The Evening Wrap: Putin sees ‘positive shifts’ in talks with Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday some progress had been made in Moscow’s talks with Ukraine, while the Kremlin said the conflict would end when the West took action to address Moscow concerns, Reuters reported. At a Kremlin meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin said Western sanctions would not hinder Russian development and that Russia would end up stronger. He then said Ukrainian negotiations were taking place practically every day. “There are certain positive shifts, negotiators on our side tell me,” Putin said. “I will talk about all of this later.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba met in Turkey on Thursday in the highest-level talks since the conflict began. No breakthrough was made. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands, displaced more than 2 million people, and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States. U.S. intelligence agents say Russia has been surprised by the strength of Ukrainian resistance and by the severity of the economic sanctions imposed by the West. Lukashenko told Putin that both of them were from Soviet generations which had endured sanctions and that the Soviet Union had developed well. “You are right,” Putin said. The Soviet Union lived all the time under sanctions but it developed and made colossal achievements.” The Kremlin said on Friday the conflict in Ukraine would end when the West took action over Russia’s repeatedly raised concerns about the killing of civilians in eastern Ukraine and NATO enlargement eastwards. “We need to find a resolution to these two questions. Russia formulated concrete demands to Ukraine to resolve those questions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Asked by reporters how the crisis could end, Peskov set out Russia’s position and said he believed that Ukraine was discussing Moscow’s demands with the United States and European Union countries. “Let’s hope. That needs to be done. Then it will all end.” Russian officials do not use the word “invasion” and say Western media have failed to report on what they cast as the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine. The West has repeatedly dismissed such concerns. Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is essential to ensure Russian security after the United States enlarged the membership of NATO up to Russia’s borders and supported pro-Western leaders in Kyiv. Ukraine says it is fighting for its existence while the United States, and its European and Asian allies have condemned the Russian invasion. China has called for calm. Technical malfunction prompted misfiring of missile, India tells Pakistan India on Friday said a technical malfunction prompted the misfiring of a missile that landed in Pakistan on March 9. New Delhi’s response came a day after Islamabad summoned the Indian Charge d’Affaires and lodged a strong protest against the incident. “In the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry,” The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement. “It is learnt” that the missile landed in an area of Pakistan, and the incident was “deeply regrettable”, the MoD said adding, “It is also a matter of relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident”. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press note said India should investigate the incident that took place around 6.50 p.m. on Wednesday, and warned that there could be “unpleasant consequences” to such developments. “The Indian diplomat was conveyed that the imprudent launch of the flying object not only caused damage to civilian property but also put at risk human lives on ground,” declared the statement. Islamabad said the flight path of the object, presumably a surface-to-surface supersonic missile endangered civil aviation inside Pakistan. “Such irresponsible incidents were also reflective of India’s disregard for Air safety and callousness towards regional peace and stability,” said the statement. The reported incident was taken up by the Pakistani side late evening on Thursday during a briefing by the spokesperson of the Pakistan armed forces, when it was claimed that the object flew at an altitude of 40,000 feet and that the site of impact was not near any sensitive military installation. The statement on Friday urged India to take “effective measures to avoid the recurrence of such violations in future”. Pakistan said the object hit civilian property on the ground but did not cause any loss of human lives. The Indian mission in Islamabad does not have a High Commissioner at present. The last High Commissioner, Ajay Bisaria, was withdrawn after Pakistan downgraded ties following India’s abrogation of the special status for Jammu and Kashmir. Mann to take oath as Punjab CM on March 16 Bhagwant Mann will take oath as the Chief Minister of Punjab on March 16 at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, party sources said on Friday after he met the party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. On March 13, the party will take out a roadshow in Amritsar. Both the events will be attended by Kejriwal, the sources said. A day after the Aam Aadmi Party’s stupendous victory, Mann met Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal at his residence on Friday and extended an invitation to him to attend both the events, the sources said. The over-an-hour-long meet was also attended by Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and AAP in-charge of political affairs in Punjab Raghav Chadha. “My younger brother Bhagwant Mann will