World

Putin in New Year’s address says Russia ‘firmly’ defended interests in 2021

President Vladimir Putin said Moscow “firmly” defended its interests in 2021 — a year marked by an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition and increased tensions with the West — in a New Year’s address.

“We firmly and consistently defended our national interests, the security of the country and (of) citizens,” Putin said in a televised speech.

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The broadcast aired at midnight in the Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula and was reported by Russian agencies.

This year Russia implemented a major crackdown on organizations and people critical of Putin — starting with the jailing of his top critic Alexei Navalny in February.

Tensions between Russia and the West have also reached new highs over Ukraine.

Putin discussed the soaring tensions in a phone call with US President Joe Biden on Thursday.

The Kremlin chief, in power since 1999, also expressed support to Russians who lost relatives to COVID-19. His country is among the hardest-hit in the world by the pandemic.

“The insidious disease has claimed tens of thousands of lives,” he said.

“I want to express my sincere support to everyone who has lost relatives, loved-ones, friends,” he added.

Russia’s state statistics agency said on Thursday that more than 71,000 people died of coronavirus in the country in November, setting a new monthly fatality record since the pandemic began.

Putin also told Russians that Moscow’s “main goal” for the future is to “improve the welfare and quality of life for people.”

Russia celebrates New Year over its 11 time zones, starting in Kamchatka and ending in the western Kaliningrad exclave.

World

Niger military leaders welcome news of French army withdrawal

Niger’s military rulers on Sunday welcomed the announcement that France will pull its troops out of the country by the end of the year as “a new step towards sovereignty.”

The statement came hours after French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris would soon withdraw its ambassador from Niger, followed by its military contingent in the coming months.

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“This Sunday, we celebrate a new step towards the sovereignty of Niger,” said a statement from the country’s military rulers, who seized power in late July by overthrowing President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26.

“The French troops and the ambassador of France will leave Nigerien soil by the end of the year.”

The statement, read out on national television, added: “This is a historic moment, which speaks to the determination and will of the Nigerien people.”

Earlier Sunday, before Macron’s announcement, the body regulating aviation safety in Africa (ASECNA), announced that Niger’s military rulers had banned “French aircraft” from flying over the country’s airspace.

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World

Russian air defense thwarts drone attack near Moscow’s Tula region

Russia’s air defense systems were engaged in repelling a drone attack over the Tula region that borders Moscow’s region to its north, Russia’s RIA news agency reported early Monday.

Citing the ministry of regional security, the agency reported that according to preliminary information, there was no damage or injuries as a result of the attack.

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Two of Moscow’s major airports, however, the Vnukovo and Domedovo, limited air traffic, directing flights to other airports, the TASS state news agency reported.

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World

Two dead in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s Kherson: Governor

Russian forces shelled southern Ukraine’s Kherson region on Sunday, killing two people and injuring at least eight, the region’s governor said, as Ukraine’s armed forces said they were keeping in check Russian advances in the east and south.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, newly returned from a visit to the United States and Canada, praised Ukrainian forces for successes in both areas of a three-month-old counteroffensive, but he gave no indication any new movement forward.

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Kherson governor Oleksandr Prodkudin, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said shelling from the Russian-held eastern bank of the Dnipro River had hit private homes in Beryslav, on the Ukrainian-held west bank. A man was killed in the nearby village of Lvove.

An air strike on Kherson, the region’s main town, injured at least five people and caused considerable damage to buildings.

The Russian military abandoned positions on the west bank of the river and in Kherson city late last year.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said the country’s forces had repelled Russian attacks on two villages near Bakhmut, where Kyiv has been trying to regain ground lost when the city fell to Moscow’s forces in May.

In its evening report, it said Russian forces had “tried to restore lost positions near Klishchiivka … but were unsuccessful.”

The Ukrainian military last week said it had captured Klishchiivka, a strategic village on heights south of Bakhmut, and Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, praised Ukrainian units for their “firmness” in operations around the village.

Zelenskyy singled out another Ukrainian unit for “showing true Ukrainian might” near the village of Verbove on the southern front. The military last week also announced that Verbove was under control of the Ukrainian military.

The general staff report noted that Ukrainian troops were continuing to advance in the Melitopol sector — where Kyiv hopes to advance to the Sea of Azov and sever a landbridge created by Russian forces between annexed Crimea and areas it has held in the east for more than a year.

The Ukrainian offensive, undertaken with new weapons supplied by the United States and its allies, has focused on capturing villages in both the east and the south.

Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials reject Western criticism that the advance has been too slow and hampered by poor tactics.

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