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Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2015 22:42:12 GMT
Relations between Rome and Moscow are generally good. Italy gets roughly 30 percent of its natural gas from Russia, while Russia is Italy's eighth largest exports destination. Italian banks are important players in Russia, and energy companies from both countries operate together in projects around the world. In addition, Rome and Moscow have strategic interests that are rarely in conflict. Unlike Germany, Italy is not particularly interested in the areas that Russia sees as its spheres of influence, and unlike countries such as Poland and Romania, Rome does not feel threatened by Moscow's political, economic and military influence in the former Communist bloc. However, the crisis in Ukraine put Italy in an awkward situation: Rome was pressured to follow the official EU policy regarding Russia, yet it wanted to preserve its ties with Moscow. Rome voted for sanctions on Russia but continually urged caution and moderation in the introduction of punitive measures. Italy's successive political crises gave it an excuse to focus on domestic issues and keep a relatively low profile regarding the events in Ukraine. The Italian government mitigated the frictions with the Kremlin, as Rome let Berlin and Paris take the lead in the diplomatic push against Moscow. Three factors probably prompted Renzi's visit with Putin. The first is the situation in Ukraine. During 2014, the combination of European sanctions and a weaker ruble hurt Italy's exports to Russia. The Italian economy is fragile, and Rome is interested in a de-escalation of the Ukraine conflict so the European Union can begin lifting its sanctions on Moscow and Russia can withdraw its counter-sanctions on Europe that affect agricultural exports (one of Italy's key exports). Europe's sanctions on Russia begin to expire in late March, and it takes unanimous support from EU member states to renew them. Italy needs Russia to ease the conflict so Rome can lobby Brussels to let the sanctions expire. Second, Italy is concerned by events in Libya. Over the past three years, the crisis in the country has led to massive waves of asylum seekers reaching Italian shores, constricting Italy's budget and creating political tensions within the country and between Italy and its neighbors. Libya was an Italian colony, and Rome still considers it to be within its sphere of influence. The African country is roughly 100 miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa, a key arrival point for asylum seekers. Previous Italian governments had deals with former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to prevent people from immigrating to Italy, but these deals ended when Gadhafi died. Since then, Italy has spent million of euros on maritime operations to rescue asylum seekers. Rome is also concerned about terrorists potentially entering Europe as asylum seekers. Threats by the Islamic State to target Italy and the Vatican strengthened these concerns. Italy is also worried about the instability in Libya hurting its energy imports, as Italy gets roughly 20 percent of its oil and 10 percent of its natural gas from the North African country. In addition, Italian energy giant ENI is a significant investor in Libya, and the crisis in the country has caused numerous problems for the Italian company. Italy is interested in a comprehensive cease-fire and the formation of a government of national unity in Libya. Rome supports the United Nations' negotiations with Libya's competing factions, but is also frustrated by the lack of progress. As a result, Italy would like Russia to provide diplomatic support for those negotiations. Finally, Rome is interested in fighting extremists, including but not limited to the Islamic State, in Libya. Here Egypt becomes key. In mid-February, Egypt carried out a series of airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Libya in retaliation for the killing of 21 Egyptian Christians. Cairo has also requested the U.N. Security Council to lift the arms embargo on Libya, help build the country's army to fight the Islamic State and other militant groups, and impose a naval blockade on areas not under government control. In 2014, Russia and Egypt signed a $3.5 billion arms deal, and Putin visited the country in February. Also in February, Renzi wrote to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expressing Italy's support for Egypt's fight against the Islamic State and proposing a "Cairo-Rome axis" to fight extremism in North Africa. But to do this, Rome needs Moscow to use its voice in the U.N. Security Council and to continue arming the Egyptian military. The third reason for Renzi's visit to Moscow is his desire to build a personal relationship with Putin. During the 2000s, Putin developed close ties with former Italian Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Silvio Berlusconi. Russia views Italy as one of the heavyweights of Europe — not as influential as France or Germany, but still important — and Putin has used personal ties to maintain a relationship with Rome. But since 2011, Italy's political and economic crises led to a rapid succession of prime ministers, none of whom had the time to focus on Italy's bilateral relations with Russia. Renzi believes that once the Ukrainian crisis has calmed down, Italy will need to normalize relations with Russia so both countries can continue to cooperate in their common areas of interest. This third goal is probably the easiest to achieve. Russia wants to keep good ties with certain EU members, including Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, Austria and Italy, even if the Kremlin knows this strategy has only produced modest results. But Renzi is unlikely to make significant progress in his other goals. Russia has made some gestures toward de-escalation in Ukraine, but the conflict is far from over and the largest political powers in the European Union could push smaller countries to renew sanctions in the likely event that the terms of the latest Minsk agreement are not fully met. As for Libya, Russia is not particularly interested in the stabilization of a country that sells oil and natural gas to Europe and will probably opt to continue providing military assistance to Egypt.
