Russian Digest
Top weekly stories I'm keeping an eye on
‘Nuclear blackmail:’ Russia strikes Chornobyl as world leaders gather for Munich Security Conference
Russia attacked Ukraine’s decommissioned Chornobyl nuclear power plant on Feb. 14 just as world leaders gathered for the Munich Security Conference — in Moscow’s latest nuclear threat against Kyiv.
Videos shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky show a drone breaking through Chornobyl’s “sarcophagus,” an international project to cover reactor number four that exploded in 1986 in the most devastating nuclear disaster in history.
Zelensky called the drone attack “a terrorist threat to the whole world.” Without going into details about the attack, a representative for the Chornobyl station called the strike an “act of terror by Russia.”
The strike is likely more signaling on Russia’s part. The Munich Security Conference, historically a show of force by NATO, started on Feb. 14. Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office, wrote, “The atmosphere (at Munich) right now is such that everyone in Munich is very angry because of this news.”
Read More at Kyiv Independent
Abramovich's money unfrozen in Israel after Trump's arrival
Trump's policy shift could ease sanctions on wealthy Russians. Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich has received a slight easing of sanctions. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Yarden Serossi has ordered Bank Mizrahi Tevahot to transfer 8 million shekels from his account to the Israeli humanitarian organization ZAKA. The judge made this decision despite the bank's initial refusal due to EU and UK sanctions against Abramovich, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The case attracted attention because it contradicted the position of Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miar, who found the bank’s initial refusal justified. Judge Serossi also criticized the bank for investigating Abramovich and ordered it to cover legal costs – NIS 15,000. Abramovich’s lawyer Shmulik Kassuto said: “We thank the court for the decision that allowed Mr. Abramovich to donate NIS 8 million to ZAKA.” He said the purpose of the lawsuit was to allow ZAKA to continue its holy work for the benefit of the Israeli people, and an exception should be made because the money was going to a noble cause.
The bank had previously argued that Abramovich's account should remain frozen. The judge noted that the transfers were between bank accounts in Israel: "Is it reasonable for a bank to apply European sanctions that do not apply in Israel? Especially if it is a donation to a charity that helps Israel in difficult times. The bank's refusal is unreasonable."
The Russian oligarchs have also seen things go their way in the United States. Trump this week shut down the KleptoCapture task force and the Kleptocrat Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI), which was created to identify the assets of Russian oligarchs in 2022. Resources will be redirected to combat drug cartels and international gangs due to changing priorities among prosecutors and the Justice Department. The disbanding of the KleptoCapture task force has raised questions about the confiscation of yachts and jets belonging to Russians, including two of Abramovich's seized jets worth about $300 million.
In the US, the most attention is being drawn to the already arrested yachts that were detained in various countries and driven to America. Among them are the 106-meter-long Amadea, worth about $325 million, owned by billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, and the 77-meter-long Tango, owned by Viktor Vekselberg. Two more yachts, Crescent and Madame Gu, cannot leave foreign ports. The US has not yet auctioned any of the confiscated yachts. As a result, the oligarchs who fell under sanctions may get them back.
Via Moscow Times
Trump team to start Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Saudi Arabia
Senior Trump administration officials are heading to Saudi Arabia to start peace talks with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, according to a Republican lawmaker and two U.S. officials familiar with the plan.
National security adviser Mike Waltz will join Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy, in the coming days to start talks on ending the war.
However, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine-Russia talks, retired General Keith Kellogg, will not be in attendance, the officials said.
Read More at Politico EU
Putin Assembles Team of Heavyweights to Negotiate Ukraine Deal
Vladimir Putin is assembling a heavyweight team with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations to face off against US President Donald Trump’s representatives for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
They include Yuri Ushakov, his chief Kremlin foreign-policy adviser who has more than half a century of involvement in diplomacy, and his top spymaster, Sergei Naryshkin, who served with Putin in the Soviet KGB, according to people familiar with situation, who asked not to be identified discussing internal information.
Read More at Bloomberg
Europe will not be part of Ukraine peace talks, US envoy says
Europe won't have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy said on Saturday, after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.
