The World Blog by humble servant.

Former US Secretary of State Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for imposing harsher sanctions against Russia over its attack on Ukraine and ramping up pressure on Saudi Arabia, China and other countries to bring them into the anti-Moscow line. “We need to be putting more sanctions more quickly on more things to up the ante on Russia and to try to bring more countries to the side of seeing that it’s in their interests to support that,” Clinton said on Sunday in an NBC News interview. “I think it’s time to double-down on the pressure,” she added. Although President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have touted the unprecedented severity of the sanctions they’ve already imposed on Moscow, Clinton said they haven’t gone far enough. “The only way that we're going to end the bloodshed and the terror that we're seeing unleashed in Ukraine and protect Europe and democracy is to do everything we can to impose even greater costs on Putin,” she said There is more that c...

Ukraine has asked Britain, and other Western nations, to help after it came under pressure due to the alleged the mistreatment of prisoners of war, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said on Friday. Moscow believes Ukraine is in damage control mode after footage of the alleged torture of Russian soldiers in Ukrainian custody became public. The Ukrainian government has informed Britain that “it has no intention to abide by the Geneva conventions when treating Russian prisoners of war,” the SVR claimed. In particular, Kiev informed London that it was not going to “offer enough food and medical assistance” to Russian captives at a time “when many Ukrainians lack them,” the statement said. The SVR claimed it was part of a larger Ukrainian effort to deal with the negative publicity it faces over the mistreatment of prisoners. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized Kiev for its policy of exposing Russian soldiers to public appeara...

Ukraine became an openly hostile country to Russia long before the ongoing conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. “Ukraine is a very difficult country for us. It is in its current state a country hostile towards us,” Peskov told the Belarus-1 TV channel in an exclusive interview aired Saturday. Over the past several years, Kiev has been taking consistent hostile steps against its own Russian-speaking population and Russian media outlets, and has openly nurtured neo-Nazi groups, the official complained. Ukraine has also written a clause outlining its desire to join the US-led NATO alliance into its constitution, Peskov noted. Kiev’s NATO aspirations have long been a major security concern for Moscow, and the West has refused to address the issue, citing the bloc’s declared “open-door” policy. Western media clubs together to white-wash Ukrainian Neo-NazisREAD MORE: Western media clubs together to white-wash Ukrainian Neo-Nazis “It is a country that nurtured those who mar...

Slovakia will pay for Russian natural gas in rubles if that’s what it takes to keep the commodity flowing, Slovak Economy Minister Richard Sulik has said on national television. “If there is a condition to pay in rubles, then we will pay in rubles,” Sulik said. He stressed that Russian imports account for roughly 85% of all Slovakian gas supplies, so the country’s authorities will remain pragmatic on the issue. “We cannot be cut off from gas,” Sulik emphasized, urging the rest of Europe to jointly seek a solution. Nearly all of the countries of the European Union, of which Slovakia is a member, slapped Russia with economic sanctions over the past month, jeopardizing Russia’s ability to receive payments from trade partners in the European currency. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin last week signed a decree introducing a new ruble gas payment mechanism. Moscow explains switch to ruble for gas paymentsREAD MORE: Moscow explains switch to ruble for gas payments Although i...

There’s been some progress in the peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, but the draft deal isn’t yet ready to be submitted for a meeting at the highest level, Vladimir Medinsky, who heads the team of Russian negotiators, has said. “The Ukrainian side has become more realistic in its approach to issues related to the neutral and non-nuclear status of Ukraine,” Medinsky wrote on Telegram on Sunday. “ There’s also understanding between Moscow and Kiev on the need to create a “system of international security guarantees for a neutral Ukraine,” he added. Medinsky said that among other things agreed-on by the sides during the talks in Istanbul last week were Kiev’s abstention from the deployment of foreign troops, bases and any offensive strike weapons on Ukrainian territory, the fielding and production of weapons of mass destruction, and the staging of drills with foreign militaries without consent from guarantor states, including Russia. However, Medinsky disagreed with Ukraine’s top n...

Inflation in Spain rose by 9.8% in March compared to the same month last year, according to preliminary data published by the National Statistics Institute on Wednesday. The rise in the consumer price index is the highest since May 1985, and the provisional figure for this month is more than two percentage points above the rate registered in February, the statistics office said, adding that inflation was driven by hikes in the price of electricity, fuel, food, and alcoholic beverages. “73% of the inflation can be explained by the runaway prices of energy and food staples, which have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the parliament. On Tuesday, the Bank of Spain called the March inflation reading “particularly negative” and “a very significant uptick.” The country’s core inflation, which does not take into account price changes in volatile areas like food and energy, also hit 3.4% in March – the fastest annual increase since 2008. ‘New worl...

The prestige of the US dollar and the euro has been “greatly shaken” by anti-Russia sanctions, which now drive more and more countries to switch to national currencies in settlements with foreign partners, according to Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Indeed, against the backdrop of these thug-like sanctions games, the prestige of the dollar and the euro has been shaken, most importantly, [the role of] the dollar as the main reserve currency,” Peskov said in an interview with Belarus-24 TV channel. The Kremlin representative drew attention to the fact that more countries are turning to national currencies in their mutual settlements. “This process is now at its initial stages, but it is no longer possible to stop it,” the official stressed, adding that the entire Bretton Woods system “that allowed America to be at the top of the economic pyramid of the world for many decades… is now beginning to erode.” The Bretton Woods System created a col...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got a green light from Washington to offer Russia relief from international sanctions in exchange for ending its military offensive against the former Soviet republic. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened the door to such an offer on Sunday, confirming in an NBC News interview that Zelensky has the ability to negotiate sanctions relief for peace. He said President Joe Biden’s administration will support whatever the Ukrainian people want to do to bring the war to an end. “We’ll be looking to see what Ukraine is doing and what it wants to do,” Blinken said. “And if it concludes that it can bring this war to an end, stop the death and destruction and continue to assert its independence and its sovereignty – and ultimately that requires the lifting of sanctions – of course, we will allow that.”The US and its allies are doing everything possible to strengthen Kiev’s hand at the negotiating table, but the sanctions are meant to influence Russ...

Germans are already paying a price for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, the country’s finance minister has acknowledged. Speaking to Bild tabloid newspaper, Christian Lindner said that “the Ukraine war is making us all poorer, for example, because we have to pay more for imported energy.” In an interview published on Sunday, the German minister went on to admit that the government “cannot offset this loss in prosperity,” adding on a more positive note, however, that the authorities were working to “cushion the biggest shocks.” The current state of affairs in the national economy is giving Lindner “serious concerns,” he admitted, citing sagging growth and rising prices. The minister reassured journalists that the government is doing all it can to “avoid the threat of so-called stagflation.” Among the measures Berlin is taking are relief for the middle class, support for the economically vulnerable strata of society and at-risk businesses, Lindner said. The German official poin...