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US Expands Hunt for Russian Sanctions Evaders to Their Financial Advisers
Focus on offshore financial advisers, bankers, private equity
Cryptocurrency transactions also under scrutiny by task force
The US Justice Department is looking for new ways to cut off Russian sanctions evasion by focusing on overseas investment advisers, hedge funds, law firms and private equity managers that have previously escaped scrutiny.
In pursuit of the assets of sanctioned Russians, the US authorities are using new methods. “We don’t just send a subpoena and hope people tell us everything,” Adam Adams, director of the Treasury Department’s Catch the Kleptocrat Task Force, told Bloomberg, referring to those who help oligarchs and Putin regime cronies hide their assets. We're sending in our sources. We're doing undercover operations. We use informants, arrest warrants and covert actions.”
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The head of the IAEA warned about military preparations at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
In the area of Europe's largest power plant, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the sounds of gunfire are heard every day, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Agency (IAEA), said in a statement. Nuclear safety in the region is under threat, the expert warns.
During his visit to the nuclear power plant at the end of March, mines exploded near the plant twice. On one occasion, he and other IAEA experts had to descend into a bomb shelter "because of the potential danger caused by ongoing military activity in the region."
Grossi also stated that during his visit to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, he "saw clear signs of military preparations."
“After that, our experts at the facility often reported that they had heard explosions, and sometimes [transmitted] heavy shelling near the nuclear power plant. I am deeply concerned about the situation at the station,” Grossi said.
The head of the IAEA noted that military preparations are taking place against the backdrop of rumors about an impending Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and other regions of the country.
In addition, Grossi recalled that the Zaporizhzhia power plant relies on only one power line of 750 kilovolts, which is necessary for cooling the reactors and operating other safety systems. Before the start of the war, four power transmission lines operated at the nuclear power plant. In early March, they damaged the bottom of the spare lines on the opposite bank of the Dnieper from the nuclear power plant, which is controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It could not be restored due to ongoing hostilities.
Another cause for concern, which Grossi cites, is the lack of personnel to keep the station running smoothly. According to him, now only a quarter of the required number of employees remain at the nuclear power plant.
In March last year, Russian troops seized the nuclear power plant. After the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, including the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian President Vladimir Putin transferred the station to the control of Rosenergoatom. Nevertheless, the nuclear power plant is connected to the Ukrainian power grid. Its environs are constantly subjected to shelling, for which the warring parties blame each other.
Raids on conscripts began in Moscow
Police have begun rounding up conscripts in Moscow and forcibly delivering them to the military registration and enlistment offices, according to the Walk Through the Woods project, which helps Russians evade mobilization.
According to him, the police came to one young man's house, saying that he had been on the wanted list for two years.
“Five or six police officers handcuffed him and took him to the military enlistment office. There he applied for the ACS: it seems that they accepted the application, but they took away his passport and threatened him with a criminal case. Then they were taken to the collection point. They took the phone there, apparently, and did not let the ambulance go when he became ill, ”said a friend of the guy.
Also, the distribution of subpoenas began in the dormitory of the DAS MSU in the southwest of Moscow, according to Protest MSU. They were received by students of 2-4 courses. According to one of them, the dormitory commandants walked around the rooms and asked to come to the administrative room, where the commandant on duty handed out summonses “for events related to conscription for military service.”
At the same time, the students interviewed by the Protest Moscow State University had previously brought all the necessary documents to the military registration desk, and certificates of deferment to the military registration and enlistment offices.
In addition, according to DOXA, summonses began to be distributed in the dormitories of MISIS and the Kosygin Russian State University. One of the students who received the document said that he was persistently offered to do military service.
Prior to this, the State Duma promised that the change in the conscription system in Russia and the introduction of electronic summonses would not affect students and other categories who are granted a deferment. “What categories of delays were, and remain so,” said Andrey Gurulev, a member of the State Duma Committee on Defense.
At the same time, the police have the right to detain conscripts who evade the army, says Aleksey Tabalov, head of the human rights organization Conscript School. “It’s another matter that you can’t break down the door to a dwelling, handcuff it and take it to the military registration and enlistment office if an administrative case has not been initiated. If such a case is initiated, the police must show supporting documents,” the lawyer said.
According to him, the recruit, who was illegally taken to the military registration and enlistment office, should try not to sign anything and leave the building. “You can take advantage of the confusion of the military commissars and run away. If this cannot be done, then in no case do not sign the agenda with the date for today and do not agree to undergo a medical examination, ”advised Tabalov.
Grigory Sverdlin, the creator of the “Go through the woods” project, believes that such raids can be repeated, and Muscovites should be prepared for this. But he emphasizes that these are raids on conscripts, and not on ordinary military men and not on those who are subject to mobilization. In the same way, conscripts were recruited in Moscow and St. Petersburg during the last draft, at the end of September and October 2022. “I don’t think that the raids will affect those who are subject to mobilization because the amendments that were recently adopted to several Russian laws on conscription at once are needed so that more people themselves come to the military registration and enlistment offices themselves and do not have to catch them, Sverdlin says. “Unfortunately, I’m sure it will work: people will come.”
