SO WILL RUSSIA GET ITS MISTRAL OR NOT?
Only the French know for sure...
CHEAP EARPLUGS?
PUTIN: RUSSIA TO FREE OIL MARKET FROM 'DICTATORSHIP OF THE DOLLAR"
In an interview with TASS, Vladimir Putin said Russia plans to leave the "dollar dictatorship" of world oil prices and instead use the ruble of the Chinese yuan.
Here it is, as reported by "Sputnik":
MOSCOW, November 14 (Sputnik) – Russia plans to leave the “dollar dictatorship” of market oil prices and turn to using the country’s national currency and the Chinese yuan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
“We are leaving the dictatorship of the market where oil goods are based on the dollar and will increase the possibilities of using [other] national currencies: the ruble and the yuan,” Putin said in an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS.
On a November 9 meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed the possibility of using the yuan in transactions in fields of mutual cooperation.
Putin said in his Monday speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China that accounting in the ruble and yuan will most likely weaken the dollar’s influence on the global energy market.
Putin added that possibilities to increase the use of the Russian and Chinese currencies in bilateral trade, particularly in the energy sector, were being studied.
PUTIN FEELS ROSNEFT'S PAIN
Putin: "If I were the boss of Rosneft, I would also ask for money. So what?"
OIL PRICES AND EXCHANGE RATES
"It loons like oil will fall below $70...If this happens, then the dollar will be around 51-52 rubles"
EVENING NEWS UPDATE
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
PUTIN SAYS SANCTIONS VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW
By RFE/RL
Russian President Vladimir Putin says economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union, the United States, and other countries over the Ukraine crisis go against Group of 20 (G20) principles and international law.
Putin told TASS in an interview published on November 14 that the asset freezes, visa bans, and blocks put on Russian companies trying to access Western financial markets could only be imposed by the United Nations.
He acknowledged the sanctions and low oil prices have hurt the Russian economy but said the Kremlin's cash reserves are large enough to handle any economic crisis and meet "social commitments" domestically.
Putin's comments come one day ahead of the G20 summit in Australia, but he said it "makes no sense" to discuss the sanctions at that venue.
The summit follows fresh allegations of Russian military incursions into Ukraine.
(With reporting by Reuters, TASS, and AP)
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT SAYS FORCES READY FOR POSSIBLE ATTACK
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said there was "no reason to panic" over the situation in the country's war-wracked east.
Poroshenko told security and law enforcement officials on November 14 the Ukrainian armed forces were “ready and capable of repelling” an offensive by pro-Russian separatists if a September 5 cease-fire agreement crumbles.
But he said Kyiv remained committed to finding a “political and peaceful” solution to the conflict, which has left more than 4,000 people dead since April.
Meanwhile, a military spokesman said one soldier was killed and six wounded over the previous 24 hours.
Andriy Lysenko also said a girl aged five or six was killed when rebels fired mortar shells northwest of the city of Luhansk.
Kyiv and the rebels have traded blame over a shelling that killed two teenage boys on a school playing field on November 5.
(Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS)
REPORT: RUSSIA GIVES FRANCE DEADLINE TO DELIVER WARSHIP
Moscow is warning Paris of "serious" consequences if France does not deliver a Mistral-class assault ship by the end of this month.
Under a $1.5 billion deal signed in 2011, the first of two Mistral helicopter carriers was supposed to be handed over to Russia on November 14.
But France has delayed the handover because of Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unidentified high-ranking source in Moscow as saying: "We are preparing for different scenarios. We are waiting until the end of the month, then we will lodge serious claims."
The source said experts were gauging the damage sustained by Russia.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers this week that there was still no fixed date for the delivery.
(Based on reporting by RIA Novosti and AFP)
SERBIA HOSTS RUSSIAN FORCES FOR MILITARY DRILLS
By RFE/RL's Balkan Service
BELGRADE -- Russia and Serbia are holding their first-ever joint antiterrorist exercises on Serbian territory.
