Putin Calls Ukraine Enclave And Reiterates Threat To Western Gas Supplies

Speaking in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Thursday, Putin said of Ukraine: “Our guys fighting there are defending both the people of Donbas [the industrial area in the east largely occupied by Russia] and defending Russia itself,” according to the Interfax news agency. “They started creating an anti-Russian enclave on the territory of today’s Ukraine that threatens our country,” Putin said. At the start of the conflict in February, the Russian president said the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine was aimed at liberating Donbass. But as the conflict has dragged on, Russia’s goals have expanded to breaking up the country and annexing large parts of its Russian-speaking southeast, which Putin referred to on Thursday as Russia’s “historic territories.” Putin added that Russia was not cowed by Western sanctions against it, which have largely cut it off from import supply chains and financial markets. Moscow said on Thursday it would stop selling oil to countries that have tried to impose a price cap on Russian oil and oil products if a proposal by the US and other G7 countries is approved. “For companies or countries that introduce restrictions, we will not supply them with oil or oil products, because we will not work under non-market conditions,” Alexander Novak, Moscow’s top energy official, was quoted as saying by the state-run Ria Novosti news network. By contrast, Russia has said it is better placed to withstand economic turmoil than European countries, which are struggling with an energy crisis and rising costs. The EU is preparing to ban Russian oil and gas imports from next year. A price cap aims to help Europe buy time to divest from Russian energy, allowing Western countries to continue buying its energy without feeding Moscow’s war machine. But Novak called the idea completely “absurd” which he said would destabilize the entire industry. In Ukraine, the UN Atomic Security Agency said it was able to spend “a few hours” inspecting the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday. A team led by Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, left Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to return to Ukrainian-controlled territory, leaving five inspectors at the site, according to Energoatom, the Ukrainian operator of the facility. . “We were able in these few hours to gather a lot, a lot of information,” Grossi said in a video released by Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. “The main things I needed to see, I saw.” The IAEA mission to the nuclear facility is expected to last several days, and the agency has said it wants to establish a permanent team on the ground.

title: “Putin Calls Ukraine Enclave And Reiterates Threat To Western Gas Supplies Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-23” author: “Bonnie Brown”

Speaking in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on Thursday, Putin said of Ukraine: “Our guys fighting there are defending both the people of Donbas [the industrial area in the east largely occupied by Russia] and defending Russia itself,” according to the Interfax news agency. “They started creating an anti-Russian enclave on the territory of today’s Ukraine that threatens our country,” Putin said. At the start of the conflict in February, the Russian president said the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine was aimed at liberating Donbass. But as the conflict has dragged on, Russia’s goals have expanded to breaking up the country and annexing large parts of its Russian-speaking southeast, which Putin referred to on Thursday as Russia’s “historic territories.” Putin added that Russia was not cowed by Western sanctions against it, which have largely cut it off from import supply chains and financial markets. Moscow said on Thursday it would stop selling oil to countries that have tried to impose a price cap on Russian oil and oil products if a proposal by the US and other G7 countries is approved. “For companies or countries that introduce restrictions, we will not supply them with oil or oil products, because we will not work under non-market conditions,” Alexander Novak, Moscow’s top energy official, was quoted as saying by the state-run Ria Novosti news network. By contrast, Russia has said it is better placed to withstand economic turmoil than European countries, which are struggling with an energy crisis and rising costs. The EU is preparing to ban Russian oil and gas imports from next year. A price cap aims to help Europe buy time to divest from Russian energy, allowing Western countries to continue buying its energy without feeding Moscow’s war machine. But Novak called the idea completely “absurd” which he said would destabilize the entire industry. In Ukraine, the UN Atomic Security Agency said it was able to spend “a few hours” inspecting the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday. A team led by Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, left Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to return to Ukrainian-controlled territory, leaving five inspectors at the site, according to Energoatom, the Ukrainian operator of the facility. . “We were able in these few hours to gather a lot, a lot of information,” Grossi said in a video released by Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. “The main things I needed to see, I saw.” The IAEA mission to the nuclear facility is expected to last several days, and the agency has said it wants to establish a permanent team on the ground.