- Title: MOMENTS: Vladimir Putin's time in office - macho man to sensitive animal lover
- Date: 3rd May 2022
- Summary: Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the training session of the country's national judo team in Sochi on Thursday (February 14, 2019). Russian TV showed Putin - a judo black belt holder - throwing one athlete after another on the floor. Russian news Agency RIA said Putin, 66, injured a finger during the training session but that did not prevent him from completin
- Embargoed: 17th May 2022 05:05
- Keywords: Judo Russia Vladimir Putin bare-chested image leader macho man president stunts wildlife conservation
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- Country: Russia
- Topics: Europe,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA00D854001011970RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Russia's president Vladimir Putin turns 70 on Friday (October 7), days after Moscow's military mobilisation, nuclear threats and move to annex a swathe of Ukraine and more than 200 days after invading the former Soviet republic that now wants to join the EU.
On September 28, the European Union executive proposed fresh sanctions against Russia over its war against Ukraine, including tighter trade restrictions, more individual blacklistings and an oil price cap for third countries.
The proposal will now go to the bloc's 27 member countries, which will need to overcome their differences on the new sanctions in order to implement them.
On September 21, Putin ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine, warning the West he was not bluffing when he said he'd be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.
In the biggest escalation of the Ukraine war since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion, Putin explicitly raised the spectre of a nuclear conflict, approved a plan to annex a chunk of territory from Ukraine the size of Hungary, and called up 300,000 reservists.
"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people - this is not a bluff," Putin said in a televised address to the nation.
Putin said, without providing detailed evidence, that the West was plotting to destroy Russia, engaging in "nuclear blackmail" by allegedly discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow, and accused the United States, the European Union and Britain of encouraging Ukraine to push military operations into Russia itself.
The address, which followed a critical Russian battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine, fuelled speculation about the course of the war, the Kremlin chief's own future, and showed Putin was doubling down on what he calls his "special military operation" in Ukraine.
In essence, Putin is betting that by increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and Russia -- a step towards World War Three -- the West will blink over its support for Ukraine, something it has shown no sign of doing so far.
Putin's war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands, unleashed an inflationary wave through the global economy and triggered the worst confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many feared nuclear war imminent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin looked set to finalise his plan to annex four Ukrainian regions on Tuesday (October 4) even as Ukraine pushed back his forces on two separate battlefield fronts, reducing the amount of seized territory Moscow controls.
Russia has escalated its seven-month war with the annexation drive, a military mobilisation and warnings of a possible recourse to nuclear weapons to protect all of its territory.
Putin was expected to sign on Tuesday evening a law formally incorporating the four regions, representing about 18% of Ukraine's territory, into Russia, a move Kyiv and its Western allies say is illegal and will not be recognised.
The two chambers of Russia's parliament have already ratified the legislation.
Russia does not fully control any of the four regions it claims - Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south - and the Kremlin has said it has yet to determine the final borders of the annexed territory.
In a decree on Tuesday, Zelenskiy formally declared any talks with Putin "impossible," while leaving the door open to talks with Moscow if it got a new leader. - Copyright Holder: POOL (CAN SELL)
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