The package of amendments adopted in April eliminates the need to hand in the summons in person and against signature: now it will be considered handed in from the moment it is posted in the personal account on the State Services, and those who receive the summons will be banned from leaving the country. In addition, the amendments prohibit the registration of individual entrepreneurs and self-employment, the sale and purchase of real estate and vehicles, as well as the issuance of loans to those who, 20 days after receiving the summons, did not appear at the military registration and enlistment office. All these measures should motivate people to go to the military registration and enlistment offices on their own. “This was done just so as not to disturb the society with round-ups,” says Sverdlin. “But conscripts are treated differently, raids on them will not alarm anyone.”
https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/04/21/v-moskve-nachalis-oblavi-na-prizivnikov-a40772
The Minister of Defense of Latvia said that the country will transfer all of its Stinger air defense systems to Ukraine
Latvia will hand over to Ukraine all Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems remaining at the disposal of the army of the republic. This was stated by the Minister of Defense of Latvia Inara Murniece, Delfi reports.
“Latvia responded to Ukraine's request for the supply of air defense systems and decided to transfer to Ukraine all the Stinger air defense systems at our disposal. We will do our best to deliver them as soon as possible,” she said.
It is not reported how many air defense systems will be sent to Ukraine.
At the same time, Murniece clarified that this does not mean that Latvia will be left without portable air defense systems. “Instead of them, we will have more modern RBS systems, the trajectory of which can be changed even after a shot,” she said.
In addition, the minister stressed that Latvia is expanding the training program for Ukrainian soldiers in Latvia. According to her, by the end of the year, the republic will train 3,000 soldiers from Ukraine.
According to the European Pravda newspaper, military assistance to Ukraine from Latvia has already exceeded 300 million euros and reached 1% of the republic's GDP.
Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show
Marrying Germany’s far right and far left is a Kremlin goal, according to a trove of Russian documents reviewed by The Washington Post
When 13,000 demonstrators gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Feb. 25 to call for an end to weapons supplies to Ukraine, the protest was led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of parliament for Germany’s far-left Die Linke party and a firebrand with national ambitions. Wagenknecht decried the prospect that German tanks, soon to be delivered to Ukraine, could once again be used to shoot at “Russian women and men.”
“We don’t want Germany to be drawn deeper into this war,” she said, as she called for the creation of a new peace movement and condemned the bloodshed in Ukraine, without mentioning Russia’s invasion.
Among the crowd in Berlin was Jürgen Elsässer, editor of a far-right-wing magazine, and dozens of members of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party who cheered Wagenknecht’s calls to cut off Ukraine. Elsässer’s Compact magazine had recently declared on its cover that Wagenknecht was: “The best chancellor — a candidate for the left and the right.”
The coming together of political opposites in Berlin under the banner of peace had been percolating for months, though the union remains ad hoc and unofficial. But marrying Germany’s extremes is an explicit Kremlin goal and was first proposed by senior officials in Moscow in early September, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents largely dated from July to November that were obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/21/germany-russia-interference-afd-wagenknecht/
Europe’s Planes Keep Flying Despite Cyberattack
Critical infrastructure targets such as Europe’s top air-traffic agency show resilience
A cyberattack blamed on pro-Russia hackers continued to disrupt operations at Europe’s top air-traffic agency, but officials said some systems had stabilized and air-traffic safety remained unaffected.
The limited operational damage of the hack has highlighted the relative robustness of the continent’s air-traffic system. Built-in redundancies and backup systems designed decades ago, and not reliant on the internet, can protect it from the sort of technical hiccups that have become part of everyday life, like internet and communication app outages, hacks and cyberattacks.
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Behind The Lines: Russia Seeks ‘Cannon Fodder’ in Occupied Ukraine
As Russian casualties mount, the Kremlin is deploying ever-more desperate tactics to fill the ranks with soldiers from the occupied territories.
“Volunteer” battalions and “people’s militias,” even waiving the need for Russian passports, are all strategies employed by the occupiers to replace their dead and wounded. But in Crimea and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics of Eastern Ukraine, the supply is starting to dry up despite conscription and mobilization.
The pattern for local recruitment was established before the February 2022 all-out invasion. Russian forces began issuing call-up papers in Luhansk, Donetsk, and Crimea after the 2014 occupations and, according to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office for Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, 2021 marked the 14th illegal round of conscription on the peninsula. Since 2015, the occupiers have called up 34,000 Crimeans into Russia’s armed forces. Countless others have refused to serve.
