Thu 31 March 2022: Germany and France rejected Vladimir Putin’s demand that foreign purchasers of Russian gas pay in roubles as an unacceptable breach of contract, adding that the manoeuver amounted to “blackmail”. Germany Economy Minister Robert Habeck said that Germany was prepared for all scenarios, including a stoppage of Russian gas flows to Europe. “It is […]
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Thu 31 March 2022: President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday the release of a record million barrels of oil a day for about 180 days from US strategic stockpiles, in an attempt to dampen soaring prices. “The president will announce the largest release of oil reserves in history, putting one million additional barrels on […]
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Thu 31 March 2022: Russia will stop supplying gas to “unfriendly states” if they do not switch to ruble payments by April 1, according to President Vladimir Putin. Putin said he signed a decree laying out the parameters for trading Russian natural gas with those countries during a meeting with government officials in Moscow. “To […]
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Thu 31 March 2022: The head of one of the UK’s intelligence agencies has said that some Russian soldiers in Ukraine have refused to carry out orders, adding Putin had “misjudged” the invasion. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) chief Jeremy Fleming said there was evidence that Moscow’s troops had low morale and were poorly equipped. “We’ve […]
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Thu 31 March 2022: Mumbai, India–Indian authorities are actively considering dedicated payment mechanisms for trade with Russia to enable existing trade obligations in the wake of sanctions imposed on the Kremlin, a move that will also pave the way for cheaper oil imports to meet the country’s energy demands. In the past month, as sanctions have been […]
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Thu 31 March 2022: Financial sanctions imposed on Russia threaten to gradually dilute the dominance of the U.S. dollar and could result in a more fragmented international monetary system, Gita Gopinath, IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director, told The Financial Times. Russia has been hit with a plethora of sanctions from the United States and its […]
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Wed 30 March 2022: The UN refugee agency said Wednesday 4,019,287 Ukrainians had fled across the country’s borders since the February 24 invasion, with more than 2.3 million going west into Poland. The speed and scale of the exodus is unprecedented in Europe since World War II, and has seen a wave of empathy extended to […]
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Wed 30 March 2022: Donald Trump has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched an invasion of Ukraine last month, to reveal any compromising information he might have on US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The former Republican president returned to accusations he had repeated many times during his unsuccessful campaign against Biden in […]
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Wed 30 March 2022: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in China in his first visit to the key ally since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine last month. In a post on its Weibo social media account, the Russian embassy in Beijing confirmed Lavrov had landed in the eastern city of Huangshan, posting […]
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A woman picks her way through the rubble in Grozny during the Second Chechen War in February 2000. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Wed 30 March 2022: Al Jazeera speaks to Chechen dissident Tumso Abdurakhmanov on the parallels between the Ukraine and Chechnya conflicts. At the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, photos of the wars in Chechnya […]
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