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Moscow must find other ways to pay for exports or its sanctions-hit economy faces "ruination" one of President Vladimir Putin's top bankers has said, following moves by Chinese lenders to suspend transactions with Russian banks. ICBC, China CITIC Bank and most other Chinese banks have made similar moves, worried about falling foul of Western sanctions, which have been stepped up to choke off the funding for Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, the U.S. and other countries unveiled a new wave of sanctions that targeted Russian financial institutions and entities and individuals who do business with them. "If...

The charges relate to missile attacks on civilian infrastructure, in particular on the energy sector. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russia's former Minister of Defence and its current army chief, in a body blow for Putin. Sergey Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov have been charged with war crimes committed in Ukraine between the period October 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023. The charges relate to missile attacks on civilian infrastructure, in particular on the energy sector. While acknowledging they may have been deemed as genuine army targets at the time, the collateral damage to civilians...

How many Ukrainian civilians have been killed by missiles, drones and artillery fired from the Crimean peninsula? How many of those munitions were made in Iran or North Korea? It is highly doubtful that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would use its limited ATACMS munitions to attack non-military targets — particularly as at no point during the war up to now has Ukraine intentionally targeted Russian civilians. Rather, it is more likely that the Russian beachgoers were killed not by ATACMS or other US-made weapons, but by Russian military 9M330 air defense missiles fired by Moscow’s TOR-M2 anti-aircraft platform. Early...

Sunday’s terrorist attacks in Dagestan that left at least 19 people dead have highlighted Russia’s growing difficulties in managing a tide of Islamist terror at home as its security forces are engaged in the war in Ukraine. The attacks, carried out by four gunmen in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, and two in the seaside city of Derbent, appeared to catch Dagestani officials by surprise. At least 15 police officers were among those killed, and the attackers also burned down a synagogue and set fire to a church in acts that Russian officials are clearly concerned could lead to a tide of...

Attacks in Russia's Muslim majority republic of Dagestan are the latest strikes in the country linked to Islamic State. One security analyst told Newsweek that the Kremlin's focus on Ukraine rather than the threat of terrorism means more such incidents are guaranteed. Russia's authorities announced a counterterrorism operation after men opened fire on Russian Orthodox churches and a synagogue in the coastal city of Derbent at around 6 p.m. Sunday. Within the same hour, another group opened fire on a traffic police post in the republic's capital of Makhachkala, about 80 miles north. "Putin's quickly losing control of the country,"...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported to have replaced an official within his Federal Security Service (FSB) who laid the groundwork for his country's full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Sergei Beseda, 70, who served as head of the Federal Security Service's (FSB) fifth directorate, has been replaced by Alexei Komkov, who formerly worked as deputy head of the spy agency, Russian investigative news website Important Stories reported on Saturday, citing two sources. -snip- Putin reportedly relied on intelligence from the FSB's fifth directorate when he launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The fifth service is largely in charge...

Dramatic video shows Kyiv's propeller-driven Yak-52 hunting down a Russian drone. UKRAINE are using WW2-style planes to hunt down Russian drones on the battlefield in a blow to Vladimir Putin's increasingly desperate war effort. Air Marshal Greg Bagwell, a retired RAF commander, told The Sun Ukraine has taken inspiration from Britain's famous Spitfires and are making headway in the skies against Vlad's meatgrinder troops. In a scene reminiscent of WW2, dramatic video showed Kyiv's propeller-driven Yak-52 plane in an intense dogfight with a Russian drone in the sky above southern Ukraine in April. The 1970s two-seater training aircraft chased Vlad's...

Russia's armed forces suffered a new blow today when its air defences shot down one of its own military helicopters near the war zone. The latest friendly fire nightmare resulted in the death of all four crew members, it was reported. The £19 million Ka-29 assault helicopter was on duty hunting for Ukrainian kamikaze sea drones near Black Sea resort Anapa this morning when it was hit by a Russian Pantsir medium-range surface-to-air missile in an incident of mistaken targeting. The Russians blamed the blunder on a malfunction of the 'friend or foe' identification system.

Many years ago, in the 1980s, I went to Brighton Beach, then in its heyday as a district of newly arrived Soviet Jews. It was a grand event, rich in humor and tinged with nostalgia. I asked a middle-aged partygoer for his thoughts on his lost homeland, and his reply has stayed with me: “I hate Russia, for forcing me to leave her.” It was an apt summary of what waves of émigrés from Russia and the Soviet Union since the early 20th century have felt: a sorrowful sense of loss for a motherland — what Russians call “toska po...

