News Feed
Brief summaries of major developments throughout the week (June 27–July 1, 2022): Russian airstrikes on civilians, Putin says Union State with Belarus grows stronger, and a shakeup at Sakhalin-2
In the digest below, Meduza condenses the latest news stories in and around Russia and Ukraine. You can find last week’s news feed here. (Cover page photo: Anna Voitenko / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA.)
27 июня 2022 г. 06:19:11
💥 Russia resumes missile strikes on Kyiv: Russia launched a new round of missile strikes on Kyiv on Sunday, the first in three weeks. According to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the strikes hit at least two apartment buildings, killing one person and injuring at least six others, while another official later reported that a railroad worker was killed and several others injured by another strike. Klitschko noted that more victims may be discovered as rescue workers continue to sort through the rubble.
27 июня 2022 г. 06:19:57
🚫 Ukrainian official calls for Russia’s partial demilitarization: Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a Facebook post that Russia’s recent missile strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine were launched either from deep within Russia’s own territory, from Belarusian territory, or from the Caspian and Black Seas. As a long term result, Reznikov wrote, “the demilitarization of at least the European part of the terrorist state should become a condition for dialogue on the renewal of relations between russia [sic] and the civilized world.”
27 июня 2022 г. 06:20:41
🛫 Putin's first wartime trip abroad: Days after G7 leaders meet in Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, Russian state media reported on Sunday. This trip will mark his first time leaving Russian territory since before Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine. After meeting with Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon in Dushanbe, Putin will take part in the Caspian Summit, a conference for leaders of the countries bordering the Caspian Sea.
27 июня 2022 г. 06:20:53
27 июня 2022 г. 06:31:06
🌾 The scale of Russia’s grain theft: Ukrainian First Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky told news outlet Krym Realii that Russia has now taken at least 400,000 metric tons of grain from occupied territories in Ukraine. According to the Center for Food and Land Use Research at the Kyiv School of Economics, Vysotsky said, Ukraine’s agriculture sector has lost at least $4.3 billion since the war began.
27 июня 2022 г. 10:07:50
💸 A historic default: Russia has defaulted on foreign debt for the first time since 1918. According to Bloomberg, the grace period to pay interest of about $100 million that was originally due on May 27 expired at midnight on Sunday. At the same time, the agency noted, given the damage already inflicted on the Russian economy, the default is essentially symbolic and “matters little to Russians.”
27 июня 2022 г. 10:21:29
27 июня 2022 г. 10:21:37
🪦 A single building in Mariupol: Over 100 bodies have been found among the ruins of a residential building in Mariupol’s Levoberezhny District, Mayoral Advisor Petro Andryushchenko reported on Monday. According to Andryushchenko, the bodies are still stuck under the rubble and the occupying Russian authorities in the city currently have no plans to remove them and bury them.
27 июня 2022 г. 11:24:49
🏭 Azot reportedly free of civilians: According to officials from the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR), over 500 people have been evacuated from the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk. On Sunday, LNR representative Rodion Miroshnik reported that about 250 civilians had left the plant, while on Monday, he said there was nobody left “being held hostage by the militants,” referring to the Ukrainian troops defending Azot. The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday that Russian forces had taken complete control of Severodonetsk.
27 июня 2022 г. 13:17:28
🙅 New sanctions from the G7: The White House announced that the G7 countries will expand their sanctions against Russia. The new measures will include:
- Measures targeting Russia’s military production and supply chains
- New sanctions on hundreds of individuals and entities
- Higher tariffs on more than 570 groups of Russian products worth approximately $2.3 billion to Russia
- Steps to limit Russia’s revenues, including from gold, which is Russia’s second largest export after energy
27 июня 2022 г. 13:40:25
🚗 Lithuanian diplomat’s car vandalized: Ugnius Labutis, a Consular Affairs Officer at the Lithuanian Embassy in Russia, posted several pictures showing that an unknown person had written the pro-war “Z” symbol on her car. The car was parked in a guarded lot at the time. Just days ago, the Lithuanian government moved to restrict Russian rail freight traffic through its territory.