Trump shocked European allies this week by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin without consulting them or Kyiv beforehand and declaring an immediate start to peace talks.
Trump administration officials have also made clear in recent days that they expect European allies in NATO to take primary responsibility for the region as the U.S. now has other priorities, such as border security and countering China.
The U.S. moves have stoked fears that Europeans may be cut out of a peace deal that would also impact their own security, particularly if it is seen as too favourable to Russia.
Kellogg told a global security conference in Munich that the U.S. would act as an intermediary in the talks, with Ukraine and Russia as the two protagonists.
Read More at Reuters
Lavrov, Rubio agree on contacts to prepare for Putin-Trump meeting, Russia says
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a phone call on Saturday and agreed on regular contacts to prepare for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, Russia's Foreign Ministry said.
The phone call was held at the initiative of the U.S. side, it added.
"The two sides expressed their mutual willingness to interact on pressing international issues, including the settlement around Ukraine, the situation around Palestine and in general in the Middle East and other regional directions," the ministry said in a statement.
Read More at Reuters
A New Spy Unit Is Leading Russia’s Shadow War Against the West
The operations of Moscow’s Department of Special Tasks have included attempted killings, sabotage and a plot to put incendiary devices on planes
Russia’s spy services have a shadowy new unit taking aim at the West with covert attacks across Europe and elsewhere, Western intelligence officials say.
Known as the Department of Special Tasks, it is based in the Russian military-intelligence headquarters, a sprawling glass-and-steel complex on the outskirts of Moscow known as the aquarium. Its operations, which haven’t been previously reported, have included attempted killings, sabotage and a plot to put incendiary devices on planes.
The department’s creation reflects Moscow’s wartime footing against the West, the officials said. It was set up in 2023 in response to Western support for Ukraine and includes veterans of some of Russia’s most daring clandestine operations in recent years, according to two European intelligence chiefs and other U.S., European and Russian security officials.
Read More at Wall Street Journal
'Army of Europe' needed to challenge Russia, says Zelensky
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the creation of an "army of Europe" amid rising concern the US may no longer come to the continent's aid.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he said US Vice-President JD Vance had made it clear the old relationship between Europe and America was "ending" and the continent "needs to adjust to that".
He also said Ukraine would "never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement" after Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed to start peace talks.
On Saturday, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a phone call with Russia's foreign minister "building on" Wednesday's call between Trump and Putin.
Read More at BBC
Europe quietly works on a plan to send troops to Ukraine for post-war security
Increasingly alarmed that U.S. security priorities lie elsewhere, a group of European countries has been quietly working on a plan to send troops into Ukraine to help enforce any future peace settlement with Russia.
Britain and France are at the forefront of the effort, though details remain scarce. The countries involved in the discussions are reluctant to tip their hand and give Russian President Vladimir Putin an edge should he agree to negotiate an end to the war he launched three years ago.
What is clear is that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy needs a guarantee that his country’s security will be assured until peace takes hold. The best protection would be the NATO membership that Ukraine has long been promised, but the U.S. has taken that option off the table.
Read More at AP
Macron calls crisis summit amid concern over Trump’s plan for Ukraine
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, was on Saturday night seeking to convene an emergency meeting of European leaders, including the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, as concerns grew over Donald Trump’s attempts to seize control of the Ukraine peace process.
Speaking at the Munich security conference, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, said he was “very glad that President Macron has called our leaders to Paris” to discuss “in a very serious fashion” the challenges posed by Trump.
Read More at The Guardian
German Chancellor Rebukes Vance for Supporting Party That Downplays Nazis
At the Munich Security Conference, Olaf Scholz accused the U.S. vice president of unacceptable interference in Germany’s coming elections.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany on Saturday accused Vice President JD Vance of unacceptably interfering in his country’s imminent elections on behalf of a party that has played down the atrocities committed by the Nazis 80 years ago.
A day after Mr. Vance stunned the Munich Security Conference by telling German leaders to drop their so-called firewall and allow the hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to enter their federal government, Mr. Scholz accused Mr. Vance of effectively violating a commitment to never again allow Germany to be led by fascists who could repeat the horrors of the Holocaust.