Tamila Tasheva, the Ukrainian president’s representative to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, said many fled after Russia’s full-scale invasion to avoid being forced into the army. There were several waves of departures, particularly during the conscription and mobilization campaigns of April and September 2022, she said.
“The only way to avoid mobilization was to leave Crimea. A lot of people left, including whole families, especially Crimean Tatars,” Tasheva said in an interview. The mobilization targeted the Tatars because they were seen as the least likely to be loyal to Moscow.
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https://cepa.org/article/behind-the-lines-russia-seeks-cannon-fodder-in-occupied-ukraine/
The Insider: Racing without survival. How GRU assassins use the Silk Road sports rally as cover
Translation from The Insider
Must Read Investigation…
The GRU leadership oversees the Silk Road International Automobile Rally project, which it uses as infrastructure for its residents and to establish political contacts. Documents obtained by The Insider affirm this. As can be seen from the telephone connections, the official director of the rally was in constant contact with officers from military unit 29155, who were involved in the explosions of military depots and poisoning with the use of chemical weapons.
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The United States hit the "shadow fleet" of Russia: the largest carrier of oil to India is deprived of international insurance
A shadowy fleet of dozens of tankers, which carries Russian oil to Asia, bypassing Western sanctions, has come under US radar.
India-registered Gatik Ship Management, which has become a major carrier of oil from Russia, has lost international insurance due to a violation of the price ceiling mechanism, Bloomberg reports, citing a source familiar with the situation.
The Mumbai-headquartered company, little known about until last year, has amassed a fleet of 48 tankers with a combined capacity of more than 30 million barrels and a value of $1.4 billion.
As part of the sanctions, which came into force on December 5, such supplies are allowed only if oil is sold for less than $60. Gatik violated this principle and was deprived of insurance services from the American Underwriters Club. It is part of the International Group of P&I Clubs, or IG P&I, which provides insurance for more than 90% of the world's shipping.
According to a Bloomberg source, Gatik was left without insurance on the terms of "protection and compensation", which, in particular, covers the risks in the event of an oil spill. Without it, the company's tankers may be denied access to ports and straits, such as the Turkish Bosporus and Dardanelles.
The Bloomberg Club of America confirmed the break in relations with Gatik but declined to give a reason for it.
According to official data from the Russian Ministry of Finance, Urals oil, the main export grade, is sold well below the “ceiling” set by the G7 countries. For the period from March 15 to April 14, its average price was $51.15 per barrel.
However, these data do not take into account the cost of transportation. And in Indian ports, Russian barrels are already more expensive, at $61.7 a barrel in March, according to Argus. Indian customs statistics give the price even higher - more than $70 per barrel, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote.
Since the beginning of the war, India has increased its imports of Russian oil by more than 30 times, despite calls from the West to join the sanctions over the war in Ukraine. According to Reuters, in April, 70% of maritime exports from Russia went to the Indian market.
Russia Suspends Dairy Products From Kyrgyzstan After Calls In Bishkek To Drop Cyrillic Script
Russia has suspended the import of dairy products from Kyrgyzstan after the chairman of Kyrgyzstan’s National Commission for the State Language and Language Policies, Kanybek Osmonaliev, said his country is ready to start working on switching the Kyrgyz language from Cyrillic to a Latin-based alphabet.
Russia's agriculture products watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, said in a statement on April 21 that the move was made following the inspection of Kyrgyz dairy products and milk farms last week, which revealed an "inefficiency" in control by Kyrgyz dairy companies over product quality. No specific issues were mentioned.
Russia has for years used Rosselkhoznadzor as a blunt foreign policy instrument against former Soviet states whose actions Moscow dislikes. Russia has banned food and drinks from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine during periods of increased bilateral tensions. Those countries have described Moscow’s actions as economic sanctions.
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https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-kyrgyzstan-dairy-products-banned-cyrillic-latin/32373802.html
Dead bodies line the streets amid fighting in Sudan; American confirmed among fatalities
One-third of health facilities in Sudan are out of service.
Dead bodies lined the streets of the Sudan capital of Khartoum, as intense fighting between the Sudanese military and Rapid Support Forces continued for a sixth day. The fighting has caused thousands in Khartoum and across the country to shelter in place with limited food, electricity and water, as an all-out war rages in the streets.
So far, at least 330 people have been killed and 3,200 have been injured from the fighting, according to the World Health Organization, but these numbers are likely an "underestimation of the true impact of the crisis," WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed Al-Mandhari said Thursday at a press conference.
A U.S. citizen is confirmed to be among the dead in Sudan's ongoing conflict, a State Department spokesperson said Thursday.
One-third of the health facilities in Sudan are out of service, WHO representative in Sudan, Nima Saeed Abid said Thursday.
"20 hospitals have been forced to close due to attacks or lack of resources, and another eight health facilities are at risk of closure due to staff exhaustion or lack of medical staff and supplies," Al-Mandhari said.
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