The one-day drills were scheduled to start at noon November 14.
The show of Russian military might in a country seeking to join the European Union follows a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, and coincides with a visit by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
State-funded Russian channel RT has shown images of preparations for the drills, with camouflage-clad troops and a combat vehicle being lowered to the ground from aircraft.
Serbian military analyst Ljubodrag Stojadinovic told RFE/RL last week that joint maneuvers with Russian troops on this scale have never been held in Serbia.
He said that in holding the maneuvers, Moscow is trying to demonstrate that it has allies in Europe.
UKRAINE PRESIDENT SAYS NO POINT IN NEW PEACE TALKS
By RFE/RL
KYIV -- A Ukrainian security adviser says there is no point in holding new peace talks with pro-Russian separatists until Kyiv is satisfied that the rebels holding territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are adhering to a truce deal signed on September 5 in Minsk.
Markian Lubkivskiy, an adviser to the chairman of Ukraine's Security Service, said on 1+1 television on November 13 that "there will be no 'Minsk 2,' as we have Minsk-1 agreements which Ukraine is implementing and the terrorists are not."
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry representative, Dmytro Kuleba, said in the same program that Kyiv will continue talks, but only on implementation of existing agreements.
Hundreds of combatants and civilians have been killed since the September 5 cease-fire, with each side blaming the other.
Kyiv says that November 2 elections in the rebel-held region violated the truce deal, which also included other steps toward peace and was signed by Russia.
Russia denies allegations from Kyiv and the West that it has sent troops and weapons into eastern Ukraine, despite sightings of unmarked convoys on rebel-held territory in recent days.
(With reporting by pravda.ua and 1+1 TV channel)
RUSSIA ACCUSES OSCE MISSION OF SIDING WITH UKRAINE
Russia has accused the OSCE monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine of siding with Kyiv.
In a statement on November 14, the Foreign Ministry said Moscow is "concerned about the approach the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine has been demonstrating lately."
It said "there is an impression that its efforts are aimed at supporting and assisting only one side in the conflict, the Kyiv authorities."
The statement warned that the mission's approach undermined trust in its work.
A November 11 report from the OSCE said the observers had seen an unmarked military convoy on the outskirts of the separatist-held city of Donetsk, fueling accusation from Kyiv and the West of Russian military incursions into eastern Ukraine.
Moscow denies it has sent troops or weapons across the border.
Some Ukrainians have accused the mission of bias in favor of Russia.
(Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax)
RUSSIAN PATRIARCH VOWS SUPPORT FOR SERBIA ON KOSOVO
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church arrived in Belgrade on November 14 and vowed support for what he called "the Serbs' just stance on Kosovo."
Patriarch Kirill was greeted by a crowd of hundreds, including Serbian Patriarch Irinej and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, when he arrived at Belgrade's airport for a three-day visit.
He arrived on the same day that Serbia, which shares longstanding religious and cultural ties with mostly Slavic, Orthodox Christian Russia, hosted Russian paratroopers in an unprecedented joint military exercise.
Kirill visited the Cathedral of Michael the Archangel and the University of Belgrade.
Accepting an honorary doctorate, he vowed that the Russian Orthodox Church would continue to support Serbia on the issue of Kosovo, whose independence is not recognized by Belgrade.
"We commend the courage of those Serbs who, despite the threat to their own existence, do not leave their ancestral lands," Kirill said.
On November 15, Kirill is scheduled to consecrate a monument to Russia's last tsar and visit a Russian cemetery in Belgrade.
(Based on reporting by vesti.rs and TASS)
MORNING NEWS UPDATE
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
RUSSIA SAYS KYIV SEEKS 'STRANGULATION' OF EASTERN UKRAINE
Russia is accusing Kyiv of trying to "strangle" separatist-held territories in eastern Ukraine by cutting off payments and shutting state institutions in the rebel-controlled areas.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated Moscow's calls for the Ukrainian government to hold talks with the pro-Russian separatists who have seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in a war that has killed more than 4,100 people since April.