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD,” Mr. Scholz said at the conference on Saturday morning, in an address opening the gathering’s second day.
Read More at The New York Times
Vance turns on European allies in blistering speech that downplayed threats from Russia and China
US Vice President JD Vance vented at European leaders Friday, telling them that the biggest threat to their security was “from within,” rather than China and Russia.
Vance used his first major speech as vice president to lambast European politicians, claiming they are suppressing free speech, losing control of immigration and refusing to work with hard-right parties in government.
The audience at the Munich Security Conference was expecting to hear about the Trump administration’s plans to end the war in Ukraine, but instead were treated to a bombastic rejection of liberal orthodoxies that have prevailed in Western Europe since the Second World War, in a speech that downplayed the threats to the continent posed by Russia and China.
Read More at CNN
Polish PM: Russian national suspected of sabotage deported from Bosnia to Poland
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced the deportation of a Russian citizen suspected of coordinating sabotage operations against Poland, the United States, and other allies.
Source: Tusk on X (Twitter), as reported by European Pravda
Details: Tusk stated that the Russian citizen suspected of "coordinating acts of sabotage against Poland, the US, and other allies," had been hiding in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The suspect has now been deported to Poland and "arrested by court order".
Tusk thanked Polish security services and prosecutors, adding without further details that "Russian hostile activity had been confirmed".
Background:
In summer 2024, several individuals were detained in Poland following a series of incidents that Polish authorities believe could have been Russian sabotage operations.
At the time, the New York Times reported that Russian intelligence services were expanding the scale of sabotage operations in Europe aimed at disrupting military aid supplies to Ukraine.
Via Ukrainian Pravda
NATO Warship Targeted in Suspected Sabotage: Report
A newly-built German warship may have been targeted by saboteurs, reports suggest, amid warnings from the nation's navy about possible Russian involvement in similar acts.
The Emden, a corvette-class warship designed for operations in the Baltic Sea, had its maiden voyage called off after employees at the Hamburg Blohm+Voss shipyard discovered "dozens of kilos of metal shavings" in the ship's gearbox. This was first reported by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday, following a joint investigation with broadcasters WDR and NDR.
Newsweek has contacted the German Navy and the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry for comment.
While the identity of the perpetrators and their potential Russian links remain unclear, the report comes amid concerns over similar sabotage attempts on Germany's other vessels and military infrastructure. Officials have raised alarms about these incidents, while issuing warnings that Moscow may be ramping up efforts to destabilize NATO member states' domestic operations, suggesting a potential shift in its military tactics further west than previously anticipated.
Read More at Newsweek
UK targets sons of Putin’s senior officials with new sanctions
The UK government has imposed sanctions on Pavel Fradkov, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Defense, Vladimir Selin, the head of the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control, and businessman Artem Chaika. The move is most notable for the fact that Fradkov and Chaika are the sons of figures close to Vladimir Putin himself.
Pavel Fradkov is the youngest son of Mikhail Fradkov, Russia’s former Prime Minister (2004–2007) and Foreign Intelligence Service Director (2007–2016). Artem Chaika is the son of Yury Chaika, Russia’s former Minister of Justice (1999–2006) and Prosecutor General (2006–2020).
Read More at The Insider
Russia orders US citizen arrested for drug smuggling to remain in custody
A Moscow court on Saturday ordered a 28-year-old US citizen arrested at a Moscow airport on suspicions of drug smuggling to remain in custody for 30 days. Customs officers detained the man on Friday after finding cannabis-laced sweets in his luggage, court officials said.
The American, identified by Russian authorities as Kalob Wayne Byers, was arrested at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Friday, reportedly after arriving on a plane from Istanbul.
“While passing customs, one of his suitcases drew the attention of a service dog,” the state news agency TASS reported, citing Russia’s Federal Customs Service.
(Note: The latest arrest occurred right before Russia released Marc Fogel)
Read More at France 24
US releases Russian cybercriminal as part of exchange for teacher Marc Fogel
Alexander Vinnik, owner and operator of cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was arrested in 2017 for money laundering
The Trump administration has released Alexander Vinnik, a cybercriminal who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, to Russia, as part of an exchange that freed American schoolteacher Marc Fogel on Tuesday.
