Russia

March 17 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday that all fighter jets supplied to Ukraine by Western nations would be destroyed after NATO members Poland and Slovakia pledged to send MiG-29 jets to Kyiv.

Since Russia's invasion last year NATO countries have sent billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine, as Kyiv asks for weapons it says are vital to fend off Russian advances.

Moscow has accused the West of directly participating in the conflict through supplying weapons to Ukraine, and has warned before that NATO weapons were legitimate targets for its forces.

16 Mar 2023; MEMO: Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, has told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that he would welcome any Russian decisions to establish new military bases and increase troop numbers within Syria, in a seemingly direct invitation to have a permanent Russian military presence in the war-torn country.

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/: The Ukrainian armed forces can’t shoot down Russian ballistic missiles such as the Iskander-M, S-300 air defense missiles and Smerch rockets, in addition to hypersonic Kinzhal and Kh-22 missiles, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat said in an interview aired on Thursday.

"We don’t shoot down ballistic missiles, for example Iskander-M," he said in the interview with Ukraine’s 24 channel. "Also, unfortunately, we don’t have the capability to intercept rockets fired by multiple launch rocket systems such as Smerch."

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/: Eurozone countries are trying to convince everyone of the imminent collapse of the Russian economy, while their inflation is higher than in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, speaking at the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).

In this regard, Putin recalled a saying by American writer Mark Twain, who once joked: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/: The United Nations Secretariat needs to be more balanced in how it treats information with regard to the Ukraine issue, otherwise Russia will question its impartiality at a session of the General Assembly’s Committee on Information, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram on Thursday.

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/: Russia will leave Armenia’s attempts to put responsibility for the security of Nagorno-Karabakh on third countries on the conscience of Armenian authorities, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing Thursday.

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has termed the phrase ‘unfriendly countries’ inexact and incorrect, because it is not so much the countries themselves but rather their elites or leaders that are unfriendly.

MOSCOW, March 16 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin urged Russia's billionaires on Thursday to put patriotism before profit, telling them to invest at home to shore up the economy in the face of Western sanctions.

Addressing Russia's business elite in person for the first time since the day he sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, Putin told them their role was not just to make money but to support society.

"A responsible entrepreneur is a real citizen of Russia, of his country, a citizen who understands and acts in its interests," Putin said.

MOSCOW, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the theory that Ukrainian activists were involved in the Nord Stream pipelines blast last year is "complete nonsense," alleging the United States is behind what he called a "terrorist attack."

MOSCOW (AP) — A former mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city was detained on Thursday on charges that could land him behind bars, part of authorities’ efforts to muzzle dissent.

Yevgeny Roizman, a sharp critic of the Kremlin, is one of the most visible and charismatic opposition figures in Russia. He enjoyed broad popularity while serving as mayor of Yekaterinburg, a city of 1.5 million people in the Ural Mountains.