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"It's of course impossible to know the real reasons for his arrest but this could be related to the revelations made by Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation that showed Ivanov and his wife in a pretty bad light," Kallioniemi said. FBK alleged leaked emails from Ivanov's wife, Svetlana Maniovich, showed the extent of her family's lavish lifestyle, beyond what his official salary could cover, with some transactions routed through third parties, including Defense Ministry contractors.

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted last August that a drop in the importance of the U.S. dollar was "irreversible"—but there appears to be no sign that the global economy is turning its back on the greenback. "The U.S. Dollar was used in 48% of international payment transactions last year, the highest level in more than a decade. But Brics...," it said next to the graph, which showed the euro making 23.2 percent of transactions and the Chinese yuan way behind at 3.47 percent. "BRICS countries would like their currencies to be used in world trade, but each has a major...

Reuters said Novatek had stopped operations at its Arctic LNG 2 project, which processes gas from the Utrenneye field on West Siberia' Gydan Peninsula, in the latest blow to Russian fuel exports. It comes as Russian exports funding Putin's war have been hampered by repeated drone strikes on oil facilities, blamed on Ukraine. One energy industry expert told Newsweek that state oil giant Rosneft had reduced daily oil processing in March by a fifth. Sanctions have caused a lack of specialist tankers to transport the LNG from Russia through thick sea ice. Six Arc7 tankers were due to be built...

Residents in a region hit by the deepest drone strikes within Russian territory since the start of the war in Ukraine have been warned that air defenses may not be able to protect them from future attacks. Since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia has been hit with drone strikes reaching Moscow as well as ammunition depots and warehouses around the country linked to the war effort. Russian authorities blame Ukraine for the attacks, which Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for. In the latest incident, a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan on Tuesday reportedly hit industrial areas...

Two oil refineries in Russia's Samara region were hit in Ukrainian drone strikes, the local governor has said, in the latest strike against the country's infrastructure facilities -snip- Samara Governor Dmitry Azarov said Saturday that Ukrainian drones had struck facilities belonging to state-owned energy giant Rosneft, which left one site on fire. There were no immediate reports of injuries from either incident, but unverified footage shared by Telegram users showed a blaze at what appeared to be the Syzran refinery. The Baza Telegram channel said that the fire engulfed 5,380 square feet following the attack at 6 a.m. local time...

Ukrainian drones targeted sites in nine Russian regions, including two energy facilities, in an overnight barrage thought to be Kyiv's biggest since the start of the war, according to reports and social media posts from Russian authorities. While Moscow has accused Ukraine of repeated drone strikes on its territory, Monday night's strikes appear to have been on a larger scale. In August 2023, UAV attacks on six Russian regions including Moscow were reported as the biggest drone strikes since the start of the war. Russia's defense ministry said on Tuesday that air defenses had destroyed and intercepted 25 Ukrainian drones...

Kremlin-controlled media corrected a mistake that Vladimir Putin made about World War II in his interview with Tucker Carlson. Interjections by the former Fox News anchor during his interview released on Thursday were also cut, it was reported, and a version viewed online omitted a controversial segment in which the Russian president spoke about Adolf Hitler. The fallout from the interview continues as the American anchor faced criticism that he did little to challenge the Russian president, especially during monologues about Russian history that he used to justify his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In one part of the interview, Putin...

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow, according to a report online. -snip- "As far as I understand, Tucker Carlson got what he wanted," posted Venediktov on Tuesday in Russian. The post was shared by The Financial Times' Moscow bureau chief, Max Seddon, who wrote: "Russian journalistic gadfly Alexei Venediktov says Tucker Carlson has indeed interviewed Vladimir Putin while in Moscow." -snip- Carlson was the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight from 2016 to 2023 before he was fired by the network in April 2023 with no official explanation given. He had...

Uncertainty expressed by Polish President Andrzej Duda over whether Ukraine was able to retake Crimea has prompted a stern reaction. Poland has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since the start of the war, pledging aid and equipment for Kyiv's goals against Russian aggression; these include recapturing all of the peninsula Vladimir Putin illegally seized in 2014. Duda has previously said that all of Ukraine including Crimea must be liberated and, in August, added that whether Kyiv can retain the peninsula was key to preserving the world order. In an interview with YouTube Channel Zero, Duda said he believed that...

Moscow and Tehran will strengthen their security partnership and team up to counter sanctions imposed by the West, a key architect of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has said. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, announced closer cooperation between the allies after a meeting with the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Akbar Ahmadian. Ties between Tehran and Moscow have deepened since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Iran supplying Russian forces with Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian infrastructure.

