Vladimir Putin using ‘body doubles’ say Ukrainian intelligence officials
Vladimir Putin has been accused of using body doubles, after Ukrainian intelligence officials spotted one key difference.
World
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Ukrainian Intelligences sources have claimed Russian president Vladimir Putin is using a body double, after noticing a difference in the dictator’s ears.
Ukraine’s Major General Kyrylo Budanov, said he used a very simple trick to determine that Vladimir Putin was using a body double for public appearances.
“The picture, let’s say, of the ears, is different,” Mr Budanov told Ukraine’s 1+1 TV channel.
“And it’s like a fingerprint, each person’s ear picture is unique. It cannot be repeated,” he said
The Major General said he believed Putin was replaced by someone else during his meeting to Tehran, to meet the Turkish and Iranian presidents.
The body double rumours started after Putin reportedly suffered a sever bout of nausea on July 26, resulting in doctors being rushed to his bedside.
AMNESTY SLAMS UKRAINE FOR ENDANGERING CIVILIANS
Ukraine’s foreign minister on Thursday criticised as “unfair” a report from Amnesty International alleging Kyiv put civilians at risk by stationing troops in residential areas as it fights Russia’s invasion.
“This behaviour of Amnesty International is not about finding and reporting the truth to the world, it is about creating a false equivalence - between the offender and the victim, between the country that destroys hundreds and thousands of civilians, cities, territories, and a country that is desperately defending itself,” Dmytro Kuleba said in a video posted on Facebook.
Amnesty said in its report the tactics “in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks”, and some Russian “war crimes” including in the city of Kharkiv were not linked.
But it listed incidents when Ukrainian forces appeared to have exposed civilians to danger in 19 towns and villages in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions.
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” Amnesty secretary-general Agnes Callamard said.
“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”
Residential areas where Ukrainian soldiers based themselves were miles away from front lines, and “viable alternatives” were available that would not endanger civilians, the report said.
But it said the soldiers had failed to tell civilians to evacuate the areas, despite launching strikes on Russian forces that exposed them to retaliatory fire.
Amnesty researchers witnessed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as “de facto military bases” in five locations, and in 22 schools.
Although the schools have been shut during the conflict, they were located in civilian neighbourhoods.
“We have no say in what the military does, but we pay the price,” the report quoted one resident as saying.
Ukraine’s government pushed back hard at the report, with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba branding the allegations “unfair”.
“This behaviour of Amnesty International is not about finding and reporting the truth to the world, it is about creating a false equivalence — between the offender and the victim, between the country that destroys hundreds and thousands of civilians, cities, territories, and a country that is desperately defending itself,” he said.
Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov called the report a “perversion” as he said it questioned the right of Ukrainians to defend their country.
Top presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak insisted Ukraine’s armed forces take all measures to move civilians to safer areas and suggested Amnesty was complicit in spreading Kremlin disinformation.
“The only thing that poses a threat to Ukrainians is (Russian) army of executioners and rapists coming to (Ukraine) to commit genocide,” he tweeted.
US MOVE THAT WILL ANGER RUSSIA
The US Senate has ratified the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, strongly backing the expansion of the transatlantic alliance in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Senate voted 95 to 1 in favour of the two Nordic countries’ accession, making the United States the 23rd of the 30 NATO countries to formally endorse it so far, after Italy approved it earlier on Wednesday and France on Tuesday.
The sole opponent was Republican Josh Hawley, who argued that the US has to focus on protecting its homeland, but also that Washington should concentrate on the challenge from China rather than Europe.
One senator, Republican Rand Paul, voted “present” rather than endorsing or opposing the motion.
Senate leader Chuck Schumer said it was a signal of Western unity after Moscow launched a war on Ukraine on February 24.
“This is important substantively and as a signal to Russia: they cannot intimidate America or Europe,” Mr Schumer said.
“Putin has tried to use his war in Ukraine to divide the West. Instead, today’s vote shows our alliance is stronger than ever,” he said.
All 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must agree if Finland and Sweden, officially non-aligned, but longtime adjunct partners of the alliance, are admitted.
According to a NATO list, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey have yet to formally agree to their entry.
But in fact only Turkey has posed a challenge, demanding certain concessions from Finland and Sweden to back their memberships.
Ankara has demanded the extradition of dozens of government opponents it labels “terrorists” from both countries in exchange for its support.
Turkey said on July 21 that a special committee would meet Finnish and Swedish officials in August to assess if the two nations are complying with its conditions.
“HELL’’ IN EASTERN UKRAINE
Eastern Ukraine has been razed into “hell” as Russian artillery comes up against US-supplied rockets for control of the Donbas battlefield.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said $550 million worth of lethal weapons, including HIMARS rocket launchers and artillery ammunition, supplied by US president Joe Biden, was still unable to repel the Russian attack.