take oath as the chief minister of Punjab. Today he came to my house to extend invitation for the oath-taking ceremony. I am sure that as a chief minister, Bhagwant will fulfill every expectation of the people of Punjab,” Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi. He also shared a picture of the meeting. This was Mann’s first meeting with Kejriwal after the assembly election results were declared on Thursday. The Aam Aadmi Party romped home in 92 of the 117 assembly seats. Mann won from the Dhuri seat by a huge margin of 58,206 votes. Talking to reporters in Sangrur before leaving for the national capital, Mann said he would meet Kejriwal to congratulate him on the party’s victory in Punjab elections. Mann has said the oath-taking ceremony will be held at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of legendary Bhagat Singh in Nawanshahr district. On the party’s resounding poll victory, Mann said, “The people defeated arrogant persons and they made the common people victorious.” Akhilesh introspects on defeat, holds meet with candidates, allies A day after the Samajwadi Party’s defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, party President Akhilesh Yadav held a day-long meeting with newly elected legislators, candidates, and allies. While the party introspected on the defeat, Yadav has conveyed to the rank and file to begin work for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party was at pains to explain the gap between its expectations of 300-plus seats and the reality of settling for 111. For now, the party is sticking to the narrative that the mandate was stolen by the BJP by tampering with electronic voting machines (EVMs). A section of the party feels that the allies did not shoulder their part of the bargain, while the allies had their own set of complaints. Mahaan Dal President Keshav Dev Maurya, whose son and wife lost in the elections, told The Hindu that the alliance got overconfident. “The response of people at our rallies and the fact that there was so much discontent somewhere made the alliance complacent. We assumed we will win the election,” Maurya said after the meeting at the SP headquarters here. He added that the entry of ministers from the Yogi Cabinet also contributed to this overconfidence. “Once Swami Prasad Maurya joined the alliance, we assumed that we are winning and that all non-Yadav OBCs will follow us. But that obviously did not happen,” Maurya said. There is also a feeling that the SP was not able to communicate a positive message to the electorate and ran a campaign often reacting to the BJP. Ram Singh Patel, SP leader who defeated BJP Minister Rajendra Pratap from the Patti seat, said the BJP managed to mislead. “The BJP successfully misled the electorate from the actual bread and butter issues. Instead of the real issues that we were talking about the BJP ran the campaign on communal and casteist lines,” Patel said. Tussle in Manipur BJP for CM’s post The BJP is reportedly caught in a tug of war for the Manipur Chief Minister’s post a day after coasting to a clear majority by bagging 32 seats in the 60-member Assembly. A section within the BJP feels incumbent Nongthombam Biren Singh, who led the party to victory, should be the natural choice for continuing at the helm. Another says this would undermine the crucial role played by other leaders who helped the party grow from strength to strength. “We have a parliamentary board that will name the next Chief Minister in consultation with the State unit leadership,” State BJP president A. Sharda Devi told journalists on Friday around the time Singh met Governor La Ganesan to tender his resignation as Chief Minister. He has been asked to continue as the caretaker Chief Minister until the next government is installed. Singh’s detractors are believed to have sounded the central BJP leadership about the “dynastic” politics that the party talks against. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had attributed the BJP’s victory in four States on Thursday to the people’s rejection of dynastic politics. “One of our victorious candidates is the son-in-law of the Chief Minister,” a senior BJP leader of a dissident camp said, declining to be quoted. He referred to Rajkumar Imo Singh, who won the Sagolband Assembly constituency for the third straight term. He has rooted for Singh to be in charge again. “He is the people’s choice,” he told a section of the media. The Chief Minister’s younger brother, N. Rajendra, had sought a BJP ticket from Khundrakpam and had even tried to contest as an independent. He was dissuaded. The BJP is believed to have been divided into a few camps headed by chief minister aspirants. They include senior Minister Thongam Biswajit and former State Congress president Konthoujam Govindas, who has his roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Among the Chief Minister’s camp followers is a close associate, S.S. Olish, who won the Chandel seat. She is one of three women candidates of the BJP who were elected. China amplifies Russian claim of Ukraine bio-labs As Russia intensifies its assault on Ukraine, it is getting a helping hand from China in spreading claims that the U.S. is financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine, AP reported. The U.S. has been quick to refute Russia’s claims theory, and the United Nations has said it has received no information that would back up the claim. China’s Foreign Ministry has helped fuel the fire this week, repeating the Russian claim several times and calling for an investigation. “This Russian military operation has uncovered the secret of the U.S. labs