Russia

MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/: Reports that the US allegedly offered a plan involving territorial concessions from Ukraine in exchange for peace are just plain false, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"That’s a canard," the Kremlin spokesman said on Friday when asked to comment on media reports that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns allegedly passed on such a proposal to Moscow.

GROZNY, February 3. /TASS/: Fighters from the Akhmat commando unit, together with a brigade from the 2nd Army Corps, have taken a Ukrainian stronghold near the Vesyoloye settlement, Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Friday.

"After a series of effective attacks on the enemy’s forces, they managed to gain a foothold in the Vesyoloye settlement area, taking a strategically important stronghold. Now, the fighters plan to continue advancing as they are in a better position than the enemy," Kadyrov pointed out.

MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/: Countries are increasingly convinced that no one is immune to the West’s banditry and expropriation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a meeting of the United Russia Party commission on international cooperation and support for compatriots abroad.

"As for the West, President [Vladimir] Putin has aptly called it an 'empire of lies.' The West, and this is confirmed by our contacts, has not been perceived globally as the beacon of democracy for a while now.

MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/: The RT DE Productions company announced it’s ceasing its work in Germany, the RT in Russian Telegram channel reported on Friday.

"The Berlin-based production company RT DE Productions has announced today it’s ceasing its journalistic activities. The company supplied news content to the website and television channel RT DE, which broadcasts from Moscow in German, providing an alternative point of view on events to millions of viewers," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/: Relations between Russia and China know no bounds and are of a higher quality than traditional military alliances, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TV news anchor Dmitry Kiselyov on Thursday.

MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/: Russian forces struck over 70 Ukrainian artillery units at firing positions in the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Thursday.

"Operational-tactical aircraft, missile troops and artillery of the Russian group of forces struck 78 artillery units at firing positions, manpower and military hardware in 105 areas," the spokesman said.

VOLGOGRAD, February 2. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited the memorial complex on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd as part of the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad.

The president laid a wreath at the Eternal Flame in the Hall of Military Glory, then observed a minute of silence in memory of Soviet soldiers killed during the Battle of Stalingrad.

MOSCOW, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that Russian forces would respond to the delivery of longer-range Western weapons to Kyiv by trying to push Ukrainian forces further away from its borders to create a safe buffer zone.

Lavrov told state TV that everybody wanted the conflict in Ukraine - which Moscow calls a "special military operation" - to end, but that the West's support for Kyiv was playing an important role in how Russia approached the campaign.

VOLGOGRAD, Russia, Feb 2 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces at Stalingrad 80 years ago to declare on Thursday that Russia would defeat a Ukraine supposedly in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.

In a fiery speech in Volgograd, known as Stalingrad until 1961, Putin lambasted Germany for helping to arm Ukraine and said, not for the first time, that he was ready to draw on Russia's entire arsenal, which includes nuclear weapons.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday marked the 80th anniversary of the World War II Soviet victory over Nazi German forces in the battle of Stalingrad, and invoked the long and grueling fight as justification for the conflict in Ukraine.

Putin laid a wreath at the eternal flame of the memorial complex to the fallen Red Army soldiers in Volgograd, the current name of the city, which stretches along the western bank of the Volga River. The memorial is dominated by an 85-meter (279-foot) sculpture of a sword-wielding woman, Europe’s tallest statue.