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Post by Admin on Mar 16, 2015 22:24:14 GMT
Vladimir Putin has admitted that he was ready to place his nuclear attack forces on alert when he seized Crimea a year ago. The Russian president's revelation was aired in a pre-recorded TV interview broadcast at the end of last week. In the documentary – titled Crimea: Way Back Home – he claimed the area was Russia's 'historic territory', even though under international law it remains Ukrainian. Putin went on to say: 'Russian people live there, they are in danger and we cannot leave them.' He also claimed that he feared they would have been overrun by 'a nationalist bulldozer' from Kiev, and said he could not have left the area and the people who live there 'to whims of fate'. However the president explained that he knew the West could have intervened, and had been 'ready' to put his nuclear arsenal on alert, adding: 'I talked with colleagues and told them that Crimea is our historic territory. We were ready to do it.' The Kremlin has since claimed it has the right to station nuclear weapons on the Crimean peninsula. Yesterday's interview came a full ten days after Putin was last seen in public, amid rumours of illness, a coup, or his Olympic gymnast 'lover' Alina Kabayeva giving birth to a child in Switzerland. He vanished soon after aides to one of his key allies were blamed for ordering the assassination of one of the Kremlin's most outspoken critics, Boris Nemtsov. Opposition TV channel Dozhd has claimed that the president has hidden himself away in one of his many luxurious official residences, a forest hideaway near Lake Valdai in the Novgorod region. But asked yesterday about whether his disappearance from public life was down to a bout of flu, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov would only say: 'No comment. The topic is closed. The crisis over his disappearance will deepen if he fails to appear this week at a number of events to commemorate the restoration of Crimea to Russia.
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Post by Admin on Mar 23, 2015 21:45:35 GMT
Ukraine could be set for yet another showdown with Russia over a $3 billion debt bill. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is assuming that $3 billion of debt owed by Ukraine to Russia this year will have to be restructured as part of the country's bailout package. There's only one problem — Russia doesn't want to play ball. The IMF released details of its $17.5 billion rescue package, including an economic reform programme on March 12. This includes what they are calling "debt operations", but what most of the outside world would call debt restructuring whereby the country either imposes losses on bondholders or extends the repayment deadline. Except here's the problem — one of the biggest payments due in 2015 is a $3 billion loan from Moscow: On a conference call last week, the IMF was coy about Russian participation in the "debt operations", saying only: "We don’t specifically include one claim or the other. I think the universe of claims that are eligible for restructuring includes all euro bonds, including euro bonds maturing between now and 2018." However, some observers have been much more strident in their analysis. Anna Gelpern, a law professor at Georgetown University and expert in the subject, calculates that Russia's debt will have to be included if the Ukrainian government is going to hit the IMF's target of $5.2 billion worth of restructuring in 2015, according to the Financial Times.
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Post by Admin on Apr 5, 2015 21:42:19 GMT
France's Front National may have been given a multi-million-euro loan by a Russian bank as a "reward" for backing President Putin's annexation of Crimea, according to text messages released by Russian hackers. The publication of excerpts from the messages by the French news website Mediapart has rekindled accusations that Moscow is bankrolling the Front National and other European far-Correct groups. Having said that, Marine Le Pen, the Front National leader, mentioned it was "insane" to interpret extra than 1,100 pages of text messages as showing that she had agreed to endorse the controversial Crimean referendum final year in return for funding. The messages, alleged to have been sent or received by the head of the Kremlin internal affairs department, Timur Prokopenko, were hacked by a Russian opposition group, Anonymous International, and posted on its website. 1 was received on March 17 final year from "Kostia", a figure identified by the opposition group as a governing party MP, Konstantin Rykov. "Marine Le Pen has officially recognised the final results of the referendum in Crimea," it study. "She hasn't betrayed our expectations," the Kremlin official replied. "It will be necessary to thank the French in a single way or a further ... It really is vital," Kostia mentioned. "Yes. Super!" the Kremlin official responded. Eight months later, when the Front National received a 9 million euro (£6.57m) loan from the 1st Czech-Russian Bank in November final year, Ms Le Pen insisted it was a purely industrial transaction unrelated to her help for Mr Putin over Crimea or other problems. She said the celebration had been denied funds by French banks. The loan was the very first instalment of Russian-backed loans of 40m euros that would fund the money-strapped Front National in the run-up to the 2017 presidential campaign, Mediapart reported. Ms Le Pen and other party leaders denied knowing the two males in the text exchange. Ms Le Pen has visited Moscow numerous times and tends to make no secret of her admiration for Mr Putin, whom she has often described as "sturdy". She has urged France to recognise Crimea as element of Russia.
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Post by Admin on May 13, 2015 20:53:15 GMT
NATO leaders on Wednesday warned President Vladimir Putin to waste no time in implementing a fragile peace deal to end the fighting in Ukraine, after the Russian strongman's meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry raised hopes of a slackening in tensions. Kerry said at the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in the southern Turkish city of Antalya -- hours after talking with Putin in Russia -- that now was a "critical" time for Moscow to fulfil the obligations in the ceasefire agreed in Minsk earlier this year. He said there was an "enormous moment of opportunity" to bring to an end over a year of fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russia separatists which has dragged relations between Moscow and the West to a new post-Cold War low. "I think there was strong agreement among all of the NATO members that this is a critical moment for action by Russia, by the separatists, to live up to the Minsk agreement." He added that it was also "critical" for observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to be allowed into the conflict areas to monitor the truce. The intensity of the fighting in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists has declined since the Minsk deal but deadly clashes remain frequent. Kerry met Putin on Tuesday for the highest level US visit to Russia since the Ukraine conflict erupted in 2013, in a possible sign of a cautious thaw between the two sides. The talks lasted for four hours and even though there was no concrete breakthrough, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said that the talks helped the two sides to "better understand each other". Kerry said in Antalya the United States and its NATO allies would prefer not to keep sanctions in place against Russia but would retain the measures in order to ensure peace in Ukraine. "This is an enormous moment of opportunity for the conflict... to find a path of certainty and resolution," said Kerry, who earlier met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.
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