‘Putin’s People’: Exploring the Russian president’s inner circle

In a warning to the West not to interfere, Vladimir Putin has his strategic nuclear arsenal on high alert. While analysts believe the risk of an all-out nuclear war is low, they are concerned Putin might use smaller 'tactical' nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

His latest graphic novel sketches out the trajectory of a leader who has cast a shadow over geopolitics for two decades. Vladimir Putin’s inscrutable features haunt the pages of Darryl Cunningham’s book “Putin: The Rise of a Dictator”.The author and illustrator tells us more about capturing Putin’s inscrutable expression, and we discuss how press crackdowns have affected Russian public opinion. We also hear from Natalia Kaliada of the Belarus Free Theatre, whose recent production “Dogs of Europe” is a warning shot in response to Russian authoritarianism, revealing the high price that Putin’s critics have paid.

What surprise will he spring on May 9th? All eyes are on Vladimir Putin ahead of what has become on his watch the most sacred day on the Russian calendar. Victory Day in World War II means remembrance of the estimated 26 million who lost their lives while turning the tide in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War.

The war in Ukraine overshadows Moscow's annual celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Following the huge military parade, the Russian president has claimed Russia is defending the "Motherland" in Donbas.

Final preparations are under way on Red Square for next Monday's Victory Day military parade. As Russia commemorates victory over the Nazis, will President Vladimir Putin capitalise on the patriotic pomp and ceremony to announce new developments in his Ukrainian offensive?

In the end, there was no big reveal on Moscow’s Red Square on May 9. But is the devil in the detail of Vladimir Putin's Victory Day speech? In commemorating 1945 win over the Nazis, the Russian president did not declare war on Ukraine or announce a mass mobilisation, defying some expectations. He did however single out the perceived aggression of ''America and its minions”.

A nuclear threat from Ukraine? A Ukrainian invasion of Crimea? Ukrainian neo-Nazis? Russian President Vladimir Putin's May 9 speech contained new and familiar accusations amid the war in Ukraine. Most of them are false.

Mikhail Kasyanov, who served as prime minister under Vladimir Putin in the early 2000s, told DW he believed that the Russian president had "already started to realize that he's losing this war."

It never happened during the entire Cold War. But all these years later, Russia's border with NATO is about to double in size. Finland remains unmoved by threats out of the Kremlin over its bid to join the US-led alliance. The same goes for neighbouring Sweden, which is so concerned by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine that it is ready to call time on two centuries of neutrality.

Russia's president has said banning oil imports from his country would be impossible for some dependent European states, after the EU failed to reach consensus to impose the measure.

In an interview with FRANCE 24, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko expressed concern over the fate of the Ukrainian soldiers evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the eastern city of Mariupol, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin should "never" be trusted. Ukrainian authorities say the fighters have been taken to areas under the control of Russian forces or pro-Russian rebels and will be exchanged at a later date for Russian prisoners.

"We cannot allow Putin to win this war," the German leader said on the final day of the World Economic Forum. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has dominated talks in Davos, Switzerland.