27 июня 2022 г. 13:41:16
🔍 The case of the missing Azov fighters: Following reports from the Russian state news agency TASS that two Ukrainian commanders taken captive from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant were supposedly in custody at Moscow’s Lefortovo remand prison, the city’s Public Monitoring Commission (ONK) reported that they “didn’t find” the POWs there. ONK Secretary Alexey Melnikov told TASS on Monday that members of the watchdog group “visited several Lefortovo remand prison cells and did not find the commanders of the nationalist Azov unit.” At the same time, Melnikov noted that the ONK representatives were unable to check every cell due to the “peculiarities” of the prison’s regulations, and therefore plan to return in the coming days.
27 июня 2022 г. 16:43:19
😵💫 Russia denies responsibility for Kyiv airstrikes: The Russian Defense Ministry released a statement blaming the airstrikes that hit civilian targets in Kyiv this weekend on Ukraine’s own anti-aircraft defense forces. The Ministry claimed that Russian forces fired four missiles at the Artyom weapons factory in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district, all four of which allegedly hit the target. “No civilian infrastructure in the city of Kyiv was damaged,” the Russian statement reads. Russia further claimed that the missile strike that hit a residential building in Kyiv on Sunday was the result of a Ukrainian logistical failure in which two Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles were shot down by Ukraine’s own missile system.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported on Sunday that Russian missile strikes had hit two apartment buildings, killing one person and injuring at least six others, while another Kyiv official reported that a railroad worker was killed and several others injured by another Russian strike.
27 июня 2022 г. 17:53:22
🚨Russia strikes Kremenchuk shopping mall: A Russian missile strike hit a shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, President Volodymyr Zelensky reported on Monday. According to the president, “more than a thousand people” were inside the mall at the time of the attack. “The mall is on fire, rescuers are fighting the fire, the number of victims is impossible to imagine,” Zelensky said. The exact number of casualties has yet to be confirmed.
Update. According to a preliminary report from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, two people were killed and at least 20 are injured.
27 июня 2022 г. 21:32:07
🇲🇩 Moldova’s President Sandu visits Ukraine: Moldovan President Maia Sandu met with her Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday, and visited the towns of Borodyanka, Bucha, and Irpin. According to Sandu, Moldova, which has a population of 2.6 million, has taken in half a million Ukrainian refugees since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
27 июня 2022 г. 21:45:52
🏚️ Russian shelling kills five, injures 22 in Kharkiv: Russian shelling on Monday evening killed at least five people and injured 22 others in Kharkiv’s Saltivka residential district, Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov reported. Five children are included among the wounded.
27 июня 2022 г. 21:56:41
🏥 Death toll in Kremenchuk rises to 11: The number of casualties from a Russian missile strike on a Kremenchuk shopping mall on Monday has risen to 11 dead and 50 injured, reported Poltava Regional Governor Dmytro Lunin. Six of the wounded are reportedly in serious condition. In total, 21 people were hospitalized with injuries, while the other 29 received out-patient treatment.
28 июня 2022 г. 05:34:07
Officials removing debris after a Russian missile strike on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk. According to Ukrainian State Emergency Service head Serhiy Kruk, at least 16 people were killed and at least 59 were injured.
28 июня 2022 г. 06:05:43
🤖 A Russian cyber attack on Lithuania: The websites of several Lithuanian government websites, including those of the country’s Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, Defense Ministry, Justice Ministry, and State Tax Inspectorate, became inaccessible on Monday. Pro-Russian hacker group Killnet claim responsibility for DDoS attacks on the sites, writing on Telegram, “We continue to hint unambiguously to the Lithuanian authorities that they must immediately withdraw their decision to ban the transit of Russian goods from the Kaliningrad region to [mainland] Russia.”
