Daphne Psaledakis and Simon Lewis | Reuters
Russia has received ballistic missiles from Iran for its war in Ukraine, the United States said on Tuesday as it imposed fresh sanctions on ships and companies it said were involved in supplying Moscow with Iranian weapons…Russia, which previously signed up to United Nations restrictions on Iran, was also sharing technology sought by Tehran, he added. "This is a two-way street, including on nuclear issues as well as some space information," Blinken said.
Hyonhee Shin | Reuters
North Korea fired several short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said, the first such launch in more than two months. The missiles lifted off from Pyongyang at around 7:10 a.m. (2210 GMT Wednesday) and travelled about 360 km (225 miles) before plunging into the sea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, without specifying how many were fired…Nuclear envoys of South Korea, Japan and the United States talked by phone and called the launch a violation of U.N. resolutions, Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement. They also pledged to respond to any North Korean provocations.
Mark Trevelyan | Reuters
Russia should clearly state its willingness to use nuclear weapons against countries that "support NATO aggression in Ukraine", according to an influential foreign policy hawk who is pressing President Vladimir Putin to adopt a more assertive nuclear posture towards the West. Sergei Karaganov told Kommersant newspaper in an interview that Moscow could launch a limited nuclear strike on a NATO country without triggering all-out nuclear war.
Bloomberg News
Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the government to consider if it makes sense to limit exports of some commodities like nickel, titanium and uranium in retaliation for western sanctions.“Russia is the leader in strategic raw materials reserves like uranium, titanium, nickel,” Putin said during the meeting with the government, shown on TV. Since western sanctions limit exports of some Russian commodities like diamonds, “maybe we should also think about restrictions,” he said. Such limits should not harm Russia, he said.
Huseyin Hayatsever and Can Sezer | Reuters
The opening of Turkey's first nuclear plant has been delayed after Germany's Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE), opens new tab withheld key parts, prompting Russia's Rosatom, the builder and owner, to buy them in China, the Turkish energy minister said on Wednesday. Siemens's non-delivery will delay launching the Akkuya power plant's first reactor by a few months, Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told state-run Anadolu agency. The decision likely stems from Western sanctions over Russia's war in Ukraine, he added.
Lara Jakes | The New York Times
Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, warned on Wednesday that Russia was preparing “appropriate countermeasures” should the West extend Ukraine’s authority, RIA Novosti, a Russian state-run news agency, reported. But earlier presumed provocations that the Biden administration resisted — including sending Western tanks and F-16s to the fight, as well as Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, a Russian border region — have not prompted a Russian retaliation against NATO. And Mr. Zelensky is now pushing for the permissions on a near-daily basis.