“We still cannot completely break the advantage of the Russian army in artillery and in manpower, and this is very tangible in the battles, especially in the Donbass, Pisky, Avdiivka, other directions,” Zelenskyy said.
“It’s just hell there. It can’t even be described in words.”
Russia has continued to pound cities and towns across Ukraine’s sprawling front line.
Kyiv said it had started mandatory evacuations from the eastern region of Donetsk, which is bearing the brunt of the Russian offensive, after Zelenskyy urged the estimated 200,000 remaining residents to leave.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said a train carrying “women, children, elderly people, many people with reduced mobility” arrived in the central city of Kropyvnytskyi.
Officials have said they want to get residents out of the battered region before the start of winter as gas pipes for heating have been severed.
In the south of the country, the head of Ukraine’s Kryviy Rig military administration said Russian shelling had killed two civilians in a minibus trying to leave the Moscow-controlled Kherson region.
Ukrainian forces have in recent days been pressing a counteroffensive to drive out the Russians from the region.
Dmytro Butriy, the head of the Ukrainian authorities in Kherson, said they had so far taken 53 settlements back under their control.
Ukraine was bolstered by more supplies of Western arms — particularly long-range artillery — ahead of the planned push to retake Kherson city.
The United States announced a new tranche of weapons worth $550 million for Ukraine’s forces, including ammunition for increasingly important HIMARS rocket launchers and artillery pieces.
Zelensky thanked Biden for the supplies, adding “the word ‘HIMARS’ has become almost synonymous with the word ‘justice’ for our country”.
VOLATILE SITUATION AT NUCLEAR PLANT
The situation is “volatile” at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which fell under Russian
control in March during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the head of the international nuclear agency has warned.
Located on the Dnipro river in southeastern Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been under Russian control since the early weeks of Moscow’s invasion, though it is still being operated by Ukrainian staff.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been trying to send a mission there.
“The situation is really a volatile one,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday, where a conference of the 191 signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is being held.
“Every principle of safety has been violated one way or the other. And we cannot allow that from continuing,” he said.
At the start of the conference Monday, he said that the situation at Zaporizhzhia is growing “more perilous by the day.”
His organisation has been trying for weeks to send a team to inspect the plant.
Ukraine has so far rejected the efforts, which it says would legitimise Russia’s occupation of the site in the eyes of the international community.
“Going there is a very complex thing, because it requires the understanding and co-operation of a number of actors,” particularly Moscow and Kyiv, as well as the backing of the United Nations since the plant is in a war zone, Grossi explained.
“I’m trying to put a mission back together to go there as soon as I can.”
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Moscow of using the plant as a “military base to fire at Ukrainians, knowing that they can’t and won’t shoot back because they might accidentally strike a nuclear ... reactor or highly radioactive waste in storage.”
“That brings the notion of having a human shield to an entirely different and horrific level,”he said.
The Zaporizhzhia region where the plant is located is largely under Russian control, and Moscow-backed separatists have said they are planning to stage a referendum on joining Russia this year.
US SANCTIONS PUTIN’S MISTRESS
The alleged mistress of Vladimir Putin has been slapped with sanctions by the US, only weeks after it was reported she’s expecting the president’s eighth child.
The Treasury Department said on Tuesday that the government had frozen the visa of former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva and imposed other property restrictions over her “close relationship” with Putin.
“As innocent people suffer from Russia’s illegal war of aggression, Putin’s allies have enriched themselves and funded opulent lifestyles,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
The 69-year-old Russian president has reportedly been dating Ms Kabaeva, who is 30 years his junior, for the past 13 years.
However, the Kremlin has long denied that Putin, who is divorced, is romantically involved with Ms Kabaeva, despite reports she is the mother of at least some of his children.
Several other Kremlin-connected elites were also targeted in the latest round of US sanctions for their role in supporting Putin’s war on Ukraine.
The financial sanctions hit Putin-associate and billionaire Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, who owns the Witanhurst estate, the second-largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace. They also targeted Guryev’s son and Caribbean-based yacht Alfa Nero.
Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, one of Russia’s largest taxpayers, and two subsidiaries of his MMK, which is among the world’s largest steel producers, also were slapped with sanctions, as well as two other Russian elites: Alina Maratovna Kabaeva and Natalya Valeryevna Popova, the statement said.
“The Treasury Department will use every tool at our disposal to make sure that Russian elites and the Kremlin’s enablers are held accountable for their complicity in a war that has cost countless lives,” Yellen said, adding that the goal is “to choke off revenue and equipment underpinning Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.”
In a joint action, the State Department imposed sanctions, including visa restrictions, on oligarchs “running massive revenue-generating companies,” including Dmitry Aleksandrovich Pumpyanskiy, Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko and Alexander Anatolevich Ponomarenko, as well as nearly 900 officials, and a series of defence- and technology-related firms aiding “Russia’s war machine.”