28 июня 2022 г. 06:24:44
🌍 Argentina and Iran apply to join BRICS: Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova Iran and Argentina have applied to join BRICS — the group of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. “While the White House was busy thinking about what else it could shut off, ban, or ruin, Argentina and Iran applied to join BRICS,” she wrote on Telegram.
28 июня 2022 г. 06:48:06
💸 Russia’s default made official: Moody's Investors Service reported that Russia formally defaulted on its debt after the grace period for paying $100 million on two eurobond coupons expired on Sunday. Bloomberg had previously reported that Russia had missed a payment deadline for foreign debt for the first time since 1918. The Russian Finance Ministry has already voiced its disagreement with both agencies, claiming that the full debt payment was made in advance and that investors didn’t receive their money “due to the actions of third parties.”
28 июня 2022 г. 12:16:46
📰 Russia disputes reports of Kremenchuk mall strike: Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that Russian forces used high-precision weapons to strike a hangar full of American- and European-supplied weapons in Kremenchuk on Monday, and that the strike caused a nearby defunct shopping mall to catch on fire. The Ministry's statement made no mention of civilian casualties.
Ukrainian officials previously reported and documented a Russian missile strike on a Kremenchuk mall that was full of civilians and far from any military targets. According to Kremenchuk Mayor Vitaliy Maletskiy, at least 18 people were killed and at least 59 were injured. Dozens of others remain missing.
28 июня 2022 г. 12:25:23
⛔ More Biden family sanctions: Moscow has added 25 Americans to its sanctions lists, including U.S. President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, and his daughter, Ashley Biden. The two are now banned from entering Russia. According to Russia’s Interior Ministry, the sanctions were Russia’s response to the “constantly expanding list of U.S. sanctions against Russian political and public figures.” Political scientist Francis Fukuyama was also on the list. Joe Biden himself was sanctioned by Russia in March.
28 июня 2022 г. 14:34:43
⛓️ Ilya Yashin arrested: Opposition politician Ilya Yashin has been sentenced to 15 days in prison by a judge at Moscow’s Khamovniki District Court, Mediazona reported on Tuesday. Yashin stands accused of disobeying officers’ lawful demands after he allegedly insulted and swore at police in a park early Tuesday morning. According to journalist Irina Babloyan, who was with Yashin at the time of his arrest, the allegations are false.
28 июня 2022 г. 16:28:46
🚒 Death toll continues to rise in Kremenchuk: As reported by the Kyiv Independent, the number of casualties from yesterday’s Russian missile strike on a Kremenchuk shopping mall has risen to 20 dead and 59 injured. Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday that rescue work is ongoing, as another 36 people have been reported missing. Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said that DNA testing will be required to identify most of the bodies recovered from the scene.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has also clarified a statement he made on Monday about the number of people in the mall at the time of the strike. According to Zelensky, there were initially more than 1,000 people inside the building, but many managed to evacuate before the missiles hit thanks to air raid sirens.
28 июня 2022 г. 17:59:12
🪖 Deripaska says the regime is stable but destroying Ukraine would be disastrous: In remarks on Tuesday at Moscow State University, billionaire Russian industrialist Oleg Deripaska declared that “there is no potential for regime change” in Russia, arguing that the economic conditions for such upheaval are absent. “Don’t hold your breath for Mr. Fridman or [Petr] Aven or [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky to take up arms and break through to Bryansk. They’re not that kind of people,” Deripaska said, referring to other oligarchs, before adding that “it would be a colossal mistake to destroy Ukraine.” (He previously denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “madness” and called for an investigation into atrocities committed during Russia’s occupation of the town of Bucha outside Kyiv.)
28 июня 2022 г. 18:15:48
🕵️ More restrictions on Russia’s ‘foreign agents’: State Duma deputies have adopted the second reading of legislation imposing new federal restrictions on the activities of designated “foreign agents.” The draft law prohibits such groups and individuals from receiving state funding, engaging in educational activities with minors, selling goods or services to the state, and providing public expertise on environmental issues, among other things. Lawmakers approved only 14 of 74 proposed amendments to Russia’s existing law on “foreign agents.” Deputy Vasily Piskarev argued that any “liberalization” in this area would be “inadmissible” during the war in Ukraine.
