Page 49 - RusRPTAug24

2.19 Politics - misc
● International Politics
Ursula von der Leyen said in her speech for re-elected as European Commission (EC) President, on July 18 vowed to transform the EU into a defence bloc in her political program published by the EC. "Our work in the next five years will be focused on building a true European Defence Union," the document said. Von der Leyen added that EU countries "will always retain responsibility for their own troops, from doctrine to deployment, but there is a lot Europe can do to support and coordinate efforts to strengthen the defence industrial base, innovation and the Single Market."
Trump names senator in favor of Ukrainian territorial concessions as his running mate. "Any peace settlement is going to require some significant territorial concessions from Ukraine, and you're gonna have a peace deal because that's the only way out of the conflict," Senator J. D. Vance said in February.
US President Joe Biden said he was not ready to engage in a direct conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on July 12, adding that he saw no practical reason in doing so at this point. "I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now," he told reporters during the post-Nato summit press conference in Washington. "There is not much that he [Putin] is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior." "There isn’t any world leader that I’m not prepared to deal with, but <...> the point is if Putin is ready to talk. I’m not ready to talk to Putin lest Putin is ready to change his behavior," the US president said. However, he said shortly after that he would be ready to talk with the Russian president, if the latter initiated the phone call.
Russia starts to chair UN Security Council in July, Ukraine not on agenda. Each of the 15 members of the UN Security Council, including Russia, holds the presidency for a month. Russia last chaired the organization in April 2023.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that waging war instead of engaging in dialogue is “not the solution” more than two years into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. “I know that war cannot solve problems, solutions and peace talks can't succeed among bombs, guns and bullets. And we need to find a way to peace through dialogue,” Modi told Putin in televised remarks at the Kremlin.
Russia not elected to one of UN principal organs, Kuleba says. "This vote once again demonstrates that Russia can hit the wall as many times as it
49 RUSSIA Country Report August 2024 www.intellinews.com