The Treasury sanctions seize any US-based funds or property owned by the individuals or organisations, and prohibit American-based firms from having any financial dealings with them, although investors will have a few weeks to wind down transactions with MMK.
In May, the United Kingdom officials had similarly sanctioned Kabaeva, who is now the chairperson of Russia’s New Media Group, the country’s largest private media company.
UKRAINE AGAIN REACHES OUT TO NATO
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have spoken directly to discuss the alliance’s military support to Kyiv.
“Good call w/Pres (Zelenskyy) on priorities for military support,” Stoltenberg tweeted on Tuesday. “It’s vital that #NATO & Allies provide even more assistance to #Ukraine even faster.”
Zelenskyy’s office echoed Stoltenberg’s remarks, calling on Ukraine’s allies to send military support at a faster rate.
“The President of Ukraine separately informed Jens Stoltenberg about the situation on the battlefield and the need for Ukraine to quickly receive more heavy weapons from NATO member states in order to successfully repulse Russian attacks and proceed to a further counteroffensive,” the Ukrainian president said in a statement on Tuesday.
“In addition, Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasised the importance of receiving nonlethal military aid from the Alliance as soon as possible in the framework of the comprehensive package approved at the Madrid NATO Summit.”
Good call w/Pres @ZelenskyyUa on priorities for military support. It’s vital that #NATO & Allies provide even more assistance to #Ukraine even faster. Also discussed 1st shipment of grain since #Russia’s invasion & need to fully implement deal sponsored by @UN & our Ally Türkiye.
— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) August 2, 2022
UN CHIEF: ‘WE ARE ONE STEP FROM ANNIHILATION’
The head of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, warned on Monday, local time that the world faced “a nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War” and was just “one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
“We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. But luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict,” Mr Guterres said at the start of a conference of countries belonging to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” he said, calling on nations to “put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons.”
Mr Guterres’s comments came at the opening 10th review conference of the NPT, an international treaty that came into force in 1970 to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
The meeting, held at the UN’s headquarters in New York, has been postponed several times since 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It will run until August 26.
Mr Guterres said the conference was “a chance to strengthen” the treaty and “make it fit for the worrying world around us,” citing Russia’s war in Ukraine and tensions on the Korean peninsula and in the Middle East.
“Eliminating nuclear weapons is the only guarantee they will never be used,” the secretary-general implored, adding that he would visit Hiroshima for the anniversary of the August 6, 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city by the United States.
“Almost 13,000 nuclear weapons are now being held in arsenals around the world. All this at a time when the risks of proliferation are growing and guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening,” Mr Guterres added.
In January, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France – had pledged to prevent the further dissemination of nuclear weapons.
At the last review conference in 2015, the parties were unable to reach agreement on substantive issues.
It comes as the United States and its nuclear allies rebuked Russia on Monday for “irresponsible and dangerous” talk about possibly deploying nuclear weapons as a review of the keystone nuclear treaty opened at the United Nations.
“Following Russia’s unprovoked and unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine, we call on Russia to cease its irresponsible and dangerous nuclear rhetoric and behaviour, to uphold its international commitments,” said the United States, France and Britain in a statement.
“Nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war. We condemn those who would use or threaten to use nuclear weapons for military coercion, intimidation, and blackmail,” they said.
Concerns are rising about the spread of nuclear technology, especially in Iran and North Korea, and China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal.
While five leading nuclear powers are among the 191 states party to the pact, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are not.
“The NPT has reduced the risk of a devastating nuclear war, and further reduction of that risk must be a priority for all NPT states parties and for this Review Conference,” the US-France-Britain statement said.
They said that Iran, currently in negotiations to limit its nuclear development, “must never develop a nuclear weapon,” and called on North Korea to halt its nuclear-related tests and launches.
In a separate statement US President Joe Biden called on Russia and China to demonstrate their commitment to limiting nuclear arms.
Russia should demonstrate its willingness to renew a separate bilateral nuclear arms reduction pact, the New START Treaty, when it expires in 2026, Mr Biden said.
“My administration is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START,” he said.
“But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith. And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order.”
Mr Biden said China meanwhile has a responsibility “to engage in talks that will reduce the risk of miscalculation and address destabilising military dynamics.”
“There is no benefit to any of our nations, or for the world, to resist substantive engagement on arms control and nuclear non-proliferation,” Mr Biden said.
- Additional reporting by AFP
‘Threat’: Elon slammed for sick post
Controversial billionaire Elon Musk has been condemned for a post about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, which the Secret Service is now probing.
Read more
Haunting photo of Titan wreckage as crews’ final words revealed
A newly released photo shows the doomed Titan submersible’s tail cone on the ocean floor, as the crews’ final communication was revealed.
Read more