28 июня 2022 г. 18:29:03
🪖 Send our husbands home, Mr. Governor: The wives of soldiers from a tank brigade based in Buryatia have appealed to local Governor Alexey Tsydenov in a video shared on social media, asking him to return their husbands from the war in Ukraine. In the video, the women say the soldiers left for training exercises in January and have been fighting on the frontlines almost without interruption since the start of the invasion on February 24. “These men are exhausted both physically and mentally,” says one woman in the video, claiming that all soldiers in the brigade have suffered concussions of varying severity. (Local reporters in Buryatia have documented the deaths of at least 30 soldiers deployed to Ukraine with this same tank brigade.)
28 июня 2022 г. 18:38:59
🍸 Russia loses a big-time booze business: The British alcohol company Diageo (which manufactures Smirnoff, Black Label, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Baileys, Captain Morgan, and other brands) has announced its gradual but complete withdrawal from the Russian market over the next six months. Spokespeople for Diageo say its roughly 300 employees in Russia are being offered “extended compensation packages,” as the business shutters its operations in the country.
28 июня 2022 г. 18:49:53
🚧 Memory politics at play in Kaliningrad: City officials in Sovetsk, in Russia’s Kaliningrad region, have removed a memorial plaque dedicated to the Prussian-Lithuanian writer Vilius Storostas-Vydūnas. The town’s mayor has indicated that the plaque will be replaced with a memorial devoted to Denis Davydov, a Russian soldier-poet of the Napoleonic Wars. (In mid-June, Lithuanian officials started blocking the freight transport by rail and highway of various goods into Kaliningrad that are now under EU sanctions, leading to allegations from Moscow that the region has been placed “under a blockade.”)
29 июня 2022 г. 04:53:01
👮 Arresting the lawyer of a jailed journalist: On Tuesday, police in Russia’s Udmurt Republic arrested Dmitry Talantov (a lawyer who now represents treason-accused journalist Ivan Safronov) on felony charges of spreading supposed “disinformation” about the nation’s military. The case reportedly concerns a message that Talantov posted on social media in April, though he condemned Russia’s Armed Forces a day before his arrest for a deadly airstrike against a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, Ukraine.
29 июня 2022 г. 10:17:14
⏲️ Captured British soldier appeals death sentence: British citizen Shaun Pinner, who was sentenced to death by leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic for fighting alongside Ukraine in the war, has appealed the sentence. “We submitted an appeal. There’s a two-week review period. If they deny it, we’re going to write a petition for clemency. The client asked, so I’m required,” Yulia Tserkovnikova, Pinner’s lawyer, told Interfax. Shaun Pinner was charged along with British citizen Aiden Aslin and Brahim Saadoune of Morocco.
29 июня 2022 г. 10:24:00
🚨 Airstrikes on civilians in Mykolayiv: A Russian airstrike on an apartment building in Mykolayiv Wednesday morning left three people dead and five injured, according to Regional Military Administration head Vitaliy Kim. Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych reported earlier that Russia also launched strikes on a local stadium and a military target, and that the blast wave damaged eight apartment buildings, breaking their windows. The earlier strike was carried out using a Bastion-P coastal defense missile system located in the occupied Kherson region, according to Senkevych.
29 июня 2022 г. 10:47:01
⚠️ This page cannot be displayed: Russia's state space corporation, Roscosmos, has reported a DDoS attack on its site. On Tuesday, Roscosmos published satellite images and coordinates of various Western headquarters, including the Pentagon and the exact location of NATO's Madrid Summit, which it referred to as “decision-making centers supporting the Ukrainian nationalists." The corporation claimed to be posting the information “just in case."