in Ukraine, and this is not something that can be dealt with in a perfunctory manner,” ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Thursday. “It is not something they can muddle through by saying that China’s statement and Russia’s finding are disinformation, and are absurd and ridiculous.” Indeed, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called the Russian claim “a bunch of malarkey,” but in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, CIA Director William Burns also noted grave concern that Russia might be laying the groundwork for a chemical or biological attack of its own, which it would then blame on the U.S. or Ukraine in a false flag operation. “This is something, as all of you know very well, is very much a part of Russia’s playbook,” he said. “They’ve used these weapons against their own citizens, they’ve at least encouraged the use in Syria and elsewhere, so it’s something we take very seriously.” Russia, China and the U.S. are all signatories to international conventions against the use of chemical or biological weapons, but the international community has assessed that Russia has used chemical weapons in carrying out assassination attempts against enemies of President Vladimir Putin. Russia also supports the Assad government in Syria, which has used chemical weapons against its people in a decade-long civil war. In brief India’s industrial output grew 1.3% in January 2022, recovering marginally from a revised growth rate of 0.7% for December 2021, but was still only 0.7% above pre-pandemic levels, as per data from the National Statistical Office (NSO). Manufacturing output rose 1.1%, while mining production grew 2.8% and electricity generation went up by 0.9% year-on-year. The growth in manufacturing and mining production is largely attributable to base effects as the two sectors’ output had shrunk by 0.9% and 2.4%, respectively, in January 2021, when the overall index of industrial production (IIP) had contracted 0.6%. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 4,29,84,086 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 5,16,387. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 11 MARCH 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Putin sees ‘positive shifts’ in talks with Ukraine Russian President [Vladimir Putin said on Friday some progress had been made in Moscow’s talks with Ukraine]( while the Kremlin said the conflict would end when the West took action to address Moscow concerns, Reuters reported. At a Kremlin meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin said Western sanctions would not hinder Russian development and that Russia would end up stronger. He then said Ukrainian negotiations were taking place practically every day. “There are certain positive shifts, negotiators on our side tell me,” Putin said. “I will talk about all of this later.” [Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 11, 2022. Photo: Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via Reuters ] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba met in Turkey on Thursday in the highest-level talks since the conflict began. No breakthrough was made. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands, displaced more than 2 million people, and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States. U.S. intelligence agents say Russia has been surprised by the strength of Ukrainian resistance and by the severity of the economic sanctions imposed by the West. Lukashenko told Putin that both of them were from Soviet generations which had endured sanctions and that the Soviet Union had developed well. “You are right,” Putin said. The Soviet Union lived all the time under sanctions but it developed and made colossal achievements.” The Kremlin said on Friday the conflict in Ukraine would end when the West took action over Russia’s repeatedly raised concerns about the killing of civilians in eastern Ukraine and NATO enlargement eastwards. “We need to find a resolution to these two questions. Russia formulated concrete demands to Ukraine to resolve those questions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Asked by reporters how the crisis could end, Peskov set out Russia’s position and said he believed that Ukraine was discussing Moscow’s demands with the United States and European Union countries. “Let’s hope. That needs to be done. Then it will all end.” Russian officials do not use the word “invasion” and say Western media have failed to report on what they cast as the “genocide” of Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine. The West has repeatedly dismissed such concerns. Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is essential to ensure Russian security after the United States enlarged the membership of NATO up to Russia’s borders and supported pro-Western leaders in Kyiv. Ukraine says it is fighting for its existence while the United States, and its European and Asian allies have condemned the Russian invasion. China has called for calm. Technical malfunction prompted misfiring of missile, India tells Pakistan   India on Friday said [a technical malfunction prompted the misfiring of a missile that landed in Pakistan]( on March 9. New Delhi’s response came a day after Islamabad summoned the Indian Charge d’Affaires and lodged a strong protest against the incident. “In the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry,” The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement. “It is learnt” that the missile landed in an area of Pakistan, and the incident was “deeply regrettable”, the MoD said adding, “It is also a matter of relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident”. Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press note said India should investigate the incident that took place around 6.50 p.m. on Wednesday, and warned that there could be “unpleasant consequences” to such developments. “The Indian diplomat was conveyed that the imprudent launch of the flying object not only caused damage to civilian property but also put at risk human lives on ground,” declared the statement. Islamabad said the flight path of the object, presumably a surface-to-surface supersonic missile endangered civil aviation inside Pakistan. “Such irresponsible incidents were also reflective of India’s disregard for Air safety and callousness towards regional peace and stability,” said the statement. The reported incident was taken up by the Pakistani side late evening on Thursday during a briefing by the spokesperson of the Pakistan armed forces, when it was claimed that the object flew at an altitude of 40,000 feet and that the site of impact was not near any sensitive military installation. The statement on Friday urged India to take “effective measures to avoid the recurrence of such violations in future”. Pakistan said the object hit civilian property on the ground but did not cause any loss of human lives. The Indian mission in Islamabad does not have a High Commissioner at present. The last High Commissioner, Ajay Bisaria, was withdrawn after Pakistan downgraded ties following India’s abrogation of the special status for Jammu and Kashmir. Mann to take oath as Punjab CM on March 16 [Bhagwant Mann will take oath as the Chief Minister of Punjab on March 16]( at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of iconic freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, party sources said on Friday after he met the party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi. [AAP’s Punjab Chief Ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann greets Delhi CM and party convenor Arvind Kejriwal in New Delhi on March 11, 2022. Photo: Twitter/@AamAadmiParty via PTI] On March 13, the party will take out a roadshow in Amritsar. Both the events will be attended by Kejriwal, the sources said. A day after the Aam Aadmi Party’s stupendous victory, Mann met Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal at his residence on Friday and extended an invitation to him to attend both the events, the sources said. The over-an-hour-long meet was also attended by Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and AAP in-charge of political affairs in Punjab Raghav Chadha. “My younger brother Bhagwant Mann will take oath as the chief minister of Punjab. Today he came to my house to extend invitation for the oath-taking ceremony. I am sure that as a chief minister, Bhagwant will fulfill every expectation of the people of Punjab,” Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi. He also shared a picture of the meeting. This was Mann’s first meeting with Kejriwal after the assembly election results were declared on Thursday. The Aam Aadmi Party romped home in 92 of the 117 assembly seats. Mann won from the Dhuri seat by a huge margin of 58,206 votes. Talking to reporters in Sangrur before leaving for the national capital, Mann said he would meet Kejriwal to congratulate him on the party’s victory in Punjab elections. Mann has said the oath-taking ceremony will be held at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of legendary Bhagat Singh in Nawanshahr district. On the party’s resounding poll victory, Mann said, “The people defeated arrogant persons and they made the common people victorious.” Akhilesh introspects on defeat, holds meet with candidates, allies    A day after the Samajwadi Party’s defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, party President [Akhilesh Yadav held a day-long meeting]( with newly elected legislators, candidates, and allies. While the party introspected on the defeat, Yadav has conveyed to the rank and file to begin work for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party was at pains to explain the gap between its expectations of 300-plus seats and the reality of settling for 111. For now, the party is sticking to the narrative that the mandate was stolen by the BJP by tampering with electronic voting machines (EVMs). A section of the party feels that the allies did not shoulder their part of the bargain, while the allies had their own set of complaints. Mahaan Dal President Keshav Dev Maurya, whose son and wife lost in the elections, told The Hindu that the alliance got overconfident. “The response of people at our rallies and the fact that there was so much discontent somewhere made the alliance complacent. We assumed we will win the election,” Maurya said after the meeting at the SP headquarters here. He added that the entry of ministers from the Yogi Cabinet also contributed to this overconfidence. “Once Swami Prasad Maurya joined the alliance, we assumed that we are winning and that all non-Yadav OBCs will follow us. But that obviously did not happen,” Maurya said. There is also a feeling that the SP was not able to communicate a positive message to the electorate and ran a campaign often reacting to the BJP. Ram Singh Patel, SP leader who defeated BJP Minister Rajendra Pratap from the Patti seat, said the BJP managed to mislead. “The BJP successfully misled the electorate from the actual bread and butter issues. Instead of the real issues that we were talking about the BJP ran the campaign on communal and casteist lines,” Patel said.  