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Added on the 04/07/2022 15:50:26 - Copyright : AFP EN
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voices hope that a successful offensive by Ukraine would force Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss ending its invasion. "Success in the counteroffensive would do two things -- it would strengthen its position at any negotiating table that emerges, and it may have the effect as well of actually causing Putin to finally focus on negotiating an end to the war that he started," Blinken tells a joint news conference with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. SOUNDBITE
People In Russia's former imperial capital, Saint Petersburg, gather in the streets to protest against president Vladimir Putin's decree on a partial military mobilisation in the country, with Russian police arresting a few of the demonstrators. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia would initially mobilise some 300,000 reservists, after Putin warned in a televised address Russia would use all available military means in Ukraine. IMAGES
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a lavish ceremony on Red Square following a landslide victory in his country’s presidential elections. The concert marks the tenth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, when Moscow formally recognised the peninsula as a federal subject. IMAGES
People respond to a call from opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya to turn up at polling stations at midday Moscow time (0900 GMT) in a form of protest that attempts to overwhelm them. Before his death in an Arctic prison last month, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who galvanised mass anti-Putin rallies, had urged Russians to protest on March 17. The polling station is where opposition leader Alexei Navalny was registered. IMAGES
Sweden joining NATO shows Russian President Vladimir Putin "failed" in his Ukrainian war strategy of weakening the alliance, its chief Jens Stoltenberg says. The Kremlin's invasion not only prompted formerly non-aligned nations Sweden and Finland to come under NATO's defence umbrella, but now "Ukraine is closer to NATO membership than ever before," Stoltenberg adds. SOUNDBITE
US President Joe Biden says during his State of the Union address that Ukraine is capable of stopping Putin if the US provides Kyiv the "weapons it needs to defend itself." SOUNDBITE