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BRICS - The president of the BRICS International Forum, Purnima Anand told reporters on Thursday that both Russia and India no longer need the U.S. dollar, as they have "turned to national currencies to conduct mutual settlements," according to Russian state news RT. The BRICS president stated, "We have implemented the mechanism of mutual settlements in rubles and rupees, and there is no need for our countries to use the dollar in mutual settlements. And today a similar mechanism of mutual settlements in rubles and yuan is being developed by China,"...

Russia is pulling all of its fighter jets out of Crimea in an apparent response to recent explosions at Russian military outposts in the region, a secret NATO report seen by Insider said. Russia has already moved ten aircraft — six Su-35S and four MiG-31BM jets — out of Crimea and into Russia and is set to continue until all fighter jets are removed, the report, which was dated August 22, said. The first ten jets were moved from Belbek airfield in Crimea to Kushchevskaya and Marinovka, two regions in Russia, the report said. "Russia has dispersed 10x fighter aircraft...

Six months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, signs are accumulating that the balance on the military and economic battlefields is slowly tilting the way of Kyiv and its Western backers. ... Some results of the war already seem settled. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to rewrite the ending of the Cold War by restoring Moscow’s historic sphere of influence in Eastern Europe has failed. His war on Ukraine has instead united almost all of Europe against him, revivifying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is poised to add Sweden and Finland as new members.

The car bomb attack on 'Putin's Rasputin' - who Vladimir deemed 'uncontrollable' - has 'all the hallmarks of a Russian GRU execution' because the military spy group 'often include a target's family', an expert has claimed. Yuri Felshtinsky, author of Blowing up Ukraine: The Return of Russian Terror and the Threat of World War III, has claimed the attack on Putin loyalist Alexander Dugin's daughter would have been authorised by the Kremlin. He claimed that Dugin, 60, had a reputation for being 'unruly' and that the Kremlin is 'using Dugin in its own global propaganda war' counting on the fact...

Frederick Taylor's "scientific management" was all the rage when fascism and totalitarianism was on the rise in the 1920s–30s. It sounded good — people with pertinent knowledge and skills would occupy positions in logically designed organizations in which those qualities would be optimally employed. In practice, the most common quality of scientifically managed firms was intense dissatisfaction among their workers. That's mostly because, in reality, people's family, political connections, and willingness to "play ball" with the powerful and wealthy overshadowed everything else when it came to filling positions. That's why the purest expressions of scientific management — communist countries —...

A pro-Russian propaganda channel has issued a story claiming the country's troops have been 'poisoned in a chemical attack in Ukraine'. The information, regarded as suspect, comes amid fears Russia is looking for reasons to justify using chemical weapons in its invasion of its southern neighbor. Russia Today reports traces of Botulinum toxin Type B, which is an 'organic poison of artificial origin,' were found in samples taken from soldiers, according to Russia's defense ministry. The ministry accused Kiev of 'domestic terrorism' and insisted Russian troops were 'hospitalized with signs of severe poisoning' after being stationed near the village of...

Margrethe Vestager, vice president of the European Commission, further urged EU citizens to take shorter showers. "When you turn off the water, say 'Take that, Putin!'” she said last week, referring to President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Russia's military has praised civilian grade Chinese-made drones and robots for having performed well on the battlefield, leading their manufacturers to point out the equipment is not intended or sold for military purposes. When a video of a robot camera dog showed up with a grenade launcher on Russian state-sponsored media RIA Novosti this week, many immediately recognized it as Chinese Unitree Robotics' $2,700 Go1 robotic dog – albeit dressed in a sort of canine ninja suit. "Russian designers presented a sample of the M-81 robotic complex, capable of aimed shooting and transporting weapons, at the Army-2022 forum," announced RIA...

This is a really good question and has piqued my interest since it speaks directly to my doctoral research, rendering me somewhat qualified to answer this question from a behavioural scientific perspective. To understand the psychological outcome of this war, we need to understand what it is that Putin wants and then determine his current mindset with regards to the attainment of those desires or preferences. And here we run into problems, because in spite of the copious amount of ink spilt on the topic, nobody knows exactly - perhaps not even Putin himself - what he wants. The signalling...

Russian leader Vladimir Putin gave his stammering spy chief a tongue-lashing at a security council meeting Tuesday, schooling him in a discussion about Moscow recognizing the independence of two separatist-controlled regions of Ukraine. The director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia seemed to goof after a testy exchange with Putin, and said he supported absorbing the breakaway states into the Russian federation before backtracking and saying he supported their independence. Russia’s recognition of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic has been viewed as the possible first step of Russia’s expected invasion of Ukraine. Putin is...