A counterintelligence directorate created by former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin and made famous by the James Bond novels of author and former British spy Ian Fleming has reportedly made a return to Russia. SMERSH is a portmanteau of the Russian for "death to spies," or "smert shpionam." It was announced in 1943 as a move to target Nazi spy rings, traitors and foreign agents during the World War II, before it was disbanded in 1946. Fleming portrayed the group as cold-blooded foes of James Bond. One of his characters was Rosa Klebb—an assassin handy with a flick-knife shoe, who...

Aclose ally of Vladimir Putin has come up with a solution for Russians who have found their travel plans curtailed by restrictions due to Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine—go to Africa. Dmitry Medvedev, who was president between 2008 and 2012, and is now deputy chairman of Russia's Federation Council, made the comments during a forum in Moscow in which he said his country's deepening ties with the continent made it an ideal vacation destination. In September 2022, the European Union suspended the visa facilitation agreement with Russia which restricted, although did not ban, the entry of Russian citizens into Europe....

However, a poll by the research group Chronicles indicates that, ahead of the 2024 election, Putin might have an uphill battle in maintaining the population's support for the war as they feel its economic consequences. The survey found that pro-war Russians are a minority and were outnumbered by those who favor peace. It found that the core of support for the war was only 12 percent, compared with 22 percent in February, one year after the start of what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation.".. More than half (52 percent) of respondents said they experienced anxiety or depression, an...

Russian authorities have closely monitored the public reaction to fake reports of the death of Vladimir Putin and may punish those who praised the demise of the Russian president, according to Ukrainian intelligence. Andrii Yusov, a representative of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, was responding to the claims emerging last week that Putin had died after a cardiac arrest and that those in his inner circle were planning a body double to replace him... In what could have a plot line borrowed from the 2017 film The Death of Stalin, which satirizes the indecision among the inner circle of the former...

Growing numbers of Russian troops are rejecting orders from their superiors as Moscow's forces suffer huge losses in offensives in Ukraine, according to independent Russian news sources. Russian-language Telegram channel Astra said that every day it gets messages from the families of soldiers who have been detained in occupied regions of Ukraine, as anecdotes abound of a lack of artillery, food, water and poor command. Reports of growing dissent and localized insubordination, sporadic as they have been so far, are likely to irk the Kremlin, which just months ago was targeted in a full-blown mutiny. It was led by the...

"Russia's state energy holding company, Inter RAO, has started restricting electricity supplies to China after Vladimir Putin's key ally and trading partner rejected a price hike. "The dispute stems from China facing severe electricity problems due to droughts and limits on increasing domestic coal production, while Russia is trying to offset the slump in its currency, which has hurt export revenues. "One expert told Newsweek that China is displaying a "hard-nosed" negotiating approach over Russia's demand and that it's in a strong bargaining position.... ... ... "...Chinese energy firms and the state have always been famously hard-nosed and very patient...

The country's state energy giant Gazprom said in its latest report that gas production in the first half of 2023 was 179.45 billion cubic meters (bcm). Gazprom added that this represents a year-on-year decrease of nearly a quarter (24.7 percent), and a 26.5 percent drop in gas supplies to the domestic and foreign markets... The invasion also pushed Europe to cut purchases of Russian oil and gas drastically. The continent overcame an energy crunch last winter, in part by reducing energy consumption and finding other suppliers, such as sellers of seaborne liquefied natural gas (LNG)... Independent Russian-language news outlet Agentstvo...

After the Ukrainian drone had apparently landed "safely" on the runway, officers from Russia's Air Force and its main intelligence service, the FSB, examined the device, RBC Ukraine reported on Monday. "When the delegation tried to examine the 'trophy' UAV, there was a detonation," a Ukrainian source told RBC, which said "air regiment leaders" were among the casualties. The outlet reported that among those killed or injured during the explosion were the commander of the 14th aviation regiment, one of his deputies, a group of aviation officers, an FSB officer, and other airfield personnel... The Russian military blogger Boris Rozhin...

Ukraine has carried out a large-scale drone attack across the Black Sea and Crimea that comes after Kyiv claimed success in hitting a Russian military headquarters on the occupied peninsula. Ukraine intends to recapture Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and the peninsula hosts many military installations that have come under increasing attack as Kyiv seeks to degrade Russian logistics and equipment. The Russian defense ministry said on Thursday that it had shot down 19 drones and that explosions were heard in the Crimean settlements of Novofedorivka, Saky, Yevpatoriya, Dzhankoi and Balaklava... Russian social media channels painted a different...

Kremlin propagandist has issued the latest nuclear threat against the West regarding the war in Ukraine, warning that the U.S. could be in danger of a Russian missile attack. Igor Korotchenko, editor of the newspaper National Defense and a regular guest on the Russia 1 channel where guests have repeatedly called for strikes against Ukraine's allies, took exception to criticism of Russian conduct in the war. "Russia is being warned and threatened that if we misbehave, or if in [NATO senior member for logistics] Ben Hodges' opinion, we exceed what he considers to be the necessary permissible lines for the...