issue with various US interlocutors in recent months, and had “very clearly articulated” the potential implications for the bilateral relationship and the international energy market.

“The Indian side has also made clear its determination to take all necessary measures to protect its trade and economic interests,” it said in a statement.

The government would work closely with trade and industry bodies to deal with the legislation’s implications, it added.

India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer, is among the biggest buyers of Russian oil, which is seen as helping Moscow replenish its budget since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and was hit with ⁠sweeping Western sanctions.

New Delhi has repeatedly sought to resist pressure to reduce its oil trade with Russia, saying its large population and economy need secure, affordable and reliable energy supplies.

WASHINGTON — The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland on Monday that the U.S. has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”

Meink did not detail what the weapons were or how they work. In 2024 the U.S. said Russia was developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could be launched from space. At the time the White House said the danger wasn’t imminent.

But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China, given that much U.S. infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications.

In his remarks, Meink also said the Air Force was adding more autonomous systems to its capabilities and predicted the service would look “radically different” by 2032. For example, he foresaw one-way attack drones replacing artillery as the “primary killer.”

“We are increasing readiness against existing threats,” he said.

President Trump created the Space Force in 2019.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

Prosecutors said that the group worked on behalf of Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks and murders around the world.

Five people have been charged over alleged Russian intelligence-linked plots involving surveillance, recruitment and planned killings, according to an indictment unsealed by the United States Department of Justice.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that the group worked on behalf of Russian intelligence services to carry out attacks and murders internationally, including within the US, and that all five remain at large.

The defendants were identified as Russian national Yuri Khrameev, 63, his son Kirill Khrameev, 27, Cubans Oemis Romagoza Durruthy and Yaidel Delgado Suarez, both 35, and 22-year-old Venezuelan Angel Eduardo Castro.

All five were charged with conspiring to finance terrorism, while Khrameev, Suarez and Castro face additional charges of conspiring to commit murder for hire.

At a news conference, Attorney General Todd Blanche said the plots included attempts to kill a Russian dissident believed to be living in the Washington, DC area.

Justice Department officials said the network had recruited several people in the US to carry out surveillance on Russian dissidents, targeting individuals both domestically and in Lithuania.

In one instance, a recruit was reportedly promised $40,000 to make a US-based target “disappear”. A separate recruit was allegedly offered $25,000 the previous year to kill someone in Lithuania.

Russia’s embassy in the US has not commented on the case. Moscow has consistently rejected accusations that it has orchestrated assassination operations on foreign soil, including in the US.

Moscow and Copenhagen trade blame for the incident as Denmark says it will not invoke NATO treaty.

Moscow has warned Denmark to avoid “reckless” action after a Russian frigate fired two flares that narrowly missed a Danish military helicopter.

Moscow’s ambassador in Copenhagen, Vladimir Barbin, on Tuesday insisted that “dangerous manoeuvres” taken by the Danish aircraft were to blame for the Baltic Sea incident.

The Russian diplomat told state news agency RIA Novosti that he had delivered a formal note demanding steps to prevent a repeat of the episode.

He said that the helicopter’s actions were provocative and condemned Danish attempts to call them routine, saying they raised “serious concern about the possible consequences of such recklessness”.

The Fennec helicopter was on a routine mission to photograph the frigate as it sailed in international waters off Denmark, the Danish defence command said. Ships typically use such flares as warning signals.

Denmark’s Defence Minister Jeppe Bruus told TV 2 News that one flare passed within a “matter of metres” of the aircraft, and accused Russia of “deeply unprofessional seamanship”.

When asked if Denmark would seek Article 5 consultations over the incident – invoking the NATO measure that considers an attack against one member of the bloc to be an attack against all of them – Bruus said the incident was being taken seriously, but “we are not there”.

Barbin said he had complained last year about what he called dangerous fly-bys and low hovering by a Danish helicopter over the Russian warship Vice-Admiral Kulakov.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment, saying he lacked details.

The Danish Straits – where most Danish incidents with Russia have taken place – are the Baltic’s main shipping gateway and a key oil route, including for Russian oil tankers.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the incident serious but not surprising, describing it as part of a pattern of intensifying Russian hybrid warfare against Europe and testing NATO.

‘Fear and discord’

“Russia wants to sow fear and discord,” Frederiksen said, calling for closer unity and stronger defences for Denmark and Europe.

Russia denies carrying out hybrid attacks in Europe. However, the potential for the war in Ukraine to escalate and entangle Europe’s NATO member states is rising.

A spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry later on Tuesday warned Western politicians and diplomats to “soberly” assess ⁠the risks of travelling to Ukraine, following a Russian drone strike on a rail line on which a train carrying former British ⁠Prime Minister Boris Johnson ⁠and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt had passed minutes earlier.

Rail hubs ⁠and transport infrastructure serving Ukraine’s ⁠military are legitimate ⁠targets, she said, and Russia warned foreign diplomats in May to leave ‌Kyiv because of strikes on Ukraine’s military-industrial ‌complex.