Vinnik, who arrived in Moscow on a flight from Turkey on Tuesday after having been released from custody in California, is accused of owning and operating one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, BTC-e, which prosecutors allege facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars in transactions for criminals worldwide.
Read More at The Guardian
Kash Patel Took $25,000 From Russia-Linked Firm to Appear on an Anti-FBI TV Series
The documentary was produced by a filmmaker tied to Russian propaganda efforts.
Last year, Kash Patel, the MAGA provocateur whom Donald Trump has nominated to head the FBI, received $25,000 from a Russia-linked production company to participate in a documentary in which he assailed the FBI and called for closing its headquarters.
In November, Tucker Carlson’s online network released a six-part series called All the President’s Men: The Conspiracy Against Trump that purported to chronicle the familiar MAGA conspiracy theory that a Deep State plotted against Donald Trump while he was a presidential candidate in 2016 and when he was president. The fourth episode focused on Patel and his years-long crusade to depict the Trump-Russia scandal—Moscow’s attack on the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s efforts to cover up its existence—as nothing but a total hoax orchestrated by nefarious Democrats and rogue government operatives.
Read More at Mother Jones
Romania’s Klaus Iohannis announces he’ll resign as president
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced he will step down, effective Wednesday, to avoid the spectacle of an impeachment process launched by Bucharest’s parliament.
Iohannis, who has been president since 2014, was due to leave office after Romania’s presidential elections at the end of last year. However, his term was temporarily extended after the Constitutional Court ordered a rerun of the vote following concerns about Russian interference.
Romania has been in political turmoil since the first round of voting in November saw Călin Georgescu, a far-right independent, catapulted from obscurity into the lead.
Read More at Politico
Romania's presidential candidate Georgescu calls Ukraine 'fictional state,' suggests annexing territory
Far-right Romanian politician Calin Georgescu called Ukraine a "fictional state" and claimed that the eventual partition of its territories is "inevitable" in an interview published on Jan. 29.
"On 100% it will happen," Calin Georgescu said in the interview with journalist Ion Cristoiu about redrawing Ukraine's borders as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine war, suggesting Romania could claim some of Ukraine's territories.
"The path to something like this is inevitable. Ukraine is a fictional state... the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic."
Read More at Kyiv Independent
A luxury retreat for Putin's banker: Inside the private estate of VTB president Andrey Kostin and his propagandist mistress
In August 2019, prime-time TV presenter Nailya Asker-Zade found herself at the center of a scandal: journalists discovered her to be in possession of a nearly $33 million plot of land near the village of Razdory in Rublevka, a luxurious residential area outside Moscow. The expensive real estate had allegedly been purchased for her by Andrey Kostin, the head of state-owned VTB — Russia's second-largest bank. Asker-Zade responded by handing over the land to a shell firm called Godovari Development, and the story was largely forgotten. But it didn’t end there: The Insider can report that Kostin still controls the estate, and he even built a luxury villa there for himself and Nailya. According to estimates from the construction crew, the cost of the house — captioned “Villa in the Pines” in the design documentation — exceeds $223 million.
Read the Investigation at The Insider
Slapped With Sanctions, Georgian Oligarch Ivanishvili Brings Assets Home
Bidzina Ivanishvili’s ruling Georgian Dream party has been accused of election fraud and increasingly authoritarian leadership, and he was sanctioned by the U.S. in December. Some of his prized assets are now held in entirely domestic structures.
In response to international sanctions, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder and honorary chair of Georgia’s ruling party, has transferred ownership of multiple companies from offshore jurisdictions to Georgia, shielding his assets from global economic exposure.
In December, the U.S. sanctioned the powerful tycoon, who is widely seen as the country’s informal ruler, saying he was undermining Georgia’s democracy for the benefit of Russia.
Critics accuse the governing Georgian Dream party of becoming increasingly authoritarian and aligned with Moscow, often pointing out that Ivanishvili made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s.
Read More at OCCRP
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Thank you!