One of Russia's newest and most advanced submarines, which just left Cuba, appears to be "falling apart" and to have damage to its hull, an open-source-intelligence analyst said.Marijn Markus, a managing consultant at Capgemini, shared four photos of the nuclear-powered Kazan in a LinkedIn post on Monday.Markus said it appeared the sub's soundproofing panels were "falling off" the front part of the submarine's hull. He said that would make the vessel "very" loud underwater and compromise its stealth capabilities.He also pointed to what he described as a "gaping" hole at the sub's midsection."While docked, Russian divers were seen around the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin sacked four deputy defence ministers on Monday and appointed a relative to fill one of the resulting vacancies. The reshuffle marked the latest stage in a radical shakeout which Putin launched in May when he unexpectedly removed his longstanding defence minister Sergei Shoigu. -snip- In the latest changes, Putin sacked deputy defence ministers Nikolai Pankov, Ruslan Tsalikov, Tatiana Shevtsova and Pavel Popov, according to Kremlin decrees. He appointed Anna Tsivileva, the daughter of his late cousin, as a deputy defence minister whose responsibilities will include improving social and housing support for military personnel. Her husband Sergei...

Anton Andreev says only 12 out of 100 soldiers remained alive after unit came under Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk. Anton Andreev, a Russian soldier from the fifth company of the 1009th regiment, painted a bleak picture of Russia’s offensive in the Ukrainian northern region of Kharkiv. His unit had been decimated, he said, with only 12 out of 100 soldiers still alive as they came under constant Ukrainian fire and drones in Vovchansk, a prime target of Russia’s advances. “They just chop us up. We are sent under machine guns, under drones in daylight, like meat. And commanders...

Vladimir Putin's leading propagandist on Russian state TV has suggested that Moscow should simply blow up the Kyiv dam and flood the Ukrainian capital to deal a killer blow in the war. The shocking tirade comes amid growing frustration in Russia at the slow progress of the country's offensive along the frontline in Ukraine. There is also anger after 90 countries around the world attended a Ukrainian peace summit in Switzerland which did not invite Russia.

The video appeared to confirm recent reports that dozens of Russian soldiers had been surrendering around Vovchansk, where heavy fighting has raged since Moscow launched a cross-border offensive towards Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, last month. The POWs were later filmed and interviewed, sitting in what appeared to be a school classroom. Several of the captured soldiers said they had been forced into the Russian army due to financial or legal trouble. Some said they had received as little as one week of training before being sent to the front. Food and water were limited, and often, they had to buy...

Historic news as 400 Russian soldiers have surrendered in central Vovchansk, the largest mass surrender of the entire war on the Russian side. These Russian forces were encircled at the chemical plant and for only 2 days held out until the surrender from today. Russian forces in the city are now seriously crippled with the loss of half a BTG. Meanwhile Ukrainian drone attacks continue to drive home damage into the Russian federation, as Russia takes high losses with very little gains.

Russians lined up to purchase U.S. dollars after the Moscow Exchange enforced an immediate suspension of trading in dollars and euros in response to fresh U.S. sanctions, a video circulating on social media appears to show. Russia's central bank said Wednesday that exchange trading and settlements of deliverable instruments in U.S. dollars and euros were suspended effective June 13 "due to the introduction of restrictive measures by the United States against the Moscow Exchange Group." It added that over-the-counter trading data would be used to set official exchange rates for the currencies.

New U.S. sanctions against Russia will shut down trading in dollars and euros on its leading financial marketplace, the Moscow Exchange, the bourse and the central bank said on Wednesday. "Due to the introduction of restrictive measures by the United States against the Moscow Exchange Group, exchange trading and settlements of deliverable instruments in U.S. dollars and euros are suspended," the central bank said. -snip- The bank rushed out a statement, despite a public holiday in Russia, to reassure people that their dollar and euro bank deposits were secure. "Companies and individuals can continue to buy and sell U.S. dollars...

Russia has rolled back on comments suggesting that a major agreement with Iran had been suspended due to problems it faced with Tehran. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Tehran has supplied Moscow's war machine with equipment such as the Shahed drone, which has been used to attack Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. In September of that year, work on a new treaty between Moscow and Tehran was announced during a meeting between Putin and the late President of the Islamic Republic, Ebrahim Raisi. Russia's Foreign Ministry had said in January that the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty...

Russian anti-submarine ship Admiral Levchenko is burning in the Barents Sea after an engine malfunctioned and caught fire, Dmytro Pletenchuk, press chief for the Southern Defense Forces of Ukraine's Armed Forces, said on June 10.

About Sergey Karaganov (from Wiki): Karaganov Doctrine Karaganov is known as the progenitor of the Karaganov Doctrine, which states that Moscow should pose as the defender of human rights of ethnic Russians living in the 'near abroad' for the purpose of gaining political influence in these regions. This idea was first brought into domestic Russian Federation politics by Boris Yeltsin in 1992, although it was only a fringe ideology in Yeltsin's Russia. It has become a mainstream ideology in Putin's Russia after 2012. After Karaganov published an article advocating this stance in 1992, Russia's foreign policy position linked Russian troop...