Putin and Erdogan will meet as grain talks appear stalled.
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Sochi, Russia, in 2022.Credit…Murat Kula/Turkish Presidential Press Service, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are set to meet in Russia next week, the Kremlin said on Friday, a move that comes as international efforts to revive a landmark deal that allowed Ukraine to export millions of tons of grain through the Black Sea appear to be stalled.
The announcement by Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, came a day after talks between the countries’ top diplomats in Moscow ended with no progress in restoring the grain deal. Russia dropped out of the agreement, which was mediated by Turkey and the United Nations, about six weeks ago, complaining that it was being carried out unfairly, and has since repeatedly bombarded Ukrainian grain facilities and threatened civilian ships heading to Ukrainian ports.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said on Thursday that his government was still working with the United Nations to try to resurrect the agreement in a way that would take Russian demands into account. The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, told reporters he had sent the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, proposals to revive the agreement, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Mr. Peskov said that the meeting would take place on Monday in Sochi, a Russian Black Sea resort where the two leaders have previously met. Mr. Erdogan has served as an emissary of sorts to Mr. Putin, walking a careful line with NATO, the Western alliance that Russia considers one of its primary foes, of which Turkey is a member.
Ukraine has pushed for its grain shipments to continue whether Russia agrees or not.
The prices of some grains have increased since Russia pulled out of the deal, and the United Nations and United States have warned of food shortages. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s most important grain exporters.
— Valeriya Safronova and Matt Surman
Russian and Belarusian diplomats will be invited to this year’s Nobel Prize ceremonies.
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The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo, where antiwar efforts in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine were honored.Credit…Rodrigo Freitas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesReversing course from last year, the Nobel Foundation has extended an invitation to the Nobel Prize ceremonies in December to representatives from Russia and Belarus, who were not invited in 2022 because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Iran, whose representatives were barred from last year’s ceremony because of what the foundation described as the “serious and escalating situation” there, has also been invited, along with the head of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party with roots in neo-Nazism that is part of the government coalition, the foundation announced.
In a statement on Thursday, Vidar Helgesen, the executive director of the foundation, which administers the annual prizes, said the decision was intended to lower barriers between states and groups at a time of growing geopolitical division.
“It is clear that the world is increasingly divided into spheres, where dialogue between those with differing views is being reduced,” Mr. Helgesen said in a statement. The Nobel Prizes, he added, “represent the opposite of polarization, populism and nationalism.”
Not everyone was pleased at the decision. Karin Karlsbro, a Swedish member of the European Parliament, called the reversal “extremely inappropriate.”
“The decision undermines European unity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Ms. Karlsbro said in an interview on Swedish radio.
The Nobel Prizes are given each year in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. Last year, although Russian and Belarusian diplomats were not invited to the ceremony, the Peace Prize was awarded to Memorial, a Russian human rights organization, and Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian activist, along with the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine.
At the ceremony, Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects the Peace Prize recipients, said the choices last year were meant to signal that the war in Ukraine must end. “Sometimes an effort for peace lies with civil society and not with state ambitions alone,” she said.
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New Russian high school textbooks seek to justify the war in Ukraine.
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A portrait of President Vladimir V. Putin on a page of “Russia Today — The Special Military Operation,” a newly published textbook for Russian schools.Credit…Shamil Zhumatov/ReutersAs Russian high school students returned to classes after the summer break on Friday, they were expected to receive a heavily revised history textbook that claims that Ukraine is an “ultranationalist state” where “opposition is forbidden,” and that the United States is “the main beneficiary of the Ukrainian conflict.”
The rewritten version of “The History of Russia, 1945 to the beginning of the 21st Century,” a textbook for 16- and 17-year-old students, was first unveiled at the beginning of August. The book follows a singular and standardized version of history approved by the highest echelons of power in Russia, and it appears to be the latest push in the Kremlin’s youth-targeted propaganda campaign to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The text devotes 28 pages to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which the authors frame as a response to an increasingly aggressive West that intended to use Ukraine as a “battering ram” to destroy Russia. Revised history textbooks for younger students will be released next year, according to a report from RIA Novosti, a Russian state media outlet.
One of the book’s authors, Vladimir Medinsky, is a former culture minister and an adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin. Echoing Mr. Putin’s own words, the authors accused the United States of spreading what they call “Russophobia” in former Soviet republics and of escalating the war in Ukraine, leaving Russia with “no other alternatives” than to call for a partial mobilization that aimed to press 300,000 men into service in the conflict in 2022.
The revised history text is only one of several ways the war effort has affected basic eduction. The Ministries of Education and Defense has said that, starting in 2024, high school students will be required to take a class called “The Basics of Defense and Defense of the Homeland,” which will include limited military training. Boys will study drill formation, drone usage and the ins and outs of Kalashnikov rifles, while girls will be instructed in battlefield first aid.
Critics have called the new textbooks a complete falsification. “Instead of history, they’re teaching propaganda in schools,” Anton Orekh, an independent Russian journalist, wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
One example of the omissions in the textbook is its treatment of gulags, the notorious labor camps where the dictator Joseph Stalin sent countless political prisoners and where millions of Russians died between 1929 and 1953. They are mentioned as an aside, with no details about their brutality.
Mikhail Myagkov, the director of the Russian Military Historical Society, praised the new educational materials for providing a more “objective” view of Stalin
Putin and Erdogan will meet as grain talks appear stalled
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are set to meet in Russia next week, the Kremlin said on Friday, a move that comes as international efforts to revive a landmark deal that allowed Ukraine to export millions of tons of grain through the Black Sea appear to be**Putin and Erdogan will meet as grain talks appear stalled**
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey are scheduled to meet in Russia next week, according to the Kremlin. This meeting comes as efforts to revive a landmark grain deal allowing Ukraine to export millions of tons of grain through the Black Sea have stalled. Talks between the countries’ top diplomats in Moscow ended with no progress in restoring the grain deal. Russia dropped out of the agreement about
How significant is the role of Turkey as a mediator in the grain deal disagreement between Russia and Ukraine
Title: Putin and Erdogan to Hold Meeting Amidst Stalled Grain Talks
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey are scheduled to meet in Russia next week, as efforts to revive a significant grain deal between Russia and Ukraine remain at a standstill.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, announced the meeting following discussions between the top diplomats of both countries in Moscow, which concluded without progress in resolving the grain deal disagreement. Russia withdrew from the agreement six weeks ago, citing unfair implementation, and since then has bombarded Ukrainian grain facilities and threatened ships heading to Ukrainian ports.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, stated that the government is working with the United Nations to revive the agreement, taking into account Russian demands. The United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, has sent proposals to Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, to revive the agreement known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
The meeting between Putin and Erdogan is set to take place in Sochi, a Russian Black Sea resort, where the leaders have met previously. Erdogan has played a delicate role as an intermediary between Putin and NATO, of which Turkey is a member.
Ukraine has insisted on continuing its grain