Tussle in Manipur BJP for CM’s post The [BJP is reportedly caught in a tug of war for the Manipur Chief Minister’s post]( a day after coasting to a clear majority by bagging 32 seats in the 60-member Assembly. A section within the BJP feels incumbent Nongthombam Biren Singh, who led the party to victory, should be the natural choice for continuing at the helm. Another says this would undermine the crucial role played by other leaders who helped the party grow from strength to strength. “We have a parliamentary board that will name the next Chief Minister in consultation with the State unit leadership,” State BJP president A. Sharda Devi told journalists on Friday around the time Singh met Governor La Ganesan to tender his resignation as Chief Minister. He has been asked to continue as the caretaker Chief Minister until the next government is installed. Singh’s detractors are believed to have sounded the central BJP leadership about the “dynastic” politics that the party talks against. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had attributed the BJP’s victory in four States on Thursday to the people’s rejection of dynastic politics. “One of our victorious candidates is the son-in-law of the Chief Minister,” a senior BJP leader of a dissident camp said, declining to be quoted. He referred to Rajkumar Imo Singh, who won the Sagolband Assembly constituency for the third straight term. He has rooted for Singh to be in charge again. “He is the people’s choice,” he told a section of the media. The Chief Minister’s younger brother, N. Rajendra, had sought a BJP ticket from Khundrakpam and had even tried to contest as an independent. He was dissuaded. The BJP is believed to have been divided into a few camps headed by chief minister aspirants. They include senior Minister Thongam Biswajit and former State Congress president Konthoujam Govindas, who has his roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Among the Chief Minister’s camp followers is a close associate, S.S. Olish, who won the Chandel seat. She is one of three women candidates of the BJP who were elected. China amplifies Russian claim of Ukraine bio-labs As Russia intensifies its assault on Ukraine, it is getting a helping hand from China in spreading claims that the U.S. is financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine, AP reported. The U.S. has been quick to refute Russia’s claims theory, and the United Nations has said it has received no information that would back up the claim. China’s Foreign Ministry has helped fuel the fire this week, repeating the Russian claim several times and calling for an investigation. “This Russian military operation has uncovered the secret of the U.S. labs in Ukraine, and this is not something that can be dealt with in a perfunctory manner,” ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Thursday. “It is not something they can muddle through by saying that China’s statement and Russia’s finding are disinformation, and are absurd and ridiculous.” Indeed, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby called the Russian claim “a bunch of malarkey,” but in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, CIA Director William Burns also noted grave concern that Russia might be laying the groundwork for a chemical or biological attack of its own, which it would then blame on the U.S. or Ukraine in a false flag operation. “This is something, as all of you know very well, is very much a part of Russia’s playbook,” he said. “They’ve used these weapons against their own citizens, they’ve at least encouraged the use in Syria and elsewhere, so it’s something we take very seriously.” Russia, China and the U.S. are all signatories to international conventions against the use of chemical or biological weapons, but the international community has assessed that Russia has used chemical weapons in carrying out assassination attempts against enemies of President Vladimir Putin. Russia also supports the Assad government in Syria, which has used chemical weapons against its people in a decade-long civil war. In brief [India’s industrial output grew 1.3% in January 2022]( recovering marginally from a revised growth rate of 0.7% for December 2021, but was still only 0.7% above pre-pandemic levels, as per data from the National Statistical Office (NSO). Manufacturing output rose 1.1%, while mining production grew 2.8% and electricity generation went up by 0.9% year-on-year. The growth in manufacturing and mining production is largely attributable to base effects as the two sectors’ output had shrunk by 0.9% and 2.4%, respectively, in January 2021, when the overall index of industrial production (IIP) had contracted 0.6%. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The [number of reported coronavirus cases from India]( stood at 4,29,84,086 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 5,16,387.  Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. Today‘s Top Picks [[We are confronting the West, not Ukraine, says Russia’s Consul General in Chennai] We are confronting the West, not Ukraine, says Russia’s Consul General in Chennai]( [[India, China hold 15th round of Corps Commander talks] India, China hold 15th round of Corps Commander talks]( [[Co-pilot killed, pilot injured as Army chopper crashes in north Kashmir’s Bandipora] Co-pilot killed, pilot injured as Army chopper crashes in north Kashmir’s Bandipora]( [[School not so easy after two years] School not so easy after two years]( Copyright @ 2021, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. If you are facing any trouble in viewing this newsletter, please [try here]( If you do not wish to receive such emails [go here](