Instead, Lavrov said, "Kyiv has set a course for the socioeconomic strangulation of southeastern Ukraine and is threatening to revive (efforts to) resolve the conflict by force."
Kyiv's moves are a response to elections held by the separatists on November 2, which Ukraine and the West condemned as an illegal violation of a September 5 peace plan, and what Kyiv says are Russian-supported military buildup by the rebels.
Lavrov, speaking at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk, also said Russia has always seen the European Union as a "big, important economic partner" and hopes the point of no return in ties with the EU has not been reached.
(Based on reporting by Interfax, TASS, and AFP)
GERMAN FM DUE IN KYIV FOR TALKS ON RESOLVING CRISIS
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is due in Kyiv on November 18 for talks on resolving the crisis in eastern Ukraine.
He is due to hold talks with President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
According to Tass, Steinmeier is scheduled to fly on to Moscow later in the day to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks expected to focus on Ukraine.
On November 17, EU governments moved to put more Ukrainian separatists under asset freezes and travel bans.
However, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels took no action to step up economic sanctions on Russia despite voicing alarm about an upsurge of violence in eastern Ukraine.
EU foreign ministers asked officials to put forward names of an unspecified number of pro-Russian separatists to be added to the EU's sanctions list by the end of the month.
(Based on reporting by TASS and Reuters)
INTERPOL TO CONSIDER NEW RUSSIAN BID TO ARREST BROWDER
By RFE/RL
Britain-based businessman William Browder says the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) will revisit Russia’s request for his arrest on charges linked to whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail five years ago this week.
Interpol informed Browder that it will consider the request during a November 20-21 meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Lyon, France, he told RFE/RL.
Interpol has twice rejected earlier Russian requests for a so-called "red notice" against Browder, citing Russia’s “political” goals in the matter.
Russian prosecutors said in June that Interpol had decided to reconsider Russia’s request.
Browder has led a global push for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death on November 16, 2009.
A Russian court convicted Browder in absentia and Magnitsky posthumously on tax evasion charges last year, decisions slammed by Western governments.
RUSSIA CONFIRMS EXPULSION OF POLISH, GERMAN DIPLOMATS
Russia says it has expelled a German diplomat and several Polish diplomats in response to the recent expulsions of Russian diplomats.
In a statement on November 17, Russia's Foreign Ministry accused the Polish diplomats of activities inconsistent with their status, a phrase generally used for spying.
It confirmed reports that Warsaw had expelled several Russian diplomats, citing the same accusation.
The ministry said the German was expelled at the weekend in a retaliatory measure for what it described as an "unfriendly" step earlier by Berlin of expelling a Russian diplomat.
Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna was quoted as saying on November 17 that Warsaw considered Moscow's move a "symmetric response."
Relations between Moscow and European Union member states have been strained by the crisis in Ukraine and by EU sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
(Based on reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and AFP)
MORE LNG TERMINALS ON THE WAY
BOMBS, PLANES, AND WARSHIPS
Defense analyst Aleksandr Golts has a scathing commentary in "The Moscow Times" today looking at Russia's recent gunboat diplomacy -- from sending warships to Australia's coast on the eve of the G20 summit, to sending strategic bombers to patrol the Gulf of Mexico and the Carribean.
None of these escapades makes much sense from a military point of view. Deploying four very old warships to the Australian coast does not exactly impress anyone, and if the U.S. had sent a couple of carrier battle groups to those same waters, the Russian ships would have looked like so many tugboats by comparison....
But it seems that Russia's naval deployment to Australian waters and the threat of sending aircraft with nuclear bombs to the Caribbean is more a symbolic move than a military one. Moscow feels it is necessary to remind every last person that Russia is a great military power and that it can "scare the sh-- out of the Americans," as former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev once said.
Read it all here.