29 июня 2022 г. 16:34:47
♂️ If grandma had the genitals of grandpa… British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine constitutes “a perfect example of toxic masculinity,” speculating that the Russian president wouldn’t have “embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence” if he were a she. “Old [Sigmund] Freud would have dreamed of such a case study,” responded Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
29 июня 2022 г. 17:08:52
🤖 Spare a thought for Russia’s parts: Electronics repair centers in Russia have reportedly started disassembling new devices for spare parts, due to a shortage of replacement components caused by international sanctions and corporate withdrawals from the country. The new hardships have delayed the average time needed for repair services, and the sale of electronics through “parallel importation” (to evade sanctions) transfers warranty costs from manufacturers to distributors, which are sometimes located abroad in countries like Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.
29 июня 2022 г. 17:20:37
🥗 Russian cuisine uncanceled: Journalists and international officials who attended this week’s NATO summit in Madrid were “bemused,” according to Reuters, to find “Russian salad” listed atop the in-house restaurant menu. Though visiting defense and foreign ministers were apparently offered a different menu with “more diplomatic thought,” the Russian salad reportedly “sold out within hours.”
29 июня 2022 г. 17:33:42
🛡️ Russia is Number One! NATO leaders approved a new Strategic Concept on Wednesday, defining the Russian Federation as the “most significant and direct threat” to Allies’ security, while “addressing China for the first time and the challenges that Beijing poses toward Allies’ security, interests, and values.” The Earth’s climate crisis also gets a mention as “a defining challenge of our time.”
29 июня 2022 г. 19:46:15
🪖 The biggest prisoner swap yet: Ukrainian defense officials say they’ve freed 144 Ukrainian soldiers, including 95 men who surrendered after defending Mariupol’s Azovstal iron and steel works (43 of whom are Azov Battalion combatants), in a prisoner swap with Russia and pro-Russian separatists (who freed 144 their own captured fighters). The Ukrainian military says this is the largest prisoner exchange yet since Russia’s invasion in February. Many of the men returned to Ukraine are reportedly still suffering from serious injuries sustained while defending Mariupol against Russian attack. Self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic head Denis Pushilin also confirmed the exchange.
29 июня 2022 г. 19:51:30
🕊️ Cooling off in Kaliningrad: EU officials are nearing a “compromise deal” with the Baltic states that could return trade through Lithuania to Kaliningrad “within says,” two sources told Reuters. The compromise would “exempt the territory from sanctions,” provided that Lithuania “drops its reservations.” Moscow has called the transport restrictions a “blockade” and threatened to escalate tensions in the region.
30 июня 2022 г. 06:27:44
🎭 The Gogol Center is dead, long live the Gogol Center! On Wednesday, Moscow’s Culture Department announced leadership changes at several of the city’s theaters, including the Gogol Drama Theater, which became better known as the Gogol Center while it was Russia’s leading avant-garde theater. The center’s former director, Kirill Serebrennikov, characterized the removal of directors Alexey Agranovich and Alexey Kabeshev as the center’s effective death. “Yes, the Gogol Center is closed. That’s it,” he wrote on Telegram. City officials say the theater will remain open, however.
30 июня 2022 г. 06:38:18
⚖️ Repeated fines for an independent Yekaterinburg news outlet: A court in Yekaterinburg fined the local media outlet Vechernie Vedomosti 200,000 rubles (currently about $3,840) for publishing 54 claims on its Telegram channel that supposedly discredit Russia’s military. (The offenses included using the word “war” to describe Russia’s actions in Ukraine.) In a separate case earlier in the month, a court fined Vechernie Vedomosti 150,000 rubles for republishing images of antiwar stickers.
30 июня 2022 г. 13:22:23
🏛️ Amnesty declares Russian attack a war crime: Amnesty International has named Russia’s attack on Mariupol’s drama theater in March a war crime. Experts from the human rights organization gathered testimonies from 52 survivors and witnesses, 28 of whom were in the theater or nearby at the moment of the attack, in addition to other evidence. They concluded that the strike was committed by Russian troops, who most likely dropped two 500-kilogram (1102-pound) bombs, which detonated simultaneously, from a fighter plane.
