Russia

Russian president Vladimir Putin hosted Turkish president Recip Tayip Erdogan in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Wednesday (29 September) with both sides keen to consolidate Turkish-Russian relations despite a number of serious differences, especially on Syria. This face-to-face meeting was the first for the two presidents in the past year-and-a-half. Their previous meeting was in March 2020, at the Kremlin.

The European Union and its Member States strongly denounced malicious cyber activities against it originating in Russia. "We urge the Russian Federation to adhere to the norms of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace", the EU and its member states said in a statement on Friday,

Russia remains our largest neighbour and it remains an important global actor. Not from the economic point of view, the economics of Russia is more or less the same size as Italy. It is much bigger in surface, but economically speaking it is a medium-sized state. They have a lot of gas, and gas is becoming more and more expensive. This is good news for them and bad news for us. They have the atomic arm, they have an important army and they use it when they need it. In any case, Russia will not disappear. It will be there and this will not change overnight.

During the exercises Russian military units, together with contingents from Armenia, Belarus, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia practiced joint operations to repel advancing enemy forces, conduct maneuverable defence and deliver a massive strike and defeat a hypothetical enemy penetration.

Moscow is interested in intra-Afghan differences being settled with the participation of the entire range of political forces in this country, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council said.