Explosions shook an ammunition depot in Russian-annexed Crimea on Tuesday, the latest such incident in a region used by Moscow as a staging post for its war in Ukraine.

1- Explosions occurred in the occupied Crimea, an ammunition depot detonated: a railway was damaged. Video https://player.obozrevatel.com/video/files/videos/0/37/632/480p.mp4 2- https://player.obozrevatel.com/video/files/videos/0/37/621/480p.mp4 3- https://player.obozrevatel.com/video/files/videos/0/37/619/480p.mp4 Explosions in the village of Mayskoye in the occupied Crimea began around 6 a.m. on August 16. The epicenters of events were engulfed in fires, the Russian military fled from there in tanks. This was told by eyewitnesses, local residents who were evacuated to the village of Kondratyevo. In total, 27 people were taken out of dangerous places, including two children, Crimean media reported (to watch the video, scroll to the end of the news). "I live on Rosa...

The Russian invaders turned the temporarily occupied Mariupol into a continuous ghetto. The invaders banned teachers from leaving the city and began "visits" to their homes. This was announced by adviser to the mayor of Mariupol Pyotr Andryushchenko. "Strengthening the regime again. Now it concerns teachers," the report says. In particular, teachers were banned from leaving the city, because the loudly announced launches of most schools, lyceums and two universities failed due to the lack of teachers. In addition, the facts of "persuasion" of going to work because of beatings are becoming widespread. Separate patrols visit teachers ' homes and...

Plumes of black smoke were seen on Tuesday at a Russian military airbase near the settlement of Gvardeyskoye in the centre of Russian-controlled Crimea, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported. Earlier on Tuesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry separately blamed a series of explosions around Dzhankoi in northern Crimea on “sabotage”, state-owned news agency RIA reported. Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in a recent series of blasts in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

On the eve of the explosions that occurred on August 16 in the Dzhankoy District of the occupied Crimea, the invaders significantly strengthened their air defense. However, this did not protect them from "cotton". The invaders also pulled a significant part of equipment and weapons near Dzhankoy, and at the time of the explosion at the Azovskaya railway station, they were unloading several dozen weapons and a significant amount of ammunition for them. This was reported in the Center for Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "If someone does not know, then in the area of Dzhankoy, the...

Shoigu, after a "pause", announced sabotage at an ammunition depot in the Crimea The Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation said that the cause of the explosions on the morning of August 16 in the occupied Crimea was sabotage. This version was announced by the invaders only a few hours after the explosion. A new explanation of the "clap" was published by the press service of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation. The ministry claims that as a result of the explosions, damage was caused to power lines, power plants, residential buildings and a number of other...

Russia has abandoned 20,000 troops near Kherson in the face of a Ukrainian counter-attack, the regional governor has claimed. Vitaly Kim said Russia is relocating command posts on the west bank of the Dnipro River to the east, leaving 'stupid orcs' - his term for Kremlin soldiers - behind. Ukraine has already blown up all three bridges under Russian control connecting the two banks, meaning its soldiers on the west side have no easy way of resupplying, reinforcing, or retreating as Kyiv's men continue their advance. Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv which sits on the west bank, said Monday that...

The photo that condemned Putin's Wagner thugs: Ukraine 'blows up Russian mercenary HQ in Donbas using HIMARS' after propagandist gave away its location with picture of a street sign Sergei Sreda, a so-called 'war reporter', visited Wagner HQ in Ukraine last week He shook hands with man who appeared to be Wagner owner Yevgeny Prigozhin Experts used images to locate the base, and on Sunday it was confirmed to be hit It is not clear whether Prigozhin was still at the base at the time it was struck Ukraine has destroyed the headquarters of Russia's shadowy Wagner mercenary group in...

Putin has no questions about the money allocated for the army, also for the reason that in exchange for the stolen, Defense Ministry officials are ready to carry out any, the most “dirty”, order of the head of the Russian Federation. Sergei Shoigu and his entourage profit from the money allocated for the Russian army / Screenshot Sergei Shoigu and his entourage profit from the money allocated for the Russian army / Screenshot High-ranking officials with real estate abroad and fabulous incomes that are not declared – this is what the new investigation of Alexei Navalny’s team is all about....

The staggeringly high rate of Russian casualties in Ukraine means that President Vladimir V. Putin may not be able to achieve one of his key war objectives: seizing the entire eastern region of the country this year, officials in the Biden administration and military experts say. With 500 Russian troops killed or wounded every day, according to the latest estimate by American intelligence and military officials, Russia’s war effort has decelerated to a grinding slog, the officials said.