30 июня 2022 г. 16:44:56
👮 Prominent economist arrested in infamous embezzlement case: State investigators in Moscow have arrested Vladimir Mau on charges of large-scale embezzlement. The rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Mau is now a suspect in an ongoing felony case against former Deputy Education Minister Marina Rakova and Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences Rector Sergey Zuev. Hours before his arrest, Mau was reappointed to the board of directors at the Russian energy giant Gazprom.
Update: Mau has been placed under house arrest until at least August 7, pending trial. Prosecutors argued that he remains a flight risk and had a flight booked for Turkey on July 2.
30 июня 2022 г. 16:51:23
💰 Gazprom abandons dividends for 2021, but not Rosneft: For the first time since 1998, the Russian energy giant Gazprom will not pay dividends on last year’s earnings. Following the announcement, the company’s shares dropped by almost 30 percent. Deputy CEO Famil Sadygov says Gazprom will focus instead on “regional gasification, preparation for the heating season, and paying increased taxes,” according to Reuters. The board of directors had previously recommended paying a dividend of 52.53 rubles per share.
Update: Russian oil giant Rosneft announced record-high dividends in 2021, paying shareholders 441.5 billion rubles (currently almost $8.2 billion) — roughly half of the company’s estimated profits on the year.
30 июня 2022 г. 17:01:11
🚫 State Duma approves additional censorship powers: Russian lawmakers have adopted the third and final reading of legislation that fast-tracks news-media censorship by granting extrajudicial powers to police agencies, allowing the deregistration and blocking of publications believed to have disseminated “fakes,” “discrediting information about the Russian Armed Forces,” and “incitements to sanctions.” First-time offenses can result in suspension for as long as three months, while repeat violations are punishable by suspension for up to six months. The draft law also codifies “reciprocal actions” against foreign media outlets in response to bans against Russian media abroad.
30 июня 2022 г. 22:04:41
💰 Washington blocks a billion in oligarch bucks: The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it’s blocked more than $1 billion in assets at the Delaware-based Heritage Trust for its connections to sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov. The Treasury says “Kerimov used a complex series of legal structures and front persons to obscure his interest in Heritage Trust” in order to invest in “large public and private U.S. companies.”
30 июня 2022 г. 22:33:03
🪖 Longer hours and more obligations for defense contractors: The Russian government has submitted a draft law to the State Duma that would regulate provisions for the military during “counterterrorism and other operations outside Russian territory.” The legislation would grant the federal government the power to introduce “special economic measures” related to these provisions, permitting additional overtime work, overnight work, weekend and holiday work, and paid vacation. The draft law would also revoke Russian legal entities’ right to refuse contracts for procurement and defense orders when the work concerns military operations abroad.
1 июля 2022 г. 07:46:29
🛢️ A Sakhalin-2 shakeup: The Kremlin is testing the loyalty of foreign investors in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas development project (Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi). A new executive order signed by Vladimir Putin transfers the assets of Sakhalin Energy to state property and invites the old consortium’s foreign participants to act as shareholders in the new state company. If they refuse, however, their shares will be sold, and the proceeds (minus “damages”) will be frozen in Russian bank accounts.
1 июля 2022 г. 13:43:47
🏙️ That’ll show the West: The online polls are currently open for Moscow residents to decide which area in the city to rename after the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic. Voters are given three choices:
- The territory surrounding the British Embassy
- The territory surrounding the German Embassy
- The territory surrounding the Lithuanian Embassy (unless the authorities have in mind the Belgian Embassy, which is nearby;)
There’s also a fourth option: voters can opt to “leave the choice up to specialists.”
The area around the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was renamed “Donetsk People’s Republic Square” last month.
