Reported by Mark Galeotti When personal sanctions on Russian oligarchs and officials were imposed by the UK, US and EU after Putin’s invasion, the rationale was that this would undermine the Kremlin. In the main, this has failed – and there is still no coherent strategy to encourage those Russians willing to turn against the regime. Wider economic sanctions are slowly […]
Reported by Jared Malsin Istanbul — In a gray four-story office building above a nightclub with a black door here, a company founded by a Turkish sock and underwear magnate has transformed into one of the world’s largest shipowners transporting Russian oil. The firm, Beks Ship Management, has bought 37 ships since 2021, many of […]
Reported by Saabira Chaudhuri The owner of Peet’s Coffee is making a series of changes to its business to keep selling in Russia, offering a rare example of how some companies are charting a new normal as the Ukraine war rages on. JDE Peet’s is renaming a major coffee brand in an effort to protect […]
Reported by Michelle Nichols North Korea continued developing nuclear weapons and producing nuclear fissile material in 2023 and evading United Nations sanctions that aim to cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to an unpublished United Nations report seen by Reuters on Thursday. “After a record-breaking level of cyber thefts in […]
Reported by Daniel Boffey Art pieces known to have been recently owned by Russian nationals under western sanctions have been entered into a searchable database set up by Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP). The agency’s “war and sanctions portal” lists paintings and sculptures thought to have been bought and sold in recent years […]
Reported by Max Colchester Over a year ago the West launched a new foreign-policy weapon to pressure the Kremlin to halt its war in Ukraine: It sanctioned more than a hundred leading Russian businessmen and their families, hoping that they would prod Russian President Vladimir Putin to give up his expansionist plans. So far the strategy hasn’t worked. The […]
Reported by C-SPAN The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, held a hearing on allegations of Russia evading sanctions through money laundering in Swiss banks. One of the witnesses was financier Bill Browder, who did business in Russia before being barred from the country in 2005 for taking […]
Reported by FATIMA HUSSEIN The U.S. on Tuesday imposed sanctions on four firms and one individual connected to the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenaries that led a brief against the Kremlin last week. The sanctions from Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted entities in the Central African Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Russia […]
Reported by GABRIEL GAVIN and TIM ROSS Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin | Pool photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/AFP via Getty Images Vladimir Putin is facing a major military crisis after Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on Moscow’s own defense ministry, claiming Kremlin officials had killed thousands of his soldiers. In a statement issued Friday night, […]
China, Russia, and their autocratic friends are leading another epic clash over the world’s largest landmass. Reported by Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Summary of original report featured below The war in Ukraine has led to the rise of a coalition of Eurasian autocracies, […]
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