Russia

MOSCOW, June 3 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Saturday that journalists from "unfriendly countries" would not be allowed into the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which President Vladimir Putin has used to showcase the Russian economy to global investors.

The forum in St Petersburg, the former imperial capital built by Tsar Peter the Great 300 years ago as a "window" to Europe, has been held since 1997 and is cast by many officials as Russia's answer to the World Economic Forum held in Davos.

MOSCOW, June 3 (Reuters) - Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday that Kremlin factions were destroying the state by trying to sow discord between him and Chechen fighters.

That row had now been settled but infighting in the Kremlin had opened a Pandora's Box of rifts, he said.

Prigozhin, a 62-year-old former restauranteur who founded the Wagner mercenary group and is a member of President Vladimir Putin's wider circle, has gained widespread notoriety during the 15-month war in Ukraine.

MOSCOW, June 2 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday that if Ukraine joined NATO then it would cause problems for many years to come, an issue he said many European Union countries understood though the United States ultimately called the tunes at the military alliance.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pressed his case on Thursday for Ukraine to be part of the NATO military alliance and urged the alliance to provide security guarantees if membership were not possible for now.

MOSCOW, June 1 (Reuters) - One of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov's close allies on Thursday publicly criticised Russia's most prominent mercenary, casting Yevgeny Prigozhin as a blogger who yells all the time about problems, drawing a stern rebuke from a top Wagner fighter.

Addressing Prigozhin in a video message using the diminutive of "Zhenya" and the familiar Russian form of you ("ty"), Adam Delimkhanov, a close ally of Kadyrov, told Prigozhin:

01 June 2023; MEMO: Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said, on Thursday, it had uncovered a US National Security Agency (NSA) plot using previously unknown malware to access specially made so-called backdoor vulnerabilities in Apple phones, Reuters reports.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said several thousand Apple phones had been infected, including those of domestic Russian subscribers.

MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/: Moscow has formally denounced the Russian-Ukrainian treaty governing joint use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, based on the fact that Ukraine is no longer a littoral state as regards these bodies of water, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said at a plenary meeting of the State Duma, or lower house of Russia’s parliament, on Thursday.

MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/: Ukrainian attacks on the Belgorod Region are unable to affect the course of the special military operation, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to a question about whether strikes and attacks on that region by the Ukrainian army would affect the special military operation and its geographical aspect.

"Certainly, this is unable to have any effect on the course of the military operation. But I am not authorized to say anything about the nuances," he added.

MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/: Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, has described the Ukrainian regime’s actions as terrorism, pointing out that the only way to counteract terrorists is to destroy them.

MOSCOW, June 1. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has no doubt that Russia will win in Ukraine and become a guarantor of peace and security for all nations.

MOSCOW, June 1 (Reuters) - Russia's most powerful mercenary, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said his Wagner group would fight on in Ukraine if his men got a separate section of the front without having to depend on "clowns" who ran swathes of the Russian armed forces.

Celebrating his 62nd birthday on Thursday at a training camp, Prigozhin also confirmed that his men would finally leave the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on June 5 after handing it to the Russian army. The Wagner mercenaries captured the devastated city in late May after months of grinding warfare.