1 июля 2022 г. 14:07:53
💰 Money trouble: Russia’s new 100-ruble banknotes could take years to roll out completely due to banking equipment manufacturers’ withdrawal from the Russian market, Kommersant reported.
According to the newspaper, Russia’s ATMs, payment terminals, and cash registers need to be “taught” — programmed — to recognize the new notes. This is usually done by the equipment’s manufacturers, but the companies NCR and Diebold Nixdorf, which manufacture 60 percent of Russia’s ATMs, have suspected servicing of Russian equipment.
1 июля 2022 г. 14:15:17
🚨 More than a dozen killed in attack on Odesa: A Russian airstrike near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday hit an apartment building and a resort, killing at least 19 people, according to local officials. The attack occurred just hours after Moscow withdrew troops from the nearby Snake Island in what the Defense Ministry called a “goodwill gesture.”
1 июля 2022 г. 14:30:52
🤝 Putin says Western pressure strengthens Russian-Belarusian Union State: At a forum on Friday, Vladimir Putin stated that Western pressure is “accelerating the unification process” between Russia and Belarus. The president explained that sanctions and other Transatlantic policies force Moscow and Minsk to work together to minimize economic damage and maximize production. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in turn, said in a video message that former Soviet republics should seek “alignment” with the Union State “if they want to preserve their sovereignty and independence, of course.” (In 2019, Moscow restarted negotiations with Minsk to integrate Russia and Belarus more closely, returning to discussions from the 1990s about a shared parliament, constitution, and currency.)
1 июля 2022 г. 21:04:32
⚖️ Donetsk charges two more foreign fighters with ‘mercenary’ work: Officials in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic have charged another two British nationals, Dylan Hilly and Andrew Hill, with illegal mercenary activity and attempting to stage a coup. (The DNR recently convicted three other captured foreign combatants and issued death sentences.) Russia’s Defense Ministry previously reported that Hill surrendered to Russian troops in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region while fighting in the Ukrainian military without a formal contract. According to the state news agency RIA Novosti, Hill is suspected of assisting in the destruction of a Russian APC that killed at least two Russian servicemen. Less is known about Dylan Hilly, but one source told TASS that he was captured in Mariupol with a Ukrainian infantry brigade.
1 июля 2022 г. 21:27:02
🏒 Future NHL player lands at Russian draft board instead of Philadelphia: Police officers intercepted ice hockey player Ivan Fedotov outside an ice rink in St. Petersburg on Friday and delivered him to a military draft board. There are conflicting and poorly sourced reports now circulating about the nature of Fedotov’s detention, but the local news outlet Fontanka says he’s been charged with an unspecified misdemeanor. According to earlier reports, the hockey player could face felony prosecution for draft evasion due to his plans to quit the Moscow’s CSKA hockey team and take a goalie position with the Philadelphia Flyers in the NHL. (CSKA is an ice hockey club of the Russian Army, and its members are officially considered military personnel, complicating any contract terminations by players.)
1 июля 2022 г. 21:39:29
🕊️ ‘Adjusting’ the Kaliningrad standoff: EU officials are developing a new sanctions package that would “include adjustments to rules around the transit of sanctioned goods to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad,” sources told Bloomberg, which also reported that policymakers have raised concerns that Lithuania “could be pressured into allowing banned goods to transit through the country to Kaliningrad.” Moscow has threatened to retaliate against Lithuania if it continues to the block rail and truck transport of goods like steel.
1 июля 2022 г. 21:49:57
💽 Google reportedly facilitated data harvesting by a sanctioned Russian ad firm: Google may have provided Sberbank-owned RuTarget (a sanctioned Russian ad company) with unique mobile phone IDs, IP addresses, location information, and details about users’ interests and online activity, according to a new report by ProPublica. The digital ad analysis firm Adalytics identified close to 700 examples of RuTarget receiving user data from Google after the company was added to a U.S. Treasury list of sanctioned entities on February 24. “The data sharing between Google and RuTarget stopped four months later on June 23, the day ProPublica contacted Google about the activity.”