audience statistics RussiaGate #Digest

Since the beginning of the war, more than 2000 civilians have been killed by Russian missiles, according to official data. Help us protect Ukrainians from missiles - provide max military assisstance to Ukraine #Ukraine. #StandWithUkraine

NI: Between 2008 and 2014, 1,993 Russian nationals received the United Kingdom’s “golden visas,” which offered residency to people investing £2 million or more in the country. The United States, Portugal, and Austria were among the top issuers of investor visas for wealthy Russians. These opportunities began fizzling away following the imposition of Crimea-related sanctions on a number of Russian oligarchs linked to the Kremlin. Despite the financial losses that the Russian tycoons incurred, the list of Russian billionaires grew by a third—from 77 in 2016 to 106 in 2018—and their net worth rose to a collective $485 billion in the two years following the 2014 tranche of sanctions.

The head of the Wagner PMC Eugene Prigozhin: The military operation was done for the sake of denazification ... And we made Ukraine a nation that is known throughout the world. Legitimized Ukraine ... Now about the demilitarization. If at the beginning of the special operation they had conditionally 500 tanks, now they have five thousand. If at that time they were able to fight with 20 thousand fighters - now they have 400 thousand. How did we demilitarize it? Now we on the contrary - how the hell we militarized Ukraine.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin plays the role of Vladimir Putin's "technical successor" and has been embedded in all the processes implemented by the supreme power - from import substitution and the sovereignization of production processes to providing logistical support for the military operation in Ukraine. The prime minister only did not yet visit the war zone or the "new regions" like almost all of his direct subordinates - the deputy prime ministers. Instead, Mishustin's foreign policy functions have been greatly increased, especially in the post-Soviet space.

Russia was forced to resort to the practice of using private military companies in the military operation zone in Ukraine because the forces of paratroopers and marines were practically exhausted, retired military intelligence colonel Vladimir Kvachkov has said. According to him, the participation of Wagner PMC fighters in combat operations in Ukraine is a forced measure, which the Russian authorities had to take.

Anatoly Chubais has no plans to comment publicly on Russian political life and the military operation in Ukraine, sources in his entourage have said. Insiders report that several major Western media outlets tried to contact Chubais to persuade him to give a detailed interview about his attitude toward the military operation in Ukraine and Vladimir Putin, but the former head of Rusnano flatly refused such offers. "It is possible that this complete public silence was the condition Chubais had to accept in exchange for his unimpeded departure from the country last year," specify the interlocutors familiar with the situation.

In the last section of the essay, immediately after praising Russians’ “resilience and solidarity,” Medvedev launches into a condemnation of internal enemies, expressing relief that the “alien toxic foam” that formed on Russian society is “gradually disappearing.” Any Russians who wish defeat on their own country and army are outright “traitors,” he says, though he leaves open a gray area for expats aboard “philosophers' ships” (an allusion to intellectuals expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922). “God will judge them,” concludes Medvedev, before finishing with more praise for the Russian economy and the state’s handling of weapons manufacturing.

ISM: The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control.

⚡️Putin calls meeting with Russian Security Council members on Monday.

A Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Saturday that Ukrainian special services were behind the bridge attack.

Zelensky is calling for preemptive nuclear strikes on Russia.

NYT: United States intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, an element of a covert campaign that U.S. officials fear could widen the conflict.

Bloomberg: Turkish officials have asked Russia to delay a portion of Ankara’s payments due for natural gas, according to people familiar with the matter, as Turkey seeks to mitigate economic damage from higher energy prices. The talks come on the heels of a deal between the two countries that permits Botas to pay 25% of its obligations in rubles rather than dollars.

Elon Mask in Twitter: Ukraine-Russia Peace: - Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. - Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). - Water supply to Crimea assured. - Ukraine remains neutral.

The lower house of Russia's parliament approved laws on Monday to incorporate four Ukrainian territories into Russia, following hastily organised votes that Ukraine and the West denounced as coercive and illegitimate.

🔥 PUTIN: ANGLO-SAXONS BLEW UP NORD STREAM PIPELINES

PUTIN: WEST DOES NOT NEED RUSSIA, BUT WE NEED RUSSIA

PUTIN: WEST CONTINUES LOOKING FOR WAYS TO WEAKEN RUSSIA

🔥 PUTIN: WE WILL DEFEND OUR LAND WITH ALL MEANS

PUTIN: WE CALL ON KYIV TO IMMEDIATELY STOP MILITARY ACTIONS AND RETURN TO NEGOTIATION TABLE

PUTIN: RUSSIA DOES NOT SEEK TO BRING BACK SOVIET UNION

PUTIN: THERE ARE FOUR NEW REGIONS OF RUSSIA

CEO TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanne: There is no future with Russia in this presentation. Less Russia, more U.S.

Bloomberg: It will take years to deliver the 18 HIMARS promised by the US to Ukraine.

Russia is planning to use its central bank digital currency (CBDC) in testing, the digital ruble, to carry out mutual settlements with China.

Russian IT professionals are moving abroad en masse to avoid military mobilisation, industry leaders have warned, despite official assurances that key technology workers will not be called up to fight in Ukraine.

Bloomberg: Halkbank, Ziraat Bank and Vakif Bank on Tuesday "made the decision to pull out of Russia’s Mir cards, a senior Turkish official said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public."

Seismologists in Denmark and Sweden on Monday registered powerful blasts in the areas of the Nord Stream gas leaks, Sweden's National Seismology Centre (SNSN) at the Uppsala University told public broadcaster SVT on Tuesday. "There is no doubt that these were explosions," SNSN seismologist Bjorn Lund told SVT.

Footage from Danish Defense command showing the swirling bubbles in the Baltic Sea coming up from a leak in one of the Nord Stream pipelines.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that it did not rule out sabotage as a reason behind the damage to the Russia-built network of Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

Bloomberg: European buyers have almost halved imports of Russian oil since February. Deliveries to Northern Europe, which was one of the largest importers, dropped four times to 300 thousand barrels per day.